I'm a California high school teacher who experienced the same thing so I quit and left the state on May 27th .. just three weeks ago. I published an entry about my departure just an hour ago on my substack. I was dealing with students 16, 17, and 18 years old so it's not quite the same ball game as adult students at college but the brainwashing was well underway at my high school. It's sad.
A recent review of Books VIII and IX of Plato's Republic has stunned me with how closely our society resembles Plato's description of the last days of democracy before it flips to tyranny. The hypersensitivity, the echo chambers, the legions of thoughtless drones whose sole role is to outshout any opposition to nihilistic dogma. I will attempt to contact Dr. Boghossian to discuss this further.
I work at a university but am not a professor so have to keep my mouth shut a bit more. I try not to roll my eyes when every meeting starts by "thanking the indiginous people whose land we now occupy for making this meeting possible" and other self-righteous nonsense. I call it nonsense because, if leadership were TRULY upset about land taken from the indigenous people, they would give it back vs. simply thanking them. In some ways, THANKING them is worse. It would be like Putin thanking the Ukranian people for their gift of allowing him to occupy their land.
The bottom line, if I want to stay employed, and I do--I find the energy of a campus keeps me in touch with young people, the work is important, and we *do* help a lot of first generation college students--I have to toe the line and never say how I really feel about anything.
Scott, that was great! You said it'd be like Putin thanking the Ukrainians for letting him occupy them. I shouldn't laugh but your analogy made the whole "acknowledge the land we're on" theatrical performance all the more ridiculous!
Bari and Peter, in the podcast you briefly state that Jews and Asians don't qualify under section 9. Bari asks why, and you say: "It's a topic for a whole new podcast." As a person of Jewish ethnicity whose parents and grandparents were persecuted in the Holocaust, I would like to understand the rationale for the double standard, and suggest that you do a podcast about this particular phenomenon.
Perhaps there are universities that still teach, rather than indoctrinate, but I would not subject any child of mine to any of these Stalinist educational gulags. You would be hard-pressed to find any service that has increased more in price than college education, yet the woke idiots who mortgage their lives to pay for it, never rail against "Big University's" exploitation of students. Universities no longer prepare the entitlement-minded, grievance-aware dolts for careers. Instead they saddle students with useless degrees, and program them to think that the absence of immediate success and wealth is not their fault. Rather it is the fault of an intolerant society that fails to appreciate the brilliance of these mal-educated narcissists. Businesses who hire these dolts are seeding the destruction of their companies because these hires will wreck the very businesses they work for because they don't know how maintain and grow a business. Parents, students, and alumni need to realize that they don't have to support institutions that are aggressively seeking to break rational thinking, our country, our culture, our families, and our economy.
These Universities are creating a band of Hitler Youth throughout our college campus’s. I would not waste hard earned money sending children to lose their souls and be treated as lab rats in a socialist experiment. Very scary stuff. I wish I could become numb to the barrage of stories that seem ever more insane but I am not. I am sickened, saddened and angry as hell.
The constitution never said "abortion legal", unless you make a change. And if you prefer, as a women to express your freedom, you should also hold that same freedom until death. Which would give you the right to abort till death.
And that same freedom should stand for all, such as the man involved.
My view on comparing the Peace March with the city riots, where people were killed, people lost their business, homes and income were lurid, one after the other. The house that those kids broke into(C ongress) was there (kids) house, fine with me.
There’s an advice column called Ask A Manager which just advised that employee college reimbursement programs should exclude accredited religious institutions AND that all graduates of these institutions are intolerant bigots. The letter writer states in comments that they went to a liberal university, presumably where they learned to be intolerant. University X is clearly Liberty.
“My manager attends a notoriously bigoted university”
I’m new to my job (two months in) and so I’m only just getting to know my new supervisor (all virtual/over Zoom). She seems lovely and supportive. But I recently learned that she is enrolled to get an advanced degree at one of the most notoriously anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-civil-rights, etc. etc. evangelical universities in the country. I’ll call it University X.
This isn’t a matter of what’s physically close to her, because it’s all online. It’s not a matter of saving money, because it’s being paid for by employers who would pay any tuition. It’s almost certainly not a matter of academic excellence, because this place just isn’t academically excellent. While I give a lot of leeway to where people get their undergrad degrees — an 18-year-old is functionally a child and most are under the thumbs of their parents — this is a woman closer to middle age who would have made the decision to enroll in grad school at University X with both eyes open and a plethora of other options.
