What Did Plato Ever Do to Trump’s Texans?

The ‘anti-woke’ backlash against race and gender ‘ideology’ has reached the founder of Western philosophy. If only there was a thinker who could make us reflect meaningfully on the art of dialogue and disagreement, writes Joseph Rodgers

When you hear that a philosophy professor at Texas A&M University has been forced to alter the content of his course in response to pressure from the right, there are a few writers who come to mind as potential targets.

Judith Butler? Michel Foucault? Frantz Fanon?

You imagine a vicious crusade against the legion of ‘postmodern neo-Marxists’ that we hear whined about. A vicious crusade, we are often told, that is being fought in defence of something. The Great Books. The Enlightenment Project. Western Civilisation itself.