When I was young, my parents immigrated with me to the United States from China. I was told, and I really thought, that America, with its Constitution and Bill of Rights, was more "free" than Communist China. Yet when I went to college for the first time, all I found was censorship and struggle sessions. I can confirm that what Dr. Maroja is saying here is absolutely happening in campuses all across America.
I thought college was for free discussion of beliefs, but all I found was a panopticon-style environment where students told on each other over their beliefs. I don't know if America really is the "land of the free" anymore.
As an older American who witnessed from afar evidence from the Chinese Cultural Revolution, collapse of the USSR and more, it has been extremely surprising to see Marxist and totalitarian ideas re-emerge in the U.S. I am impressed by how effectively these ideologies pathologically enlist the spirits of envy and grievance latent in all people.
Government and institutions have always faced the problem of how to engender enough popular support to remain in power. Reason, evidence, free thought require more from the general population than confident diktat and repression do.
We have two problems. Historical ignorance has been fostered by a weak k-12 education system. At the university level and now reaching to k-12, malignant, self-serving propaganda is salted with a small grain of truth and social justice, rendering the poison savory.
I support Common Sense, Musk's intended transformation of Twitter, and other resistance to liberalism's takeover by authoritarianism. Peng's concern is warranted. History shows that it often takes death, destruction, truly dire outcomes, to eventually reinstate a period of liberal values. I so hope these values will not be defeated.
"I support Common Sense, Musk's intended transformation of Twitter"
We are indeed devolving back into the Dark Ages. Ignorance is the elixir which allows Marxists to thrive. Mankind’s (yea, I used a sexist, patriarchal term) possible saving grace is that there are still those among us who have benefited from an enlightened education. Luana Maoja has sounded a clarion call to those so blessed to reaffirm and nurture it. Bless you for answering.
It’s not about ignorance from K-12 or the university. It’s about playing pretend and attacking and hurting those who refuse to play the game. Germans in the 30s were far from uneducated. The pretended that their problems were caused by Jews, gypsies, gays, etc. If you didn’t agree to play by their rules, well, you know what happened.
No, it’s about there being a highly developed, malignant delusional system, and consequences of not buying into it. Much has been written about the problems associated with being sane in insane environments. Eventually people, even delusional ones, have to confront reality. The only question is how much damage they’ll do--to themselves and others--before that happens. 
Luana stated, “The censors and gatekeepers simply assume—without evidence—that human population research is malign and must be shut down.” However, I would agree with Joe. They know the research will not support their fairy tale so they attack anyone who won’t pretend with them.
That’s a truism. But you can’t use logic to treat mental illness. This is dangerously severe psychopathology. If it isn’t strongly and consistently resisted, it will turn into the American version of the third reich. It’s been trying to go that way for some time now.
I don’t see people like AOC, Biden, hopefully not Fetterman tomorrow, etc. as the main problems here. I see the people who elected them as the main things that need to scare the cookies out us.
I wholeheartedly agree with you that historical ignorance is a large part of the problem. As have others, I've pointed out that much of the argument about the dangers of cross sex hormones has been known for half a century (through their use in athletics). Yet, it seems that many have remained conveniently ignorant of the debacle.
Alice, I would go further - in the sense that our wretched and weak educational system (from k through university actually) openly supports historical ignorance, by which I mean judging (and not actually learning) the events and trends of periods in the past through the lens of today, and not through the prism of the era in which the history studied occurred. It's far easier that way, simpler to understand, since everything black and white (good vs evil) is so quickly framed when there's no messy grey in the way. Thus the toppling of statues and the whitewashing of subjects to be studied, cancelling speeches to be heard, and removing books to be read.. and students passing no matter their grades. It's censorship by and from the ignorant, aided and abetted by elders because they're so afraid of the public square pyre.
"Good now should have been good then - their grievance then is our grievance now." CRT came from this seed, gestating over decades in academia, and now this stain of discontent has leaped over into other disciplines as the supposedly marginal take center stage, and institutional authorities cave to their incessant demands, even to the point where the advancement of knowledge is compromised - as amply described in the essay.
And that is where the line must be drawn. At the university faculty level. Death and destruction isn't necessary. Professors must be allowed to fight back and defend themselves against their students (sorry to say it that way). And universities must defend their right to do so and basically tell their microaggressed sanctimonious student body that if they don't like what they hear in class - they can leave. And take their parents' money with them.
And perhaps that's where the real cause here lies - universities are too wedded to the greenback, and not to the concept of free speech and unfettered and dynamic learning. They know better, but refuse to act..
Abetted by the fact that academics no longer govern themselves of their institution.
Academic faculty are outnumbered in an explosion of andministrators, who are themselves capable of rabble rousing students and using them to bully and shame their teachers. These enemies within are by a wide margin created by government bodies, funded by those same masters. "It's good to be King."
China recovered from the insanity of the 'Cultural Revolution'. I have read the books written by Cixin Liu ('The Three-Body Problem'). He supports the CPC and the CPC supports him. The books are bitterly critical of the 'Cultural Revolution' (actually, that is an understatement). I have also read the works of Jung Chang ('Wild Swans'). She is not a supporter of the CPC. She is also bitterly critical of the 'Cultural Revolution'.
America is now the country going through its own Cultural Revolution. I’ll write about this phenomenon on my blog sometime soon. Basically, the way American academia operates is just like how the CCP operated back in the 60s.
I was reflecting on this parallel earlier today but without knowing a lot about the Cultural Revolution, so didn't fully trust my observations. Please do write about it! Americans absolutely need to hear from people with first-hand understanding of the Cultural Revolution who are alarmed at the parallels and the accelerating loss of freedoms in the US. Most seem blind to it, or if somewhat aware seem to be looking in the wrong directions for the causes and potential solutions.
However, Not sure if China has completely recovered from the Cultural Revolution. There were book burnings, and the ancient culture was completely destroyed.
How will America, and indeed the West, fare? Time will tell.
NK, I disagree. A famous liberal of the 1960s (MLK) stated "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." He was right then, and still is.
And he would be considered a radical right winger by today's "liberals".
Perhaps part of the problem in discourse is lumping together today's left, which is very illiberal, with yesterday's left which was somewhat liberal - at least philosophically. (Politically, there were - and still are - authoritarian. They only "fought the power" because the power wasn't them.)
Imagine a politician today saying "Ask now what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."
JFK was a traditional Democrat of the FDR/post-FDR period. That meant that the core of his constituency was private sector trade unions (AFL/CIO). On social issues, he would be considered 'far right' by the woke. However, on economic issues he was left-of-center. The fall of the Iron Curtain (and the rise of China) was the de-facto end of conventional class-based Marxism. For better or worse (mostly worse), the left has adopted Gramscian Marxism as a replacement.
Can't say that I'm familiar with the term "Gramscian"...
Nice analysis in rebuttal. Look at the "far right" today. Their growing constituency is the working class and minorities. His left-of-center economic policies of the 60's would not be considered nearly far left enough by todays' left. I also think his economic policies had the objective of creating self-supporting people, not people dependent on the government.
And, as we've seen by the 2022 campaigning, social issues are the only issues that matter to those who are driving the left. Can you imagine how JFK would respond to the suggestion that the government knows better how to raise your children than do the parents, that parents should not have a say in their children's education, that abortion should be legal up to the point of birth, that color of your skin is more important than your character ... ? I sure can't.
The swiftness of the leftward move of the democrat party is matched only by its lunacy. But maybe you can't separate the two.
Sorry, Neil. World War II. I'm sure you remember the story..
Roosevelt, so much a liberal he would be called a communist sympathizer today, and Winston Churchill, a liberal (though called racist by today's iteration of the far left wing), defeated Hitler by espousing freedom in the face of very real authoritarianism.
Call what you want of the far left today, but be careful to throw everything 'liberal' in the same socialist bread basket. You'll do history a disservice..
LM, As you point out, you can't judge the past by today's standards (at least you shouldn't). JFK provides a case in point. In economic terms, he would be considered to be a liberal (if not a leftist) today. However, in social terms he was far too the right of today's political center. The reality is that he would find no home in today's Democratic party or today's Republican party. The world has changed (and not always for the better).
Good for you. The American version of the Red Guard is upon us. Same as the old Guard. I have heard Chinese scholars in private and far from China say to each other in private"Thank heaven the US exists.
Freedom is something that pops in and out of the American experience, from decade to decade. It is not handed to us on a silver platter, but must be fought for and earned in every generation. We are seeing the dark clouds of totalitarianism closing in on us right now, and it is our duty and obligation -- just as it is for the people of China -- to fight back and clear the skies once again.
I went to college in the early 90s and I felt incredibly free. We were encouraged to explore weird ideas and make connections. It was a blast, and I learned a lot, including how to be a critical thinker. When I hear how restricted campuses are now it makes me really sad.
I went to school in the 1980's, for years I believed that the intent of university wasn't to teach me certain facts, formulas, etc. The intent (at that time) was to teach independent thinking, and problem solving.
I went to University in the late 70's, early 80's and I can tell you that the professors expected you to regurgitate their leftist viewpoints. (Granted I was in the Humanities.) A diversity of viewpoint usually ended in a bad grade. Back then, I figured I just wasn't smart enough to argue the counter position and maybe so, but the professors wouldn't even engage in a discussion on other points of view. The only thing that seems to have changed from my experience (which was at the Univ of California) is that people didn't get canceled back then for having the wrong thoughts - maybe ignored, maybe laughed at, but not canceled.
You make a good point. It is my impression that current ideologies hardened in humanities departments, and are only recently penetrating STEM.
My degree was in a hard science. We focussed on empirical evidence, the importance of testable hypotheses with differentiating outcomes, the distinction between hypothesis and supported theory. We were humbled by what we did not know, how often accepted wisdom has been found to be either dramatically false or subtly incomplete.
STEM hubris lay in the practical success of science-based technology. Science faculty gave up a hand on the reins to indulge that passion for discovery. Surely no one would propose killing the golden goose?
Perhaps STEM will be an academic area where effective resistance coalesces!
Alice, I hope so. My degree was in engineering. I'm afraid that the "math is racist" types are infecting there too. Eventually, nature will whack them upside the head, but I'm afraid they are going to get some people killed in the meantime.
When the bridges begin to collapse and the planes start falling from the skies we will say how ridiculous this whole thing was. I really hope it doesn't come to that but you never know.
"Perhaps STEM will be an academic area where effective resistance coalesces!"
Not been paying attention have you? They have pretty much all fallen. Have you seen the Bollocks "Nature" has been putting about lately? Last hopes were pinned on Chicago for some reason. Didn't work out; pronounced dead a year or so ago.
might be the difference. My major was mechanical engineering, not much gray area to argue about. Other difference is the school I attended was in Texas, possibly we were slow adapters down here.
This comment is as ignorant as the people we’re horrified by reading about but typical for the readership of this forum. Most people who became leftists became that because they can’t stand authoritarianism and suppression of dissent. The ones who have THAT written on their banner are the people who invited Victor Orban to be their keynote speaker and have an actual plan for turning the country into an autocracy, rather than touting deranged ideas about what social justice is and canceling science. Not that that isn’t horrifying enough. It’s just that the actual end of democracy won’t come from that direction.
You are incorrect. Leftists became leftists because they hate authoritarianism that is not controlled by them.
The end of democracy in the US, if it happens, will come from the left. It has started and the only question is will it be stopped before it takes complete control.
Uwe, you won't like this but the people who shouted 'Hang Mike Pence' are at the bottom of society. The people enforcing radical PC are at the top. They run the media, Hollywood, K-12 education, academia, the CIA/FBI, the military, Tech, SV, Wall Street, corporate America, etc. Perhaps you can see the difference.
Simply put yet profound, caused me to pause and really see the danger of the woke. It may be short timed though. The whole woke culture is powered by the young, and facilitated by social media, who think of it as being on the "right side", a revolution if you will. I doubt they look past the surface on any issue at that age. When they grow up and have bills to pay and send kids to school there will probably be a new in thing.
And the people who invited Orban to speak at CPAC are the leaders of the Republican Party. They are at the top of society, not the bottom, and therefore pose as much danger to our culture as the repressiion-obsessed left.
It is high time for American voters to throw out our harebrained extremists, end the culture wars, and demand a return to such governmental "radicalism" as filling potholes, ensuring public safety, fixing water pipes, and the million and one other parts of public service we've abandoned in favor of memes, Tweets, clicks, likes, and Rageahol.
For a not-at-all-deranged analysis of what 'social justice' is and its effects on the West, 'The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World' by Andrew Doyle.
Without reading it I can predict that's not about what social justice IS but about making it a religion and perverting it into its partial opposite. It's one of the achievements of the enlightenment but that concept is Old Hat now on the left and it was always the enemy of the right. And the center that cares is of no further interest to anyone...
Uwe, the modern left is utterly intolerant of free speech / dissent / etc. Have you ever heard of cancel culture. Let me clue you in. The practitioners of cancel culture are on the left, not the right. You can rant and rave about Victor Orban all you want, but the reality is left-wing censorship, not right-wing censorship. Go read the Harper's letter if you doubt this. Let me quote from the Harper's letter.
"But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes. "
Peter, I left the school where I taught graduate students when the woke took over 20 years ago because I knew I'd get cancelled sooner or later. I know more about this disaster than most people do. What I don't understand is how the same people can abhor this and not be more worried about the criminal psychopaths who staged a bloody coup, lie for sport, and won't rest until Trump gets his Putin-Style kleptocracy established in this country. On a forum that I thought would be read by centrist people with common sense. There is no limit to the tribalism and the madness of crowds here.
Uwe - those alleged criminal are in jail and being held without due process. There was no coup and the only deaths were to protestors. If you want to talk about kleptocracy, you seem to be ignoring the corruption of the Clinton and Biden crime syndicates. If you have to rely on a disorganized, short lived protest on the People's House to buttress your position, perhaps you should look closely at your position.
You seem to be clinging to the view of a handful of protestors and ignoring the trainloads of abuse that really matter. And I'm using that metaphor intentionally. If the left gets their way, they will establish "re-education" centers for "wrong-thinkers" and if millions of them die during the process, oh well.
Your tribe is no different than my tribe. Your madness matches my madness. So let's have at it.
Do crazy people exist across the political spectrum? Sure they do. Do crazy people exist on the right? Sure they do. Do crazy people exist on the left? Sure they do. However, there is a deep difference. The crazy people on the left control the ‘commanding heights on society. The crazy people on the right control nothing.
Don’t mistake riots for coups. Real coups require police/military support. Did Trump have any police/military support? No, he did not. Did he try to get any police/military support? No, he did not. Let me quote from General M. Milley (hardly a Trump supporter).
“You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with the guns.”
You're absolutely right about the cancel culture but I would say it's not about being intolerant to free speech, and this applies to both sides, it's denial of an view point other than their own. The left cancels it and the right calls it lies. There's no end until we bring decency back at the national level and respect the other side and agree to disagree in a civil way.
I agree. jt doesn't. What else can you call all of these woke students and faculty, who burst into class demanding people explain their whit privilege and demand the curriculum be change to express their far left BS. Sounds like Red Guard to me.
The challenge is to effectively communicate with these young people. We need to attend to the importance of this.
It is emotionally gratifying to vent, and safe enough to do so in this column of like-minded thinkers.
Yet contempt will close that door. It blinds the speaker with its intoxicating self-congratulation; I struggle always to rise above my own worst impulses.
It is hard enough, as young people often dismiss any possible wisdom or experience from their elders. (I dimly recall a similar skepticism, outgrown now.) Immigrants may have more credibility, with personal stories to tell.
But let us not merely complain. Let us not only resist. Let us consider how to genuinely reach our newest generations, with care and sympathy. Can we win only by battle, by validating the assertion that domination is primary? Is there a way to open hearts and minds, cooperatively?
If you want to "effectively communicate with these young people" you must start by gathering a million or so followers on some social media platform, preferably TikTok. You should also be able to communicate in short burst that incorporate some words, but also dance, and constant changes of imagery. You need to be able to say "like" a lot, and to have, like a lot of, like, social currency, like oppression, and intersectionality. And to always come from a position of liberation, so it's not "pizza is bad for you, and kale is good, but pizza is oppressive and kale is liberating.
On a serious note, they truly speak a different language and live in a different reality.
Humor aside, this is a useful suggestion! The humor was pretty good, too! You are so right about keeping it positive.
I have a mere 83 Twitter followers because I have been pretty inactive. I admit to liking the dancing on TikTok, and have a weakness for Z's poking gentle fun at Millenials. I can do 3-D and animation and movies. Hmm.
You have got me thinking. Really good proposal! Taking it seriously. Thanks!
I keep thinking more and better education on economics and history would do a lot to divest young people of a lot of their misconceptions. Why isn't that happening?
I just read this and it buttresses what I have been saying all along. The Republicans are not predicting the demise of democracy. It's prominent democrats that have been saying this, including the ever senile Joe, that if the Republicans win the midterms, it will be the end of our democracy.
Read this and tell me who is more liable to destroy our democracy. They openly dismiss and discount the average person. I will go as far as they hate the average American. When Hillary lost to Trump, she called us rabble.
The old term limousine liberal was used decades ago to describe the odious, power hunger elite and it applies today. Read this and see if I am wrong:
This is my last comment for the day, so I'll take a shot at You, LP, and then run fer the hills. ;-)
I read the article but didn't pay attention to it much. Here's how I looked at it: It was original from the Washington Examiner, which I like. They're what I would call "soft-Right." They're always right, but IIRC, they're not beholden to Trump. They *may* under Trump's sway. I'm not *swearing* on it. But that's my recollection. And they seem fairly accurate.
This here article is just propaganda. The reason I say that is that the things I look for in articles is direct quotes, and links to articles besides the ones they write themselves. I look at Twitter links, but that's about all I do with them. Secondary sources and quotes. This article had none-a that. IOW, I would-a liked to see what Biden actually said, and then make up my own mind.
Here it is in a nutshell: These guys are either preaching to the choir or telling You what Your supposed to think.
Please NOTE: I'm not saying what they said was WRONG. Mebbe it was. I'm sure at least some-a it was right. But it wasn't something to convince me, one way or the other. That's just me.
TY for post, LP. Day done. Enjoy... (Mebbe tomorrow. Mebbe not. ;-)
A lady by the name of Yeonmi Park, has stated that 'Columbia is crazier than North Korea'. She is almost certainly right. There are already examples, of western scientists going to China because there is more academic freedom in China than in their countries.
I can see why Ms. Park would say that. North Korea at least doesn’t hide its authoritarian nature. While elite colleges in America act like they’re bastions of independent thought while actively censoring opinions. Bari Weiss herself went to Columbia and came under fire for her views on Israel.
Jew-hate is strong in the bastions of academe and the left; "Views on Israel" is their bailey. It is sometimes an effort to get there, but you nearly always find it is straight up anti-semitism at root
There is already a system in America that is essentially a social credit score. It’s called cancel culture. Any accusation of going against established doctrine will lead to a mob of people spreading malicious rumors about you, effectively destroying your reputation. The woke mob spares no one.
Due process issues arising from non discrimination and non harassment policies, typically enacted pursuant to DEI initiatives, are an important point. If an academic is formally accused of discrimination and/or harassment, many institutions protect the complainant by not allowing the accused to read the written complaint. The accused is hamstrung and unable to adequately prepare a defense without knowing the precise nature of the complaints. Educational institutions wrote these policies to correct the power imbalance between the complainant and the accused, but they arguably go too far and create due process issues. Moreover, if the complaint is not substantiated, there are instances where accused does not receive written findings which clear his/her name from the institution which investigated the complaint. Cancel culture seems to protect the complainant at the expense of the accused from defamation and being able to adequately defend oneself. These cases are winding up in court.
Oh, make no mistake. The purpose of those procedures is to shift blame for the institution's social and cultural problems onto the scapegoat class, whoever it is. That way, the university itself does not have to address them. That's one reason why the number of men on campus has declined so drastically.
Sort of related...Saturday Night Live has been so left I gave up on watching it. Today I read that they are having Dave Chappel host in November. Wonders never cease. Maybe they are learning that being such a one sided buzz kill is good for ratings?
They came for the unionist & I did nothing. Then they came for the Communists & I did nothing. Then they came for the Jews & I did nothing. Then they came for the Catholics & I did nothing. Then they came for me! Too many Americans are followers led perhaps by the insane.
I might have agreed with this statement except you included the the Communists in there. I think there are a good number of them in today's woke culture. Most of this crap comes from Marxists ideas.
Third hand, once removed. It is a direct descendant, but then Marxism itself is just Xtianity without the God bits. These daft ideas are forever but continually morph on from failure.
Still, what I observed and experienced on a pre-pandemic visit to China makes me encourage you to stay here and not return to China.
Remember those two Canadians who were detained as hostages in exchange for the Huawei CFO? Could have been me. Right before their arrest, I was detained at the China border as I was leaving for Hong Kong. I got released with no apology. The government was looking for bigger fish apparently.
Stay in the US and protest academic totalitarianism here!
I always tell people on the left who curse the U.S. if they hate the oppression in the U.S. so much go to the workers' paradise like China and North Korea. I have yet to see any of these nincompoops do that.
I have been calling the Dem Party the Communist Party for over a year and people treat me like I am not in touch with reality. I think they are the ones not in touch with what is happening. They are in denial.
The hard left on this BBS can't refute what the author of today's subject has said but they sure will belittle if and call people who defend her article names. It is the best they can do.
You actually hurt the cause You would fight for. You're spreading, essentially, the lie that the Woke Religion is the same thing as the Dems.
You're the one in denial. The Bari and the author are likely to be a Dems themselves. What crime did *they* commit? Who is helped if they are accused of being Dems?
The worst of it Your blindness is that Dems have some good ideas. You'll *never* entertain the notion, which is an obvious FACT. You think You guys/gals here are the ones with *all* the answers? I got some bad news for You guys/gals.
That's enough for me. Mebbe too much. But these are serious questions I ask.
Well if it's not the Dems who support woke, who does? It sure as hell it's not the right that supports woke. The Dems support BLM, ANTIFA and I believe woke.
When was the last time you heard a Dem official speak out against woke? Just give me one example. That is all I ask.
Yeah, all the Woke are Dems. No argument. But NO WAY JOSE are all Dems Woke. It's mathematically impossible, because most people are just living their lives day-to-day. They don't have a lotta time or attention to spend on sites like this one. They may have some vague ideas about Woke, but it doesn't even have a proper name recognized by everybody!
I don't believe all Democrats are woke but the ones in power are. Name one Dem senator or representative that has criticized the woke movement or on that has criticized BLM or Antifa.
I will agree with you that not all Dems are woke but the leadership of the party has been captured by this and that is what matters. If the heads of the party pushed back against this it might end but they aren't. The current administration fights daily against the idea of not giving kids puberty blockers, the idea that all the evils of the world come from white people and white supremacist's is daily on the lefts talk shows. Try and watch the view and watch the clapping seals in their audience. It doesn't need to be all of them just the most influential among them.
Right, JT. Insert my standard statement about liberalism and leftism being very different things. However, it is true that a lot of the party leadership -- the people who have the ability to influence the direction of the party -- are woke.
The problem is the wokes dictate dem policy. What part of the modern democrat platform is not woke? And what is that platform? Unlimited abortion? Woke. Defunding police/bail reform? Woke. Diversity, equity, inclusion initiatives? Woke. Climate alarmism? Woke. ESG initiatives? Woke. Hate speech is not free speech and anything we don't like his hate speech? Woke. These ideologies and policies have captured the democrat party, big business, and government and it is frightening.
