Joshua Allen’s Sept. 11 opinion column “Warning: Bigotry Ahead” was less a rant about his least favorite student group than it was a confirmation of his own bigotry.
The Traditionalist Youth Network at IU, of which I am the president and founder, has operated on the IU-Bloomington campus for more than a year without major incident. The group’s goal is to educate college-aged persons about the Traditionalist school of thought, and we have been very successful at doing so.
Allen’s Sept. 11 column accused my group of chalking racist slurs on campus. I do not condone or support this kind of activity and neither is this the kind of worldview or attitude that I teach in my reading discussions.
For all the hullabaloo about the TradYouth at IU chapter being an enclave of fascists, we have yet to read from Mein Kampf. All kidding aside, the three authors we read from the most are René Guénon, ?Julius Evola and Francis Parker Yockey.
Each of these authors are opposed to fascism. Not what you expected, right?
For all of the negative Twitter rage directed toward my group, none of my critics have cared to attend a reading discussion to see what we ?actually do. Not one.
There is ignorance, for which I hold my critics blameless, and then there is willful ignorance. Allen’s criticism is following the latter.
In the spirit of the wildly popular ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, I challenge Allen to attend the next reading ?discussion.
There is no penalty if he decides against participating, but at least then he would have grounds to legitimately comment about what we’re doing on campus.
Thomas Buhls
Senior
Communications Culture ?and Philosophy