As a supervisor, what is her duty here? Our employer is outspoken about support for the queer community. But I can imagine hearing from her that she was enrolled at University X and feeling super unsafe about talking to her about anything in my life that was even the least bit non-normative. Whether I count as “queer” is sort of up for debate within the community, but this question isn’t really about me so much as it is a hypothetical: What would you advise my supervisor to do here? Should she have chosen a different school from the get-go? Should she omit the name of the school when she discusses her academic work with subordinates? Should she mention the school but insert a disclaimer, “I know that University X has a really awful reputation for being queer-friendly, but I just want to let you know I don’t condone that”?
Answer: She shouldn’t attend a school that’s notoriously anti-gay, anti-trans, and anti-civil-rights, period. With the context you gave (eyes wide open and other options), you’ve got to assume she either actively supports their positions or simply doesn’t care (which for all intents and purposes isn’t that different from supporting them) and that’s a real problem for her as a manager (and as a human). If your employer is paying for her to get a degree there, they need to revisit what they pay for.
Boghossian's letter is further evidence of what side truly holds all the cards in society—and it ain't Donald Trump or any of the MAGA folks. The universities, the media the Left are in bed with the Washington establishment, and anyone (like P Boghossian) who refuses to get under the woke sheets will be thrown out into the cold. Although many Americans now see this as clear as day, they stop short of recognizing the bigger (uglier) picture: woke culture doesn't just aim to silence individuals who disagree, but they want to completely obliterate any political opposition, by using outright force, censorship (Twitter/Facebook/Youtube) and twisting how we look at events, so it jives with their version of reality. It's the latter we have to be most careful of because it is the most difficult to catch. Example: After months of watching death, destruction, violence, and billions of dollars worth of damage during the Antifa/BLM riots, I am still shocked by anyone who can be so outraged by the January 6 protest at the capitol. It's time for thinking people to ask themselves, "Why are the January 6 folks still being held in prison when thousands of individuals who committed crimes during the BLM/Antifa riots were let go, Scot-free?"
I don't always agree with Donald Trump (or his supporters, MAGA, or the Conservatives) but in today's political realm, they are clearly David in this "David and Goliath" scenario. So here's my advice for anyone who does not want wokeness to become our way of life: David might have his shortcomings, but keep your eye on Goliath, because he's the REAL monster.
Towards the end of the podcast with Boghossian he mentions a person who went back to Buchenwald to protect his jailers. Does anyone know who this person is? I can't fully understand the name.
Let's be honest here: Peter Boghossian resigned because he spent so much of his time trolling other scholars that he did not do the writing and publishing that he should have done to get tenure. Tying your wagon to the culture wars, instead of your field, and writing fake articles to "expose the intellectual bankruptcy" of people whose work you do not admire is like working for the Onion, not working as a professional philosopher. Those fake articles were gross ethical violations. All of his contrarianism is linked to that--the need to make himself, and his contempt for academic life, the center of attention. It's a path to something--a commercial book contract, for example, William Deresiewicz is a good parallel, although, unlike Boghassian, his critical work is researched and factual., but it isn't a path to an academic career as a philosopher: to do that, you actually have to accomplish something, and in philosophy, write a book that stands up to peer review. The fact that he didn't publish enough to get tenure at Portland State--a mid-level research university--is the real issue here, one that he is covering up in another bid to be the center of attention.
The man is a charlatan. Plenty of contrarians survive in the academy, particularly in philosophy, which, like Religion Departments, often harbors faculty on the intellectual fringe.
Claire, are you referring to all his papers or just the ones mentioned in his letter? Also, whether he’s a charlatan or not, are you disputing the intolerant and bullying atmosphere in and outside the campus, towards anyone that does not agree with the cancel culture, CRT, etc….?
Two things: you cannot take one person's representation of a school and say that it is indisputably correct, regardless of how much sympathy you might have for that person. Second, what I am disputing is that this is the reason he is resigning. Upon his resignation, he had been an assistant professor for ten years. Ten. Most people come up for tenure at year 6 or 7. But in fact, Boghassian seems to have been unable to produce a philosophy monograph that was refereed and published by a reputable press. So my sense is that he resigned because he was about to be fired--which is what usually happens when you don't get tenure at the moment your contract says you will be evaluated. And he couldn't come up for tenure because he didn't come close to having a tenurable dossier.
