How Universities Are Ruining Our Society
Excellent long read by Arthur Milikh at National Affairs. An excerpt:
Allan Bloom's remarkable 1987 book, The Closing of the American Mind, is still unmatched in its treatment of the problem of America's universities. According to Bloom, beginning in the 1940s but blossoming in the 1960s, many American academics superficially and gleefully appropriated the tenets of Friedrich Nietzsche and his followers (especially Freud and Weber) in adopting a thin relativism suitable for democracy. Moral and intellectual relativism, these academics argued, would lead to a tolerant and open social order called multiculturalism. But relativism had two effects. The first was the thinning out of all cultures and opinions to make them serve the genuine goals that guided these academics: moral permissiveness and a conflict-free existence. The second, unanticipated, though truer outgrowth of relativism -- which yielded the opposite of its first goal -- was the elevation of "commitment," or unyielding moral attachment in the absence of an intelligible justification of its truth.The contemporary manifestation of commitment is called "identity," and it is expressed especially through race and sexuality. Identity, as it is broadly understood today, is an unfalsifiable, self-created opinion of oneself or one's group that others must recognize, accommodate, and celebrate. Identity has become sacred, placed beyond questioning or criticism. But the sacredness of identity applies only to allegedly oppressed or marginalized groups. These are allowed to possess an identity, while the alleged oppressors must not only be denied an identity but must perpetually atone for the oppression stemming from it. Herbert Marcuse's goal of getting universities to teach that "history was the development of oppression" has not only succeeded -- it is now publicly financed.
These doctrines stand in stark contrast to natural rights, the foundational teaching of America. Natural rights mean that human beings belong to a common humanity, not to an identity group. As such, all human beings have the same rights, which can be grasped rationally. Since all human beings possess rights, a political common good is possible, as is mutual understanding and rational persuasion. Deep commitments, to the contrary, imply real conflict.
A generation after Bloom's writing, identity fanaticism, having first gained institutional support in the universities, and now in the Democratic Party, has turned to demanding conformity and punishing dissenters. The next logical outgrowth of identity politics is suppression of free speech, as speech is the expression of a free, questioning mind. An example of this fanaticism is captured in a letter written by Williams College students to faculty members who supported the adoption of the University of Chicago statement in defense of free speech on campuses. For these students, enforcing the freedom of speech is merely a reflection of "white fragility" and "discursive violence," and is thus primarily supported by "white faculty," the oppressor group. This letter reflects beliefs widely held by faculty and students across the nation's universities. If universities once understood their purpose as seeking intellectual clarity, now rational questioning of identity theories is itself an act of violence.
In fact, raising the basic contradictions of dangerous and anti-republican theories in the spirit of honest intellectual inquiry has become impossible on most campuses -- perhaps the only place in American society where such thinking could take place.
via @scareduck
I have friends who work as professors. They are all radical liberals who are very anti white. They are also all stem professors. The humanities professors I have met are even worse.
A lot of conservatives think that the sjw problem on campus is due to a few blue haired students but that is not so. The entire university faculty are radical leftists.
My conclusions:
1). Right leaning cucks actually care about free speech so they hire anyone who is competent. Liberals are extremely intolerant of opposing views. Over time this means liberals take over and only hire other liberals.
2) students in modern university either embrace anti white politics or go alt right. The alt right is very good at addressing and calling out anti white hate. Like I said mainstream conservatives don’t understand how pervasive this problem is. They think it’s just a few radical professors and sjw students.
Semitic Cassandra at February 6, 2020 7:59 AM
Semitic Cassandra at February 6, 2020 7:59 AM
Your commenter name is too horny, and your comment is too cranked. You should chillax.
It's been thirty years, but what I remember about the Bloom book was that the second half was an impenetrably dull academic reverie of almost drunken indulgence. It didn't warm the reader the heartfelt complaint of the first half.
Crid at February 6, 2020 8:17 AM
For religious Christians, all are created in God's image. It was this sentiment that led most of the opposition to slavery to come from religious people and organizations in both the US and England. The secular founding of America reflected this view, with the idea of natural rights and equality under the law.
The Left has abandoned both of these in favor of cultural Marxism, which sees only oppressed and oppressors. It is an easy morality: you can identify the bad guys and good guys by a glance. There is no room in this sick world view for individual virtue or beliefs. You are only a member of a group. If white you are an oppressor and you can't escape it. Even those whites who self-hate do not really find redemption. Rigid conformity is required.
My friends who immigrated here legally and are brown are the biggest patriots you will find. They do see this as a land of opportunity. I also have black friends who reject identity politics forcefully. They have no use for it.
cc at February 6, 2020 9:09 AM
"My friends who immigrated here legally and are brown are the biggest patriots you will find. They do see this as a land of opportunity. I also have black friends who reject identity politics forcefully. They have no use for it."
-c.c.
That's nice. Problem is that most brown people who immigrate here bloc vote democrat and are all about identity politics. A few outliers doesn't change that.
Here is a good take on this issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcC6YUHmhtE (go to 35s)
SemiticFeline at February 6, 2020 10:05 AM
> SemiticFeline at February 6,
> 2020 10:05 AM
You're begging us to ask, aren't you? You have a long and detailed series of thoughts to explain why you call yourself these things. And we'd be fascinated! We'd be transfixed!
We'd be persuaded.
Crid at February 6, 2020 10:22 AM
You're begging us to ask, aren't you? You have a long and detailed series of thoughts to explain why you call yourself these things. And we'd be fascinated! We'd be transfixed!
We'd be persuaded.
Crid at February 6, 2020 10:22 AM
Relax, it’s “Jewish Cat”
Isab at February 6, 2020 12:18 PM
I know, and he just seems so needy. Can't we ridicule him in response?
Crid at February 6, 2020 12:37 PM
Interestning, most of the STEM professors I know are right-leaning, though there are left-leaning ones as well.
NicoleK at February 6, 2020 10:55 PM
Interestning, most of the STEM professors I know are right-leaning, though there are left-leaning ones as well.
NicoleK at February 6, 2020 10:55 PM
I suspect those without tenure, and even some with, who want to advance, have learned to parrot the SJW party line.
I doubt that there is any university left in the world, where you could do a survey and find out what the professors really think. Just too professionally dangerous.
Isab at February 7, 2020 5:01 AM
This is only a part of the harm done by universities in recent decades. There is also there irresponsible overselling of the benefits of "getting a degree"--any degree--resulting in lifetimes of debt servitude for those who were trusting enough to believe what they were told.
The mansions of the university presidents, the high salaries of the administrators, the lavish benefits of tenured professors--these things were paid for in the coin of human suffering.
David Foster at February 7, 2020 9:01 AM
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