Agree, JT. Recent hysteria about Penn State protest of Proud Boy speaker (got canceled, etc.). “Hundreds” of students protested (news reports). The campus has 40,000 students. I believe the same data set can be used for the Democratic Party. The “woke” crowd (still working on a definition) if party affiliated are more likely Democrats than Republicans. But, not all Democrats are “woke.” On the other side I would guess that most Proud Boys. III’percenters, etc. are Republicans, if registered to a party, it does not make all Republicans white national racist militants (if that is what you believe these groups are). And while I cannot criticize what Ms. Ping experienced at Sarah Lawrence, by way of example, she extends her experience there to reach the conclusion that this is happening at all campuses nationwide. Maybe it is, maybe its not, but experience at one college is not adequate data for over 4,000 colleges in the US.
I agree with all-a that. There aren't gonna be any statistics on how many places are Woke. But anecdotes indicate more are going Woke than retreating from that view.
I am sure, OK also un-researched, that there are elements of “woke” on every college campus, as there are BLM supporters, gay rights supporters, pro-life supporters, gun supporters, etc. My beef on the college campuses is when the administrations/powers that be cave in to any group, ideology, etc. I am a fan of hearing what people have to say, especially on college campuses. If you don’t want to hear what they have to say, don’t go. If you want to protest, do so outside, peacefully (I hate pop-up protesting in the auditorium). Other students may be interested in attending (who planned to attend the Proud Boy speaker event) and were denied that opportunity. What’s more frustrating at times is when these incidents go through the ringer in conversations like these threads as absolutely exemplifying all students on all college campuses, or the population as a whole.
And if struggle and sacrifice are occurring -- and the simple, small act of courage who just made by posting what you wrote is an example-- the bad guys won't win.
This is appearing even in STEM research. Many grant proposals now require a DEI statement. This might have some value but these DEI impact statements are evaluated, at least partly, from critical studies perspectives. Thus, they need to be written as if one fully embraces the PC DEI view of groups > individuals, etc.
In Canada it is now at the point that unless you pass the DEI review stage your project won't be funded or even reviewed on its technical merrit. POC with decades of experience and a track record of succes at graduating POC scientists have had projects rejected because they said or implied that each new student be treated as an individuals first and member of some groups second.
Hark! And I think you approach the root cause and point towards the solution.
When I entered Engineering school in college (in 1970) there were some “flunk out” classes in math and chemistry. If a student couldn’t pass them, they either got help or changed majors. That was for their own good, as they would’ve been headed for bigger failures downstream - they were simply in the wrong field or just not ready.
What wouldn’t happen is to demand that the professor change the class or that the administration force professor to do so. The student would get a very kind feedback about not signing up for failure down the road that wasted big bucks (or worse yet, introduce physical risk to people).
And later as a manager in industry (nuclear power in my case but apply the same thing in almost any other field) I wouldn’t keep someone in a job they weren’t capable of doing. But I did spend time finding those who’d work a job better suited to their skills / knowledge.
I see the failure here as largely stacked on the “leaders”. Would you let a toxic product come out of your factory so as not to hurt some ill-equipped employee’s feelings? Or would you let someone who can’t spell publish news stories ? OOPS, bad example there, but you get my point.
This reminds me of a perturbing experience almost 20 years ago. Our geophysics lab was mostly Japanese researchers and post-docs, with one Turk, and two white Americans including me. My other white colleague, a grad student, was unable to do the math required, and we had to carry him.
It was extremely vexing to have him excuse himself as impaired by ADD, since I have diagnosed ADD, whatever that is, and I had no difficulty whatsoever scoring in the 99.9% in math. He was given extended time on his tests due to his "disability." His scores did not accurately reflect his inability, but it became apparent when he was called on to do real work. I'm sure he was brighter than average. More than that is required in geophysics.
Labeling of the natural range of intellectual ability as a disability by schools, when one is lower than one would like, is one underpinning of the current entitled attitude.
Absolutely true. Personal experience in the U.S. I know successful scientists who have had to do these performances, who are afraid to challenge them because they genuinely fear for their income. Big problem.
We have a Supreme Court Justice that was so afraid to answer “what a woman is” she deferred to the “experts” instead of being brave enough to answer what she already knows.
D.I.E. Never has value once you understand what it means.
We know there are somewhere near 100,000,000 humans killed by the very governments sworn to protect them in the name of Equity in the past 100 years. “D” and “I” are equally sinister.
The only way to stop this is a new President and Congress, to root out this crap and end it, before all the good people have been driven out of the sciences and academia and medicine.
Perfectly put. To bad none of our academics remember what PolPot did in the name of equity and social justice:
“We each have our own woke tipping point—the moment you realize that social justice is no longer what we thought it was, but has instead morphed into an ugly authoritarianism.”
The author doesn’t realize “social justice” has ALWAYS been evil.
Social justice is dehumanizing injustice. It says, "you are a collective, not an individual, bad responsible for your collective." Social justice is tribalism.
Far worse. After Mao, Deng offered a new deal: become rich, and shut up. Tell me what is different in Beijing's capture of Hong Kong than what occurs in China. Xi doesn't (yet) order fenestration.
I am the same type of subscriber, but I don't want or need to always agree. It's nice to hear all sides without being preached at, in my opinion. We must be those rare type of people that can hear different opinions and decide for ourselves while letting others do the same. I miss our kind of people.
I have to agree with you Brandy. Things just seem to be getting weirder and weirder. I can't believe so called intelligent educated people agree with this. Research is critical to our evolution and understanding the world. The only solution is to start private funding for independent universities, and other institutions. I would home school my children today if at all possible or create a home school association and divert our taxes ( we can do this in Canada I think) to alternative education systems, I am thinking we need to move into districts, support them with our taxes and live in a society that respects and encourages free speech, research, freedom of thought, and understands the difference between the biological sexes.
“As an evolutionary biologist, I am quite used to attempts to censor research and suppress knowledge. But for most of my career, that kind of behavior came from the right. In the old days, most students and administrators were actually on our side; we were aligned against creationists.”
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I am highly skeptical that anyone alive has actually experienced suppression in the university or corporate context at the hands of creationists.
I know, right? That statement sort of came out of left field (please excuse the pun).
One of the flaws of Common Sense seems to be an unconscious need to bash the right a little, every time they are mainly going after far left craziness. It is almost a kind of prerequisite to continue to insist that the right is just as bad as the left these days: “I’m still one of the good people, I’m bashing conservatives!”
There is plenty to criticize on the far right, in my opinion. But the idea that Creationists had the power to censor scientists at any significant university at any time in the past 50 years, is ludicrous. You might find a very small private college somewhere, but nothing that would back up the spirit of her claim.
No publication is perfect, and it’s not a fatal flaw, but this sort of thing seems to be a persistent blind spot for Common Sense.
Yep, I have noticed this in articles. A bit of right bashing is mandatory. Perhaps this is done to establish the author's leftie credentials. However, the content of the article is terrifying. You can only conclude that the students professing these idiot views are not very bright (to put it mildly). Maybe that is the fundamental problem. Years of grade inflation and the 'nobody can fail' mentality of educationalists have resulted in a generation of dim students.
It would seem the Common Sense bashes the Right for the same reason it bashes the Left. Common Sense comes from a Moderate/ Centrist, Classically Liberal perspective. It just stands to reason which seems surprising to some of the Right leaning commentators who appear to expect CS is a Righty publication... It's not...
I'm surprised that Bari didn't say this was Trump's fault in her introduction to the article.
This kind of NYT/TDS nonsense is why I'm letting my subscription to Common Sense expire in a week. The occasional article like this is almost enough to make me stay, but I'm tired of the TDS.
I'm with Kent Lawrence. I read CS, in part BECAUSE it gives me a perspective different from my own. As I said in the comment, I get irritated by the reflexive, out-of-context right-bashing, but it also tells me something worth learning about those who do it. And it does not cancel out the often-excellent reporting and commentary. Like everything, we just need read with awareness, and form our own opinions independently.
Good for you! I read this from perhaps the left of BW and would hope that it's possible for people who are both appalled by this stuff could agree on the basics. But I guess some of us can't vote for a fool who comes out with "Jim Crow is going to look like Jim Eagle" and some of us can't stomach the idea that we should be governed by a criminal psychopath. It's tough to balance that because it doesn't balance. It's a mouse and an elephant, so to speak....
Hey, come on. She may not be perfect--and she is left of me--but look at all the stuff she finds and gives to us BESIDES her writing. Give her a break.
Well this article was mostly excellent, but so many others aren't.
I've only got so much time to spend reading articles, and I've decided that my time will be better spent on Roger Pielke Jr's Honest Broker. That's where I'll be going.
You guys want Fox News. Why would you pay for anything less. I mean, the idea that creationists have ever suppressed anything or anyone is ludicrous? What was that about dim students? But you’re all convinced that you’re the ones who have seen the light, just like the idiots described in this very good and terrifying article.
Stem Cell Research was opposed at the highest level in the US under Bush. That was entirely a religious crusade. The Pinker Book "Blank Slate" has a history of opposition to research in various fields but by both the right and left. Genetic Determinism is the bigger controversy there.
You don't know the difference between embryonic stem cell research and research using other kinds of stem cells. And what does embryonic stem cell research have to do with creationism? Nothing. You're desperately trying to change the subject.
Look up embryonic stem cell research, and once you understand what it is look up therapeutic treatments based on embryonic stem cell research. I can save you some time. There are no therapeutic treatments based on embryonic stem cell research in spite of decades of researchers claiming there would be at some point in the future if they just got more funding.
The opposition to embryonic stem cell research was due in part to the fact that it is a therapeutic dead end. The research funding would be better used elsewhere.
I do not find this to be a bias. She is simply flaying open the flaws of both the right and the left. As far as I’m concerned, the criticism of the left that I read here is exceptional and one of the reasons I first subscribed. And while I am an Independent, I have always leaned to the (classical) left, a position I find is disappearing.
Tom, agree. And not to digress but I’ve been reading up on Darwin and his followers. There’s major holes in his and related theories. Our author has her own blind spots imo.
I consider the current woke dogma that "sex is a spectrum" to be the modern version of creationism. It offers a simplistic and ideologically attractive theory that is not only not based in science, but easily refuted by examples and common sense. But just like creationism, it persists and spreads among the faithful.
Except that creationism assumes a creator (and transcendent religion), while transgenderism assumes a world view devoid of creator (a naturalist-materialist immanent religion). And this immanent religious world view is not simplistic - it requires a lot of complex assumptions about life and human nature leading to a philosophical acceptance of what amounts to solipsistic narcissism. This world view has been in ascendence now - slowly - over the past 2 centuries at least. Many of us continue to resist...
You really should do a LOT more independent research on evolution and Darwin before you worship at the alter of science. Scientists are fallible therefore science is fallible. Sometimes science goes whichever way the wind blows (eg. this piece), but the Bible has been the same for thousands of years. Just sayin’
In 1954, Bernard Ramm published ‘The Christian View of Science and Scripture’. The book catalogues and discusses the views of creationism versus scientific theories of creation and seeks to clarify the debates. By the time I was studying biology in the 1970’s, the scientistic point of view was so widely accepted that creationism was viewed as a joke or a delusional conspiracy of religious kooks. The idea of anyone in power during the 20th century suppressing the scientistic viewpoint in this country is ludicrous.
Interesting, too, is the fact that there are a lot of religious scientists and a lot of religious people who accept scientific teachings wholeheartedly. Even Darwin was quite religious. I never understood why there had to be a vitriolic dichotomy between the two.
For an update on the conversation between the scientistic versus transcendent view, see Darwin's Resolution : Evolution or Creation - A Treatise, by Ernest L. Brannon, WestBow Press 2019
Remember the lying little bastard geneticists who swore at the beginning of the pandemic that that virus could not possibly have come from a Chinese lab?
This is a very interesting comment. I've heard it voiced by a number of people who say that they have experienced much more tolerance and acceptance among conservative Christians than among (usually atheistic), secular academics. Interesting, isn't it?
That shouldn't be surprising to anyone who knows a broad cross section of Christians. The fact that it is surprising is probably due to the media's dislike of Christians.
Christians are, or should be, wildly optimistic people. It's that eternal life thing.
Two friends who are both trans women as well as being leaders in the gun rights movement have both independently told me that they get greater and easier cceptance from the NRA and local rednecks at the shooting range than from LGBQT organizations and most LGBQT individuals they meet.
The woke crowd is highly intolerant. They will destroy one of their own if someone isn't sufficiently radical enough. All it takes is being moderate or violating their norms just once.
No, that law did not prohibit teaching evolution, it required teaching creationism in addition and only if evolution was being taught. And it was voided as unconstitutional. And it was not at the university or corporate level.
You're correct. In order for a creationist to suppress research they would have to be on the faculty or administration. I've never heard of a creationist on a university faculty.
Her moral equivalence argument is baseless and detracts from a report on a serious problem.
I was in a group of people in the early '80s who liked to sponsor evolution-vs-creationism debates. For funsies, I argued the creationist side a couple of times. I soon realized that the only "young earth" theory that was self-consistent was the preposterous "God is a practical joker" theory: He created the Earth 4000 years ago, containing pre-installed fossils and other evidence of a past that never actually happened, just to fool scientists. The problem with that theory is, if that event occurred, how do you know it was 4000 years ago? How do you know we weren't all created... just now? With pre-wired "memories" in our heads of a past that doesn't actually exist?
Well, yes. That and the fact that there's nothing the Bible that says God created "old light" or preformed, aged fossils. For that matter the Bible doesn't give an age of the earth at all.
From my background in life sciences textbook publishing, I can testify that there have been some epic battles on the local school board level regarding the teaching of creationism as a fact.
But creationists never threatened to shut down research, which is the issue in this article. Creationists never even threatened to interfere with teaching evolution. They mostly just wanted their story to be heard alongside evolution.
We published the leading introductory biology text by the late Neil Campbell. Demanding that the company place a sticker on the book regarding creationism as a viable theory may not have directly affected research in the moment but could have downstream.
“… regarding the teaching of creationism as a fact.”
Of course, if one’s world view is aligned with theism, and a Creator God is seen as reality, then creation - described in some way consistent with what is seen and believed - is a fact worthy of being taught. And if one’s world view is aligned with atheistic materialism, then gods are irrelevant and and creation is oxymoronic. Thus nature - seen and believed in this way - is unexplainable, and this is then taught as a fact. So which ‘fact’ is taught in schools? Perhaps one teaches students to appreciate these two world views and then let them consider the questions as they might…?
I deplore ‘pseudoscience’! But then there is an enormous amount of this floating around (e.g. so called nutrition science), so how does one choose? Creationism is not necessarily pseudoscience if there is in fact a Creator.
There cannot "in fact" be a Creator. Once there is factual proof, there is no need for faith, and without faith, there is no religion. That's why religion is comforting, but illogical.
You misunderstand the meaning of ‘proof’, and absent a strong positivistic philosophy, one might consider that ‘proof’ as you use the word does not exist. Considering proof on your terms there is no proof that a Creator does not exist.
The imminent pagan religious views of scientific materialism have nothing to say on the matter of creation or creationism as such a thing is presuppositionally excluded from consideration. The transcendent Abrahamic religious views presuppose a Creator - this as you call it ‘faith’ is as valid as the atheistic faith you seem to embrace - and this presumption attains as fact just as do the presumptions of the opposite world view.
"We each have our own woke tipping point—the moment you realize that social justice is no longer what we thought it was, but has instead morphed into an ugly authoritarianism."
Dr. Mareja, I will ask you the same question I've asked many others... are you prepared to vote for some deplorables? Because if you're not, this is just empty whining.
Those of you in academia are almost completely responsible for this insanity. Postmodernism was bred in your petri dish. It was cultivated in your growth medium. And even when it outgrew the lab about 10 years ago, you still did nothing about it. You were just fine with with the revolution as long as the only people up against the wall were the people you hate (who you identified as "religious creationists").
You would insist, I'm sure, that postmodernism was bred in the humanities, not the hard sciences. You would be right. But the hard sciences were uniquely qualified to push back on it. Instead, they retreated into smug self-righteousness, "good thing we're so much smarter than the history majors; this stuff could never infect STEM." You could have stopped it; instead you spent years inventing threats from "creation scientists" to make yourself feel better. As an aside, has it occurred to you that your very own rules ("creation science isn't real science and need not be countered") are being used against you by the woke? You already circumscribed science to keep religion and philosophy out of it; the woke are just circumscribing it further. By any standard, you really did do this to yourselves.
So back to my original question. Are you ready to make common cause with some fundamentalist Christians? Are you ready to vote for a pro-life candidate who promises to reign in woke universities? Are you ready to sacrifice your LGBT views to get a candidate who opposes slicing the private parts off children? Are you willing to climb into bed with some deplorables if that's what it takes to defeat the woke? Because if you're not, if you vote for the same party on Tuesday that you always have, you're a hypocrite.
I don't mean to be gruff, really. But I've been sounding this alarm for decades and no one listened -- certainly not anyone from your class, the "smartest people in the room". You're a little late to the party, but welcome anyway. We really are glad to have you, because we really do believe the other side is truly dangerous. But only if you're really committed. If you're only here to tweak a few things and make sure biology is cleaned up... and then you'll go back to throwing us under the bus, don't bother sticking around.
But I don't agree that the ends justify the means. Just because the Woke Religion *calls* for it makes me even firmer in my views. But I'm probably an outlier, so there is that.
Apologize in advance: IMO, half-right. Sorry, but evolution is a fact. And a G*d may, or may not, have directed evolution. Nobody can *prove* it, one Way or the other.
Nope. It’s called the THEORY of evolution for a reason. It is not fact. Go read The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel. He interviews many scientists about all the ways Darwin was wrong.
I know Lee Strobel from his days as a news reporter at the Chicago Tribune. Decent fella, but became such a hard-core Christian warrior that his "interviews about all the ways Darwin was wrong" was not actual fact-finding, but highly selective sourcing designed to match his worldview.
Evolution IS a fact, as settled as gravity and a round Earth. That said, evolution does not mean a creator doesn't exist. Whichever God you like best could easily use evolution to upgrade His creations under our noses so we don't get alarmed.
"Theory" in science does not mean "unproven." Just the opposite, which National Geographic explains best:
"In science, the word “theory” indicates a very high level of certainty. Scientists talk about evolution as a theory, for instance, just as they talk about Einstein’s explanation of gravity as a theory. A theory is an idea about how something in nature works that has gone through rigorous testing through observations and experiments designed to prove the idea right or wrong."
Thanks, PL. I read this one a while ago, and thought it very good. But neither atheism nor religion will ever be dead, because they're not provable, they're beliefs. Good news is they can co-exist nicely as long as their adherences play well with others.
Evolution, on the other hand, is such proven science that I will not entertain "I did my own research . . ." nonsense about it.
If You haven't seen the proof already, You either have never learned much in high school or You don't wanna see what's plain there for anybody to see.
They've seen critters in our lifetime that have evolved. There was some kind-a moth in England that were almost all-a them white. Then the Industrial Revolution came around. This same moth alluva sudden became almost all-a them darker. Black. To better hide.
That's not the only case. It's just been 50 years since I learned the truth of the matter.
Yes, but microevolution and macroevolution are two different "animals" - changing color within a species is a different sort of dna alteration than had the moths suddenly developed mammary glands for nursing their young.
The main problem with evolutionary theory is the idea of RANDOM mutation consistently being advantageous, especially in any statistically significant way. Then there is the tiny problem of entire apparatuses (like eyes, wings, feet) developing in random mutations - mathematically a whole other level of impossible, even in the evolutionary scientists' assumed time scale.
What is fascinating is that the more we learn about the way DNA works and doesn't work, the more we get a glimpse of how we can play with it and engage in our own projects - but this is by design.
If the goal was merely understanding, scientists wouldn't gloss over the gaping holes in the theory.
It would be much more elegant to allow for the possibility of Design (which really doesn't force any moral implications), and leave it open. Or get back to work and come up with a better solve for the random mutation piece.
There is a very large space between "Creationist" positions and current scientific positions on evolution, which are both faith-based.
I don't disagree with much. As long as Your disavowing Creationist positions, that is. Me? I'm not sure how epigenetics comes into play. But as far as random mutations, I'm not ready to rule it out on Your say-so.
This is the best comment in this thread. The progressives in academia created this threat, gave it fertile ground, and let it grow unchecked to its ideological extreme.
I doubt she will ever give up her social justice agenda, though. No doubt she'll continue voting for Democrats.
Really unbelievable, the blinding intolerance I am finding among the readers of this vital news service. And now Mr. Schultze participates in making wildly biased assumptions about the author of the article. I can assure you that Dr. Maroja has no social justice agenda. Such comments really amount to uniformed name-calling and rushes to judgement. These are not the foundations of American society.
"We each have our own woke tipping point—the moment you realize that social justice is no longer what we thought it was, but has instead morphed into an ugly authoritarianism."
I read it three times. You misread it. Or you misunderstand the use of the word “we.” From the rest of the article her position is clear. We as a society. Context. Again, you make a wild assumption in mislabeling her. When I first heard the term, “social Justice,” I assumed it was a benevolent thing. It didn’t take me long to see its perniciousness and relationship to Newspeak.
I think maybe you misread HIS comment at least I hope you did. I had the same reaction at first but by "you" I don't think he meant the good doctor personally rather you of the woke mentality. One of the issues of the use of "you" sometimes. And I am making assumptions here but mine are that the author is reasonably young and this indoctrinated with woke beliefs. You can't fault her for that. No one can know what they don't know. Rather I give her kudos for seeing the error of the philosophy.
His further comments and responses to mine indicate otherwise. I did not misread his first comment. Your assumption that the good doctor was indoctrinated with Woke beliefs couldn’t be further from the truth. All that she has ever written gives proof of this
Why would she give up a social justice agenda? We all have one. Whether hers is good or evil depends on how she defines "social justice."
There are laudable forms of social justice we should all support: Condemning racism. Putting abusive cops out of business while supporting the good ones. Giving every American, not just the rich kids, a legitimate shot at a good education. Then there are the evil forms of social justice, the ones we need to stomp: firing professors for using the "wrong" pronouns. Demanding that white people "confess" they're evil simply because they exist. Insisting we all agree to ACAB: All Cops Are Bastards.
I read the article twice and find no mention of which "social justice" she supports. I think you are assigning her the evil version without any proof she subscribes to it.
It's not unlike "black lives matter" vs. Black Lives Matter. The former is indisputable: black lives DO matter and are worth protecting. The latter, BLM, is an immoral and evil organization designed mostly to shake down Whitey for money.
Yes, Ralph, I am intolerant in this case. Dr. Maroja's class (uber-educated progressive academics) has spent decades patting themselves on the back for their open-mindedness and tolerance while simultaneously calling everyone who didn't agree with their scientific views "idiots" and who didn't agree with their political views "racists" and "sexists". And they did all of it while a Marxist, class warfare theology was brewing right under their noses in their own universities.
Forgiveness begins with real repentance. I haven't seen any yet.
What in this essay makes you believe she's an evil form of progressive, that she calls those who disagree with her idiot, racist, and sexist, or that she is a Social Justice Warrior who wants to lock up Whitey for our sins? And what's wrong with being uber-educated?
I think you are assigning beliefs to her that do not exist in her essay. You assigned her to a "class," but I see nothing here that puts her in that class of Woke.
She said that "we" (which includes her) have a "woke tipping point". I don't know who the others are that she is speaking for, but she is part of that "we".
In order to have a woke tipping point you have to support part of the woke agenda. Those of us who reject wokism entirely wouldn't have a "tipping point" because we never supported any of it. So it's perfectly logical to assume that she is at least a little bit woke.