The man wrote, or participated in writing, 20 hoax papers, but never turned his PhD thesis into a book--it's the one thing you have to do to get tenure, and instead he chose to act like a frat boy and put his energy into that. Let me also say that Boghassian has also been criticized by conservatives too. And here is a report from a conservative website:
"Breitbart News reported on Boghossian’s efforts to dupe leftist academic journals last year. Working with two other scholars, James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose, Boghossian wrote and submitted a series of preposterous academic papers. One paper focused on “rape culture” between dogs at the park and another paper was a re-written section of Mein Kampf featuring, in this version, vitriol against men. These papers were both accepted for publication by a team of peer-reviewers.
Now, Boghossian is being sanctioned by Portland State University for his role in the hoax. According to officials at the university, the hoax amounts to “research misconduct,” which is defined as “plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification.”
“You are forbidden to engage in any human subjects related research as principal investigator, collaborator, or contributor,” a letter from Portland State Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies, Mark R. McLellan, reads. “This ban will remain in effect for as long as you work at PSU or until you can show satisfactory evidence of understanding of the protections afforded human subjects by this university.”
The letter also states that Boghossian has been banned from conducting any type of university-sponsored research. “You are forbidden to engage in any sponsored research as principal investigator, collaborator or contributor,” McLellan added.
The letter notes that Boghossian could face termination from the university if he violates these new restrictions. Boghossian will be forced to undergo training on the “protection of human subjects” if he wants a shot at regaining his right to engage in university-sponsored research.
Yes: I dispute them. There are real reasons why the guy was about to be fired. He is a liar, and without scholarly accomplishments. His account of this is a lie too.
I will not answer for Bari, but I’ll say that unfortunately we live at a time when assertions like the ones you mentioned above can also be questioned. The fact-checking should also verify if Mr. McLellan’s remarks are not prompted by his own ideology. There’s a lot of it these days.
The bottom line is that Mr. Boghossian is denouncing a reality that is very worrisome.
Well said Mr Boghossian, well said indeed!
Would that more of your peers have your same fortitude. Our universities and our culture would be infinitely better!
I'm a California high school teacher who experienced the same thing so I quit and left the state on May 27th .. just three weeks ago. I published an entry about my departure just an hour ago on my substack. I was dealing with students 16, 17, and 18 years old so it's not quite the same ball game as adult students at college but the brainwashing was well underway at my high school. It's sad.
This letter led me to subscribe to this publication and cancel my NYT subscription after 5 years.
A recent review of Books VIII and IX of Plato's Republic has stunned me with how closely our society resembles Plato's description of the last days of democracy before it flips to tyranny. The hypersensitivity, the echo chambers, the legions of thoughtless drones whose sole role is to outshout any opposition to nihilistic dogma. I will attempt to contact Dr. Boghossian to discuss this further.
I work at a university but am not a professor so have to keep my mouth shut a bit more. I try not to roll my eyes when every meeting starts by "thanking the indiginous people whose land we now occupy for making this meeting possible" and other self-righteous nonsense. I call it nonsense because, if leadership were TRULY upset about land taken from the indigenous people, they would give it back vs. simply thanking them. In some ways, THANKING them is worse. It would be like Putin thanking the Ukranian people for their gift of allowing him to occupy their land.
The bottom line, if I want to stay employed, and I do--I find the energy of a campus keeps me in touch with young people, the work is important, and we *do* help a lot of first generation college students--I have to toe the line and never say how I really feel about anything.
Scott, that was great! You said it'd be like Putin thanking the Ukrainians for letting him occupy them. I shouldn't laugh but your analogy made the whole "acknowledge the land we're on" theatrical performance all the more ridiculous!
Boghossian has moved on to working with other leading intellectuals to found a new university - the University of Austin. https://www.uaustin.org/
Bari and Peter, in the podcast you briefly state that Jews and Asians don't qualify under section 9. Bari asks why, and you say: "It's a topic for a whole new podcast." As a person of Jewish ethnicity whose parents and grandparents were persecuted in the Holocaust, I would like to understand the rationale for the double standard, and suggest that you do a podcast about this particular phenomenon.
MK, me too. I'm Jewish (I'm using a pseudonym on substack) and I'd also like to hear about this double standard!
