Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Atlantic cover piece last week, “The Case for Reparations,” is an attempt to bring back a soggy and discarded set of ideas, dressed up to look like new.  The article is the latest installment of the intellectual left’s current flavor of the month: the idea that historical injustices run so deeply in our society that only their victims can fathom just how profoundly they affect society.  The implication, for everyone else, is that any contributions they might make to the discussion on those injustices are limited, prejudiced, and unworthy of serious consideration. This idea has enjoyed a resurgence this year, particularly on college campuses.  There was, for example, the recent controversy over the phrase ‘check your privilege,’ brought to the fore in Princeton freshman Tal Fortgang’s op-ed in the Princeton Tory.  Fortgang argued against the use of social disadvantage as its own sort of advantage in...(Read Full Article)