Life & Wisdom Quote by David Horowitz

Horowitz’s line is a rhetorical judo throw: it concedes the most inflammatory claim ("every student is brainwashed") only to pivot to a lower bar that’s harder to dismiss. He knows “brainwashed” is a high-voltage word that invites fact-checking and eye-rolling, so he reframes the argument around “appropriate,” a term that smuggles in moral authority without needing courtroom-level proof. The move is tactical: stop arguing about how often indoctrination happens and start arguing about whether any hint of it should be tolerated.

The subtext is parental and consumerist at once. College becomes a service students pay for, professors become employees with a duty of neutrality, and deviation from that duty becomes misconduct. “Appropriate” implies a shared standard that the audience is presumed to already accept; it’s an appeal to common sense that quietly casts dissenters as extremists who can’t recognize boundaries.

Context matters because Horowitz made a career of policing perceived liberal dominance in academia, especially through “Academic Bill of Rights” campaigns. In that world, the quote functions less as diagnosis than as a wedge: it invites people who are unsure about the “brainwashing” narrative to still sign on to regulation, oversight, or legislative pressure. It also shifts the burden of defense onto universities: if you deny indoctrination, why not endorse rules against it?

What makes the line effective is its asymmetry. “Brainwashed” energizes; “appropriate” domesticate the claim into policy language. It’s outrage translated into governance.