All I feel is fury at the bankruptcy of academia decades ago
A modern Ivy League education: “But Brawndo’s got what plants crave.
It’s got electrolytes!”
Recently Bari Weiss, former New York Times journalist who it blacklisted because she refused to follow the leftist narrative when the facts said otherwise, wrote a heart-wrenching column about the fall of American academia. She began as follows:
Twenty years ago, when I was a college student, I started writing about a then-nameless, niche ideology that seemed to contradict everything I had been taught since I was a child.
…What I saw was a worldview that replaced basic ideas of good and evil with a new rubric: the powerless (good) and the powerful (bad). It replaced lots of things. Color blindness with race obsession. Ideas with identity. Debate with denunciation. Persuasion with public shaming. The rule of law with the fury of the mob.
People were to be given authority in this new order not in recognition of their gifts, hard work, accomplishments, or contributions to society, but in inverse proportion to the disadvantages their group had suffered, as defined by radical ideologues. According to them, as James Kirchick concisely put it: “Muslim > gay, black > female, and everybody > the Jews.”
I was an undergraduate back then, but you didn’t need a PhD to see where this could go. And so I watched, in horror, sounding alarms as loudly as I could.
I was told by most Jewish leaders that, yes, it wasn’t great, but not to be so hysterical. Campuses were always hotbeds of radicalism, they said. This ideology, they promised, would surely dissipate as young people made their way in the world.
It is essential to repeat her second paragraph again to understand the utter bankruptcy of this new “philosophy.” It was…
… a worldview that replaced basic ideas of good and evil with a new rubric: the powerless (good) and the powerful (bad). It replaced lots of things. Color blindness with race obsession. Ideas with identity. Debate with denunciation. Persuasion with public shaming. The rule of law with the fury of the mob.
Note that she is describing her first experience with this insane “philosophy,” which is the essense of Marxism and critical race theory, two decades ago. However, it wasn’t new in the 2000s. I saw it myself percolating throughout academia when I attended New York University in the 1990s to get my masters in history, three decades ago. Like her, I questioned why every professor I worked with seemed sanguine that this corrupt “philosophy” was slowly taking over every soft science department at the school, from history to political science to philosophy to literature. It rejected everything humanity had learned in the past three thousand years, rejecting the enlightenment, Judeo-Christian culture, and Greek philosophy while replacing it with a two-dimensional black-and-white approach centered wholly on power and race.
Not one of my professors cared. If they disliked these new ideas, they simply shrugged, like Weiss’s professors a decade later, and looked the other way. “The ideas are too stupid to debate,” they said. “Ignore them and they’ll vanish in a few years.”
I knew then, as Weiss did a decade later, that this was a cop-out. These ideas are not only stupid, they are dangerous and harmful. No university should allow them inside any classroom — other than to point out how vile they are — because they poison the mind with hate and resentment and envy and the lust for power. In essence these ideas are the very opposite of civilization itself. To allow them to prosper on campuses and thus influence future generations is to allow the death of civilization. Instead of trumpeting truth and liberty and freedom of thought and debate, these bankrupt academics were allowing race hatred and power politics to take over their institutions, so that by today the principles by which our entire civilization is based are no longer being taught at all.
The fury and anger I feel about this cannot be measured, especially because I, like Weiss, begged my professors to do something then, and they refused to do it. Had they done so in the 1990s and even the 2000s, these bigoted Marxist ideas could have been rejected without destroying everything. Such ideas — and the professors pushing them — were not that well entrenched at that time. To fight back then would have been challenging, but doable. Bad professors pushing mindless and stupid concepts could have been removed. Departments formed based on race and gender could have been eliminated.
Instead, those departments were allowed to grow. Shallow-minded professors who pushed these ideas began to get the plum jobs in many other departments, while people who believed in the fundamental values of civilization, such as myself, were squeezed out. The result is the bankrupt academia we see today, producing a younger generation that believes too much in hate and race and blacklisting.
To fix academia today is no longer doable, without throwing out the baby with the bath water. It is so poisoned with these ideas — from faculty to administration — that it is difficult to imagine a simple fix. Simply cleaning out the Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity departments will accomplish little, because all other departments are now run by professors and administrators who buy into this empty ideology and will enforce it regardless.
As noted by the Spirit of Christmas Present in Dickens’ The Christmas
Carol, ‘This boy is ignorance, this girl is want. Beware them both,
but most of all beware this boy.’
Instead, it appears that the entire system has to be dumped, a drastic action with consequences so terrible it is hard to imagine. No civilization can prosper if it doesn’t have a viable education system. We don’t have one now, but we can no longer reform it, which means we need to rebuild from the bottom up, a task that will take many decades. In the interim all society will be plunged into a dark age of ignorance, foolishness, and ruin.
Worse, even dumping and replacing this system will be difficult. The purveyors of this hate-based ideology now run things, on too many levels. They will fight back hard, and as they believe that power is all, they will use it hard. The destruction will be widespread, both in the intellectual as well as in the physical world.
