Philosopher Paul Russell (British Columbia/Lund) comments in The Scotsman. In an e-mail to me (which he kindly gave permission to share), he observed:
Suffice it to say that Hume would have laughed at the resemblance between the sanctimonious moralism of this woke mob (who are tormenting him in death) and the crazy nuttiness of the Christian fanatics (who tormented him when he was alive) - they are very similar psychological types.
ADDENDUM: And here's the petition that started it all. The original proposal was to rename the tower after Julius Nyerere, but that didn't last long, as the petition organizer quickly did a mea culpa:
A previous iteration of this petition campaigned for the name to be changed to Julius Nyerere Tower. It has been brought to my attention by multiple students that Nyerere was harmful in his own ways, both through his ties to dictatorship and through his homophobia. This petition now only campaigns for the renaming of David Hume Tower. Thank you so much to the students who contacted me to educate me. I sincerely apologize for any harm I have caused.
Relax, you didn't cause any "harm", except ultimately to the reputation of the University of Edinburgh.
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