She also says that she was wrong about "social justice" and that it is "an ugly authoritarianism". Again it's reasonable to take that to mean that she supports social justice, at least to a point.
She muddied the water with this sentence:
"We each have our own woke tipping point—the moment you realize that social justice is no longer what we thought it was, but has instead morphed into an ugly authoritarianism."
She speaks for others, and implies that she supports at least part of the woke an social justice agendas.
"We each have our own woke tipping point—the moment you realize that social justice is no longer what we thought it was, but has instead morphed into an ugly authoritarianism."
How do you interpret that statement? She doesn't indicate that she was just an observer outside of the social justice movement. Just about anyone who was not part of that movement could see the danger sides immediately. For example, the idea that you are either oppressed or an oppressor has to set off alarms immediately.
That is because there is nothing there to indicate that she has one! Dr. Maroja is one of the clearest thinking individuals I’ve ever read. She is opposed to what is calling itself social justice.
And what is your proof that she IS, given you're making the charges? As I said up top, we all have a social justice agenda. You do, I do, everyone does. Agendas are good or evil depending on what's on the list.
I see no evidence from this essay that she's in the Camp of Evil.
This is a very thoughtful, thought-provoking, and interesting comment. It's the kind of pointed yet clearly stated argument that encourages people to think critically. I sincerely appreciate your straightforward honesty. Sincerely, Frederick
I dislike all fundamentalisms, since they're grounded in an evasion of life's messy truths. So no, I'm not ready to make common cause with fundamentalist Christians in the way that you sketch it out. Postmodernism is...well, what it is. An understandable and valid loss of faith in the transcendent truth value of master narratives--Christian as well as Communist, enlightenment science as well as Old Testament thunderation. A shrewder analysis would recognize that contemporary wokism is itself attempting to inflict a new master narrative on us all, a new fundamentalist religion of antiracism and genderfluidity, which is to say that it is betraying postmodernism (as it were) even as it exemplifies it. What's the best available response to those who would combat this eruption of woke religious fundamentalism? Sure, I'm willing to make strategic political alliances on an as-needed basis, but I'm simultaneously unwilling to give up my faith in Enlightenment values, because, as per Jonathan Rauch's defense of those values in "The Constitution of Knowledge," we need more self-correcting procedural modesty, not less. For all that, I'll grant you one thing: although I've always voted Democratic, I withdrew my loyalty to the Democratic party about five years ago, with a vengeance, and consider myself an independent. I would absolutely be willing to consider voting for Tim Scott on the R line if he runs for president in '24.
Nice, M. Gussow. That book's on my list. Long list tho, so there's that.
"What's the best available response to those who would combat this eruption of woke religious fundamentalism?"
IMV (In My View) the biggest thing that can be done right now is to reject Woke pronouns. There are two sexes (or what *used* to be known as "genders"). Period. You're actually not doing anybody any favors by submitting to their delusions.
Yeah, there are 8 Billion gender *roles.* Fluid to the max. You wanna put a name to one. You identify as a *CAT?* Okay, I'll play. But You're pretty weird.
The whole "marginalized" group of transgenders? Those who know they haven't changed sexes just wanna live their lives in peace. Not be discriminated against. That's great.
But the TRAs (trans rights activists)? What can I say that wouldn't be offensive? And still not be offensive *enough.* They're starting in Kindergarten, to tell kids they can be any gender they want. There *aren't* just two genders. Can't even *say* "boys" and "girls" in school. That would marginalize and distress TRAs.
All this so *more* kids can get confused and think they were "born in the wrong body." That doesn't even make any sense. You're born with the genes You inherited at conception. You may not be born in the *best* body, however You define "best." But in the "wrong" body? You only get one. Life is tough.
All that and more. This is the hill to die on, IMO. Because it's beyond the pale of almost everybody's imagination. Everybody who isn't a disciple of the Fundamentalist Woke Religion, that is. Plus, there's always the possibility that if You kick one leg out from under this monster then You can rock it enough for more people to take a look at this Religion, seriously. Again, IMO.
Why does it have to be a package deal, when it wasn't the case 30 years ago? I'm as anti-woke as the fundamentalist Christians you speak of, but why do I have to accept forced birth and religious creationism as well?
I'm fortunate to be in Canada, where a political home for me exists in one of the major parties. Progressive Conservatives do not impose religious dogma, are not reopening the abortion debate and are not threatening the LGB part of the chosen people. But I shake my head at the polarizing dichotomy south of the border.
You don't "have to accept it". But the reality is that your brand of secular, tolerant, "my rights stop at your nose", liberal can not win politically against wokeness without the help of those deplorables "who believe in forced birth and religious creationism."
You liberals used to run every major institution of the Western world. Today the woke run every one of those institutions. So your choices are: 1) live under a Critical Theory based theocracy, or 2) hold your nose and vote for some Christians who will push back on that. The only question is who you're more afraid of, us or them.
You're deluding yourself if you think you're immune to this in Canada. Restrictions on behavior are antithetical to liberalism; it seeks liberate people... from EVERYTHING. Think of some behavior you find morally deplorable, and try to find a way to argue that it shouldn't be allowed within the confines of Enlightenment liberalism. I think you'll find it rather hard. The next stop on liberalism's train of liberation is the legalization of polygamy and pedophilia. Academics are already laying the groundwork, talking about "Minor Attracted Persons" in scientific papers.
I've written a lot about this problem elsewhere on Common Sense, so I won't rehash it here. If you're really curious, read How Liberalism Failed by Patrick Deneen. Or, if articles or videos are more your thing:
You're not going to escape this though. The progressives will eventually get to a standard you hold dear, and when they do, you will find yourself powerless to argue that it should be upheld.
You make an excellent point when you say that critical theory is a theocracy. It's more dogmatic and intolerant than fundamental Islam or Christianity is.
Who says it's a package deal? You sound like abortion is a religious sacrament and if we decide abortion through the democratic process that is some kind of oppression.
Who has tried to force creationism on you? As far as I know creationists have just wanted to make their case along side evolution. I've never heard of anyone requiring that anyone else believe in creation.
Why do you think that merely being able to state an idea is some kind of oppression?
Harsh does not begin to describe your response to Dr. Maroja, whose name you could at least take the trouble to correctly spell. Your comment reeks of bias, a bias that seems to have been prompted by academics who were on the scene well before Dr. Maroja arrived here. How dare you blame her for your perceived sins of those who came before her? Your assumptions about the author of this brilliant and frightening article are appalling and founded only on an apparent grudge that has been festering in you for some time. And finally, what a small-minded and abysmal thing it is to assume her political affiliation AND to assume that not voting for the party of YOUR choice amounts to hypocrisy. It is possible to hold two opposing ideas in ones mind. It is possible to revile Wokeism with the same gusto that one reviles Trumpism.
A lot of people are responding with comments about Trump. I didn't say anything about Trump. Academic wokeness isn't about Trump. It's about Enlightenment liberalism, one of the greatest institutions in the history of the world, the engine of political, social and economic freedom for BILLIONS of people, and how Western academics turned a blind eye while their fellow professors were using liberalism to erode and eventually knock down the structural supports of Western Civilization that gave birth to it.
This is nothing to do with Trump. Donald Trump probably couldn't even understand that last sentence, and has not a clue how to even start solving the problem.
Absolutely nothing to do with President Trump whatsoever Brian, however what President Trump did manage to do and is still doing today is disrupt these Democrats sorry lives they just weren’t expecting it from 2016 till NOW. The Democrats were gifted Covid it was like a perfect storm I don’t think that is going to happen in 2024 those gaslighting days over the world is changing!
I’ve thought about #3 as well, but have concluded that creating new institutions is very expensive and takes a very long time. This point of view was supported by a great article in Tablet Magazine addressing this very subject. Sadly, I agree and believe the best approach is stand and fight. The people who are advocating this nonsense can be beaten. It just takes a lot of brave people.
The really hard part of this is that a large part of the problem is sitting in the private sector in media, academia and corporate America. This means that money will play a large part in solving the problem.
The financial pressures facing colleges will force some of them to collapse and that will lead to more brutality as people fight to keep hold of their piece of a shrinking pie.
I think the future of higher education includes a significant piece of online learning. What use are giant lecture halls when students can listen to video of lectures online? And why should dozens or hundreds of professors give essentially the same lecture on lower division calculus, chemistry, physics, business, engineering, etc.?
The in-person time can be better used to address students' specific questions.
And fundamentalist Christians? The ones who voted for the thrice-married, serial adulterer Trump? Does Trump even give *lip service* to being Religious himself? Scratch that last question, because it wouldn't surprise me, and he'd be as sincere about it as he's sincere about a *lotta* things.
I'm sorry, but You entirely missed my point. I'm suggesting that if You're looking for someone who is decidedly UN-Christian, You could just look at Trump.
That Christians could support him shows a level of hypocrisy that few people would attempt.
And explain why HRC is always the excuse for Trump's behavior? Sorry, but it doesn't absolve Trump in the least.
Liberalism is dead, JT. Bari, Suzi, Andrew Sullivan, David French and a few others still playing Weekend At Bernie's with its corpse, but as Monty Python says... "it's bleeding demised."
The post-liberal Left has embraced a Marxist race/sex warfare (wokeness).
The post-liberal Right is still trying to find its head with both hands.
I voted for Trump for SCOTUS. I know of only a few church members who actually thought he would solve anything (and I worry about those folks to be honest), but my side needs time to regroup. Trump's Supreme Court justices might give us some. They won't solve anything, but they'll push back against the woke theocracy for a generation or so.
If we can't get our act together by then... the woke deserve to win.
There's good cause for optimism. Have you followed what is going on in local school boards all across the country? Parents of all races are rejecting the woke agenda. They fight when CRT is added to their public school curriculum.
And many of them are realizing that the Democrats that they have supported in the past have betrayed them.
Trump did some great things. On the economy median family income hit an all time high under Trump, including the largest ever one year jump in median family income. He tore up Obama's ludicrous Iran deal and sanctioned them. He withdrew from the destructive Paris Accords.
Did you ever wonder why inflation remained low under Trump, but took off under Biden? Or why Putin waited to invade Ukraine until after Trump was out of office? It's important to separate personal style from substance.
I have Dean, and it gives me some hope. Americans are notoriously easily distracted though.
What's going on in Sweden and England looks promising too. Both countries have effectively banned cross-sex hormones for minors. That seems minor, but it's a larger victory than it looks like. For structural reasons, the postmodernists cant allow that to stand (see below).
Postmodernism says that reality is unknowable and therefore how we describe it actually alters reality. This is the philosophical basis for: a man who thinks he's a woman, actually IS a woman and must be treated that way. If reality is socially and linguistically constructed, then there is no objective definition for anything, including "woman" or "man", and these become purely linguistic categories. It isn't that postmodernists reject the link between sex and biology; they reject the existence of any type of objective reality at all.
However, the pushback against withering or slicing off the genitalia of teenagers is a direct assault on this. Refusing to accommodate the teenagers' sexual identity claims asserts that there IS an objective reality which demands some fealty. Postmodernists will defend this hill to the death because they must. If objective reality exists at all, it fractures their entire view of the world.
While it's a small thing, the pushback in Europe gives me a tiny glimmer of hope. The larger picture is still problematic, especially since the right hasn't found a postmodernist alternative yet, but at least we might stop sterilizing children sometime this decade.
I've got Deneen's book on my list, and have the article linked to above in one-a my windows.
I can't say we *haven't* reached the end-a the line with liberalism.
But I would like to point out the difference between the Progressives and the Dems. And not only that, but there may be a Center coagulating sometime in the future (post-liberal or not ;-).
I can see why You voted for Trump. But there are whole evangelical Churches that are growing at a phenomenal rate specifically for their adherence to the Trump dogma. And I have trouble making the connection between the two, knowing what little I know about Trump.
I think maybe you are being a bit reductionist. "Christian" and "conservative Christian" are labels that describe a very large, very DIVERSE group of people. As a conservative Christian leader myself (in a very small way), I was deeply distressed that some evangelical leaders publicly endorsed Trump. I was not remotely alone in that. I don't think we should be in the politics business *in that way.* I am not remotely alone among Christians in that respect, either.
What the media predictably failed to report was the large number of Christian leaders (who have large followings) who publicly warned about Trump, and publicly called for Christians to rise above politics.
Of those Christians who did publicly endorse Trump, many did so "holding their noses." They probably would have endorsed any Republican nominee whom they thought might win, because it wasn't about Trump per se, but about the Supreme court, and the economy.
You simply can't lump all Christians together, nor even all Protestants, nor even all evangelicals; not and retain any connection to reality. You are certainly far from the truth if you think that most of the Christians who voted for him did so because they thought he was Christian. Yes, you can find that narrative all over the internet, and MSM, but that doesn't make it true.
Well, the issue with church leaders endorsing Trump is that, in nearly all of the mainline Christian denominations, that horse left the barn long ago. Lots of church leaders all over the spectrum endorse politicians. Heck, we've even had people like Jim Bakker and Al Sharpton who themselves have worn both masks.
What I'm questioning is how Christians can stomach someone like Trump, knowing what little I know about him. I can also understand there's reasons pro and con in that.
Good points, but they will be lost on someone who is out to attack people who vote for the side that he opposes.
One thing that I've not heard said in all of the sturm and drang about Christians who voted for Trump is that Jesus himself said that we would have to make the distinction between Christianity and secular government: Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's.
You could also make the same kind of criticism of feminists who voted for the Clintons. Bill is a serial abuser of women, and Hillary was his biggest enabler. Feminists probably didn't like Bill's abuse of women, but he supported partial birth abortion so they voted for him anyway. And then for Hillary.
The don't believe in the separation of Church and State. Specifically, they want the country to be run by the Religious, under the rules of Catholicism I think it is. I haven't studied them, but I see articles from them.
Yeah, You're right I was overly broad with my categories. And yeah, I don't follow the news much but some a few Christians questioning Trump's character.
But i most certainly never said or implied that Christians voted for Trump because they thought he was Christian. It's like You said: A number voted because he was an R. A number voted for him because he could win.
But for any Christian to vote for Trump requires them to do a little more than hold their nose, IMO.
I agree…..the only way to stop the insanity is to vote republicans into office. The far right is far, less scary .…. the far left has provided us a blueprint of what they want the future to look like. BELIEVE THEM! Or it will only get worse.
We in the middle are the largest voting bloc out there, please vote wisely!
A Republican congress could put an end to the ideological loyalty oaths (DEI) that funding agencies require. They could also prohibit universities that take federal funding from using DEI loyalty oaths in hiring and promoting faculty. And prohibit them from forcing them on students.
Trump issued a great executive order banning wokism on campus for those schools that receive Federal funds (virtually all). It was, of course, rescinded in the early days of the Biden administration.
With a Dem president, Congress can't do anything right now. With a Republican president, such an executive order can be re-instated or, with the support of Congress codified into law.
I guess I missed that golden period when wokeness receded on campuses in the Trump era, regardless of the Executive Order. I actually think "wokeness" accelerated under Trump, as it tends to do, when there's an active "threat" and visible "enemy" that gives it more legitimacy and traction that it may have otherwise.
I think it accelerated in the sense he is a lightning rod and obviously mobilized the opposition base. He is after a still living in their heads as I write this, including several commenting on this post. My preference is that he remain in the background for the good of the country. I think his policies as president were very good. I'll always wonder what he could have accomplished had he not had to fight his own party for 2 years and the other one for four. Plus. But then I think the President owes allegiance to the United States of America and her citizens first and foremost. I also think he is basically a populist and populist Presidents always seem.to arise out of contentiousness.
Agree. But I also can see a Republican Congressional majority comprised under the current slate of Republicans running, and even a future DeSantis (or gawd help us, Kari Lake) POTUS, inciting similar reactions and responses.
"Woke" picked up a lot of "normies" given the rather belligerent cultural and partisan stances that Trump has popularized within the GOP to assist in the perception of a threat. Even if Trump doesn't run, all of his likely successors are probably going to follow that roadmap. Now maybe it's the case that the extreme directions "wokeness" took in response to Trump will tamp down on the reaction and its support going forward, but I kinda doubt it, given the "leading figures" of the likely GOP Congressional Majority who are going to be front and center, as part of the majority, that perhaps they haven't been as much to "normies" in the minority. If the GOP really wants to claim the "center", McCarthy would be wise to sideline MTG and the rest, but I also seriously doubt he will, or that he can. In which, watch the pendulum swing once again...
See Trump for what he is, doesn't mean he lives in *my* head, at least.
But there appears to be a mirage of Trump living in Yours. Part of Trump's policies, which I'm sure was very much liked, was to *own the libs.* I've noted a number of times people say they like Trump because "he's a *fighter*."
It's not that he's a populist so much, but being "contentious" is just Trump's style. Another word for that is "abrasive to the extreme." And that's why he lost the election. He's a person people tend to love or hate. Most people in these comments love him. Regardless of whether they say they voted for him because of his policies. Regardless of whether they say they don't like him. They love him.
But Trump made more people who voted hate him than love him, so his strategy backfired.
Granted, he may get a different result in '24. Like I wrote in Dec. 20, Trump has Biden's record to run against this time. Not "all", but "some bets off" if he doesn't face Biden. IMO.
If Congress changes hands investigations can and should be conducted to prepare for the next president. I do not want to see any more knee-jerk ideologically driven reactions, but rather calmly reasoned, analytical action.
But as far as Trump goes? He had majority in both Houses for two years. What legislation did he get done?
Almost everything he accomplished was through Executive Orders. Spitting in the wind, I call it. And him called "The Greatest Deal-maker??!?" Sorry, but no. Didn't happen when he had the chance.
I realize this is a state thing but lets add not allowing state universities to use funds to pay people like Kendi thousands to spout CRT. 20K for a one hour virtual event?
Possibly, but I would guess the problem is a lot more entrenched than just the case of these supposed "oaths". So the GOP Congress forbids requiring any written "agreements" wrt to conducting a job or department with equity explicitly as a policy. That doesn't mean "understandings" still can't be enforced implicitly. And if "wokeness" is as entrenched as it is portrayed, then the "oaths" are just window dressing. The institutions are already more or less committed to the principles.
So, I guess I'm not hearing a convincing case for why someone who otherwise supports the traditional Democratic platform regarding health care, taxes, social programs, etc should abandon every other voting priority to vote for Republicans, who will otherwise very likely implement an agenda they oppose, on a flimsy premise that a Republican Congress is somehow capable of reversing and setting the agendas of what are not just publicly funded institutions, but many private ones that Congress has no authority at all over.
I guess it depends on whether you are willing to take the very large risk that keeping Democrats in control of the government will result in one-party rule for the foreseeable future.
Personally, I think we are doomed regardless. The Woke have seized every institution with power in our society: Academia, the Media, Law, Medicine, and most of the government bureaucracy. The Military has been infiltrated to an extent we did not realize until recently.
I think the victory of the Woke is a foregone conclusion at this point. Voting for Republicans may slow it down a bit. Voting for Democrats will speed it up.
Agree to the degree if "wokeness" is to be to any degree reformed or replaced, it will do so under its own weight, and from within. It will not come from the command-control of a political party or any Congressional legislation.
I'm honestly more concerned about GOP one party minority rule, given the stated intentions of far too many of the current slate of candidates running for various positions, and who seem to be getting implicit/explicit support for within the Party apparatus) with giving the current iteration of the GOP any majorities anywhere. And given my lack of faith that they will have any real legislative or cultural power to "roll back" woke, even deeply disturbing stuff as claimed in this essay is not a convincing reason for me to vote for a Republican this time around, sorry (let alone to pretty much abandon my normal set of policy preferences - this is a HUGE ASK being put on Democratic voters, btw, that they should do so under some sort of "protest" vote - similar, I suppose, to the one that was asked of Never Trumper Republican voters in the previous elections).
The only real response against "woke" is going to come from a change within institutions themselves, as being forced from outside (donor pressure, reduction of status/leverage, formation of alternative institutions, etc) or internally (as a lot of these non-profits approach failure in mission - a great essay penned, I think, in The Nation, detailed how much internal strife over "wokeness" is literally destroying the abilities of these non-profits to function to their mission), and a general cultural shift, which likely will have to primarily come from the younger generations that are most susceptible to it.
Probably what is really needed is a radical reset to the role that social media is playing in the culture, which is the megaphone that amplifies this "group think" stuff (and would also help rid us of the other poisons like Q-Anon) as well as the primary medium of punishment and amplification of the "sin".
TY for Your reply, M. Smarticat. I've read this a couple times, and I can assure You I'm not gonna try to change Your vote. (Honestly, it's because I know it's a hopeless task. ;-)
Normally the answer to changing a person or an organization is that it has-ta come from within. You're right. (Another reason I'm not trying to convert You. It has-ta come from within *You.*) I'm not sure that's gonna be possible, tho, in the case of the Woke Religion. That'd take another Second Vatican Council (aka Vatican II). I don't think that's very likely, because of how maniacally firmly the disciples of the Woke Religion KNOW they're right about EVERYTHING. That's the energy that *powers* the Woke zealots.
And they pretty much *hafta* hold that position, intellectually and emotionally. Because the Bibles they rely on for their so-called wisdom are completely unreasonable. Lemme rephrase that: The Bibles are UN-reasonable, meaning they're not based on logical reasoning. If someone was to attempt to map out and actually write one single volume to serve as THE Bible... It would consist *entirely* of self-contradictions.
Here's the primary, permanent, eternal contradiction: In principle the Woke Religion stands for helping so-called "marginalized" people. But any *reasoning* person can see that what they do causes more harm than good. And, inevitably, hurts the people they *claim* to want to help, in the end.
There's a special place in hell for the inventor of (what-i-call) "victimhood neurosis."
The strife that the Woke Religion is causing in some-a these non-profits is a small case in point. The larger case in point is the strife that the Woke Religion is cause in the *entire country.*
The guiding principle that people should now be judged *only* by the color of their skin and their biological gender? We've take a great leap *backwards* 50 years in one fell swoop. The way to fix discrimination, which is *very* difficult to find currently, is *more* discrimination. Where everybody knows the way to fix discrimination is to just quit it. Entirely. Hopefully the Supreme Court will decide against discrimination against the poor Asians. But that's just "One small step for man. [NOT] A giant leap for mankind." ~ Neil Armstrong (Now I need to go to Woke jail, because I marginalized Woman. Ah well...)
Yeah, social media is one-a the biggest drivers. Tough nut to crack. This is too long already, so that's all she wrote for me, at this time anyway.
Hope You're enjoying the day, and VOTED Your heart out. ;-)
Because you face the same problem.that Republicans face - how do you know who will actually support the traditional Democratic platform ...? Those values have been completely exploited during this administration. I always considered myself a social libertarian by which I mean limited goverent, and a fiscal conservative. I tended to vote Republican because they were more fiscally responsible. But as others are about to point out that has not been true in at least 20 years. Nor have the traditional values of the Democrats been honored by those elected from that party. The truth is there is no magic wand and certainly no money tree to support all of the social.programs the Democrats promise to buy votes. Which is what they have blatantly devolved to. We really are on the precipice of financial ruin. The only way the debt from melting the printing presses gets covered is for the Federal Reserve to buy Treasury bonds and it is nearing the point of not being able to buy enough because interest rates are going up. And reports are that the private market purchase of these bonds is drying up. If this happens it all comes crashing down. ALL of the programs. Tough decisions have to made. I cannot promise you that voting Republican will provide a fix. But I can promise you that a much touted "Red Wave" will send a clear message to the current administration and Congressional.leadership that their BS is rejected. I can also promise you that healing will begin if for no other reason than with a divided Congress and Presidency the spend-it-all policies will grind to a halt if for no other reason than Congress won't pass any Biden spend-it-all legislation and Biden won't sign any Congressional legislation designed to restore fiscal responsibility. That could be furthered by well timed litigation to question a wide variety of rules and that are bleeding us dry.
