Today’s blacklisted Americans: Archaeologists go underground to practice their research
Mindless conforming robots: What today’s leftist academia demands
The modern dark age: In order to do their archaeological research free from the Marxist and bigotry tropes now required in academia — or else be blacklisted — many young archaeologists are now going underground, forming anonymous chat groups to discuss their work safe from blacklisting.
The essay at the link first outlines in detail the oppressive leftist culture that now makes honest and open scientific research difficult if not impossible among our intellectual class. Dare to say or write anything that even suggests some cultures are different or better than others and you will be ostracized so quickly you won’t know what happened to you.
What seems obvious to the general public — that prehistory was a bloody mess of invasions, migrations, battles and conflict — is not always a commonplace view among researchers. Worse, the idea that ancient peoples organised themselves among clear ethnic and tribal lines is also taboo. Obvious statements of common sense, such as the existence of patriarchy in the past, are constantly challenged and the general tone of academia is one of refutation: both of established theories and thinkers and of disagreeable parts of the past itself. [emphasis mine]
The author goes on to note that if any archaeologist then dares to write about these taboo ideas, most of which are are crucial for understanding the archaeology of any site, they will be silenced and their future in academia will be squelched almost immediately. He also notes that this intolerance became far worse after the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots.
This became clearer than ever following the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, which saw archaeology departments and professional bodies across the world fall over themselves to pledge curriculum “decolonisation” and an explicit commitment to politicising the discipline. To quote from the “’The Future of Archaeology Is Antiracist’: Archaeology in the Time of Black Lives Matter”, published in American Antiquity:
“Consequently, Black archaeology has been and must remain purposeful in practice. It rejects research and practices defined in sterile, binary terms of objective-subjective positionality. Archaeology at historic Black sites must be conducted with an explicit politics… To the field of archaeology, it serves as a moral guide with the potential to elucidate historical wrongs and explore forms of contemporary redress.” [emphasis mine]
The essay’s description of academia’s intolerance and racial bigotry has been well confirmed by the numerous university blacklist stories I have highlighted in the past two years.
As a result, many young archaeologists, in order to freely do their work, are migrating to anonymous outlets.
[This is happening i]n part because we have an inflation of young people, educated to around the postgraduate level, who no longer see a future in the academy, where jobs are almost non-existent, and acutely aware of the damage a single remark or online comment can do to a career. But also because we have a university research system that has drifted towards a political position that defies a common sense understanding of human nature and history.
A young man entering full-time research interested in warfare, conflict, the origins of different peoples, how borders and boundaries have changed through time, grand narratives of conquest or expansion, would find himself stymied at every turn and regarded with great suspicion. If he didn’t embrace the critical studies fields of postcolonial thought, feminism, gender and queer politics or antiracism, he might find himself shut out from a career altogether. Much easier instead to go online and find the ten other people on Earth who share his interests, who are concerned with what the results mean, rather than their wider current political and social ramifications. [emphasis mine]
This essay illustrates again how we are living in a fascist state, where free thought is outlawed and can only be expressed in private or anonymously, unless you are either very courageous, very determined, or have put yourself into a position of independence not easily hampered by the leftist fascist thugs now running the show.
For most people, however, silence and fear rule, and they go underground to find those “ten others” with whom they can converse freely.
Under such conditions however there is no freedom. First, almost no one will hear these independent opinions, confined as they are within this tiny anonymous group. Their ideas will have no chance to advance research, because no one will know of them.
Second, for free ideas to flourish there must be debate. Otherwise, you have independent bubbles learning nothing from each other. On one side is the oppressive left, demanding everyone agree with it or face blackballing. On the other side you have small isolated dissenters hiding in closets and talking only to themselves.
In such darkness, there can be no gain in knowledge. Instead, all that happens is that freedom dies, and we enter a dark age of silencing and persecution.
There is a solution, but once again it will take great courage and determination. People have to speak out. They have to defy these tyrants who now rule. Some will clearly suffer for doing so, but then, as Jefferson noted, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
Who is willing to stand and fight? Is there anyone out there who truly believes in liberty enough to risk their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor?