Perhaps there are universities that still teach, rather than indoctrinate, but I would not subject any child of mine to any of these Stalinist educational gulags. You would be hard-pressed to find any service that has increased more in price than college education, yet the woke idiots who mortgage their lives to pay for it, never rail against "Big University's" exploitation of students. Universities no longer prepare the entitlement-minded, grievance-aware dolts for careers. Instead they saddle students with useless degrees, and program them to think that the absence of immediate success and wealth is not their fault. Rather it is the fault of an intolerant society that fails to appreciate the brilliance of these mal-educated narcissists. Businesses who hire these dolts are seeding the destruction of their companies because these hires will wreck the very businesses they work for because they don't know how maintain and grow a business. Parents, students, and alumni need to realize that they don't have to support institutions that are aggressively seeking to break rational thinking, our country, our culture, our families, and our economy.
Fantastic episode of the Podcast.. So intense to think how off the rails the thought crime police have become.
These Universities are creating a band of Hitler Youth throughout our college campus’s. I would not waste hard earned money sending children to lose their souls and be treated as lab rats in a socialist experiment. Very scary stuff. I wish I could become numb to the barrage of stories that seem ever more insane but I am not. I am sickened, saddened and angry as hell.
The constitution never said "abortion legal", unless you make a change. And if you prefer, as a women to express your freedom, you should also hold that same freedom until death. Which would give you the right to abort till death.
And that same freedom should stand for all, such as the man involved.
My view on comparing the Peace March with the city riots, where people were killed, people lost their business, homes and income were lurid, one after the other. The house that those kids broke into(C ongress) was there (kids) house, fine with me.
There’s an advice column called Ask A Manager which just advised that employee college reimbursement programs should exclude accredited religious institutions AND that all graduates of these institutions are intolerant bigots. The letter writer states in comments that they went to a liberal university, presumably where they learned to be intolerant. University X is clearly Liberty.
http://dlvr.it/S7Rywd.
It’s question 2.
“My manager attends a notoriously bigoted university”
I’m new to my job (two months in) and so I’m only just getting to know my new supervisor (all virtual/over Zoom). She seems lovely and supportive. But I recently learned that she is enrolled to get an advanced degree at one of the most notoriously anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-civil-rights, etc. etc. evangelical universities in the country. I’ll call it University X.
This isn’t a matter of what’s physically close to her, because it’s all online. It’s not a matter of saving money, because it’s being paid for by employers who would pay any tuition. It’s almost certainly not a matter of academic excellence, because this place just isn’t academically excellent. While I give a lot of leeway to where people get their undergrad degrees — an 18-year-old is functionally a child and most are under the thumbs of their parents — this is a woman closer to middle age who would have made the decision to enroll in grad school at University X with both eyes open and a plethora of other options.
As a supervisor, what is her duty here? Our employer is outspoken about support for the queer community. But I can imagine hearing from her that she was enrolled at University X and feeling super unsafe about talking to her about anything in my life that was even the least bit non-normative. Whether I count as “queer” is sort of up for debate within the community, but this question isn’t really about me so much as it is a hypothetical: What would you advise my supervisor to do here? Should she have chosen a different school from the get-go? Should she omit the name of the school when she discusses her academic work with subordinates? Should she mention the school but insert a disclaimer, “I know that University X has a really awful reputation for being queer-friendly, but I just want to let you know I don’t condone that”?
Answer: She shouldn’t attend a school that’s notoriously anti-gay, anti-trans, and anti-civil-rights, period. With the context you gave (eyes wide open and other options), you’ve got to assume she either actively supports their positions or simply doesn’t care (which for all intents and purposes isn’t that different from supporting them) and that’s a real problem for her as a manager (and as a human). If your employer is paying for her to get a degree there, they need to revisit what they pay for.
Nice interview. But he never really answered the question of "Why now".
Boghossian's letter is further evidence of what side truly holds all the cards in society—and it ain't Donald Trump or any of the MAGA folks. The universities, the media the Left are in bed with the Washington establishment, and anyone (like P Boghossian) who refuses to get under the woke sheets will be thrown out into the cold. Although many Americans now see this as clear as day, they stop short of recognizing the bigger (uglier) picture: woke culture doesn't just aim to silence individuals who disagree, but they want to completely obliterate any political opposition, by using outright force, censorship (Twitter/Facebook/Youtube) and twisting how we look at events, so it jives with their version of reality. It's the latter we have to be most careful of because it is the most difficult to catch. Example: After months of watching death, destruction, violence, and billions of dollars worth of damage during the Antifa/BLM riots, I am still shocked by anyone who can be so outraged by the January 6 protest at the capitol. It's time for thinking people to ask themselves, "Why are the January 6 folks still being held in prison when thousands of individuals who committed crimes during the BLM/Antifa riots were let go, Scot-free?"