And I can also promise you that if any Republicans do not honor their commitments they will not last long. The bottom line is that we must have a functioning economy. All of that pie in the sky social program stuff sounds good but is meaningless if people don't have food and shelter. The last time the US even attempted a balanced budget was after the Clinton mid-term when the newly elected Republican Congress and Bill Clinton worked together. If Biden were truly the moderate he told y'all he was it could happen again but I have little faith in that.
I share your worries about the fiscal recklessness in Washington. There's no one in a leadership position in either party that cares about the deficit. And with interest rates rising our future deficits will be harder to carry.
I'd say that we were screwed, but other countries are going down the same path with us.
I wonder how much that message will be received as you believe. I can pretty much already hear the explanations coming down from the Democratic Party and its supporters in the media that the reason Democrats lost was inflation, inflation, inflation... followed closely with the "historical precedent" of the Presidential Party losing seats in a midterm... and not "wokeness" or any real impetus to address the branding problems, outside of not having focused on inflation enough as a "message".
Oh sure, there will be analysis and voices (like David Shor) that will blame the branding, but just like the GOP pretty much sidelined its own 2012 autopsy in favor of Trumpism (and succeeded to a degree) I doubt this one election, however it goes, is going to result in a real tectonic shift within the Democratic Party and its ascendant left. FWIW, I do agree "woke branding" is harming the Democrats but I doubt there will be too much of a pivot on that this time around, given there are (plausible, based on polling) "economic referendum" reasons to comfort themselves with ("WE didn't lose, the economy did"). And, FWIW, I would *prefer* a "branding problem" message actually be heard above the din of "inflation" because again, I do agree it's a bigger problem for Democrats in the long run).
And, consider, the burden will be on the GOP to *deliver*, or at least seem to preside over improvements over inflation (again, given this is likely Primary Reason for a referendum election). I doubt blowing their wad on Hunterghazi and a zillion of the other planned partisan "revenge" investigations will be rewarded if gas prices and inflation remain high going into 2024 (as much as, I guess, you could say about the Jan 6th Hearings not having moved the needle much in favor for Democrats in the face of inflation).
At any rate, I guess we'll see over the next week or so how this all shakes out...
It would take a tectonic shift for the Ds to come back to the Center after this election. That would require changing, which most people and organizations resist on principle.
I'm not expecting much of anything happening in the next two years, assuming the Rs get both branches of Congress.
<ooops... wrote this before I went out to vote, and forgot to hit [Post] SHEESH!>
I don't agree it's a "political party" problem, nor one that will be solved by electing Republicans. Given that, and my also very big concerns about the GOP in its current iteration (let alone the trajectory it's been on for several cycles), it's not a convincing vote for me. Sorry.
What's depressing is that this seems to be a permanent feature of the two party system - both parties have "extreme" problems which prevents either from really taking the center. And we just whipsaw back and forth with thin majorities changing hands every few cycles because inevitably, each party is going to overreach its position with its extreme, and the other party looks good until about a minute they take power again.
TY for reply. I'm still thinking about some-a the other posts.
I understand Your qualms about the GOP.
I'm not sure what You mean by "I don't agree it's a 'political party' problem?" The Woke Religion? Because that *is* a political party problem. If You mean something else, I didn't get it.
Honestly, cat, I'm not sure it will accomplish anything. The Republicans seem to be men without chests (to crib C.S. Lewis.) But at least the Republicans aren't mutilating children's chests to liberate them from their biological constraints.
It's a small thing, but it's better than the alternative.
Well, respectfully, neither are the Democrats as political party. The practices you question and criticize are happening outside of the Democratic Party politics and purview, and while I am skeptical of some the shifting guidelines surrounding transition therapy, I am perhaps more skeptical of using the broad sword of the state to interfere with, with the detriment of interfering with otherwise healthy families (and yes, I oppose state intervention into trans resisting families who are otherwise providing stable and healthy homes). I would so much prefer that our medical establishment have a similar "come to Jesus" moment that our international peers are having, and police this on their own.
Luana, I know what you mean. I also lived through the Brazilian dictatorship nightmare and moved to the US 8 years ago (I was 62, a little older than you). Now we are living another nightmare, the all-encompassing nightmare of fake, nonsensical truths that you so well describe. This scenario, I believe, is far more threatening and dangerous than our old political situation, as it throws doubt on the very nature of humans, and on nature itself. We could understand the lust for power shared by our generals; one cannot understand an imposed truth that denies the most basic human knowledge and threatens you with an absolute lack of logic. It is maddening. It belongs in old, dystopian science fiction books, not in real life, and it should be treated like this. The actions of people like you can help. Abraço
Yes, as someone born in an authoritarian country as well, it disturbs me to see how quickly America is heading in that direction. Us immigrants thought we were going to a free country. But what we saw was Americans wanting more censorship.
C'mon! IMO, no need for regrets! But especially this kind. Who did? Surely not the people *in* the education system. Most-a them were the purveyors of this crap and a lotta them are now the victims, right?
As emigres to the US can you see what's happening? The authoritarian left and one world socialist globalist crowd understands perfectly well that the United States is the only thing standing in the way of their dream of world control and domination. Resisting this tyranny with every fiber of one's being is the only realistic choice.
In my business I’ve been running into this buzzsaw for years.
Courtroom testimony by experts has actually been tossed when they testify that genotypes can determine injury or disease predilection. Imagine that! So we’ve been reduced to educating expert witnesses to avoid such statements and instead concentrate on lay explanations that emphasize phenotypes and other “non-discriminatory” factors.
It’s a load of bull that science gets cancelled in the courtroom
I’ve been arguing for years that leftist and illiberal activism and militancy is much more insidious and dangerous than from the right. Now mainstream folks are starting to wake up. I hope it’s not too late.
Western civilization is collapsing. It had a good run. Welcome to the new dark ages. We will be colder, hotter, and darker. We cannot discuss certain topics. We are vilified for our beliefs or lineage. Very sad.
About the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is followed by a dictatorship....The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations, from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations progressed through the following sequence:
I think Solzhenitsyn said it best: "Live not by lies." Don't endorse or purport un-truths and be committed to align yourself with reality at any cost. It's a lot of work, but can't think of a worthier endeavor.
That is how it works. People's income is overtly threatened. FIRE has been outstanding in defending freedom of speech and thought in universities, for conservative and liberal thought, since the ACLU rolled over.
Undertaking a lawsuit to assert one's rights and regain one's livelihood is a special place in hell, though!
This where the wholesale cultural rejection of vibrant religion comes in. When you are a person of faith, particularly faith in the Eternal, you can live for something beyond this world, and “incur costs” that people with no faith would consider to be too high.
Eliminate faith, and people generally adapt to the world as it is, rather than engaging in the pain of changing it. This is especially true if a person figures that they personally might not live to enjoy the benefits of the costly change.
I agree. Plus while in this life the faith that a higher power exists 1) is humbling and the good Lord knows humility is sorely lacking these days, and 2) comforting because when at your breaking point you can put it in the hands of the higher power.
As an atheist, I try to live for a higher purpose; it doesn't need to be "beyond this world."
I call for fellow atheists to also find a higher purpose, to get brave, and to suck it up and do the right thing (i.e. tell the truth) despite the social consequences.
"Nice sentiment but I don’t know anyone who is prepared to incur 'at any cost'."
Some of us are going to have to incur _some_cost, though, and I see so little of that. Those of us who are financially secure, don't have kids, are marketable enough to weather a job loss, don't mind risk, etc., need to suck it up, speak out more and live with the hate and inconvenience that is a consequence.
Yes, this strengthens the individual against these attacks. Creating a certain personal creed about what one will accept and will not accept in our personal lives. I’ve been doing this for a while now. In theory, if ALL individuals adopt this approach, progress can be achieved in defeating this scourge.
I wonder if we can make this personal. Maybe talk to teenagers or young people and challenge them on whatever bullshit they're hearing. I'm trying to do this with my niece. Every kid is different. She's a thinker, so I'm challenging her to think. But other kids might need something else. Our last convo about climate change went something like this.
"The earth will be dead in 100 years."
"How do you know that?"
"My science teacher."
"How does she or he know that?"
Etc. You can imagine the rabbit hole we opened in that discussion. It helps that she's smart but also hates school and has an anti-authoritarian streak. But just challenging kids to think and not providing them with answers will help encourage critical thinking skills.
I think this is all about lack of such.
Just keep asking questions. How do they know that? Have you researched other points of view? etc. When they get upset, just remind them you're asking questions, and trying to have a discussion like adults, and what's wrong with that?
You are absolutely correct… The role of adults is to challenge children with (age-appropriate) questions that make them think. That used to be the role of the teacher. It's always been the role of a parent, loving relative, or good friend. How else are they going to learn to think critically?
That is indeed the salient question! My answer is to promote good sense by rejecting nonsense. Apparently, in academia, this requires a significant courage of conviction, unlike everyday conversation in which you are free to say, "What, are you nuts?"
I don't know about the "almost all" here, and the phenomenon is not evenly distributed around the country. My own institution - large public university in the American South - has had very little of this, and the faculty recently passed a fairly robust statement on academic freedom.
Still, when major journals and professional societies [edit: and funding agencies] get in on the act - the kinds of connections all researchers in a given field need in order to advance, regardless of where they work - that's when the chill winds start to blow in earnest.
Boycott absolutely everything you can that is associated with the ideology. That means if a company is announcing DEI or ESG, do not support or endorse them in any way.
Hit at their wealth - it's the only thing they truly care about.
That's fine as long as you let them know why you are not giving them your business. If that isn't clear, they will assume it is something else and there is no effect.
We have to support one another when someone comes under unfair attack. If they can’t divide us, they can’t easily conquer us. Also, we need to deeply educate ourselves on topics of interest so we can authoritatively refute lies and distortions. All this is a bit of a heavy lift, but we have to do it. Our forefathers gave us an opportunity without historical peer in establishing and maintaining this country’s freedom. It’s our turn to do our part and maintain the same opportunities for our children and grandchildren.
The free market should self correct. I plan to vote all responsible for the spread of this ridiculous ideology out of power and I won’t give to any educational institution that promotes or teaches it.
Communists infiltrate schools. It's a play they've done every single time, to great success. They teach ideology and words to divide and then further promote their dogma to those they've brainwashed. I'm sorry the author is going through this. My friends in sciences all over the world are the same thing. Classics depts too (although their departments are being dismantled because of "white privilege.") K-higher learning is captured by the communists at this point. It's really time people acknowledge this capture, and do something about it. Either watch your kid's k-12 schools like a watchdog, or homeschool. The info they are getting, often subversive, is dystopian. But even that isn't as safe as it should be. Sending children to colleges and universities which are becoming more focused on CRT or BLM or safe spaces or trans issues than actual studying is also a risk. I've known several homeschooling families who's children go to our state university for a year, come back angry, entitled, and screaming the same thing" the world is going to end, white men are horrible, I'm horrible for being white," etc. Two have come back trans. My circle isn't that big btw. This isn't normal. We have stop this or else science, and the world, won't survive.
Actually I think you have illustrated the problem perfectly. We all believed that education was key and took for granted that the system was not only reliable but also readily available. So we began to rely on 2 income families. How many can give that up at this point? Especially with the present economic instability. We are no different than people who rely on other government benefits. Maybe worse. On a side note I just got my latest property tax statement - $10,000 + to the local school district.
It is even worse than Maroja's fine article describes. Research funding is becoming highly ideological and identity-based in even the hardest sciences. Proposals receiving the highest evaluations of merit are mysteriously not funded. Incompetent if not outright fraudulent social science research is funded.
Researchers have to comply with ideological statements which they dare not challenge. Examples have been made of others. One's career and income are very much at stake and it is overt. The fangs have been bared.
It is encouraging to see a group of scientists standing up against this. Many more secretly support it, and are silent out of fear now.
Yep. American higher ed is churning out a bunch of Lysenkos that will set back their respective fields a few decades or more. More concerned with tiptoeing around people’s neuroses than with actually researching to help people.
My doctor basically stopped practicing medicine in March 2020 because he was afraid of catching Covid. This week the Clinic announced that it has a shortage of doctors. The panicky reaction to Covid has been much more harmful than Covid.
We need to return to solid Science. This is why I steer clear of people wearing masks. I don’t want to get the cooties
Glad you clarified. I have never heard of people getting cooties from lawyers. Bad advice sometimes, but not cooties. We are a mixed bag. But too many of us are now leftists.
Perhaps this explains the first decline in life expectancy ever recorded in a developed country (which is what we’ve seen in the US since about 2000-2005)
Apologize. What algorithms You refer to, Ma'am. Not important if You don't want.
The problem I have with some-a this stuff is that standards are lowered, for one. For two, it's now required for doctors to learn how to be SJWs. Part of the job.
You don't wanna be someone to offer the view that the important thing for doctors is to heal patients. One guy already *did* and was made an example. The two editors of the *peer reviewed* pub the article was included in quote-unquote "resigned."
And all the other scientists whose work was subject to "review" or suppression by religious authorities. This refusal to allow science that offends the ideology is exactly the same.
As a graduate of Williams, I am not surprised. Williams has really devolved from a top-ranked academic institution into a left-wing propaganda outfit. The change is extremely recent, less than 10 years old. And I saw the beginnings of this while I was a student pursuing social sciences there. The only shock here is that there were any professors left who would say anything about this issue. The hard sciences at Williams and other liberal arts colleges have always thought they were exempt from the excesses of the social sciences. That was naive and comes from a mistaken belief that professors should only do research and teach. They just silo’d themselves and their departments away from involvement in student life, administrative duties and from other departments on campus. By doing so, they exempted themselves from the conversation and allowed more radical ideas to gain a serious foothold. This has led to unqualified hires for professors and administrators and the acceptance of an ever-more radical, less heterodox student body. And now they have no choice but to obey the new orthodoxy or leave.
My theory is that Williams and other schools are in a positive feedback loop that will spiral out of control. What will stop the madness is the loss of prestige, declines in enrollment and the decline of the school’s endowment (which are all already happening and expected to worsen).
I had a great fondness for my school, which has been seriously tainted by the last several years. It’s just not the place it used to be. I wouldn’t send my kids to Williams or any similar school and I refuse to give money or participate in alumni events.
"My theory is that Williams and other schools are in a positive feedback loop that will spiral out of control. What will stop the madness is the loss of prestige, declines in enrollment and the decline of the school’s endowment..."
The Closing of the Western Mind 2.0. Same cause as the first version: a religion/cult seized control of Western Civilization. It will produce the same result: The Dark Ages.
Religion has just as much capacity for closing the mind as any progressive ideology; witness modern Iran or the medieval papacy. The enemy isn't atheism, it's close-mindedness.
In fairness to Terence, I've noticed that some of my San Francisco friends make rash assumptions about Catholics; that they all hate gay people, etc. It's another example of how balkanization and separation from each other makes people unreasonably suspicious of each other's motives.
Maybe, humans love to contradict their own moral codes. I think the bigger problem is walling ourselves off from each other. Most folks not all that different in our day to day lives, but distance is a breeding ground for unwarranted suspicion.
I disagree thst humans love to contradict their own moral codes. They may fail to abide by them but willfully contradicting a strongly defined moral code is a recipe for unhappiness or worse. Perhaps the problem is the weakness of the moral code of too many.
When I was young, my parents immigrated with me to the United States from China. I was told, and I really thought, that America, with its Constitution and Bill of Rights, was more "free" than Communist China. Yet when I went to college for the first time, all I found was censorship and struggle sessions. I can confirm that what Dr. Maroja is saying here is absolutely happening in campuses all across America.
I thought college was for free discussion of beliefs, but all I found was a panopticon-style environment where students told on each other over their beliefs. I don't know if America really is the "land of the free" anymore.
As an older American who witnessed from afar evidence from the Chinese Cultural Revolution, collapse of the USSR and more, it has been extremely surprising to see Marxist and totalitarian ideas re-emerge in the U.S. I am impressed by how effectively these ideologies pathologically enlist the spirits of envy and grievance latent in all people.
Government and institutions have always faced the problem of how to engender enough popular support to remain in power. Reason, evidence, free thought require more from the general population than confident diktat and repression do.
We have two problems. Historical ignorance has been fostered by a weak k-12 education system. At the university level and now reaching to k-12, malignant, self-serving propaganda is salted with a small grain of truth and social justice, rendering the poison savory.
I support Common Sense, Musk's intended transformation of Twitter, and other resistance to liberalism's takeover by authoritarianism. Peng's concern is warranted. History shows that it often takes death, destruction, truly dire outcomes, to eventually reinstate a period of liberal values. I so hope these values will not be defeated.
"I support Common Sense, Musk's intended transformation of Twitter"
We are indeed devolving back into the Dark Ages. Ignorance is the elixir which allows Marxists to thrive. Mankind’s (yea, I used a sexist, patriarchal term) possible saving grace is that there are still those among us who have benefited from an enlightened education. Luana Maoja has sounded a clarion call to those so blessed to reaffirm and nurture it. Bless you for answering.
It’s not about ignorance from K-12 or the university. It’s about playing pretend and attacking and hurting those who refuse to play the game. Germans in the 30s were far from uneducated. The pretended that their problems were caused by Jews, gypsies, gays, etc. If you didn’t agree to play by their rules, well, you know what happened.
No, it’s about there being a highly developed, malignant delusional system, and consequences of not buying into it. Much has been written about the problems associated with being sane in insane environments. Eventually people, even delusional ones, have to confront reality. The only question is how much damage they’ll do--to themselves and others--before that happens. 
Luana stated, “The censors and gatekeepers simply assume—without evidence—that human population research is malign and must be shut down.” However, I would agree with Joe. They know the research will not support their fairy tale so they attack anyone who won’t pretend with them.
That’s a truism. But you can’t use logic to treat mental illness. This is dangerously severe psychopathology. If it isn’t strongly and consistently resisted, it will turn into the American version of the third reich. It’s been trying to go that way for some time now.
I don’t see people like AOC, Biden, hopefully not Fetterman tomorrow, etc. as the main problems here. I see the people who elected them as the main things that need to scare the cookies out us.
It isn't a brain-hurt; it is subversion and treason. The only lesson the CCP has for the West is such folk pay for their own bullet.
I wholeheartedly agree with you that historical ignorance is a large part of the problem. As have others, I've pointed out that much of the argument about the dangers of cross sex hormones has been known for half a century (through their use in athletics). Yet, it seems that many have remained conveniently ignorant of the debacle.
https://everythingisbiology.substack.com/p/steroids-gender-and-fair-play
... a "poison savory", indeed.
Thank you for the link
Alice, I would go further - in the sense that our wretched and weak educational system (from k through university actually) openly supports historical ignorance, by which I mean judging (and not actually learning) the events and trends of periods in the past through the lens of today, and not through the prism of the era in which the history studied occurred. It's far easier that way, simpler to understand, since everything black and white (good vs evil) is so quickly framed when there's no messy grey in the way. Thus the toppling of statues and the whitewashing of subjects to be studied, cancelling speeches to be heard, and removing books to be read.. and students passing no matter their grades. It's censorship by and from the ignorant, aided and abetted by elders because they're so afraid of the public square pyre.
"Good now should have been good then - their grievance then is our grievance now." CRT came from this seed, gestating over decades in academia, and now this stain of discontent has leaped over into other disciplines as the supposedly marginal take center stage, and institutional authorities cave to their incessant demands, even to the point where the advancement of knowledge is compromised - as amply described in the essay.
And that is where the line must be drawn. At the university faculty level. Death and destruction isn't necessary. Professors must be allowed to fight back and defend themselves against their students (sorry to say it that way). And universities must defend their right to do so and basically tell their microaggressed sanctimonious student body that if they don't like what they hear in class - they can leave. And take their parents' money with them.
And perhaps that's where the real cause here lies - universities are too wedded to the greenback, and not to the concept of free speech and unfettered and dynamic learning. They know better, but refuse to act..
Abetted by the fact that academics no longer govern themselves of their institution.
Academic faculty are outnumbered in an explosion of andministrators, who are themselves capable of rabble rousing students and using them to bully and shame their teachers. These enemies within are by a wide margin created by government bodies, funded by those same masters. "It's good to be King."
China recovered from the insanity of the 'Cultural Revolution'. I have read the books written by Cixin Liu ('The Three-Body Problem'). He supports the CPC and the CPC supports him. The books are bitterly critical of the 'Cultural Revolution' (actually, that is an understatement). I have also read the works of Jung Chang ('Wild Swans'). She is not a supporter of the CPC. She is also bitterly critical of the 'Cultural Revolution'.
America is now the country going through its own Cultural Revolution. I’ll write about this phenomenon on my blog sometime soon. Basically, the way American academia operates is just like how the CCP operated back in the 60s.
I was reflecting on this parallel earlier today but without knowing a lot about the Cultural Revolution, so didn't fully trust my observations. Please do write about it! Americans absolutely need to hear from people with first-hand understanding of the Cultural Revolution who are alarmed at the parallels and the accelerating loss of freedoms in the US. Most seem blind to it, or if somewhat aware seem to be looking in the wrong directions for the causes and potential solutions.
I'll make a note of your blog, thanks.
Indeed! Exactly.
However, Not sure if China has completely recovered from the Cultural Revolution. There were book burnings, and the ancient culture was completely destroyed.
How will America, and indeed the West, fare? Time will tell.
I love Cixin Liu's writing. It is challenging reading, that rewards patience, attention and persistence with a unique vision.
I love it that people will help me out by telling me I can ignore them.
"Liberalism" hasn't taken over authoritarianism; it is authoritarianism. It always has been and always will be.
NK, I disagree. A famous liberal of the 1960s (MLK) stated "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." He was right then, and still is.
And he would be considered a radical right winger by today's "liberals".
Perhaps part of the problem in discourse is lumping together today's left, which is very illiberal, with yesterday's left which was somewhat liberal - at least philosophically. (Politically, there were - and still are - authoritarian. They only "fought the power" because the power wasn't them.)
Imagine a politician today saying "Ask now what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."
JFK was a traditional Democrat of the FDR/post-FDR period. That meant that the core of his constituency was private sector trade unions (AFL/CIO). On social issues, he would be considered 'far right' by the woke. However, on economic issues he was left-of-center. The fall of the Iron Curtain (and the rise of China) was the de-facto end of conventional class-based Marxism. For better or worse (mostly worse), the left has adopted Gramscian Marxism as a replacement.
Can't say that I'm familiar with the term "Gramscian"...
Nice analysis in rebuttal. Look at the "far right" today. Their growing constituency is the working class and minorities. His left-of-center economic policies of the 60's would not be considered nearly far left enough by todays' left. I also think his economic policies had the objective of creating self-supporting people, not people dependent on the government.
And, as we've seen by the 2022 campaigning, social issues are the only issues that matter to those who are driving the left. Can you imagine how JFK would respond to the suggestion that the government knows better how to raise your children than do the parents, that parents should not have a say in their children's education, that abortion should be legal up to the point of birth, that color of your skin is more important than your character ... ? I sure can't.
The swiftness of the leftward move of the democrat party is matched only by its lunacy. But maybe you can't separate the two.
Ok...just looked up Gramscian...agreed...
Never thought there would be a philosophical underpinning to their madness. I just thought it was madness.
There is good evidence JFK stole his election or had it stolen for him. In his personal life he was the dregs of humanity. Don't sanctify arse-whipes.
Sorry, Neil. World War II. I'm sure you remember the story..