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Mindless conforming robots: What today’s leftist academia demands
The modern dark age: In order to do their archaeological research free from the Marxist and bigotry tropes now required in academia — or else be blacklisted — many young archaeologists are now going underground, forming anonymous chat groups to discuss their work safe from blacklisting.
The essay at the link first outlines in detail the oppressive leftist culture that now makes honest and open scientific research difficult if not impossible among our intellectual class. Dare to say or write anything that even suggests some cultures are different or better than others and you will be ostracized so quickly you won’t know what happened to you.
What seems obvious to the general public — that prehistory was a bloody mess of invasions, migrations, battles and conflict — is not always a commonplace view among researchers. Worse, the idea that ancient peoples organised themselves among clear ethnic and tribal lines is also taboo. Obvious statements of common sense, such as the existence of patriarchy in the past, are constantly challenged and the general tone of academia is one of refutation: both of established theories and thinkers and of disagreeable parts of the past itself. [emphasis mine]
The author goes on to note that if any archaeologist then dares to write about these taboo ideas, most of which are are crucial for understanding the archaeology of any site, they will be silenced and their future in academia will be squelched almost immediately. He also notes that this intolerance became far worse after the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots.
This became clearer than ever following the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, which saw archaeology departments and professional bodies across the world fall over themselves to pledge curriculum “decolonisation” and an explicit commitment to politicising the discipline. To quote from the “’The Future of Archaeology Is Antiracist’: Archaeology in the Time of Black Lives Matter”, published in American Antiquity:
“Consequently, Black archaeology has been and must remain purposeful in practice. It rejects research and practices defined in sterile, binary terms of objective-subjective positionality. Archaeology at historic Black sites must be conducted with an explicit politics… To the field of archaeology, it serves as a moral guide with the potential to elucidate historical wrongs and explore forms of contemporary redress.” [emphasis mine]
The essay’s description of academia’s intolerance and racial bigotry has been well confirmed by the numerous university blacklist stories I have highlighted in the past two years.
As a result, many young archaeologists, in order to freely do their work, are migrating to anonymous outlets.
[This is happening i]n part because we have an inflation of young people, educated to around the postgraduate level, who no longer see a future in the academy, where jobs are almost non-existent, and acutely aware of the damage a single remark or online comment can do to a career. But also because we have a university research system that has drifted towards a political position that defies a common sense understanding of human nature and history.
A young man entering full-time research interested in warfare, conflict, the origins of different peoples, how borders and boundaries have changed through time, grand narratives of conquest or expansion, would find himself stymied at every turn and regarded with great suspicion. If he didn’t embrace the critical studies fields of postcolonial thought, feminism, gender and queer politics or antiracism, he might find himself shut out from a career altogether. Much easier instead to go online and find the ten other people on Earth who share his interests, who are concerned with what the results mean, rather than their wider current political and social ramifications. [emphasis mine]
This essay illustrates again how we are living in a fascist state, where free thought is outlawed and can only be expressed in private or anonymously, unless you are either very courageous, very determined, or have put yourself into a position of independence not easily hampered by the leftist fascist thugs now running the show.
For most people, however, silence and fear rule, and they go underground to find those “ten others” with whom they can converse freely.
Under such conditions however there is no freedom. First, almost no one will hear these independent opinions, confined as they are within this tiny anonymous group. Their ideas will have no chance to advance research, because no one will know of them.
Second, for free ideas to flourish there must be debate. Otherwise, you have independent bubbles learning nothing from each other. On one side is the oppressive left, demanding everyone agree with it or face blackballing. On the other side you have small isolated dissenters hiding in closets and talking only to themselves.
In such darkness, there can be no gain in knowledge. Instead, all that happens is that freedom dies, and we enter a dark age of silencing and persecution.
There is a solution, but once again it will take great courage and determination. People have to speak out. They have to defy these tyrants who now rule. Some will clearly suffer for doing so, but then, as Jefferson noted, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
Who is willing to stand and fight? Is there anyone out there who truly believes in liberty enough to risk their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor?
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Welcome to the new dark ages.
pzatchok, you got the same thing as I did from Robert’s essay. We are already in the New Dark Age. We slipped into it so silently, we didn’t notice till it was upon us. Hopefully there are enough people who will push back.