I don't always agree with Donald Trump (or his supporters, MAGA, or the Conservatives) but in today's political realm, they are clearly David in this "David and Goliath" scenario. So here's my advice for anyone who does not want wokeness to become our way of life: David might have his shortcomings, but keep your eye on Goliath, because he's the REAL monster.
Towards the end of the podcast with Boghossian he mentions a person who went back to Buchenwald to protect his jailers. Does anyone know who this person is? I can't fully understand the name.
Let's be honest here: Peter Boghossian resigned because he spent so much of his time trolling other scholars that he did not do the writing and publishing that he should have done to get tenure. Tying your wagon to the culture wars, instead of your field, and writing fake articles to "expose the intellectual bankruptcy" of people whose work you do not admire is like working for the Onion, not working as a professional philosopher. Those fake articles were gross ethical violations. All of his contrarianism is linked to that--the need to make himself, and his contempt for academic life, the center of attention. It's a path to something--a commercial book contract, for example, William Deresiewicz is a good parallel, although, unlike Boghassian, his critical work is researched and factual., but it isn't a path to an academic career as a philosopher: to do that, you actually have to accomplish something, and in philosophy, write a book that stands up to peer review. The fact that he didn't publish enough to get tenure at Portland State--a mid-level research university--is the real issue here, one that he is covering up in another bid to be the center of attention.
The man is a charlatan. Plenty of contrarians survive in the academy, particularly in philosophy, which, like Religion Departments, often harbors faculty on the intellectual fringe.
Claire, are you referring to all his papers or just the ones mentioned in his letter? Also, whether he’s a charlatan or not, are you disputing the intolerant and bullying atmosphere in and outside the campus, towards anyone that does not agree with the cancel culture, CRT, etc….?
Two things: you cannot take one person's representation of a school and say that it is indisputably correct, regardless of how much sympathy you might have for that person. Second, what I am disputing is that this is the reason he is resigning. Upon his resignation, he had been an assistant professor for ten years. Ten. Most people come up for tenure at year 6 or 7. But in fact, Boghassian seems to have been unable to produce a philosophy monograph that was refereed and published by a reputable press. So my sense is that he resigned because he was about to be fired--which is what usually happens when you don't get tenure at the moment your contract says you will be evaluated. And he couldn't come up for tenure because he didn't come close to having a tenurable dossier.
The man wrote, or participated in writing, 20 hoax papers, but never turned his PhD thesis into a book--it's the one thing you have to do to get tenure, and instead he chose to act like a frat boy and put his energy into that. Let me also say that Boghassian has also been criticized by conservatives too. And here is a report from a conservative website:
"Breitbart News reported on Boghossian’s efforts to dupe leftist academic journals last year. Working with two other scholars, James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose, Boghossian wrote and submitted a series of preposterous academic papers. One paper focused on “rape culture” between dogs at the park and another paper was a re-written section of Mein Kampf featuring, in this version, vitriol against men. These papers were both accepted for publication by a team of peer-reviewers.
Now, Boghossian is being sanctioned by Portland State University for his role in the hoax. According to officials at the university, the hoax amounts to “research misconduct,” which is defined as “plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification.”
“You are forbidden to engage in any human subjects related research as principal investigator, collaborator, or contributor,” a letter from Portland State Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies, Mark R. McLellan, reads. “This ban will remain in effect for as long as you work at PSU or until you can show satisfactory evidence of understanding of the protections afforded human subjects by this university.”
The letter also states that Boghossian has been banned from conducting any type of university-sponsored research. “You are forbidden to engage in any sponsored research as principal investigator, collaborator or contributor,” McLellan added.
The letter notes that Boghossian could face termination from the university if he violates these new restrictions. Boghossian will be forced to undergo training on the “protection of human subjects” if he wants a shot at regaining his right to engage in university-sponsored research.
Link=https://principia-scientific.com/university-punishes-professor-behind-academic-journal-hoax-papers/
Claire, with all due respect, you raised a new point but did not answer my two points
Yes: I dispute them. There are real reasons why the guy was about to be fired. He is a liar, and without scholarly accomplishments. His account of this is a lie too.
And it leads me to ask again: why does Bari not fact-check these things?
I will not answer for Bari, but I’ll say that unfortunately we live at a time when assertions like the ones you mentioned above can also be questioned. The fact-checking should also verify if Mr. McLellan’s remarks are not prompted by his own ideology. There’s a lot of it these days.
The bottom line is that Mr. Boghossian is denouncing a reality that is very worrisome.