Roosevelt, so much a liberal he would be called a communist sympathizer today, and Winston Churchill, a liberal (though called racist by today's iteration of the far left wing), defeated Hitler by espousing freedom in the face of very real authoritarianism.
Call what you want of the far left today, but be careful to throw everything 'liberal' in the same socialist bread basket. You'll do history a disservice..
LM, As you point out, you can't judge the past by today's standards (at least you shouldn't). JFK provides a case in point. In economic terms, he would be considered to be a liberal (if not a leftist) today. However, in social terms he was far too the right of today's political center. The reality is that he would find no home in today's Democratic party or today's Republican party. The world has changed (and not always for the better).
Good for you. The American version of the Red Guard is upon us. Same as the old Guard. I have heard Chinese scholars in private and far from China say to each other in private"Thank heaven the US exists.
Freedom is something that pops in and out of the American experience, from decade to decade. It is not handed to us on a silver platter, but must be fought for and earned in every generation. We are seeing the dark clouds of totalitarianism closing in on us right now, and it is our duty and obligation -- just as it is for the people of China -- to fight back and clear the skies once again.
And the people of Iran, Brazil, Venezuela. North Korea too but they need food first.
I went to college in the early 90s and I felt incredibly free. We were encouraged to explore weird ideas and make connections. It was a blast, and I learned a lot, including how to be a critical thinker. When I hear how restricted campuses are now it makes me really sad.
I went to school in the 1980's, for years I believed that the intent of university wasn't to teach me certain facts, formulas, etc. The intent (at that time) was to teach independent thinking, and problem solving.
I was evidently wrong
I went to University in the late 70's, early 80's and I can tell you that the professors expected you to regurgitate their leftist viewpoints. (Granted I was in the Humanities.) A diversity of viewpoint usually ended in a bad grade. Back then, I figured I just wasn't smart enough to argue the counter position and maybe so, but the professors wouldn't even engage in a discussion on other points of view. The only thing that seems to have changed from my experience (which was at the Univ of California) is that people didn't get canceled back then for having the wrong thoughts - maybe ignored, maybe laughed at, but not canceled.
You make a good point. It is my impression that current ideologies hardened in humanities departments, and are only recently penetrating STEM.
My degree was in a hard science. We focussed on empirical evidence, the importance of testable hypotheses with differentiating outcomes, the distinction between hypothesis and supported theory. We were humbled by what we did not know, how often accepted wisdom has been found to be either dramatically false or subtly incomplete.
STEM hubris lay in the practical success of science-based technology. Science faculty gave up a hand on the reins to indulge that passion for discovery. Surely no one would propose killing the golden goose?
Perhaps STEM will be an academic area where effective resistance coalesces!
Alice, I hope so. My degree was in engineering. I'm afraid that the "math is racist" types are infecting there too. Eventually, nature will whack them upside the head, but I'm afraid they are going to get some people killed in the meantime.
When the bridges begin to collapse and the planes start falling from the skies we will say how ridiculous this whole thing was. I really hope it doesn't come to that but you never know.
"Perhaps STEM will be an academic area where effective resistance coalesces!"
Not been paying attention have you? They have pretty much all fallen. Have you seen the Bollocks "Nature" has been putting about lately? Last hopes were pinned on Chicago for some reason. Didn't work out; pronounced dead a year or so ago.
might be the difference. My major was mechanical engineering, not much gray area to argue about. Other difference is the school I attended was in Texas, possibly we were slow adapters down here.
I had a few profs like that in the ‘90s.
I always used two blue books per exam. In one, the regurgitated pablum.
I’m the other, what I actually thought based upon the evidence provided.
I dared them to fail me. I had no qualms at all about going to the academic board and laying it all out.
Those profs hated me and the feeling was mutual but in the end they graded me fairly.
I like your approach very much!
My experience also...
Leftists are global, sadly, and they use the same playbook: authoritarianism, suppression of dissent, ideological orthodoxy, etc.
This comment is as ignorant as the people we’re horrified by reading about but typical for the readership of this forum. Most people who became leftists became that because they can’t stand authoritarianism and suppression of dissent. The ones who have THAT written on their banner are the people who invited Victor Orban to be their keynote speaker and have an actual plan for turning the country into an autocracy, rather than touting deranged ideas about what social justice is and canceling science. Not that that isn’t horrifying enough. It’s just that the actual end of democracy won’t come from that direction.
You are incorrect. Leftists became leftists because they hate authoritarianism that is not controlled by them.
The end of democracy in the US, if it happens, will come from the left. It has started and the only question is will it be stopped before it takes complete control.
No worries, the people who shouted Hang Mike Pence are going to stop it. It's all good.
Uwe, you won't like this but the people who shouted 'Hang Mike Pence' are at the bottom of society. The people enforcing radical PC are at the top. They run the media, Hollywood, K-12 education, academia, the CIA/FBI, the military, Tech, SV, Wall Street, corporate America, etc. Perhaps you can see the difference.
Simply put yet profound, caused me to pause and really see the danger of the woke. It may be short timed though. The whole woke culture is powered by the young, and facilitated by social media, who think of it as being on the "right side", a revolution if you will. I doubt they look past the surface on any issue at that age. When they grow up and have bills to pay and send kids to school there will probably be a new in thing.
And the people who invited Orban to speak at CPAC are the leaders of the Republican Party. They are at the top of society, not the bottom, and therefore pose as much danger to our culture as the repressiion-obsessed left.
It is high time for American voters to throw out our harebrained extremists, end the culture wars, and demand a return to such governmental "radicalism" as filling potholes, ensuring public safety, fixing water pipes, and the million and one other parts of public service we've abandoned in favor of memes, Tweets, clicks, likes, and Rageahol.
For a not-at-all-deranged analysis of what 'social justice' is and its effects on the West, 'The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World' by Andrew Doyle.
Without reading it I can predict that's not about what social justice IS but about making it a religion and perverting it into its partial opposite. It's one of the achievements of the enlightenment but that concept is Old Hat now on the left and it was always the enemy of the right. And the center that cares is of no further interest to anyone...
Uwe, the modern left is utterly intolerant of free speech / dissent / etc. Have you ever heard of cancel culture. Let me clue you in. The practitioners of cancel culture are on the left, not the right. You can rant and rave about Victor Orban all you want, but the reality is left-wing censorship, not right-wing censorship. Go read the Harper's letter if you doubt this. Let me quote from the Harper's letter.
"But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes. "
Peter, I left the school where I taught graduate students when the woke took over 20 years ago because I knew I'd get cancelled sooner or later. I know more about this disaster than most people do. What I don't understand is how the same people can abhor this and not be more worried about the criminal psychopaths who staged a bloody coup, lie for sport, and won't rest until Trump gets his Putin-Style kleptocracy established in this country. On a forum that I thought would be read by centrist people with common sense. There is no limit to the tribalism and the madness of crowds here.
Uwe - those alleged criminal are in jail and being held without due process. There was no coup and the only deaths were to protestors. If you want to talk about kleptocracy, you seem to be ignoring the corruption of the Clinton and Biden crime syndicates. If you have to rely on a disorganized, short lived protest on the People's House to buttress your position, perhaps you should look closely at your position.
You seem to be clinging to the view of a handful of protestors and ignoring the trainloads of abuse that really matter. And I'm using that metaphor intentionally. If the left gets their way, they will establish "re-education" centers for "wrong-thinkers" and if millions of them die during the process, oh well.
Your tribe is no different than my tribe. Your madness matches my madness. So let's have at it.
Do crazy people exist across the political spectrum? Sure they do. Do crazy people exist on the right? Sure they do. Do crazy people exist on the left? Sure they do. However, there is a deep difference. The crazy people on the left control the ‘commanding heights on society. The crazy people on the right control nothing.
Don’t mistake riots for coups. Real coups require police/military support. Did Trump have any police/military support? No, he did not. Did he try to get any police/military support? No, he did not. Let me quote from General M. Milley (hardly a Trump supporter).
“You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with the guns.”
Uwe said, "There is no limit to the tribalism and the madness of crowds here."
I think your diatribe proves your point.
PS always remember there are two sides to every coin.
That is true but his coin is silver paint on lead.
You're absolutely right about the cancel culture but I would say it's not about being intolerant to free speech, and this applies to both sides, it's denial of an view point other than their own. The left cancels it and the right calls it lies. There's no end until we bring decency back at the national level and respect the other side and agree to disagree in a civil way.
The woke little imbeciles are latter day Red Guards and Young Pioneers.
Nothing more.
I agree. jt doesn't. What else can you call all of these woke students and faculty, who burst into class demanding people explain their whit privilege and demand the curriculum be change to express their far left BS. Sounds like Red Guard to me.
Sorry, but I was way ahead of You "liking" this one.
I've *said* same about the Red Guards, and take it on faith they're like the Young Pioneers.
I'd appreciate it, LP, if You wouldn't invent opinions for me that I do NOT hold.
I apologize.
Apology NOT accepted! (because none needed ;-) Nice a Ya, tho.
The challenge is to effectively communicate with these young people. We need to attend to the importance of this.
It is emotionally gratifying to vent, and safe enough to do so in this column of like-minded thinkers.
Yet contempt will close that door. It blinds the speaker with its intoxicating self-congratulation; I struggle always to rise above my own worst impulses.
It is hard enough, as young people often dismiss any possible wisdom or experience from their elders. (I dimly recall a similar skepticism, outgrown now.) Immigrants may have more credibility, with personal stories to tell.
But let us not merely complain. Let us not only resist. Let us consider how to genuinely reach our newest generations, with care and sympathy. Can we win only by battle, by validating the assertion that domination is primary? Is there a way to open hearts and minds, cooperatively?
If you want to "effectively communicate with these young people" you must start by gathering a million or so followers on some social media platform, preferably TikTok. You should also be able to communicate in short burst that incorporate some words, but also dance, and constant changes of imagery. You need to be able to say "like" a lot, and to have, like a lot of, like, social currency, like oppression, and intersectionality. And to always come from a position of liberation, so it's not "pizza is bad for you, and kale is good, but pizza is oppressive and kale is liberating.
On a serious note, they truly speak a different language and live in a different reality.
Humor aside, this is a useful suggestion! The humor was pretty good, too! You are so right about keeping it positive.
I have a mere 83 Twitter followers because I have been pretty inactive. I admit to liking the dancing on TikTok, and have a weakness for Z's poking gentle fun at Millenials. I can do 3-D and animation and movies. Hmm.
You have got me thinking. Really good proposal! Taking it seriously. Thanks!
No, let's put fear into their little authoritarian hearts.
A much better motivator..
As "Old Nick" taught to wanna' be princes: Better to be hated than to loved.
Sadly, you may need to add some historical context so the snowflakes out there can appreciate your point.
You're right, but some-a the non-snowflakes as well. ;-)
I keep thinking more and better education on economics and history would do a lot to divest young people of a lot of their misconceptions. Why isn't that happening?
I just read this and it buttresses what I have been saying all along. The Republicans are not predicting the demise of democracy. It's prominent democrats that have been saying this, including the ever senile Joe, that if the Republicans win the midterms, it will be the end of our democracy.
Read this and tell me who is more liable to destroy our democracy. They openly dismiss and discount the average person. I will go as far as they hate the average American. When Hillary lost to Trump, she called us rabble.
The old term limousine liberal was used decades ago to describe the odious, power hunger elite and it applies today. Read this and see if I am wrong:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/joe-biden-s-bizarre-closing-argument-shut-up-moocher/ar-AA13S0L2?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=1cb1df92478541829c05add81502fe43
This is my last comment for the day, so I'll take a shot at You, LP, and then run fer the hills. ;-)
I read the article but didn't pay attention to it much. Here's how I looked at it: It was original from the Washington Examiner, which I like. They're what I would call "soft-Right." They're always right, but IIRC, they're not beholden to Trump. They *may* under Trump's sway. I'm not *swearing* on it. But that's my recollection. And they seem fairly accurate.
This here article is just propaganda. The reason I say that is that the things I look for in articles is direct quotes, and links to articles besides the ones they write themselves. I look at Twitter links, but that's about all I do with them. Secondary sources and quotes. This article had none-a that. IOW, I would-a liked to see what Biden actually said, and then make up my own mind.
Here it is in a nutshell: These guys are either preaching to the choir or telling You what Your supposed to think.
Please NOTE: I'm not saying what they said was WRONG. Mebbe it was. I'm sure at least some-a it was right. But it wasn't something to convince me, one way or the other. That's just me.
TY for post, LP. Day done. Enjoy... (Mebbe tomorrow. Mebbe not. ;-)
Ignoramoose. "Young Pioneers?" If You have time/interest, Sir Bruce.
A lady by the name of Yeonmi Park, has stated that 'Columbia is crazier than North Korea'. She is almost certainly right. There are already examples, of western scientists going to China because there is more academic freedom in China than in their countries.
I can see why Ms. Park would say that. North Korea at least doesn’t hide its authoritarian nature. While elite colleges in America act like they’re bastions of independent thought while actively censoring opinions. Bari Weiss herself went to Columbia and came under fire for her views on Israel.
Jew-hate is strong in the bastions of academe and the left; "Views on Israel" is their bailey. It is sometimes an effort to get there, but you nearly always find it is straight up anti-semitism at root
You won't be arrested for saying that. You don't yet have a social credit score. But many people are working hard to change that.
Be afraid, but don't give up hope. Most Americans are not insane, and if we band together, we may just be able to reverse all of this over time.
There is already a system in America that is essentially a social credit score. It’s called cancel culture. Any accusation of going against established doctrine will lead to a mob of people spreading malicious rumors about you, effectively destroying your reputation. The woke mob spares no one.
"There is already a system in America that is essentially a social credit score. It’s called cancel culture."
That's a good point. And it is already being embraced by the federal government throughout federal agencies.
It's inescapable these days. On social media, in academia, in the workplace...
Progressives used to fight for due process. Now they don't want the accused to be allowed to defend themselves.
Due process issues arising from non discrimination and non harassment policies, typically enacted pursuant to DEI initiatives, are an important point. If an academic is formally accused of discrimination and/or harassment, many institutions protect the complainant by not allowing the accused to read the written complaint. The accused is hamstrung and unable to adequately prepare a defense without knowing the precise nature of the complaints. Educational institutions wrote these policies to correct the power imbalance between the complainant and the accused, but they arguably go too far and create due process issues. Moreover, if the complaint is not substantiated, there are instances where accused does not receive written findings which clear his/her name from the institution which investigated the complaint. Cancel culture seems to protect the complainant at the expense of the accused from defamation and being able to adequately defend oneself. These cases are winding up in court.
Oh, make no mistake. The purpose of those procedures is to shift blame for the institution's social and cultural problems onto the scapegoat class, whoever it is. That way, the university itself does not have to address them. That's one reason why the number of men on campus has declined so drastically.
"Resistance is futile" is their goal.
Sort of related...Saturday Night Live has been so left I gave up on watching it. Today I read that they are having Dave Chappel host in November. Wonders never cease. Maybe they are learning that being such a one sided buzz kill is good for ratings?
Late night "news comedy" shows like John Oliver and Trevor Noah have taken SNL's place in the viewing tastes of college-educated liberals.
They both not funny anymore Trevor Noah I find at times absolutely disgusting.
If you want som, edgy laughs with a conservative bent you should check out Gutfeld! He's crushing late night. You can also catch him on YouTube
Not only do I watch every episode I have tickets to his show in NYC. Quite excited!
Gutfield is good, but still not a good enough reason to visit NYC. ;-)
Have a great time!
True, but it is vastly less far along on the continuum, and I really think it is starting to backfire.
Don't forget the ESG scores for businesses.
They came for the unionist & I did nothing. Then they came for the Communists & I did nothing. Then they came for the Jews & I did nothing. Then they came for the Catholics & I did nothing. Then they came for me! Too many Americans are followers led perhaps by the insane.
I might have agreed with this statement except you included the the Communists in there. I think there are a good number of them in today's woke culture. Most of this crap comes from Marxists ideas.
Third hand, once removed. It is a direct descendant, but then Marxism itself is just Xtianity without the God bits. These daft ideas are forever but continually morph on from failure.
Yes! Resist the "Digital ID" at all costs.
At all costs in fact whatever faith pray hard very hard!
What Luana describes is horrifying.
Still, what I observed and experienced on a pre-pandemic visit to China makes me encourage you to stay here and not return to China.
Remember those two Canadians who were detained as hostages in exchange for the Huawei CFO? Could have been me. Right before their arrest, I was detained at the China border as I was leaving for Hong Kong. I got released with no apology. The government was looking for bigger fish apparently.
Stay in the US and protest academic totalitarianism here!
I always tell people on the left who curse the U.S. if they hate the oppression in the U.S. so much go to the workers' paradise like China and North Korea. I have yet to see any of these nincompoops do that.
Hell, I'd buy their one way plane ticket.
I've proposed this before, but non-seriously. Your idea, which is a good one in theory, is my answer about what reparations are needed.
Welcome to the new United States, post revolution. These are the Socialist States of America. This was the "radical change" my generation demanded.
Now they accuse me of being an extremist for resisting it.
I have been calling the Dem Party the Communist Party for over a year and people treat me like I am not in touch with reality. I think they are the ones not in touch with what is happening. They are in denial.
The hard left on this BBS can't refute what the author of today's subject has said but they sure will belittle if and call people who defend her article names. It is the best they can do.
This continues our previous discussion.
You actually hurt the cause You would fight for. You're spreading, essentially, the lie that the Woke Religion is the same thing as the Dems.
You're the one in denial. The Bari and the author are likely to be a Dems themselves. What crime did *they* commit? Who is helped if they are accused of being Dems?
The worst of it Your blindness is that Dems have some good ideas. You'll *never* entertain the notion, which is an obvious FACT. You think You guys/gals here are the ones with *all* the answers? I got some bad news for You guys/gals.
That's enough for me. Mebbe too much. But these are serious questions I ask.
Well if it's not the Dems who support woke, who does? It sure as hell it's not the right that supports woke. The Dems support BLM, ANTIFA and I believe woke.
When was the last time you heard a Dem official speak out against woke? Just give me one example. That is all I ask.
C'mon man! You were a coder, right? Programmer?
Yeah, all the Woke are Dems. No argument. But NO WAY JOSE are all Dems Woke. It's mathematically impossible, because most people are just living their lives day-to-day. They don't have a lotta time or attention to spend on sites like this one. They may have some vague ideas about Woke, but it doesn't even have a proper name recognized by everybody!
https://tarahenley.substack.com/p/the-trouble-with-woke
The Woke are a cloudform that's hard to even see, let alone describe.
I don't believe all Democrats are woke but the ones in power are. Name one Dem senator or representative that has criticized the woke movement or on that has criticized BLM or Antifa.
Also, the woke movement was created by the left.
I will agree with you that not all Dems are woke but the leadership of the party has been captured by this and that is what matters. If the heads of the party pushed back against this it might end but they aren't. The current administration fights daily against the idea of not giving kids puberty blockers, the idea that all the evils of the world come from white people and white supremacist's is daily on the lefts talk shows. Try and watch the view and watch the clapping seals in their audience. It doesn't need to be all of them just the most influential among them.
Right, JT. Insert my standard statement about liberalism and leftism being very different things. However, it is true that a lot of the party leadership -- the people who have the ability to influence the direction of the party -- are woke.
The problem is the wokes dictate dem policy. What part of the modern democrat platform is not woke? And what is that platform? Unlimited abortion? Woke. Defunding police/bail reform? Woke. Diversity, equity, inclusion initiatives? Woke. Climate alarmism? Woke. ESG initiatives? Woke. Hate speech is not free speech and anything we don't like his hate speech? Woke. These ideologies and policies have captured the democrat party, big business, and government and it is frightening.
Agree, JT. Recent hysteria about Penn State protest of Proud Boy speaker (got canceled, etc.). “Hundreds” of students protested (news reports). The campus has 40,000 students. I believe the same data set can be used for the Democratic Party. The “woke” crowd (still working on a definition) if party affiliated are more likely Democrats than Republicans. But, not all Democrats are “woke.” On the other side I would guess that most Proud Boys. III’percenters, etc. are Republicans, if registered to a party, it does not make all Republicans white national racist militants (if that is what you believe these groups are). And while I cannot criticize what Ms. Ping experienced at Sarah Lawrence, by way of example, she extends her experience there to reach the conclusion that this is happening at all campuses nationwide. Maybe it is, maybe its not, but experience at one college is not adequate data for over 4,000 colleges in the US.
I agree with all-a that. There aren't gonna be any statistics on how many places are Woke. But anecdotes indicate more are going Woke than retreating from that view.
I am sure, OK also un-researched, that there are elements of “woke” on every college campus, as there are BLM supporters, gay rights supporters, pro-life supporters, gun supporters, etc. My beef on the college campuses is when the administrations/powers that be cave in to any group, ideology, etc. I am a fan of hearing what people have to say, especially on college campuses. If you don’t want to hear what they have to say, don’t go. If you want to protest, do so outside, peacefully (I hate pop-up protesting in the auditorium). Other students may be interested in attending (who planned to attend the Proud Boy speaker event) and were denied that opportunity. What’s more frustrating at times is when these incidents go through the ringer in conversations like these threads as absolutely exemplifying all students on all college campuses, or the population as a whole.
the Sixties "radicals" were idiots.
They are alive and well today.
Struggle and sacrifice never end.
Unless the bad guys win.
And if struggle and sacrifice are occurring -- and the simple, small act of courage who just made by posting what you wrote is an example-- the bad guys won't win.
The First Amendment is under constant threat from the left and the Dems not only love it, they support it and cheer these woke assholes on.
This is appearing even in STEM research. Many grant proposals now require a DEI statement. This might have some value but these DEI impact statements are evaluated, at least partly, from critical studies perspectives. Thus, they need to be written as if one fully embraces the PC DEI view of groups > individuals, etc.
In Canada it is now at the point that unless you pass the DEI review stage your project won't be funded or even reviewed on its technical merrit. POC with decades of experience and a track record of succes at graduating POC scientists have had projects rejected because they said or implied that each new student be treated as an individuals first and member of some groups second.
Hark! And I think you approach the root cause and point towards the solution.
When I entered Engineering school in college (in 1970) there were some “flunk out” classes in math and chemistry. If a student couldn’t pass them, they either got help or changed majors. That was for their own good, as they would’ve been headed for bigger failures downstream - they were simply in the wrong field or just not ready.
What wouldn’t happen is to demand that the professor change the class or that the administration force professor to do so. The student would get a very kind feedback about not signing up for failure down the road that wasted big bucks (or worse yet, introduce physical risk to people).
And later as a manager in industry (nuclear power in my case but apply the same thing in almost any other field) I wouldn’t keep someone in a job they weren’t capable of doing. But I did spend time finding those who’d work a job better suited to their skills / knowledge.
I see the failure here as largely stacked on the “leaders”. Would you let a toxic product come out of your factory so as not to hurt some ill-equipped employee’s feelings? Or would you let someone who can’t spell publish news stories ? OOPS, bad example there, but you get my point.
This reminds me of a perturbing experience almost 20 years ago. Our geophysics lab was mostly Japanese researchers and post-docs, with one Turk, and two white Americans including me. My other white colleague, a grad student, was unable to do the math required, and we had to carry him.
It was extremely vexing to have him excuse himself as impaired by ADD, since I have diagnosed ADD, whatever that is, and I had no difficulty whatsoever scoring in the 99.9% in math. He was given extended time on his tests due to his "disability." His scores did not accurately reflect his inability, but it became apparent when he was called on to do real work. I'm sure he was brighter than average. More than that is required in geophysics.
