Narcissist Ziyad Marar Defends College Shriekers by Dissing "Reason" and Free Speech

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Narcissist Ziyad Marar Defends College Shriekers by Dissing "Reason" and Free Speech

The Pontification of Ziyad Marar on Social Justice

I just bumped into this quietly nasty piece by a pseudo-intellectual Englishman named Ziyad Marar. He's a publisher in the UK, having moved there from Iraq at age ten. Apparently looking to get some attention, he seized on the opportunity earlier this year to play counterpoint on the matter of The Shrieking Girl of Yale.

It's hard for me to communicate just how despicable and oily I find this man, Ziyad Marar, but his "reason" is my "unreason" and his freedom to speak belongs not just to him but to me also. So let's jolly well go forward!

Marar begins his passionate defense of The Shrieking Girl of Yale with an attack on reason and free speech as epitomized by none other than Thomas Jefferson. According to Ziya Marar, it's all just relative. Even "reason" in his mind becomes the "unreason" of today. Therefore, The Shrieking Girl was perfectly reasonable in Marar's mind? Judge for yourself by his own speech. I've added some comments in parens. I'm sorry, but I can't help it. It's just such bullshit:

"Dominant voices (you mean the prof being bullied?) have long defended the established views of their time (he was doing no such thing) on the grounds that they are rational and dispassionate (this is a narcissist projection--they're simply saying the principles of free speech are best), and this general point is particularly apt in the “coddling” debate. Critics of today’s students sometimes cite (very rarely if ever) Thomas Jefferson’s statement at the founding of the University of Virginia: “This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” Yet it is easy to forget that the reason of one age was another age’s unreason (Says who? Another narcissist projection by Marar) – and that the content of rational-seeming positions (including truths held to be self-evident by the slave-owning Jefferson) can change dramatically thanks to activists (like the Shrieking Girl? An activist???) who struggle against those with more power (like the bullied prof over the issue of Halloween costumes? The "power" to defend the free speech of Halloween costumes?)."

and further:

"The irrational, the unreasonable and the uncomfortable are often the only weapons available to the powerless. This is not to laud all unreasonable ideas, but it is to say that we would do better to ask who has the power before judging too quickly."

Who has the power? If you watch the damn video, Mr. Ziyad, you will see that all the power belonged to The Shrieking Girl. She and her "powerless" friends were utterly bullying a hapless professor who was simply trying to calm things down and "reason" with them--or should I say, "unreason" with them? And let's not forget that your Marar-dubbed "powerless" students, all of whom are privileged to be in the 1% of the 1% and attend Yale University! Who are you kidding? So yes, ask who has the power? The prof's wife who wrote an email asking people to stay calm and be tolerant on Halloween, or The Shrieking Girl and her bullying social justice warriors who seized on the phony issue and shrieked like mad harpies at her husband who was trying to offer explanation?

Btw, at least a couple of intelligent readers stopped by to counterpoint Marar.

Reader's comments (2)

#1 Submitted by Scholar on January 15, 2016 - 12:31pm

Hmmm........except that the starting point of all this kerfuffle was the professor's partner sending out an email suggesting that the authority to decide whether a Halloween costume is offensive should be in the hands of the student body, not the university administration. Shrieking Girl was arguing against this, thus taking the strange position of deliberately seeking to be powerless.

#2 Submitted by joeditemer on May 27, 2016 - 2:04am

"Who has the power?" is indeed the right question. Now that Nicholas Christakis was forced to resign his position, while the girl who shrieked at him was not, is it clear who has the power?

Oh, Look, it's Ziyad Marar Talking About Freedom of Speech and Bullying!!
I find it excessively odd that a Brit who snidely knocks Jefferson, while siding with The Shrieking Girl of Yale and her pack of free-speech "cry bullies," appears to support the need for free speech when he's back home.

Was his article just his way of sneakily thumbing his nose at the American power mongers on Yale's campus?

Only the pseudo-intellectual narcissist Ziyad Marar knows for sure.

Some links to this "man":