And this disaster is all because educators decades ago decided to abandon defending the noble principles of civilization, because to do so would have been hard.
Hard? It seems to me that defending liberty, freedom of thought, the rule of law, and equal treatment regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity would have been the easiest thing in the world to do. To be afraid to defend these values indicates a cowardice beyond measure.
As I say, the fury I feel over this cannot be measured.
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Related:
EVERY COMPONENT A LOW STANDARD SYMBOLIC FRAUD
“Every component of the current Democrat party political machine is now a radical “progressive” retribution / reparations symbolic agenda driven LOW STANDARDS NO STANDARDS SYMBOLIC FRAUD! ”
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We are entering a new dark ages and it will be many many years until truth and honesty come back to academia.
As an example of honesty I do believe that those who throw away the monotheistic idea of a single God are also throwing out the 4000 years of good that the movement brought about. They throw the baby out with the bath water so to speak.
The simple idea that a God is watching and judging you is thrown out and is now being replaced by a camera and artificial “intelligence”.
The idea that your soul is immortal and could be punished after death in some way is replaced by nothing but the idea that your gone now and anything you can get away with in life is fine because you will never be held accountable after death.
The morals that have worked for over 3000 years are now gone and academia is doing its best to teach it away. All because it old fashioned and your just stupid if you believe.
Wonder how many current ‘academics’ are familiar with ‘The Gods of the Copybook Headings’. I’m guessing in 10 years a lot of them will learn the hard way.
You are right that the higher education system (indeed the entire education system) in this country is beyond saving. All we can do as part of the larger fight with the Left is to defund it. I’m not talking about endowments – the universities can keep them. What we need to do is work to pull all government money going to the university system away, whatever its source; student loans, Federal grants, state funding and government research. Yank it all and let the market sort the rest. As to the loss of knowledge we need to spend some quality time thinking what education means with the current digital knowledge base the world has and how we provide future generations with a sound education.
“It seems to me that defending liberty, freedom of thought, the rule of law, and equal treatment regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity would have been the easiest thing in the world to do.”
I’m going to add another thought. It seems to me that defending freedom of thought, the rule of law, and equal treatment regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity is the wrong way to go about conveying this to the next generation. The founding ideals of this country are still the most radical and successful ideas to organize a society around that the world has ever seen. They should be presented as such, not ‘defended’. I wonder if Heinlein’s ‘History and Moral Philosophy’, based actually on the ideas of John Locke and Thomas Sowell, needs to be a real thing.
This complex story is relevant because the government is claiming that students seeking a PHD are not able to parse the school catalog and degree requirements on the web site of the school and instead are laying on a $40m fine for false advertising.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/ftc-sues-largest-christian-university-u-s-deceptive-advertising
You really don’t understand the roots of all this. I don’t think anyone does. One of the best moves the Devil made was to convince everyone he didn’t exist.
When I was in highschool in the early 70s, the media and the press succeeded in convincing “everyone” that Communism as an active movement didn’t exist. Well, it did. It does and this is the opening of the concluding paragraph of “The Communist Manifesto” from this source.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch04.htm
“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. …”
There it is folks. What she wrote about, what’s going on with the so called “cancle culture” ALL OF IT, is the enacting of “… the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”
This is the warning. Ignore this, take no action, refuse to understand that great big rock you trip over every single day. And, guess what. Your Will Fall.
I graduated from HS in 1970. I do think my Generation was the LAST one to LIVE in the USA. What has transpired since is NOT the USA of my childhood and early adulthood. The sheer ignorance of today’s “children” is frightening! I wonder how many of my Generation are now the primary or at least MOSTLY caretakers of their Great Grandchildren AND their Grandchildren! I would bet the % is exploding exponentially each year! It’s sickening to listen to some young people whose minds have been so messed up by liberal “logic” and way too accessible drugs! Sure, we had some nitwits and “bad guys” back then, but they at least had jobs and homes and families. They might not have been the best of people but they had more realistic views on life than what you see now! I don’t think I’d call today’s idiots “spoiled” – brainwashed maybe! I do this occasionally just to “test” people – wait till they ring up $13.59 and give them a twenty and when the cash register calculates the change – say “oh, I have three quarters”! The PANIC on some is real! Many just look at the three quarters – the register – at the three quarters – and give them back and just make the change per the register! I’ve actually seen a GROWN person being trained and having a SUPERVISOR assist her in selecting the COINS needed for the change indicated by the REGISTER!! It’s very sad!! And to think that woman either already has a kid or will someday! This has been a long post – I feel better – think I’ll go get some lunch and carry some change with me!
Andrew Winter: I am very aware that evil exists. My point is that the academics of the last half century in America decided to make believe it didn’t, which also allowed them to ignore that evil as it began insinuating itself into their institutions.