Labeling of the natural range of intellectual ability as a disability by schools, when one is lower than one would like, is one underpinning of the current entitled attitude.
Bad examples? Pfizer comes to mind. It seems to be pharma's whole schtick.
Absolutely true. Personal experience in the U.S. I know successful scientists who have had to do these performances, who are afraid to challenge them because they genuinely fear for their income. Big problem.
The sad thing is 80% of their colleagues agree.
We have a Supreme Court Justice that was so afraid to answer “what a woman is” she deferred to the “experts” instead of being brave enough to answer what she already knows.
D.I.E. Never has value once you understand what it means.
We know there are somewhere near 100,000,000 humans killed by the very governments sworn to protect them in the name of Equity in the past 100 years. “D” and “I” are equally sinister.
The only way to stop this is a new President and Congress, to root out this crap and end it, before all the good people have been driven out of the sciences and academia and medicine.
It can be, if more people like you speak out against this censorship.
"It can be"....so, there's just as much censorhip in China as in America?
Would we have this message board in China or would that not be allowed?
Naw, man... I can't say for *certain,* but I seriously *doubt* there's as much censorship in America as there is in China.
That doesn't mean America is free, as it is.
College was for free discussion less than a generation ago. It's unbelievable how fast the rot has spread.
College should be a hotbed of diverse ideas. Ideas should flow freely not be controlled a fascists tyrants.
Perfectly put. To bad none of our academics remember what PolPot did in the name of equity and social justice:
“We each have our own woke tipping point—the moment you realize that social justice is no longer what we thought it was, but has instead morphed into an ugly authoritarianism.”
The author doesn’t realize “social justice” has ALWAYS been evil.
Social justice is dehumanizing injustice. It says, "you are a collective, not an individual, bad responsible for your collective." Social justice is tribalism.
Is it better or worse than China?
Far worse. After Mao, Deng offered a new deal: become rich, and shut up. Tell me what is different in Beijing's capture of Hong Kong than what occurs in China. Xi doesn't (yet) order fenestration.
x
This wins the award for the most terrifying article I've read this month, and the good Lord knows I've had plenty of choices. This has to stop.
Granted it’s confirmation bias, but I can justify my Common Sense subscription based on the degree of outrage a particular article causes me.
Yes…I can’t always agree, and occasionally an article strikes a weak position, but…this article terrifies me as well.
I am the same type of subscriber, but I don't want or need to always agree. It's nice to hear all sides without being preached at, in my opinion. We must be those rare type of people that can hear different opinions and decide for ourselves while letting others do the same. I miss our kind of people.
University used to develop those kind of people.
I have to agree with you Brandy. Things just seem to be getting weirder and weirder. I can't believe so called intelligent educated people agree with this. Research is critical to our evolution and understanding the world. The only solution is to start private funding for independent universities, and other institutions. I would home school my children today if at all possible or create a home school association and divert our taxes ( we can do this in Canada I think) to alternative education systems, I am thinking we need to move into districts, support them with our taxes and live in a society that respects and encourages free speech, research, freedom of thought, and understands the difference between the biological sexes.
Thats why so many people are moving to Florida and Texas.
Absolutely!
“As an evolutionary biologist, I am quite used to attempts to censor research and suppress knowledge. But for most of my career, that kind of behavior came from the right. In the old days, most students and administrators were actually on our side; we were aligned against creationists.”
—————————————————
I am highly skeptical that anyone alive has actually experienced suppression in the university or corporate context at the hands of creationists.
I know, right? That statement sort of came out of left field (please excuse the pun).
One of the flaws of Common Sense seems to be an unconscious need to bash the right a little, every time they are mainly going after far left craziness. It is almost a kind of prerequisite to continue to insist that the right is just as bad as the left these days: “I’m still one of the good people, I’m bashing conservatives!”
There is plenty to criticize on the far right, in my opinion. But the idea that Creationists had the power to censor scientists at any significant university at any time in the past 50 years, is ludicrous. You might find a very small private college somewhere, but nothing that would back up the spirit of her claim.
No publication is perfect, and it’s not a fatal flaw, but this sort of thing seems to be a persistent blind spot for Common Sense.
Yep, I have noticed this in articles. A bit of right bashing is mandatory. Perhaps this is done to establish the author's leftie credentials. However, the content of the article is terrifying. You can only conclude that the students professing these idiot views are not very bright (to put it mildly). Maybe that is the fundamental problem. Years of grade inflation and the 'nobody can fail' mentality of educationalists have resulted in a generation of dim students.
It would seem the Common Sense bashes the Right for the same reason it bashes the Left. Common Sense comes from a Moderate/ Centrist, Classically Liberal perspective. It just stands to reason which seems surprising to some of the Right leaning commentators who appear to expect CS is a Righty publication... It's not...
I'm surprised that Bari didn't say this was Trump's fault in her introduction to the article.
This kind of NYT/TDS nonsense is why I'm letting my subscription to Common Sense expire in a week. The occasional article like this is almost enough to make me stay, but I'm tired of the TDS.
I'm with Kent Lawrence. I read CS, in part BECAUSE it gives me a perspective different from my own. As I said in the comment, I get irritated by the reflexive, out-of-context right-bashing, but it also tells me something worth learning about those who do it. And it does not cancel out the often-excellent reporting and commentary. Like everything, we just need read with awareness, and form our own opinions independently.
Good for you! I read this from perhaps the left of BW and would hope that it's possible for people who are both appalled by this stuff could agree on the basics. But I guess some of us can't vote for a fool who comes out with "Jim Crow is going to look like Jim Eagle" and some of us can't stomach the idea that we should be governed by a criminal psychopath. It's tough to balance that because it doesn't balance. It's a mouse and an elephant, so to speak....
Hey, come on. She may not be perfect--and she is left of me--but look at all the stuff she finds and gives to us BESIDES her writing. Give her a break.
Well this article was mostly excellent, but so many others aren't.
I've only got so much time to spend reading articles, and I've decided that my time will be better spent on Roger Pielke Jr's Honest Broker. That's where I'll be going.
You guys want Fox News. Why would you pay for anything less. I mean, the idea that creationists have ever suppressed anything or anyone is ludicrous? What was that about dim students? But you’re all convinced that you’re the ones who have seen the light, just like the idiots described in this very good and terrifying article.
You can't give even a single example to back up your claim that creationists suppressed research. That's why you love the NYT mentality.
Stem Cell Research was opposed at the highest level in the US under Bush. That was entirely a religious crusade. The Pinker Book "Blank Slate" has a history of opposition to research in various fields but by both the right and left. Genetic Determinism is the bigger controversy there.
You don't know the difference between embryonic stem cell research and research using other kinds of stem cells. And what does embryonic stem cell research have to do with creationism? Nothing. You're desperately trying to change the subject.
Look up embryonic stem cell research, and once you understand what it is look up therapeutic treatments based on embryonic stem cell research. I can save you some time. There are no therapeutic treatments based on embryonic stem cell research in spite of decades of researchers claiming there would be at some point in the future if they just got more funding.
The opposition to embryonic stem cell research was due in part to the fact that it is a therapeutic dead end. The research funding would be better used elsewhere.
I do not find this to be a bias. She is simply flaying open the flaws of both the right and the left. As far as I’m concerned, the criticism of the left that I read here is exceptional and one of the reasons I first subscribed. And while I am an Independent, I have always leaned to the (classical) left, a position I find is disappearing.
Yes, I agree.
Even our Founding Fathers had flaws, flaws that are just coming to light, like owning slaves.
just coming to light?? where have you been?
🤣😂🤣😂 sarcasm.
Tom, agree. And not to digress but I’ve been reading up on Darwin and his followers. There’s major holes in his and related theories. Our author has her own blind spots imo.
It wasn't just evolution. Read Pinker's Blank Slate. Also gene research was limited
Where and when was gene research limited by creationists? Be specific, please.
I consider the current woke dogma that "sex is a spectrum" to be the modern version of creationism. It offers a simplistic and ideologically attractive theory that is not only not based in science, but easily refuted by examples and common sense. But just like creationism, it persists and spreads among the faithful.
The anti-science position of the Woke is proof that it is actually a secular religion.
ALToronto
Except that creationism assumes a creator (and transcendent religion), while transgenderism assumes a world view devoid of creator (a naturalist-materialist immanent religion). And this immanent religious world view is not simplistic - it requires a lot of complex assumptions about life and human nature leading to a philosophical acceptance of what amounts to solipsistic narcissism. This world view has been in ascendence now - slowly - over the past 2 centuries at least. Many of us continue to resist...
You really should do a LOT more independent research on evolution and Darwin before you worship at the alter of science. Scientists are fallible therefore science is fallible. Sometimes science goes whichever way the wind blows (eg. this piece), but the Bible has been the same for thousands of years. Just sayin’
Yes
In 1954, Bernard Ramm published ‘The Christian View of Science and Scripture’. The book catalogues and discusses the views of creationism versus scientific theories of creation and seeks to clarify the debates. By the time I was studying biology in the 1970’s, the scientistic point of view was so widely accepted that creationism was viewed as a joke or a delusional conspiracy of religious kooks. The idea of anyone in power during the 20th century suppressing the scientistic viewpoint in this country is ludicrous.
Interesting, too, is the fact that there are a lot of religious scientists and a lot of religious people who accept scientific teachings wholeheartedly. Even Darwin was quite religious. I never understood why there had to be a vitriolic dichotomy between the two.
FR Prete
For an update on the conversation between the scientistic versus transcendent view, see Darwin's Resolution : Evolution or Creation - A Treatise, by Ernest L. Brannon, WestBow Press 2019
They both can coexist side by side.
Remember the lying little bastard geneticists who swore at the beginning of the pandemic that that virus could not possibly have come from a Chinese lab?
As always Bruce the only person here with CS.
Apparently and thankfully not the only...
This is a very interesting comment. I've heard it voiced by a number of people who say that they have experienced much more tolerance and acceptance among conservative Christians than among (usually atheistic), secular academics. Interesting, isn't it?
That shouldn't be surprising to anyone who knows a broad cross section of Christians. The fact that it is surprising is probably due to the media's dislike of Christians.
Christians are, or should be, wildly optimistic people. It's that eternal life thing.
Two friends who are both trans women as well as being leaders in the gun rights movement have both independently told me that they get greater and easier cceptance from the NRA and local rednecks at the shooting range than from LGBQT organizations and most LGBQT individuals they meet.
The woke crowd is highly intolerant. They will destroy one of their own if someone isn't sufficiently radical enough. All it takes is being moderate or violating their norms just once.
It was happening in classrooms in 1987
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Edwards-v-Aguilard
No, that law did not prohibit teaching evolution, it required teaching creationism in addition and only if evolution was being taught. And it was voided as unconstitutional. And it was not at the university or corporate level.
Yet another case of historical ignorance on the part of those who want to suppress speech. Thanks for posting this!
You're correct. In order for a creationist to suppress research they would have to be on the faculty or administration. I've never heard of a creationist on a university faculty.
Her moral equivalence argument is baseless and detracts from a report on a serious problem.
I was in a group of people in the early '80s who liked to sponsor evolution-vs-creationism debates. For funsies, I argued the creationist side a couple of times. I soon realized that the only "young earth" theory that was self-consistent was the preposterous "God is a practical joker" theory: He created the Earth 4000 years ago, containing pre-installed fossils and other evidence of a past that never actually happened, just to fool scientists. The problem with that theory is, if that event occurred, how do you know it was 4000 years ago? How do you know we weren't all created... just now? With pre-wired "memories" in our heads of a past that doesn't actually exist?
Well, yes. That and the fact that there's nothing the Bible that says God created "old light" or preformed, aged fossils. For that matter the Bible doesn't give an age of the earth at all.
From my background in life sciences textbook publishing, I can testify that there have been some epic battles on the local school board level regarding the teaching of creationism as a fact.
But creationists never threatened to shut down research, which is the issue in this article. Creationists never even threatened to interfere with teaching evolution. They mostly just wanted their story to be heard alongside evolution.
We published the leading introductory biology text by the late Neil Campbell. Demanding that the company place a sticker on the book regarding creationism as a viable theory may not have directly affected research in the moment but could have downstream.
Quite right and on target! My comment just a moment ago leads here as well.
“… regarding the teaching of creationism as a fact.”
Of course, if one’s world view is aligned with theism, and a Creator God is seen as reality, then creation - described in some way consistent with what is seen and believed - is a fact worthy of being taught. And if one’s world view is aligned with atheistic materialism, then gods are irrelevant and and creation is oxymoronic. Thus nature - seen and believed in this way - is unexplainable, and this is then taught as a fact. So which ‘fact’ is taught in schools? Perhaps one teaches students to appreciate these two world views and then let them consider the questions as they might…?
I don't dispute your claim. But that doesn't mean we have to accept pseudo-science either.
I deplore ‘pseudoscience’! But then there is an enormous amount of this floating around (e.g. so called nutrition science), so how does one choose? Creationism is not necessarily pseudoscience if there is in fact a Creator.
There cannot "in fact" be a Creator. Once there is factual proof, there is no need for faith, and without faith, there is no religion. That's why religion is comforting, but illogical.
With apologies to Douglas Adams.
You misunderstand the meaning of ‘proof’, and absent a strong positivistic philosophy, one might consider that ‘proof’ as you use the word does not exist. Considering proof on your terms there is no proof that a Creator does not exist.
The imminent pagan religious views of scientific materialism have nothing to say on the matter of creation or creationism as such a thing is presuppositionally excluded from consideration. The transcendent Abrahamic religious views presuppose a Creator - this as you call it ‘faith’ is as valid as the atheistic faith you seem to embrace - and this presumption attains as fact just as do the presumptions of the opposite world view.
If you were at a Christian college you might have felt this. Certainly those teaching high-school and community College still deal with this.
"We each have our own woke tipping point—the moment you realize that social justice is no longer what we thought it was, but has instead morphed into an ugly authoritarianism."
Dr. Mareja, I will ask you the same question I've asked many others... are you prepared to vote for some deplorables? Because if you're not, this is just empty whining.
Those of you in academia are almost completely responsible for this insanity. Postmodernism was bred in your petri dish. It was cultivated in your growth medium. And even when it outgrew the lab about 10 years ago, you still did nothing about it. You were just fine with with the revolution as long as the only people up against the wall were the people you hate (who you identified as "religious creationists").
You would insist, I'm sure, that postmodernism was bred in the humanities, not the hard sciences. You would be right. But the hard sciences were uniquely qualified to push back on it. Instead, they retreated into smug self-righteousness, "good thing we're so much smarter than the history majors; this stuff could never infect STEM." You could have stopped it; instead you spent years inventing threats from "creation scientists" to make yourself feel better. As an aside, has it occurred to you that your very own rules ("creation science isn't real science and need not be countered") are being used against you by the woke? You already circumscribed science to keep religion and philosophy out of it; the woke are just circumscribing it further. By any standard, you really did do this to yourselves.
So back to my original question. Are you ready to make common cause with some fundamentalist Christians? Are you ready to vote for a pro-life candidate who promises to reign in woke universities? Are you ready to sacrifice your LGBT views to get a candidate who opposes slicing the private parts off children? Are you willing to climb into bed with some deplorables if that's what it takes to defeat the woke? Because if you're not, if you vote for the same party on Tuesday that you always have, you're a hypocrite.
I don't mean to be gruff, really. But I've been sounding this alarm for decades and no one listened -- certainly not anyone from your class, the "smartest people in the room". You're a little late to the party, but welcome anyway. We really are glad to have you, because we really do believe the other side is truly dangerous. But only if you're really committed. If you're only here to tweak a few things and make sure biology is cleaned up... and then you'll go back to throwing us under the bus, don't bother sticking around.
Harsh, but valid.
Not harsh.
The left in their attacks never concern themselves with being harsh.
They always accept any means for the end they seek.
We need to do the same to defeat these anarchists.
I said it was harsh, not inaccurate.
But I don't agree that the ends justify the means. Just because the Woke Religion *calls* for it makes me even firmer in my views. But I'm probably an outlier, so there is that.
I’m glad you don’t support any means justify the ends.
TYTY. Sadly, we're *vastly* outnumbered by folks on both sides-a the aisle, AFAIK. We're "a pimple on a gnat's arse."
Oh great, now you’re calling me a pimple 😵💫😳😅.
I see your point and confess I am sometimes lured into the gutter with them but I never feel good about it afterwards.
You have to get some sewer scum on you to kill rats.
I’m past having integrity on this issue.
Apologize in advance: IMO, half-right. Sorry, but evolution is a fact. And a G*d may, or may not, have directed evolution. Nobody can *prove* it, one Way or the other.
Nope. It’s called the THEORY of evolution for a reason. It is not fact. Go read The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel. He interviews many scientists about all the ways Darwin was wrong.
I know Lee Strobel from his days as a news reporter at the Chicago Tribune. Decent fella, but became such a hard-core Christian warrior that his "interviews about all the ways Darwin was wrong" was not actual fact-finding, but highly selective sourcing designed to match his worldview.
Evolution IS a fact, as settled as gravity and a round Earth. That said, evolution does not mean a creator doesn't exist. Whichever God you like best could easily use evolution to upgrade His creations under our noses so we don't get alarmed.
"Theory" in science does not mean "unproven." Just the opposite, which National Geographic explains best:
"In science, the word “theory” indicates a very high level of certainty. Scientists talk about evolution as a theory, for instance, just as they talk about Einstein’s explanation of gravity as a theory. A theory is an idea about how something in nature works that has gone through rigorous testing through observations and experiments designed to prove the idea right or wrong."
Try this one: Is Atheism Dead? https://a.co/6J08VJh
Thanks, PL. I read this one a while ago, and thought it very good. But neither atheism nor religion will ever be dead, because they're not provable, they're beliefs. Good news is they can co-exist nicely as long as their adherences play well with others.
Evolution, on the other hand, is such proven science that I will not entertain "I did my own research . . ." nonsense about it.
Thanks again for the link.
But you can’t prove your claim either. Replicate the evolution of a eukaryote from a procaryote.
If You haven't seen the proof already, You either have never learned much in high school or You don't wanna see what's plain there for anybody to see.
They've seen critters in our lifetime that have evolved. There was some kind-a moth in England that were almost all-a them white. Then the Industrial Revolution came around. This same moth alluva sudden became almost all-a them darker. Black. To better hide.
That's not the only case. It's just been 50 years since I learned the truth of the matter.
Yes, but microevolution and macroevolution are two different "animals" - changing color within a species is a different sort of dna alteration than had the moths suddenly developed mammary glands for nursing their young.
The main problem with evolutionary theory is the idea of RANDOM mutation consistently being advantageous, especially in any statistically significant way. Then there is the tiny problem of entire apparatuses (like eyes, wings, feet) developing in random mutations - mathematically a whole other level of impossible, even in the evolutionary scientists' assumed time scale.
What is fascinating is that the more we learn about the way DNA works and doesn't work, the more we get a glimpse of how we can play with it and engage in our own projects - but this is by design.
If the goal was merely understanding, scientists wouldn't gloss over the gaping holes in the theory.
It would be much more elegant to allow for the possibility of Design (which really doesn't force any moral implications), and leave it open. Or get back to work and come up with a better solve for the random mutation piece.
There is a very large space between "Creationist" positions and current scientific positions on evolution, which are both faith-based.
I don't disagree with much. As long as Your disavowing Creationist positions, that is. Me? I'm not sure how epigenetics comes into play. But as far as random mutations, I'm not ready to rule it out on Your say-so.
This is the best comment in this thread. The progressives in academia created this threat, gave it fertile ground, and let it grow unchecked to its ideological extreme.
I doubt she will ever give up her social justice agenda, though. No doubt she'll continue voting for Democrats.
Really unbelievable, the blinding intolerance I am finding among the readers of this vital news service. And now Mr. Schultze participates in making wildly biased assumptions about the author of the article. I can assure you that Dr. Maroja has no social justice agenda. Such comments really amount to uniformed name-calling and rushes to judgement. These are not the foundations of American society.
Did you read the article? From the article:
"We each have our own woke tipping point—the moment you realize that social justice is no longer what we thought it was, but has instead morphed into an ugly authoritarianism."
You're accusation is wildly wrong.
I read it three times. You misread it. Or you misunderstand the use of the word “we.” From the rest of the article her position is clear. We as a society. Context. Again, you make a wild assumption in mislabeling her. When I first heard the term, “social Justice,” I assumed it was a benevolent thing. It didn’t take me long to see its perniciousness and relationship to Newspeak.
I think maybe you misread HIS comment at least I hope you did. I had the same reaction at first but by "you" I don't think he meant the good doctor personally rather you of the woke mentality. One of the issues of the use of "you" sometimes. And I am making assumptions here but mine are that the author is reasonably young and this indoctrinated with woke beliefs. You can't fault her for that. No one can know what they don't know. Rather I give her kudos for seeing the error of the philosophy.
His further comments and responses to mine indicate otherwise. I did not misread his first comment. Your assumption that the good doctor was indoctrinated with Woke beliefs couldn’t be further from the truth. All that she has ever written gives proof of this
You're just wrong to assume that the larger society has embraced the dangers that she wrote about.
And the word "we" includes the person who uses it. So she has clearly said that she was part of the social justice crowd.
Why would she give up a social justice agenda? We all have one. Whether hers is good or evil depends on how she defines "social justice."
There are laudable forms of social justice we should all support: Condemning racism. Putting abusive cops out of business while supporting the good ones. Giving every American, not just the rich kids, a legitimate shot at a good education. Then there are the evil forms of social justice, the ones we need to stomp: firing professors for using the "wrong" pronouns. Demanding that white people "confess" they're evil simply because they exist. Insisting we all agree to ACAB: All Cops Are Bastards.
I read the article twice and find no mention of which "social justice" she supports. I think you are assigning her the evil version without any proof she subscribes to it.
It's not unlike "black lives matter" vs. Black Lives Matter. The former is indisputable: black lives DO matter and are worth protecting. The latter, BLM, is an immoral and evil organization designed mostly to shake down Whitey for money.
Yes, Ralph, I am intolerant in this case. Dr. Maroja's class (uber-educated progressive academics) has spent decades patting themselves on the back for their open-mindedness and tolerance while simultaneously calling everyone who didn't agree with their scientific views "idiots" and who didn't agree with their political views "racists" and "sexists". And they did all of it while a Marxist, class warfare theology was brewing right under their noses in their own universities.
Forgiveness begins with real repentance. I haven't seen any yet.
What in this essay makes you believe she's an evil form of progressive, that she calls those who disagree with her idiot, racist, and sexist, or that she is a Social Justice Warrior who wants to lock up Whitey for our sins? And what's wrong with being uber-educated?
I think you are assigning beliefs to her that do not exist in her essay. You assigned her to a "class," but I see nothing here that puts her in that class of Woke.
She said that "we" (which includes her) have a "woke tipping point". I don't know who the others are that she is speaking for, but she is part of that "we".
In order to have a woke tipping point you have to support part of the woke agenda. Those of us who reject wokism entirely wouldn't have a "tipping point" because we never supported any of it. So it's perfectly logical to assume that she is at least a little bit woke.
She also says that she was wrong about "social justice" and that it is "an ugly authoritarianism". Again it's reasonable to take that to mean that she supports social justice, at least to a point.
She muddied the water with this sentence:
"We each have our own woke tipping point—the moment you realize that social justice is no longer what we thought it was, but has instead morphed into an ugly authoritarianism."
She speaks for others, and implies that she supports at least part of the woke an social justice agendas.
This is the second best comment on this article.
I didn't notice anything that indicated she has a social justice agenda.
