Pulling The Financial Plug On The Tiny Little Totalitarians
Richard M. Ebeling at AEIR looks at some of the toxic effluent coming out of the Western left:
A new spirit of intellectual intolerance has emerged and congealed in American academia. Their proponents are the new totalitarians who brook neither dissent, debate, nor disagreement. (See my articles, "The Tyranny of Trigger Words and College Safe Spaces" and "Campus Collectivism and the Counter-Revolution Against Liberty.")Theirs is a collectivism of social class, race, and gender. They are the ideological offspring of the communists and fascists of the 20th century. They blend together a synthesis of Marxism and Nazism into the new world of political correctness and identity politics. They view themselves as radical "progressives," determined to overthrow and abolish the capitalist, racist and sexist sins of the past, and put in its place an amorphous "democratic socialism" that is premised on a new tribalism of group identity and belonging. (See my articles, "Tyrants of the Mind and the New Collectivism" and "Collectivism's Progress: From Marxism to Race and Gender Intersectionality" and "An 'Identity Politics' Victory Would Mean the End to Liberty.")
Like their Marxian and Nazi forbearers, these new totalitarians look at the world with a fanatical self-righteousness that they have the clear and correct vision of the "true" bases of society's ills and the only answer for its healing. The Marxists saw nothing but a two-dimensional world of exploiting capitalists who were abusing the "workers of the world." The Nazis were certain that all the evil in human history was due to a worldwide Jewish conspiracy to dominate and defile mankind's purer "races."
Our modern-day identity politics warriors are absolutely certain that all of history is the story of white, male domination of women and "people of color" through the institutional means of private property and capitalist methods of production and control. Everything else is a "false consciousness" created by white men determined to maintain their power over all others on the planet.
All the talk about individual liberty, free enterprise, freedom of speech and the press, or freedom of association are ruses and rationales, they say, to hide from view the underlying "real" relationships of domination and oppression that cover over what actually binds people together and represents their "objective" identities.
And he nails it:
Submerged in this latest tidal wave of collectivist fanaticism is that smallest of all minorities, the individual human being. How the individual views and thinks of himself; what goals and purposes he or she considers possibly best for the peaceful improvement of their own life; the forms of voluntary and mutually beneficial associations and relationships that the individual might consider most desirable for happiness, fulfillment, and betterment.These are all shunted aside under the presumption and hubris that the politically correct, identity politics warriors know the "true" connections that define and bind people together. This is determined by your race and ethnicity, by your gender and sexual orientation. You are "white," or you are "black," or you are "Hispanic," or you are "Asian," or you are . . . Plus, you are any one or more of the Heinz 57 ketchup-like categories and classifications of gender and intersectionality.
They talk about "social justice," but it really means the injustice of force through coercively determining what for and how individual human beings may go about thinking, acting and interacting with others. They refer to dignity and diversity, but in their lexicon of meaning this really means demeaning anyone who thinks and acts differently than their tribal ideologies dictate, and homogenizing human uniqueness and difference into political group pigeonholes for purposes of paternalism and power-lusting.
The new totalitarian tribalists, like their Marxist and Nazi intellectual ancestors, reject the ideas and achievements of the 18th and 19th centuries, achievements that cultivated and created a social, economic and political climate and institutional setting respectful for individual human beings, compared to the degradations and indignities and cruelties for most of human history before then.
Math is "oppressive," Enlightenment art is "oppressive"...the list goes on and on and on.
My favorite little form of "woke" ignorance -- combined with utter ignorance of Romance languages -- is the term "Latinx."
I showed it around to some actual (aka non-"woke") Latinos and Latinas at LA City Hall, and they were like, "Wut? How do you even say that?"
Additionally, my personal experience with some of the woke, along with my observation, is that many are 20-something and have accomplished nothing yet, but, oh does it ever feel good to knock down the tall, accomplished poppies on "woke" grounds.
Ebeling thinks the answer (at least to the substantial academic end of this) is to privatize public higher education:
At the end of the day, in my view, the only long-term answer is an end to educational socialism, which is what government-mandated and/or funded schooling is really all about. Higher education in America has become taxpayer- funded islands of collectivist thought in too many fields of study, especially in the humanities and the social sciences. The "progressives," socialists, and Marxists who comprise the ideological foundations for political correctness and Identity Politics in colleges and universities, and who set the tone and culture for those attending these institutions, can only be unseated by withdrawing their secure source of funds.The privatization of colleges and universities that are state-owned and operated, and the ending of various types of tax-based support for other nominally "private" institutions of higher learning, would do more to change the form and content of what is taught at these places over time than anything else imaginable. (See my article, "Educational Socialism versus the Free Market.")
Anything else, in my view, is either merely reinforcing what is already the problem in colleges and universities or simply adds another layer of planning bureaucracy that fails to solve the problem.