And when people like Bari Weiss and myself and many others tried to tell them they were failing in their obligation to defend goodness, the very principles of civilization, they poo-pooed us, often with barely concealed contempt.
They might deserve the disaster we now face, but those who tried to warn them really don’t. But we’ve got it, to our uttermost sorrow.
It’s been 37 years since I strolled a university campus. During my brief dalliance attempting a MS in Engineering, I came to understand and rub shoulders with my professors. Almost all were gutless wimps who refused to take strong positions on anything. A couple had private pilots licenses, but none could be considered outdoors types or were even involved in activities outside the campus. It was a startling wakeup call to me at the time that academia held zero charms for my future. Outside of pursuing a degree, I’m surprised anyone gives the hermetically sealed gaffers the time of day.
I remember going to class in the engineering department and in between classes going to watch the upperclassmen build their projects.
They had access to a full machine shop and three machinists to help them. We spent half of our time talking with the machinists. We found out the students almost never asked these retired men how to do something, anything.
Almost 100 years of experience down the drain. Ignored.
The university does not know it but they paid for 3 years of our own personal projects done by those guys. From motor mounts, transmission adapters, to fire arm parts.
Heck what we did legally in high school would get us placed on the terrorist watch list now.
Our professor got mad at us for telling his seniors they were doing something wrong then showing them a faster and better way to do it.
A troubling subtext in Ms. Weiss’ column is the acknowledgment that some Jewish thought leaders have played a significant role in embracing and disseminating the idea of Critical Theory — a kind of ideological golem — in the United States. As Ms. Weiss writes:
“Some of the most important Jewish communal organizations transformed themselves in order to prop up
this ideology. Or at the very least, they contorted themselves to signal that they could be good allies in the
fight for equal rights — even as those rights are no longer presumed inalienable or equal and are handed
out rather than protected.”
Likewise, as James Howard Kunstler (himself a Jew) trenchantly observes:
“But the Civil Rights crusade is history now and American intellectuals, Jews especially, appear to be secretly
disillusioned and rather ashamed at the less than satisfactory results, such as intractable black poverty and
crime. Successful American Jews have been out of their own ghettos for decades, and they have no desire to
live adjacent to any black ghetto if they can help it — though they would never dare admit it. However, they
flocked to and flourished in the ghetto of elite academia, where they could make a good living in the com-
merce of ideas, luxuriate in enhanced social status (especially at Ivy League schools), with the bonus of fabu-
lously easy work requirements (two classes a week and then summers off, what a deal!).”
From his 12/11/2023 post, What Just Happened? at https://kunstler.com
The irony, of course, as Elon Musk has pointed out to much criticism, is that Jews in America are now on the receiving end of the very woke ideology — “From the Mississippi River to the Bearing Sea, North America must be free!” — that some Jewish intellectuals were at least complicit in allowing to metastasize. Again as Mr. Kunstler describes their situation,
“It required considerable cognitive dissonance* for American Jews, especially in higher education, to go along
with the growing aggressive absurdity of Woke politics. And then their remaining illusions blew up in the fall
of this year after Hamas went on its savage rampage and Israel decided to bring down the wrath of Yahweh to
remind the world what never again means.”
*Or, as I like to say, cognitive dissonance till you head explodes.
But why, exactly, did so many otherwise bright, well meaning people accept the blatant falsehoods and inanities of Critical Theory or say and do nothing if they rejected them? In a recent post, Mattias Desmet (echoing similar comments by Naomi Wolf) suggests that the materialist-rationalist worldview adopted by so many secular academics was instrumental in facilitating these ironic developments:
“The materialist-rationalist view on man and the world, in a strange way, rather led to the opposite of what it
expected. As soon as we started to conceive the human being as a mechanistic, biological entity, for whom
the highest attainable goal was survival, it became rather unfashionable to try to speak the Truth. Speaking the
Truth, the Ancient Greeks knew that very well, doesn’t maximize your chances on survival. The Truth is always
risky. Hence, within a materialist-rationalist tradition, speaking the Truth is something stupid to do. Only idiots
do it. That’s how the fanatic pursuit of rationality led us astray, straight into the dark wood of Dante, ‘where the
right road is wholly lost and gone’.”
https://twitter.com/DesmetMattias/status/1740266276314866011?s=20
But how many Jews have been able / will be able to absorb the irony of their involvement in this debacle, connect the dots along the lines that people like Ms. Weiss and Mr. Kunstler have suggested, and extricate themselves from the dark wood? And, will they have the courage to stand up, now, and repudiate the ideological golem that they have helped to create? (In the Jewish tradition, how do you go about shutting down a golem?)
As Ms. Weiss concludes,
“The answer is not for the Jewish community to plead its cause before the intersectional coalition or beg for a
higher ranking in the new ladder of victimhood. That is a losing strategy — not just for Jewish dignity, but for
the values we hold as Jews and as Americans.”