It's been about a year since I went down the rabbit hole of reading the works of Joseph J. Fischel.

 
I stand by my criticisms of his writings, and his philosophy.

The reality is that, even though libertarians and leftists do occasionally find moments of agreement, our basic philosophical values tend to diverge too much to form coalitions.

I don't think that I'm off my rocker to say that consent is the baseline libertarian moral value. We believe in staying out of your bedrooms unless you're sticking your dick in someone who doesn't want it. We don't care what consenting adults of sound mind do to be happy. If you wanna get into the issue of voluntary cannibalism, I'm willing to deal with that.

The thing is, I think that I'm realizing that I might have gone too hard on Fischel. I mean, it doesn't say anything positive about the state of academia that a Yale professor can't maintain coherent thoughts. He does manage to say things that are true from time to time. He issued a criticism of a Teen Vogue article that demanded "enthusiastic consent" for any sexual encounter. Yeah, try making that work for four years. The night that my ex-girlfriend woke me up at 2am wanting sex wasn't one where I gave enthusiastic consent, but I still consented. Fischel seems to have made a career arguing against consent as a moral value as loudly as possible, and whisper that consent is still a valid factor whenever he needs to assure readers that he's not a rapist.

Still, the phenomenon of leftist philosophy in academia has become a farce. At least Fischel admits that consent isn't a moral value of the left. It can't be a moral value of the left. Socialism can't operate under a moral system that sees consent as a paramount moral component. Wagging a dildo in front of children's faces isn't justifiable in a system of moral values that puts consent first -- as Fischel argued, it's fine when viewed through the intersectional lens.

Still, at least Fischel is trying to be honest. He actually wrote a book entitled Screw Consent. He's making some effort to be out there in his opposition to consent as a moral value. He's doing that while colleges are putting out consent forms for sexual encounters, while pushing an ideology which ignores consent.