Make colleges and universities completely answerable to students, parents, and charitable benefactors, with no financial support, subsidies or guarantees from government. In other words, make those offering higher education answerable to the buying public, the consumers, for what they are offering in terms of content and pedagogy.
It will soon become clear whether there really is a market for all the "politically correct" subjects and course offerings currently filling up the college and university catalogues in terms of what many students and parents actually want, without the financial underpinnings of compulsory tax dollars to make it presently possible.
Is there a difference between private and public colleges in this stuff? While private schools do get some government money, they get more from private so you'd think they'd be less into all this. I'm not sure that's true, due to my alma mater Smith being over the top on board with this crap, but that's anecdotal. Has anyone looked into this?
NicoleK at February 10, 2020 10:43 PM
Make colleges and universities completely answerable to students, parents, and charitable benefactors, with no financial support, subsidies or guarantees from government.
Sounds good to me.
without the financial underpinnings of compulsory tax dollars to make it presently possible.
Sounds even better. I assume this means he's also against the school "voucher" scam that takes compulsory tax dollars and gives them to the bechilded with no input from the non-childed.
Kevin at February 10, 2020 11:25 PM
You are right NicoleK that private colleges are in no way immune to this stuff. It actually appears they are leading in woke stupidity.
What does appear to be driving this is tax payer financed school loans. When parents paid most weren't willing to pay for such non-economic degrees. Same when students pay as well. But with federal loans taking over funding of tuition we've also seen a boom in such degrees. People are willing to be much more wasteful when they feel like they are paying with someone else's money.
The trend appears to be reversing. There are enough people who got poorly thought out degrees and now are stuck paying back the loans on them that other people can use as examples of what not to do. Which is probably why you are seeing so many Democrats pushing for student loan forgiveness.
Ben at February 11, 2020 4:21 AM
Collectivism, whether it calls itself socialism, communism, national socialism, or fascism, is evil. You can dress it up with pretty claims of social justice. You can make the trains run on time. No matter how much cologne you dump on it, all roads lead to totalitarianism and tyranny.
Conan the Grammarian at February 11, 2020 4:25 AM
I think at least some of the vitriol directed against Donald Trump, and Republicans in general, is the fear that this great educational realignment is going to result in substantial job loss for the make work sector of educational administrators teachers of woke nonsense, and high priests of the environmental apocalypse. All a major part of the socialist voting block.
Isab at February 11, 2020 6:11 AM
"While private schools do get some government money, they get more from private so you'd think they'd be less into all this. "
Federally guaranteed student loans effectively subsidize all colleges, public and private. So there isn't much difference. If anything, the private colleges are worse because they don't have to respect the First Amendment rights of students.
Cousin Dave at February 11, 2020 6:22 AM
Isab..."I think at least some of the vitriol directed against Donald Trump, and Republicans in general, is the fear that this great educational realignment is going to result in substantial job loss for the make work sector of educational administrators teachers of woke nonsense, and high priests of the environmental apocalypse."
Absolutely. And a vote for Democrats is a vote to feed ever-increasing funds to the higher-education borg, thereby encouraging its totalitarian tendencies.
David Foster at February 11, 2020 6:27 AM
And a vote for Democrats is a vote to feed ever-increasing funds to the higher-education borg, thereby encouraging its totalitarian tendencies.
How else can they can provide big dollar kickbacks, err, donations as well as in kind support as volunteers on Democrat campaigns?
Is there a difference between private and public colleges in this stuff?
It depends on the institution in question. Many private schools are really hedge funds with a student body and a really nice library.
I R A Darth Aggie at February 11, 2020 12:09 PM
but in their lexicon of meaning this really means demeaning anyone who thinks and acts differently than their tribal ideologies dictate
Boy, are they going to be in for a shock when white men embrace their assigned tribal ideology of pillage, then burn.
I R A Darth Aggie at February 11, 2020 12:43 PM
A common characteristic of socialism, communism, and national socialism is that they needed an enemy. For communism it is the capitalists, for national socialism is was the Jews and the lower type of people (untermenschen) [if I spelled that right] who were using land that the Aryans should be occupying.
A second common characteristic is control. None of them can tolerate divergent opinion. All you needed in Soviet Russia or Germany was the wrong opinion to be sent to the gulag and die.
Both of these characteristics are shown by the radical Left in the US today. The "enemy" is white men. The control is shown by their domination of Twitter and internet mobs and Antifa and indoctrination in colleges. If I had to take a college orientation today I would gag.
cc at February 12, 2020 12:30 PM
In the United States government backed "student loans" are the key - get rid of them and students (who had to finance their own higher education) would neither tolerant inflated tuition fees, nor would they tolerate nonsense courses.
It is no accident that universities that do not accept government backed "student loans", such as Hillsdale, are free of this Frankfurt School of Marxism insanity.
Paul Marks at February 15, 2020 8:14 AM
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