“He who shoots a bird and he who shoots a man, both of them perform the same external movement: each of them draws the trigger of a gun.” Adam Smith, The Theory of the Moral Sentiments, 1759.

Last November, “On the Record” published a piece by William Barnett and Walter Block. What they call their “modest proposal” was ostensibly occasioned by recent robberies and “sexual assaults” near the university. In their opening paragraphs, however, Barnett and Block manage to sneer at NOPD safety guidelines, school authorities, prayer, “Take Back the Night” marches (“leftist feminist and liberal shibboleths”), and demand (among other things) that the Loyola Administration “Require that all female students own a pistol . . . and carry it with them at all times.”. Barnett and Block do mention “other means of self defense” (pepper spray, mace, etc.) but their core argument is a strange “pro-gun” harangue that the Administration transform the Loyola campus into an armed camp. We must all, of course, come down four square for academic freedom and the absolute right of Professors Barnett and Block to squander their credibility as they choose. But what really demand attention from the entire Loyola community are the values that underlie their argument: intellectual dishonesty, rhetorical cowardice or both. First, consider their central proposal that the Loyola Administration mandate female students to carry guns as a condition of attending this university. Do Barnett and Block actually believe this twaddle? Do these “worldly philosophers” personally accept the real world consequences of their policy proposals? (Their demands urge actions that are probably criminally illegal: Lawyer Barnett should review La. R.S. 14:95.2 and R.S. 14:96.6.) Imagine the impact on our enrollments. Imagine the Rev. Bernard Knoth, S.J., university president, explaining his new role as Marshal of Dodge City University on the “Today” show. Behind their provocative nuttiness is, we assume, some sort of somber “Pro Gun” attitude. If so, let them state their views forthrightly and own up to them. That they do not have the courage to do so is evident in the “escape clause” in their penultimate paragraph, a coy reference to Jonathan Swift’s classic “A Modest Proposal,” published in 1729. Barnett and Block don’t seem to realize that Swift’s famous tract is a devastating attack on the extreme “free market” theories they spout. Swift (using deadpan irony) proposes that the Irish sell and eat their own children, thereby ending starvation and generating beneficial economic activity. Swift’s highly ethical purpose is to provoke a powerful revulsion to exploitive English policies in Ireland. Barnett and Block have no such high Swiftian ethical motives. They simply use “A Modest Proposal” to allow themselves to say “only kidding” if things heat up. But let’s take them at their allusional word and assume that their preposterous “modest proposal” isn’t really serious. After all, what harm if they betray their miseducation by playing with a literary convention they have failed to understand? The harm is that it does exactly what Block and Barnett hypocritically say shouldn’t happen: It victimizes the rape victims a second time. How comforting it must be for parents to learn that should the children they have entrusted to us endure the trauma of a rape, that they can count on professors of the College of Business to make ideological hay (or jokes) at their daughters’ expense! I (Wasserman) can’t speak for others, but I can, as the father of a daughter now a freshman at another university, affirm that if I found these qualities in the faculty of her university, I’d insist she transfer – perhaps to a school whose faculty recognized the value of “the human person.”This latest assault on our community values will, sadly, come as no surprise to anyone who heard Professor Block’s recent public defense of slavery. To him (and apparently Barnett as well) all seems subject to being private property and ruled by mystic laws of their “free” market cultism. To them, the distinction between humans and property is virtually nil. As in our epigram from Adam Smith, it’s all the same “external movement.” If externals are all that matter, then there is no real difference between a human and a bird. Both are equally chattel and available for use, which is, perhaps, why these two “worldly philosophers” find it easy to use rape as a starting place for their appalling “wit.”The College of Business recently circulated a document to the faculty saying that the teaching of business is increasingly concerned with ethics and values and that this emphasis on “values” will put Loyola in a strong, competitive position. One can only imagine the advantage we’ll have when we ask, “Who wants to attend the school where rape is a prelude to a joke?” and when we are asked “Does a basically decent and ambitious college at Loyola really value the human person when one of its professors says he isn’t especially troubled by humans being bought and sold as slaves?” So we have two proposals that aren’t modest. We think the administration and the dean of the College of Business owe students, faculty, staff, donors and board members a clear pronouncement as to whether Barnett and Block – speaking as Loyola professors – represent the thinking of the leadership. If not, say so publicly. We can afford liberal toleration of their aberrant and noxious views if we make our own values clear. We also think Barnett and Block owe some serious apologies – first to the immediate rape victims and their families, and next to the Loyola community as a whole.