As regards public universities in our 50 states, people should demand in conservative states for the legislatures to hamstring if not outright fire the “academics” and administrators who are perpetrating this nonsense. As I live in Texas, I will write my legislative critters on this. Also, people being forced to go underground should sue the universities/colleges and the individuals doing this on Constitutional grounds. Liberal states are a loss for now.
But those who speak out can not be those in the fields. Those people in the fields will soon be marginalized by the left.
Those not in the fields of academia need to be the outspoken. Those with little to nothing to lose.
A little encouragement for Pzatchok and Bill,
You are seeing universities go dark. That is all.
The key is that the university is no longer the sole font of learning.
The university, first chartered in 1088 A.D., for the political purpose of training second and third sons of the nobility to be literate enough to be replace those government clerks and lawyers loyal to Popes, instead of Rulers, is going back to its political origins. It only picked up Science as a sideline, between 1600 and 1800, after the Reformation defeated the Church Universal, under the Popes.
The hard news is that it will require much of the 21st century to replace universities with vastly different means of recording the competence of people in the marketplace needs for the various skills in the future . It will be painful, … but it can be survived, and the future will be brighter.
“Their ideas will have no chance to advance research, because no one will know of them.”
Let me offer a different view. Peter Thiel spoke of social taboos that can become your business secret. While it’s perhaps hard to make archeology into a compelling business case… they could research how tribes and societies behaved in the past, then transfer that knowledge to assess the present and forecast the future. If they’re mostly correct and can somehow monetize their knowledge, they’d gain resources, which they could use to create places of research that are independent from the corrupted establishment and that cannot be deplatformed easily.
Sure, rather hard and error-prone on many levels and the odds are against one. But it sounds better (to me) than playing the oppressed hero “who speaks up” and where you depend on an unclear kind of people to be loyal to your case in public, perhaps donate for your legal defense. Instead build your business (in the wider sense). If your ideas work, people can support you by becoming customers. (The same works for political movements; if an issue or sentiment is oppressed for too long for too many people, you can build a movement around that and gain some momentum that you have to quickly translate into political power.)
Also, agree with Tom Billings. There’s a lot happening “elsewhere,” think it’s still in the early period of figuring out how to approach the issue.
I hope you’re right, Tom.
Unfortunately, “science” has become “let’s massage the data until it proves our political or financial point.” Case in point, the British model of projected Covid deaths that led President Trump to “follow the science” and shutdown the country for 2 weeks. The model was a joke – not reproducible and provided different results even entering the same data. So much for the scientific method. And don’t get me started about the conflicted research paid for by corporations/NGOs/Gov who have a vested interest in the findings. Follow the money…and don’t forget the government pays out more in grants than contracts every year.
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
– One of the last great Presidents: Eisenhower.
that has drifted towards a political position
No, it’s not a political position, it’s a religious one. Progressivism is a religion. The “cancel culture” is its Inquisition.
find the ten other people on Earth
That made me think of Elijah whining “I’m the only one!” God informs him there are seven thousand who remain faithful. The internet allows those 7,000 to know they aren’t alone, and it gives them courage, hopefully. And courage is needed, as Jezebel sends her assassins out to look for the dissenters.
I think about the psychological damage these abusers are doing at both an individual and societal level. They are textbook wife beaters.
GrumpyOkie,
Ref; DDE. Wow, how contemporaneously appropriate is that quote! Thanks!
The irony is that Eisenhower’s warning fell on deaf ears. He made this point as he left office, because he then recognized that he had tried and failed to reduce the power and growth of the industrial-military complex that had been established to win World War II. Since then, that complex has only grown, and spread its tentacles into all aspects of life. It now rules.
Robert, I think that the “scientific-technological elite” is an even greater threat than the “military-industrial complex”, in that the latter is Old Money who is seen by the Left as tainted by the profit motive and past support by/for their opponents … while the former does not bear those taints and is seen as the vanguard of “progress”.
The “scientific-technological elite” have become the moral busybodies that C. S. Lewis once described; viewing the rest of us as “infants, imbeciles and domestic animals” that require their rule, with almost no checks or balances against opposing it.
Jester Naybor: The terms really refer to the same thing. Eisenhower was referring to the dominant factions that he saw then. Your term simply refers to the expansion of that complex to newer areas now.