"We each have our own woke tipping point—the moment you realize that social justice is no longer what we thought it was, but has instead morphed into an ugly authoritarianism."
How do you interpret that statement? She doesn't indicate that she was just an observer outside of the social justice movement. Just about anyone who was not part of that movement could see the danger sides immediately. For example, the idea that you are either oppressed or an oppressor has to set off alarms immediately.
That is because there is nothing there to indicate that she has one! Dr. Maroja is one of the clearest thinking individuals I’ve ever read. She is opposed to what is calling itself social justice.
Do you have any evidence that Maroja is opposed to the social justice agenda? Please provide a link.
And what is your proof that she IS, given you're making the charges? As I said up top, we all have a social justice agenda. You do, I do, everyone does. Agendas are good or evil depending on what's on the list.
I see no evidence from this essay that she's in the Camp of Evil.
This is a very thoughtful, thought-provoking, and interesting comment. It's the kind of pointed yet clearly stated argument that encourages people to think critically. I sincerely appreciate your straightforward honesty. Sincerely, Frederick
I dislike all fundamentalisms, since they're grounded in an evasion of life's messy truths. So no, I'm not ready to make common cause with fundamentalist Christians in the way that you sketch it out. Postmodernism is...well, what it is. An understandable and valid loss of faith in the transcendent truth value of master narratives--Christian as well as Communist, enlightenment science as well as Old Testament thunderation. A shrewder analysis would recognize that contemporary wokism is itself attempting to inflict a new master narrative on us all, a new fundamentalist religion of antiracism and genderfluidity, which is to say that it is betraying postmodernism (as it were) even as it exemplifies it. What's the best available response to those who would combat this eruption of woke religious fundamentalism? Sure, I'm willing to make strategic political alliances on an as-needed basis, but I'm simultaneously unwilling to give up my faith in Enlightenment values, because, as per Jonathan Rauch's defense of those values in "The Constitution of Knowledge," we need more self-correcting procedural modesty, not less. For all that, I'll grant you one thing: although I've always voted Democratic, I withdrew my loyalty to the Democratic party about five years ago, with a vengeance, and consider myself an independent. I would absolutely be willing to consider voting for Tim Scott on the R line if he runs for president in '24.
Nice, M. Gussow. That book's on my list. Long list tho, so there's that.
"What's the best available response to those who would combat this eruption of woke religious fundamentalism?"
IMV (In My View) the biggest thing that can be done right now is to reject Woke pronouns. There are two sexes (or what *used* to be known as "genders"). Period. You're actually not doing anybody any favors by submitting to their delusions.
Yeah, there are 8 Billion gender *roles.* Fluid to the max. You wanna put a name to one. You identify as a *CAT?* Okay, I'll play. But You're pretty weird.
The whole "marginalized" group of transgenders? Those who know they haven't changed sexes just wanna live their lives in peace. Not be discriminated against. That's great.
But the TRAs (trans rights activists)? What can I say that wouldn't be offensive? And still not be offensive *enough.* They're starting in Kindergarten, to tell kids they can be any gender they want. There *aren't* just two genders. Can't even *say* "boys" and "girls" in school. That would marginalize and distress TRAs.
All this so *more* kids can get confused and think they were "born in the wrong body." That doesn't even make any sense. You're born with the genes You inherited at conception. You may not be born in the *best* body, however You define "best." But in the "wrong" body? You only get one. Life is tough.
All that and more. This is the hill to die on, IMO. Because it's beyond the pale of almost everybody's imagination. Everybody who isn't a disciple of the Fundamentalist Woke Religion, that is. Plus, there's always the possibility that if You kick one leg out from under this monster then You can rock it enough for more people to take a look at this Religion, seriously. Again, IMO.
TYTY for reply.
Great comment. It's the crisis of modernity. There isn't an easy answer.
You're right. Problem is that answers to these kinds-a questions tend to be hard. Especially hard to accomplish.
Well said.
Why does it have to be a package deal, when it wasn't the case 30 years ago? I'm as anti-woke as the fundamentalist Christians you speak of, but why do I have to accept forced birth and religious creationism as well?
I'm fortunate to be in Canada, where a political home for me exists in one of the major parties. Progressive Conservatives do not impose religious dogma, are not reopening the abortion debate and are not threatening the LGB part of the chosen people. But I shake my head at the polarizing dichotomy south of the border.
You don't "have to accept it". But the reality is that your brand of secular, tolerant, "my rights stop at your nose", liberal can not win politically against wokeness without the help of those deplorables "who believe in forced birth and religious creationism."
You liberals used to run every major institution of the Western world. Today the woke run every one of those institutions. So your choices are: 1) live under a Critical Theory based theocracy, or 2) hold your nose and vote for some Christians who will push back on that. The only question is who you're more afraid of, us or them.
You're deluding yourself if you think you're immune to this in Canada. Restrictions on behavior are antithetical to liberalism; it seeks liberate people... from EVERYTHING. Think of some behavior you find morally deplorable, and try to find a way to argue that it shouldn't be allowed within the confines of Enlightenment liberalism. I think you'll find it rather hard. The next stop on liberalism's train of liberation is the legalization of polygamy and pedophilia. Academics are already laying the groundwork, talking about "Minor Attracted Persons" in scientific papers.
I've written a lot about this problem elsewhere on Common Sense, so I won't rehash it here. If you're really curious, read How Liberalism Failed by Patrick Deneen. Or, if articles or videos are more your thing:
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/08/unsustainable-liberalism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mKScDP1lcs
https://medium.com/arc-digital/patrick-deneen-thinks-there-is-something-wrong-with-liberalism-is-he-right-b4ea4c18828d
You're not going to escape this though. The progressives will eventually get to a standard you hold dear, and when they do, you will find yourself powerless to argue that it should be upheld.
Again, I almost agree with everything. You "say:"
"2) hold your nose and vote for some Christians who will push back on that."
You're not saying that all Rs are Christian are You, Sir Brian? Or that *only* Christians are pushing back on this? I'm not seeing either one-a those.
You make an excellent point when you say that critical theory is a theocracy. It's more dogmatic and intolerant than fundamental Islam or Christianity is.
Exactly. This all or nothing approach is not about freedom and quickly alienates potential allies.
Who says it's a package deal? You sound like abortion is a religious sacrament and if we decide abortion through the democratic process that is some kind of oppression.
Who has tried to force creationism on you? As far as I know creationists have just wanted to make their case along side evolution. I've never heard of anyone requiring that anyone else believe in creation.
Why do you think that merely being able to state an idea is some kind of oppression?
Harsh does not begin to describe your response to Dr. Maroja, whose name you could at least take the trouble to correctly spell. Your comment reeks of bias, a bias that seems to have been prompted by academics who were on the scene well before Dr. Maroja arrived here. How dare you blame her for your perceived sins of those who came before her? Your assumptions about the author of this brilliant and frightening article are appalling and founded only on an apparent grudge that has been festering in you for some time. And finally, what a small-minded and abysmal thing it is to assume her political affiliation AND to assume that not voting for the party of YOUR choice amounts to hypocrisy. It is possible to hold two opposing ideas in ones mind. It is possible to revile Wokeism with the same gusto that one reviles Trumpism.
Talk about harsh. You're engaging in some blinding intolerance yourself.
And it's a perfectly valid assumption to assume that Maroja voted for progressives given the social justice agenda that she embraced.
A lot of people are responding with comments about Trump. I didn't say anything about Trump. Academic wokeness isn't about Trump. It's about Enlightenment liberalism, one of the greatest institutions in the history of the world, the engine of political, social and economic freedom for BILLIONS of people, and how Western academics turned a blind eye while their fellow professors were using liberalism to erode and eventually knock down the structural supports of Western Civilization that gave birth to it.
This is nothing to do with Trump. Donald Trump probably couldn't even understand that last sentence, and has not a clue how to even start solving the problem.
This has been a very long thread. Didn't You say something about voting R?
Who leads.. Who *IS* the R party at this time?
Absolutely nothing to do with President Trump whatsoever Brian, however what President Trump did manage to do and is still doing today is disrupt these Democrats sorry lives they just weren’t expecting it from 2016 till NOW. The Democrats were gifted Covid it was like a perfect storm I don’t think that is going to happen in 2024 those gaslighting days over the world is changing!
It’s called what aboutism ………or Trump derangement syndrome in this case.
Perfect !
Most professors are “stuck” and cannot escape.
Simply because their livelihoods depend on the very institution they are criticizing.
They cannot and will not cut off the branch they are standing on.
Three choices: (1) run away, (2) stand and fight, or (3) create new institutions.
The most logical is to stand and fight, because this American experiment is worth saving.
Well said. I'll go for options 2 and 3.
I’ve thought about #3 as well, but have concluded that creating new institutions is very expensive and takes a very long time. This point of view was supported by a great article in Tablet Magazine addressing this very subject. Sadly, I agree and believe the best approach is stand and fight. The people who are advocating this nonsense can be beaten. It just takes a lot of brave people.
The really hard part of this is that a large part of the problem is sitting in the private sector in media, academia and corporate America. This means that money will play a large part in solving the problem.
Luana Maroja's has taken a stand and her fighting words are very well written.
👍👍
I prefer the create new university option. But I am.perhaps being cynical. And spiteful.
Not necessarily cynical or spiteful.
IMO, a lotta colleges and universities are gonna collapse financially. Declining demographics by age group. And becoming unaffordable. ICBW.
But it would be nice if conservatives would buy them up and just rehire some new teachers, IMO. New colleges on the cheap.
The financial pressures facing colleges will force some of them to collapse and that will lead to more brutality as people fight to keep hold of their piece of a shrinking pie.
I think the future of higher education includes a significant piece of online learning. What use are giant lecture halls when students can listen to video of lectures online? And why should dozens or hundreds of professors give essentially the same lecture on lower division calculus, chemistry, physics, business, engineering, etc.?
The in-person time can be better used to address students' specific questions.
Yes, hire education will go through some very tough times in the near future. And that is good. Ripe off the bandage and let the blood flow.
You've described the situation, flawlessly. Hafta think about the rest. TYTY.
I should-a said, but I thought it was implied. I agreed with everything else. And nobody can bat 1,000 every day, right?
I love you too, JT. :-)
You're a good man! :-)
(But I might hafta disagree on a few things.)
Sorry, Sir Brian. You lost with Creationism.
And fundamentalist Christians? The ones who voted for the thrice-married, serial adulterer Trump? Does Trump even give *lip service* to being Religious himself? Scratch that last question, because it wouldn't surprise me, and he'd be as sincere about it as he's sincere about a *lotta* things.
We elect a president, not a spiritual leader. Fundamentalist Christians understand that. Why don't you?
Did Hillary Clinton give lip service to being religious? Please enlighten us about Hillary's high ethics and sincerity.
Christians, like just about everyone else, vote for policies and positions on issues.
I'm sorry, but You entirely missed my point. I'm suggesting that if You're looking for someone who is decidedly UN-Christian, You could just look at Trump.
That Christians could support him shows a level of hypocrisy that few people would attempt.
And explain why HRC is always the excuse for Trump's behavior? Sorry, but it doesn't absolve Trump in the least.
You switched from attacking Christians who voted for Trump to attacking Trump.
I understand your point perfectly. You not only attack Trump, but you attack Trump voters as well.
Hillary is also "decidely UN-Christian" but admitting that fact would expose the hypocrisy of your attack on Trump voters.
You understand next to nothing, as You indicated in Your post below. And this one here.
I'm not gonna get in a stupid contest as to who is *more* UN-Christian, because You have already shown You follow a cult leader, instead of a man.
You elected a boy to do a man's job, who then went on to try to overthrow the elected government. Nice job.
I'm done with You. You'll never learn.
Liberalism is dead, JT. Bari, Suzi, Andrew Sullivan, David French and a few others still playing Weekend At Bernie's with its corpse, but as Monty Python says... "it's bleeding demised."
The post-liberal Left has embraced a Marxist race/sex warfare (wokeness).
The post-liberal Right is still trying to find its head with both hands.
I voted for Trump for SCOTUS. I know of only a few church members who actually thought he would solve anything (and I worry about those folks to be honest), but my side needs time to regroup. Trump's Supreme Court justices might give us some. They won't solve anything, but they'll push back against the woke theocracy for a generation or so.
If we can't get our act together by then... the woke deserve to win.
There's good cause for optimism. Have you followed what is going on in local school boards all across the country? Parents of all races are rejecting the woke agenda. They fight when CRT is added to their public school curriculum.
And many of them are realizing that the Democrats that they have supported in the past have betrayed them.
Trump did some great things. On the economy median family income hit an all time high under Trump, including the largest ever one year jump in median family income. He tore up Obama's ludicrous Iran deal and sanctioned them. He withdrew from the destructive Paris Accords.
Did you ever wonder why inflation remained low under Trump, but took off under Biden? Or why Putin waited to invade Ukraine until after Trump was out of office? It's important to separate personal style from substance.
I have Dean, and it gives me some hope. Americans are notoriously easily distracted though.
What's going on in Sweden and England looks promising too. Both countries have effectively banned cross-sex hormones for minors. That seems minor, but it's a larger victory than it looks like. For structural reasons, the postmodernists cant allow that to stand (see below).
Postmodernism says that reality is unknowable and therefore how we describe it actually alters reality. This is the philosophical basis for: a man who thinks he's a woman, actually IS a woman and must be treated that way. If reality is socially and linguistically constructed, then there is no objective definition for anything, including "woman" or "man", and these become purely linguistic categories. It isn't that postmodernists reject the link between sex and biology; they reject the existence of any type of objective reality at all.
However, the pushback against withering or slicing off the genitalia of teenagers is a direct assault on this. Refusing to accommodate the teenagers' sexual identity claims asserts that there IS an objective reality which demands some fealty. Postmodernists will defend this hill to the death because they must. If objective reality exists at all, it fractures their entire view of the world.
While it's a small thing, the pushback in Europe gives me a tiny glimmer of hope. The larger picture is still problematic, especially since the right hasn't found a postmodernist alternative yet, but at least we might stop sterilizing children sometime this decade.
I've got Deneen's book on my list, and have the article linked to above in one-a my windows.
I can't say we *haven't* reached the end-a the line with liberalism.
But I would like to point out the difference between the Progressives and the Dems. And not only that, but there may be a Center coagulating sometime in the future (post-liberal or not ;-).
I can see why You voted for Trump. But there are whole evangelical Churches that are growing at a phenomenal rate specifically for their adherence to the Trump dogma. And I have trouble making the connection between the two, knowing what little I know about Trump.
I think maybe you are being a bit reductionist. "Christian" and "conservative Christian" are labels that describe a very large, very DIVERSE group of people. As a conservative Christian leader myself (in a very small way), I was deeply distressed that some evangelical leaders publicly endorsed Trump. I was not remotely alone in that. I don't think we should be in the politics business *in that way.* I am not remotely alone among Christians in that respect, either.
What the media predictably failed to report was the large number of Christian leaders (who have large followings) who publicly warned about Trump, and publicly called for Christians to rise above politics.
Of those Christians who did publicly endorse Trump, many did so "holding their noses." They probably would have endorsed any Republican nominee whom they thought might win, because it wasn't about Trump per se, but about the Supreme court, and the economy.
You simply can't lump all Christians together, nor even all Protestants, nor even all evangelicals; not and retain any connection to reality. You are certainly far from the truth if you think that most of the Christians who voted for him did so because they thought he was Christian. Yes, you can find that narrative all over the internet, and MSM, but that doesn't make it true.
Well, the issue with church leaders endorsing Trump is that, in nearly all of the mainline Christian denominations, that horse left the barn long ago. Lots of church leaders all over the spectrum endorse politicians. Heck, we've even had people like Jim Bakker and Al Sharpton who themselves have worn both masks.
Yeah, I understand the horse and the barn.
What I'm questioning is how Christians can stomach someone like Trump, knowing what little I know about him. I can also understand there's reasons pro and con in that.
Good points, but they will be lost on someone who is out to attack people who vote for the side that he opposes.
One thing that I've not heard said in all of the sturm and drang about Christians who voted for Trump is that Jesus himself said that we would have to make the distinction between Christianity and secular government: Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's.
You could also make the same kind of criticism of feminists who voted for the Clintons. Bill is a serial abuser of women, and Hillary was his biggest enabler. Feminists probably didn't like Bill's abuse of women, but he supported partial birth abortion so they voted for him anyway. And then for Hillary.
Again with the HRC. You'll never learn.
Tell that saying of Jesus to the Conservative Integrationalists, why don't You.
What is a "Conservative Integrationalist"?
The don't believe in the separation of Church and State. Specifically, they want the country to be run by the Religious, under the rules of Catholicism I think it is. I haven't studied them, but I see articles from them.
Well said.
Yeah, You're right I was overly broad with my categories. And yeah, I don't follow the news much but some a few Christians questioning Trump's character.
But i most certainly never said or implied that Christians voted for Trump because they thought he was Christian. It's like You said: A number voted because he was an R. A number voted for him because he could win.
But for any Christian to vote for Trump requires them to do a little more than hold their nose, IMO.
Yes, it requires them to compare him to the alternative, at which point they'd be crazy not to vote for Trump.
"Crazy" is in the eye of the beholder. You know that, right?
I agree…..the only way to stop the insanity is to vote republicans into office. The far right is far, less scary .…. the far left has provided us a blueprint of what they want the future to look like. BELIEVE THEM! Or it will only get worse.
We in the middle are the largest voting bloc out there, please vote wisely!
It seems San Francisco and Chicago are their idea of the perfect blue print.
Another brilliant voice on CS today, it’s all about to change the midterms are happening “cometh the hour cometh the red wave!”
What will voting Republican accomplish with regards to this issue?
A Republican congress could put an end to the ideological loyalty oaths (DEI) that funding agencies require. They could also prohibit universities that take federal funding from using DEI loyalty oaths in hiring and promoting faculty. And prohibit them from forcing them on students.
Trump issued a great executive order banning wokism on campus for those schools that receive Federal funds (virtually all). It was, of course, rescinded in the early days of the Biden administration.
With a Dem president, Congress can't do anything right now. With a Republican president, such an executive order can be re-instated or, with the support of Congress codified into law.
I guess I missed that golden period when wokeness receded on campuses in the Trump era, regardless of the Executive Order. I actually think "wokeness" accelerated under Trump, as it tends to do, when there's an active "threat" and visible "enemy" that gives it more legitimacy and traction that it may have otherwise.
Sadly, You're correct, Ma'am.
I think it accelerated in the sense he is a lightning rod and obviously mobilized the opposition base. He is after a still living in their heads as I write this, including several commenting on this post. My preference is that he remain in the background for the good of the country. I think his policies as president were very good. I'll always wonder what he could have accomplished had he not had to fight his own party for 2 years and the other one for four. Plus. But then I think the President owes allegiance to the United States of America and her citizens first and foremost. I also think he is basically a populist and populist Presidents always seem.to arise out of contentiousness.
Agree. But I also can see a Republican Congressional majority comprised under the current slate of Republicans running, and even a future DeSantis (or gawd help us, Kari Lake) POTUS, inciting similar reactions and responses.
"Woke" picked up a lot of "normies" given the rather belligerent cultural and partisan stances that Trump has popularized within the GOP to assist in the perception of a threat. Even if Trump doesn't run, all of his likely successors are probably going to follow that roadmap. Now maybe it's the case that the extreme directions "wokeness" took in response to Trump will tamp down on the reaction and its support going forward, but I kinda doubt it, given the "leading figures" of the likely GOP Congressional Majority who are going to be front and center, as part of the majority, that perhaps they haven't been as much to "normies" in the minority. If the GOP really wants to claim the "center", McCarthy would be wise to sideline MTG and the rest, but I also seriously doubt he will, or that he can. In which, watch the pendulum swing once again...
See Trump for what he is, doesn't mean he lives in *my* head, at least.
But there appears to be a mirage of Trump living in Yours. Part of Trump's policies, which I'm sure was very much liked, was to *own the libs.* I've noted a number of times people say they like Trump because "he's a *fighter*."
It's not that he's a populist so much, but being "contentious" is just Trump's style. Another word for that is "abrasive to the extreme." And that's why he lost the election. He's a person people tend to love or hate. Most people in these comments love him. Regardless of whether they say they voted for him because of his policies. Regardless of whether they say they don't like him. They love him.
But Trump made more people who voted hate him than love him, so his strategy backfired.
Granted, he may get a different result in '24. Like I wrote in Dec. 20, Trump has Biden's record to run against this time. Not "all", but "some bets off" if he doesn't face Biden. IMO.
If Congress changes hands investigations can and should be conducted to prepare for the next president. I do not want to see any more knee-jerk ideologically driven reactions, but rather calmly reasoned, analytical action.
TY, Ma'am.
You're right.
But as far as Trump goes? He had majority in both Houses for two years. What legislation did he get done?
Almost everything he accomplished was through Executive Orders. Spitting in the wind, I call it. And him called "The Greatest Deal-maker??!?" Sorry, but no. Didn't happen when he had the chance.
Please God!
I realize this is a state thing but lets add not allowing state universities to use funds to pay people like Kendi thousands to spout CRT. 20K for a one hour virtual event?
https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=18308
Possibly, but I would guess the problem is a lot more entrenched than just the case of these supposed "oaths". So the GOP Congress forbids requiring any written "agreements" wrt to conducting a job or department with equity explicitly as a policy. That doesn't mean "understandings" still can't be enforced implicitly. And if "wokeness" is as entrenched as it is portrayed, then the "oaths" are just window dressing. The institutions are already more or less committed to the principles.
So, I guess I'm not hearing a convincing case for why someone who otherwise supports the traditional Democratic platform regarding health care, taxes, social programs, etc should abandon every other voting priority to vote for Republicans, who will otherwise very likely implement an agenda they oppose, on a flimsy premise that a Republican Congress is somehow capable of reversing and setting the agendas of what are not just publicly funded institutions, but many private ones that Congress has no authority at all over.
I guess it depends on whether you are willing to take the very large risk that keeping Democrats in control of the government will result in one-party rule for the foreseeable future.
Personally, I think we are doomed regardless. The Woke have seized every institution with power in our society: Academia, the Media, Law, Medicine, and most of the government bureaucracy. The Military has been infiltrated to an extent we did not realize until recently.
I think the victory of the Woke is a foregone conclusion at this point. Voting for Republicans may slow it down a bit. Voting for Democrats will speed it up.
Pick your own poison.
I think the woke mentality will come crashing down rapidly at some point. They destroy their own.
There's a grass roots rejection of wokeism. Consider what is going at local school boards that have tried to put CRT into public schools.
Agree to the degree if "wokeness" is to be to any degree reformed or replaced, it will do so under its own weight, and from within. It will not come from the command-control of a political party or any Congressional legislation.
Unless the population as a whole rejects this thinking, there is no coming back. And there are at least 40% who will vote Blue, no matter what.
How did we rid ourselves of McCarthyism? Unless we can manage something similar, I don't think there's a way out of this.
I'm honestly more concerned about GOP one party minority rule, given the stated intentions of far too many of the current slate of candidates running for various positions, and who seem to be getting implicit/explicit support for within the Party apparatus) with giving the current iteration of the GOP any majorities anywhere. And given my lack of faith that they will have any real legislative or cultural power to "roll back" woke, even deeply disturbing stuff as claimed in this essay is not a convincing reason for me to vote for a Republican this time around, sorry (let alone to pretty much abandon my normal set of policy preferences - this is a HUGE ASK being put on Democratic voters, btw, that they should do so under some sort of "protest" vote - similar, I suppose, to the one that was asked of Never Trumper Republican voters in the previous elections).
