It's Not The Science/Anti-Science Dispute That Really Matters; That's Just An Instance Of A More General Dispute

What's really afoot is the on-going disagreement/battle between (a) those who think that truth and dispassionate inquiry and discussion should get a kind of priority and (b) those who think that it shouldn't. The latter include those who think that religious revelation should get the priority as well as those who think that political goods (e.g. "social justice") should. People harp on the issue of science, with the right and left each accusing the other of being agin' it...but that's just a (major, admittedly) skirmish in the war.
   There simply can't be any doubt that truth and reason have largely been subordinated to "social justice" in universities. (One's tempted to say: wherever the left is powerful, reason will be subordinated to politics.) Though, of course, it's important not to admit that. Admit it and your side is doomed. Just deny it--no matter how implausibly--and you'll probably be ok. All you need is to give your partisans a veneer of plausible (or even implausible) deniability. Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes?
   Recently I was having a discussion with a colleague with whom I have an on-going disagreement. I said that, when free speech conflicts with other things, such as emotionally protecting groups in the progressive stack, I err on the side of free speech. My colleague expressed the opposite view. It was an amicable exchange. But what I thought--and didn't say--was: that's the end of universities; in fact, that's the end of everything.
   It's the end of the world as we know it, intellectually speaking. But everybody around me seems to feel fine.