If one looks at how totalitarian states control people generally, it is by simple coercion and fear.
If you don’t conform, sanctions of varying degrees follow.
In democracies we have constitutions that stipulate the laws we must conform to but those laws also stipulate our rights.
We have the right to protest when we feel the laws that g…
If one looks at how totalitarian states control people generally, it is by simple coercion and fear.
If you don’t conform, sanctions of varying degrees follow.
In democracies we have constitutions that stipulate the laws we must conform to but those laws also stipulate our rights.
We have the right to protest when we feel the laws that govern what we can’t or can do are not being observed by government.
Free speech is, by and large, a right.
In totalitarian states there are are no such laws and there are a agencies empowered to ensure that citizens do not protest, criticize or voice opinions that run counter to what a regime deems acceptable.
In spite of their constitutions and mandated rights, however, the Western Democracies are experiencing a social phenomena created by a class that totalitarians have traditionally sought to eliminate for their non-conformist behaviour: the intellectual class.
In a remarkable turn of events, the intellectual and academic classes of the democracies, who had heretofore been the most ardent guardians of free speech, have become major arbiters of what can be spoken freely.
Many academics charged with education have abandoned the notion that liberal inquiry is an essential part of the student experience - indeed education in many institutions has been replaced by indoctrination which, if rejected or questioned, results in sanctions including failing evaluations and intellectual shunning.
What was once the enforcement domain of secret police forces has moved into our schools and universities.
While the more brutal suppressions are not present, these institutions have the ability to coerce conformity by using the evaluation and grading system as enforcement - if students don’t subscribe to the accepted line, it may result in their failure.
Given the value of a diploma or degree, it is understandable that few students want to swim against the progressive and woke tides flowing against them.
Progressive and woke government do not need the service of police agencies to enforce conformity to their agendas.
It is now done for them by the very people who once were one of the least conforming elements within our society.
If one looks at how totalitarian states control people generally, it is by simple coercion and fear.
If you don’t conform, sanctions of varying degrees follow.
In democracies we have constitutions that stipulate the laws we must conform to but those laws also stipulate our rights.
We have the right to protest when we feel the laws that govern what we can’t or can do are not being observed by government.
Free speech is, by and large, a right.
In totalitarian states there are are no such laws and there are a agencies empowered to ensure that citizens do not protest, criticize or voice opinions that run counter to what a regime deems acceptable.
In spite of their constitutions and mandated rights, however, the Western Democracies are experiencing a social phenomena created by a class that totalitarians have traditionally sought to eliminate for their non-conformist behaviour: the intellectual class.
In a remarkable turn of events, the intellectual and academic classes of the democracies, who had heretofore been the most ardent guardians of free speech, have become major arbiters of what can be spoken freely.
Many academics charged with education have abandoned the notion that liberal inquiry is an essential part of the student experience - indeed education in many institutions has been replaced by indoctrination which, if rejected or questioned, results in sanctions including failing evaluations and intellectual shunning.
What was once the enforcement domain of secret police forces has moved into our schools and universities.
While the more brutal suppressions are not present, these institutions have the ability to coerce conformity by using the evaluation and grading system as enforcement - if students don’t subscribe to the accepted line, it may result in their failure.
Given the value of a diploma or degree, it is understandable that few students want to swim against the progressive and woke tides flowing against them.
Progressive and woke government do not need the service of police agencies to enforce conformity to their agendas.
It is now done for them by the very people who once were one of the least conforming elements within our society.