The only real response against "woke" is going to come from a change within institutions themselves, as being forced from outside (donor pressure, reduction of status/leverage, formation of alternative institutions, etc) or internally (as a lot of these non-profits approach failure in mission - a great essay penned, I think, in The Nation, detailed how much internal strife over "wokeness" is literally destroying the abilities of these non-profits to function to their mission), and a general cultural shift, which likely will have to primarily come from the younger generations that are most susceptible to it.
Probably what is really needed is a radical reset to the role that social media is playing in the culture, which is the megaphone that amplifies this "group think" stuff (and would also help rid us of the other poisons like Q-Anon) as well as the primary medium of punishment and amplification of the "sin".
TY for Your reply, M. Smarticat. I've read this a couple times, and I can assure You I'm not gonna try to change Your vote. (Honestly, it's because I know it's a hopeless task. ;-)
Normally the answer to changing a person or an organization is that it has-ta come from within. You're right. (Another reason I'm not trying to convert You. It has-ta come from within *You.*) I'm not sure that's gonna be possible, tho, in the case of the Woke Religion. That'd take another Second Vatican Council (aka Vatican II). I don't think that's very likely, because of how maniacally firmly the disciples of the Woke Religion KNOW they're right about EVERYTHING. That's the energy that *powers* the Woke zealots.
And they pretty much *hafta* hold that position, intellectually and emotionally. Because the Bibles they rely on for their so-called wisdom are completely unreasonable. Lemme rephrase that: The Bibles are UN-reasonable, meaning they're not based on logical reasoning. If someone was to attempt to map out and actually write one single volume to serve as THE Bible... It would consist *entirely* of self-contradictions.
Here's the primary, permanent, eternal contradiction: In principle the Woke Religion stands for helping so-called "marginalized" people. But any *reasoning* person can see that what they do causes more harm than good. And, inevitably, hurts the people they *claim* to want to help, in the end.
There's a special place in hell for the inventor of (what-i-call) "victimhood neurosis."
The strife that the Woke Religion is causing in some-a these non-profits is a small case in point. The larger case in point is the strife that the Woke Religion is cause in the *entire country.*
The guiding principle that people should now be judged *only* by the color of their skin and their biological gender? We've take a great leap *backwards* 50 years in one fell swoop. The way to fix discrimination, which is *very* difficult to find currently, is *more* discrimination. Where everybody knows the way to fix discrimination is to just quit it. Entirely. Hopefully the Supreme Court will decide against discrimination against the poor Asians. But that's just "One small step for man. [NOT] A giant leap for mankind." ~ Neil Armstrong (Now I need to go to Woke jail, because I marginalized Woman. Ah well...)
Yeah, social media is one-a the biggest drivers. Tough nut to crack. This is too long already, so that's all she wrote for me, at this time anyway.
Hope You're enjoying the day, and VOTED Your heart out. ;-)
I don't know whether to agree or disagree with you because I got lost in some of those sentences.
I respectfully ask you to diagram your first three sentences some time. Your third sentence is an entire paragraph.
Because you face the same problem.that Republicans face - how do you know who will actually support the traditional Democratic platform ...? Those values have been completely exploited during this administration. I always considered myself a social libertarian by which I mean limited goverent, and a fiscal conservative. I tended to vote Republican because they were more fiscally responsible. But as others are about to point out that has not been true in at least 20 years. Nor have the traditional values of the Democrats been honored by those elected from that party. The truth is there is no magic wand and certainly no money tree to support all of the social.programs the Democrats promise to buy votes. Which is what they have blatantly devolved to. We really are on the precipice of financial ruin. The only way the debt from melting the printing presses gets covered is for the Federal Reserve to buy Treasury bonds and it is nearing the point of not being able to buy enough because interest rates are going up. And reports are that the private market purchase of these bonds is drying up. If this happens it all comes crashing down. ALL of the programs. Tough decisions have to made. I cannot promise you that voting Republican will provide a fix. But I can promise you that a much touted "Red Wave" will send a clear message to the current administration and Congressional.leadership that their BS is rejected. I can also promise you that healing will begin if for no other reason than with a divided Congress and Presidency the spend-it-all policies will grind to a halt if for no other reason than Congress won't pass any Biden spend-it-all legislation and Biden won't sign any Congressional legislation designed to restore fiscal responsibility. That could be furthered by well timed litigation to question a wide variety of rules and that are bleeding us dry.
And I can also promise you that if any Republicans do not honor their commitments they will not last long. The bottom line is that we must have a functioning economy. All of that pie in the sky social program stuff sounds good but is meaningless if people don't have food and shelter. The last time the US even attempted a balanced budget was after the Clinton mid-term when the newly elected Republican Congress and Bill Clinton worked together. If Biden were truly the moderate he told y'all he was it could happen again but I have little faith in that.
I share your worries about the fiscal recklessness in Washington. There's no one in a leadership position in either party that cares about the deficit. And with interest rates rising our future deficits will be harder to carry.
I'd say that we were screwed, but other countries are going down the same path with us.
I wonder how much that message will be received as you believe. I can pretty much already hear the explanations coming down from the Democratic Party and its supporters in the media that the reason Democrats lost was inflation, inflation, inflation... followed closely with the "historical precedent" of the Presidential Party losing seats in a midterm... and not "wokeness" or any real impetus to address the branding problems, outside of not having focused on inflation enough as a "message".
Oh sure, there will be analysis and voices (like David Shor) that will blame the branding, but just like the GOP pretty much sidelined its own 2012 autopsy in favor of Trumpism (and succeeded to a degree) I doubt this one election, however it goes, is going to result in a real tectonic shift within the Democratic Party and its ascendant left. FWIW, I do agree "woke branding" is harming the Democrats but I doubt there will be too much of a pivot on that this time around, given there are (plausible, based on polling) "economic referendum" reasons to comfort themselves with ("WE didn't lose, the economy did"). And, FWIW, I would *prefer* a "branding problem" message actually be heard above the din of "inflation" because again, I do agree it's a bigger problem for Democrats in the long run).
And, consider, the burden will be on the GOP to *deliver*, or at least seem to preside over improvements over inflation (again, given this is likely Primary Reason for a referendum election). I doubt blowing their wad on Hunterghazi and a zillion of the other planned partisan "revenge" investigations will be rewarded if gas prices and inflation remain high going into 2024 (as much as, I guess, you could say about the Jan 6th Hearings not having moved the needle much in favor for Democrats in the face of inflation).
At any rate, I guess we'll see over the next week or so how this all shakes out...
You're right, M. Smarticat.
It would take a tectonic shift for the Ds to come back to the Center after this election. That would require changing, which most people and organizations resist on principle.
I'm not expecting much of anything happening in the next two years, assuming the Rs get both branches of Congress.
<ooops... wrote this before I went out to vote, and forgot to hit [Post] SHEESH!>
So just go ahead and vote for the party that will destroy science with its work agenda.
Got it.
I don't agree it's a "political party" problem, nor one that will be solved by electing Republicans. Given that, and my also very big concerns about the GOP in its current iteration (let alone the trajectory it's been on for several cycles), it's not a convincing vote for me. Sorry.
What's depressing is that this seems to be a permanent feature of the two party system - both parties have "extreme" problems which prevents either from really taking the center. And we just whipsaw back and forth with thin majorities changing hands every few cycles because inevitably, each party is going to overreach its position with its extreme, and the other party looks good until about a minute they take power again.
TY for reply. I'm still thinking about some-a the other posts.
I understand Your qualms about the GOP.
I'm not sure what You mean by "I don't agree it's a 'political party' problem?" The Woke Religion? Because that *is* a political party problem. If You mean something else, I didn't get it.
Honestly, cat, I'm not sure it will accomplish anything. The Republicans seem to be men without chests (to crib C.S. Lewis.) But at least the Republicans aren't mutilating children's chests to liberate them from their biological constraints.
It's a small thing, but it's better than the alternative.
Well, respectfully, neither are the Democrats as political party. The practices you question and criticize are happening outside of the Democratic Party politics and purview, and while I am skeptical of some the shifting guidelines surrounding transition therapy, I am perhaps more skeptical of using the broad sword of the state to interfere with, with the detriment of interfering with otherwise healthy families (and yes, I oppose state intervention into trans resisting families who are otherwise providing stable and healthy homes). I would so much prefer that our medical establishment have a similar "come to Jesus" moment that our international peers are having, and police this on their own.
Luana, I know what you mean. I also lived through the Brazilian dictatorship nightmare and moved to the US 8 years ago (I was 62, a little older than you). Now we are living another nightmare, the all-encompassing nightmare of fake, nonsensical truths that you so well describe. This scenario, I believe, is far more threatening and dangerous than our old political situation, as it throws doubt on the very nature of humans, and on nature itself. We could understand the lust for power shared by our generals; one cannot understand an imposed truth that denies the most basic human knowledge and threatens you with an absolute lack of logic. It is maddening. It belongs in old, dystopian science fiction books, not in real life, and it should be treated like this. The actions of people like you can help. Abraço
Yes, as someone born in an authoritarian country as well, it disturbs me to see how quickly America is heading in that direction. Us immigrants thought we were going to a free country. But what we saw was Americans wanting more censorship.
Not this American. One of my biggest regrets is that I did not foresee the collapse of the A.erican education system.
C'mon! IMO, no need for regrets! But especially this kind. Who did? Surely not the people *in* the education system. Most-a them were the purveyors of this crap and a lotta them are now the victims, right?
"We have met the enemy and he is us."
...Pogo
As emigres to the US can you see what's happening? The authoritarian left and one world socialist globalist crowd understands perfectly well that the United States is the only thing standing in the way of their dream of world control and domination. Resisting this tyranny with every fiber of one's being is the only realistic choice.
Great observation !
I agree with you 100%.
Great piece!
In my business I’ve been running into this buzzsaw for years.
Courtroom testimony by experts has actually been tossed when they testify that genotypes can determine injury or disease predilection. Imagine that! So we’ve been reduced to educating expert witnesses to avoid such statements and instead concentrate on lay explanations that emphasize phenotypes and other “non-discriminatory” factors.
It’s a load of bull that science gets cancelled in the courtroom
I’ve been arguing for years that leftist and illiberal activism and militancy is much more insidious and dangerous than from the right. Now mainstream folks are starting to wake up. I hope it’s not too late.
Stop supporting colleges that cave into extremists
...even if you went there. I have cut out Brandeis and NU Law--graduated from both.
I’ve cut off my alarm mater.
No more $donations$.
Western civilization is collapsing. It had a good run. Welcome to the new dark ages. We will be colder, hotter, and darker. We cannot discuss certain topics. We are vilified for our beliefs or lineage. Very sad.
About the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is followed by a dictatorship....The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations, from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations progressed through the following sequence:
1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage "
Someone said (more or less) that on the headstone of the late, great USA will be engraved: "Piety birthed Prosperity; the daughter buried the mother."
That makes my heart hurt.
Nice. TYTY, M. Fifi...
Sigh.
Your pessimism is warranted, but the pendulum is swinging back and as Yogi might say “the future has not yet arrived”.
Agreed. I have a lot of hope for what's coming. It might be tough, but once we get through it it will be worth it.
It's a metamorphous not a collapse. What is collapsing is the paradigm built on lies that's been in place for 60 years.
2a is the only thing between us and the collapse you're talking about. I hope you can see this.
So what do we do about it, gang?
I think Solzhenitsyn said it best: "Live not by lies." Don't endorse or purport un-truths and be committed to align yourself with reality at any cost. It's a lot of work, but can't think of a worthier endeavor.
Nice sentiment but I don’t know anyone who is prepared to incur “at any cost”.
That is how it works. People's income is overtly threatened. FIRE has been outstanding in defending freedom of speech and thought in universities, for conservative and liberal thought, since the ACLU rolled over.
Undertaking a lawsuit to assert one's rights and regain one's livelihood is a special place in hell, though!
Modern patriots.
This where the wholesale cultural rejection of vibrant religion comes in. When you are a person of faith, particularly faith in the Eternal, you can live for something beyond this world, and “incur costs” that people with no faith would consider to be too high.
Eliminate faith, and people generally adapt to the world as it is, rather than engaging in the pain of changing it. This is especially true if a person figures that they personally might not live to enjoy the benefits of the costly change.
You nailed it.
I agree. Plus while in this life the faith that a higher power exists 1) is humbling and the good Lord knows humility is sorely lacking these days, and 2) comforting because when at your breaking point you can put it in the hands of the higher power.
As an atheist, I try to live for a higher purpose; it doesn't need to be "beyond this world."
I call for fellow atheists to also find a higher purpose, to get brave, and to suck it up and do the right thing (i.e. tell the truth) despite the social consequences.
Then surrender.
"Nice sentiment but I don’t know anyone who is prepared to incur 'at any cost'."
Some of us are going to have to incur _some_cost, though, and I see so little of that. Those of us who are financially secure, don't have kids, are marketable enough to weather a job loss, don't mind risk, etc., need to suck it up, speak out more and live with the hate and inconvenience that is a consequence.
Yes, this strengthens the individual against these attacks. Creating a certain personal creed about what one will accept and will not accept in our personal lives. I’ve been doing this for a while now. In theory, if ALL individuals adopt this approach, progress can be achieved in defeating this scourge.
How do we get everyone to adopt this approach ?
I wonder if we can make this personal. Maybe talk to teenagers or young people and challenge them on whatever bullshit they're hearing. I'm trying to do this with my niece. Every kid is different. She's a thinker, so I'm challenging her to think. But other kids might need something else. Our last convo about climate change went something like this.
"The earth will be dead in 100 years."
"How do you know that?"
"My science teacher."
"How does she or he know that?"
Etc. You can imagine the rabbit hole we opened in that discussion. It helps that she's smart but also hates school and has an anti-authoritarian streak. But just challenging kids to think and not providing them with answers will help encourage critical thinking skills.
I think this is all about lack of such.
Just keep asking questions. How do they know that? Have you researched other points of view? etc. When they get upset, just remind them you're asking questions, and trying to have a discussion like adults, and what's wrong with that?
I don't know what else to do, honestly.
I actually think that is the key and the trick is through the use of questions. It is after all the Socratic method. It cannot help but spark thought.
You are absolutely correct.
Good comments, Vernon - thanks!
You are absolutely correct… The role of adults is to challenge children with (age-appropriate) questions that make them think. That used to be the role of the teacher. It's always been the role of a parent, loving relative, or good friend. How else are they going to learn to think critically?
That is indeed the salient question! My answer is to promote good sense by rejecting nonsense. Apparently, in academia, this requires a significant courage of conviction, unlike everyday conversation in which you are free to say, "What, are you nuts?"
I agree with that comment.... We do need to point out when something is just darn silly...
https://everythingisbiology.substack.com/p/women-dont-produce-eggs
One small step is to stop contributing to colleges that practice or tolerate such things, which is almost all of them.
I don't know about the "almost all" here, and the phenomenon is not evenly distributed around the country. My own institution - large public university in the American South - has had very little of this, and the faculty recently passed a fairly robust statement on academic freedom.
Still, when major journals and professional societies [edit: and funding agencies] get in on the act - the kinds of connections all researchers in a given field need in order to advance, regardless of where they work - that's when the chill winds start to blow in earnest.
Boycott absolutely everything you can that is associated with the ideology. That means if a company is announcing DEI or ESG, do not support or endorse them in any way.
Hit at their wealth - it's the only thing they truly care about.
That's fine as long as you let them know why you are not giving them your business. If that isn't clear, they will assume it is something else and there is no effect.
Have you noticed Blackrock has been steadily rolling television ads touting their feel good ways? Hmmmm. Wonder why?
We have to support one another when someone comes under unfair attack. If they can’t divide us, they can’t easily conquer us. Also, we need to deeply educate ourselves on topics of interest so we can authoritatively refute lies and distortions. All this is a bit of a heavy lift, but we have to do it. Our forefathers gave us an opportunity without historical peer in establishing and maintaining this country’s freedom. It’s our turn to do our part and maintain the same opportunities for our children and grandchildren.
I agree
The free market should self correct. I plan to vote all responsible for the spread of this ridiculous ideology out of power and I won’t give to any educational institution that promotes or teaches it.
Yeah come on gang!
Easy.
Make them afraid.
Very afraid.
Before it's too late.
Communists infiltrate schools. It's a play they've done every single time, to great success. They teach ideology and words to divide and then further promote their dogma to those they've brainwashed. I'm sorry the author is going through this. My friends in sciences all over the world are the same thing. Classics depts too (although their departments are being dismantled because of "white privilege.") K-higher learning is captured by the communists at this point. It's really time people acknowledge this capture, and do something about it. Either watch your kid's k-12 schools like a watchdog, or homeschool. The info they are getting, often subversive, is dystopian. But even that isn't as safe as it should be. Sending children to colleges and universities which are becoming more focused on CRT or BLM or safe spaces or trans issues than actual studying is also a risk. I've known several homeschooling families who's children go to our state university for a year, come back angry, entitled, and screaming the same thing" the world is going to end, white men are horrible, I'm horrible for being white," etc. Two have come back trans. My circle isn't that big btw. This isn't normal. We have stop this or else science, and the world, won't survive.
Actually I think you have illustrated the problem perfectly. We all believed that education was key and took for granted that the system was not only reliable but also readily available. So we began to rely on 2 income families. How many can give that up at this point? Especially with the present economic instability. We are no different than people who rely on other government benefits. Maybe worse. On a side note I just got my latest property tax statement - $10,000 + to the local school district.
Personally, I don't see any reason why teachers shouldn't wear bodycams like the police do.
Both occupations equally important to the public, in my mind anyway.
Upload it for the parents to review if they want. Make it a team effort amongst enough households, and that'll be the end of them.
“In psychology and public health, many teachers no longer say male and female, but instead use the convoluted “person with a uterus.””
WHAT?! There is something seriously wrong with society today.
I resent being identified by my genitalia. That is the definition of objectifying.
It’s insulting!
Yes it is!
This society is a disaster!
Well put.
Sorry, just realized my typo - RESENT! not resend.
What about women who have had a hysterectomy? They're still women!
Apparently not. And you are treading into breeder territory there.
They still have two X chromosomes and lived a woman's life.
And that's a very interesting question...
https://everythingisbiology.substack.com/p/women-dont-produce-eggs
As a person without a uterus...
https://everythingisbiology.substack.com/p/women-dont-produce-eggs
Take a gander : teachers exposed at the libsoftiktok IG account. Something is clearly wrong with the education-“industry”
It is even worse than Maroja's fine article describes. Research funding is becoming highly ideological and identity-based in even the hardest sciences. Proposals receiving the highest evaluations of merit are mysteriously not funded. Incompetent if not outright fraudulent social science research is funded.
Researchers have to comply with ideological statements which they dare not challenge. Examples have been made of others. One's career and income are very much at stake and it is overt. The fangs have been bared.
It is encouraging to see a group of scientists standing up against this. Many more secretly support it, and are silent out of fear now.
This will end progress in health and medical care
I see a decline coming, where care is afforded or denied based on race, much like during segregation. Only reversed.
VP Harris already proposed such a thing
I was shocked and horrified by that. Glad to hear I wasn't alone.
"Reversed"? In what way? Segregation is segregation. There are dozens of examples in the history of the U.S. going in every which way.
During historical segregation, minority status was used to deny access - to medical care, education, housing, you name it.
During the new segregation, NON minority status is used to deny access.
Yep. American higher ed is churning out a bunch of Lysenkos that will set back their respective fields a few decades or more. More concerned with tiptoeing around people’s neuroses than with actually researching to help people.
My doctor basically stopped practicing medicine in March 2020 because he was afraid of catching Covid. This week the Clinic announced that it has a shortage of doctors. The panicky reaction to Covid has been much more harmful than Covid.
We need to return to solid Science. This is why I steer clear of people wearing masks. I don’t want to get the cooties
Lawyers too. You cannot expect freedom in a society where the lawyers are scared.
Glad you clarified. I have never heard of people getting cooties from lawyers. Bad advice sometimes, but not cooties. We are a mixed bag. But too many of us are now leftists.
And they are
https://billlawrenceonline.com/delco-court-gives-half-win-to-election-integrity-activists/
Perhaps this explains the first decline in life expectancy ever recorded in a developed country (which is what we’ve seen in the US since about 2000-2005)
Already has I think. What do you suppose goes into those algorithms? My instinct is avoid both if at all possible.
Apologize. What algorithms You refer to, Ma'am. Not important if You don't want.
The problem I have with some-a this stuff is that standards are lowered, for one. For two, it's now required for doctors to learn how to be SJWs. Part of the job.
You don't wanna be someone to offer the view that the important thing for doctors is to heal patients. One guy already *did* and was made an example. The two editors of the *peer reviewed* pub the article was included in quote-unquote "resigned."
Galileo would be familiar with the situation of which the author complains. We have regressed 590 years in the past 5.
I was also thinking of Galileo.
And all the other scientists whose work was subject to "review" or suppression by religious authorities. This refusal to allow science that offends the ideology is exactly the same.
A brilliant comment!
As a graduate of Williams, I am not surprised. Williams has really devolved from a top-ranked academic institution into a left-wing propaganda outfit. The change is extremely recent, less than 10 years old. And I saw the beginnings of this while I was a student pursuing social sciences there. The only shock here is that there were any professors left who would say anything about this issue. The hard sciences at Williams and other liberal arts colleges have always thought they were exempt from the excesses of the social sciences. That was naive and comes from a mistaken belief that professors should only do research and teach. They just silo’d themselves and their departments away from involvement in student life, administrative duties and from other departments on campus. By doing so, they exempted themselves from the conversation and allowed more radical ideas to gain a serious foothold. This has led to unqualified hires for professors and administrators and the acceptance of an ever-more radical, less heterodox student body. And now they have no choice but to obey the new orthodoxy or leave.
My theory is that Williams and other schools are in a positive feedback loop that will spiral out of control. What will stop the madness is the loss of prestige, declines in enrollment and the decline of the school’s endowment (which are all already happening and expected to worsen).
I had a great fondness for my school, which has been seriously tainted by the last several years. It’s just not the place it used to be. I wouldn’t send my kids to Williams or any similar school and I refuse to give money or participate in alumni events.
"My theory is that Williams and other schools are in a positive feedback loop that will spiral out of control. What will stop the madness is the loss of prestige, declines in enrollment and the decline of the school’s endowment..."
Theory seems 100% to me.
The Closing of the Western Mind 2.0. Same cause as the first version: a religion/cult seized control of Western Civilization. It will produce the same result: The Dark Ages.
Well said, I haven't considered it in these terms but you're right.
This is an anti-religious cult.
They aren’t anti religion, just anti traditional religion. They have created their own secular religion.
Religion has just as much capacity for closing the mind as any progressive ideology; witness modern Iran or the medieval papacy. The enemy isn't atheism, it's close-mindedness.
In fairness to Terence, I've noticed that some of my San Francisco friends make rash assumptions about Catholics; that they all hate gay people, etc. It's another example of how balkanization and separation from each other makes people unreasonably suspicious of each other's motives.
Maybe but it is also the rankest hypocrisy.
Maybe, humans love to contradict their own moral codes. I think the bigger problem is walling ourselves off from each other. Most folks not all that different in our day to day lives, but distance is a breeding ground for unwarranted suspicion.
I disagree thst humans love to contradict their own moral codes. They may fail to abide by them but willfully contradicting a strongly defined moral code is a recipe for unhappiness or worse. Perhaps the problem is the weakness of the moral code of too many.
Moral code? Sorry, but that would involve people engaging in the possibility of being judged in some fashion.
IMO, that ship has sailed for two generations at the very least. Mebbe from Boomers on. ICBW and, as You know, it isn't everybody.