Our Enemies in Academia

Many thanks to Margaret for calling my attention to this brilliant blog by Steven den Beste at USS Clueless, on neo-Marxism in the academic greenhouse:

.... Much of this was below the radar but the onset of war forced them, like everyone else, out in the open because the political issues were too large and too important to ignore. They couldn't stand silent.

But that also means that they had to come out of their caves and attempt to apply their ideas in the real world. Instead of dealing only with themselves and with powerless students, they had to deal with fellow citizens over whom they had no coercive power. Whether they agree or not, students are forced to parrot the professor's line because otherwise they won't graduate. But out here in the real world, these academics have no ability to force fellow citizens to listen at all, let alone to listen respectfully and to nod their heads in passive agreement without any argument.

They had to try to persuade other citizens to their point of view (opposing the war, opposing nationalism as such and America in particular, opposing capitalism and globalization, and all the other opposings we've come to know and love about the academic left's political activism). It means that their ideas, previously developed and spread largely in hermetic isolation, were necessarily subjected at long last to empirical test, and didn't pass that test.

And they failed miserably. It's hardly surprising; after 20 years of intellectual masturbation they didn't produce any babies. Their ideas were revealed as being empty. What they mostly reaped was ridicule. Their proposals didn't pass the horselaugh test.

But as a result of this, they're also out in the open, and they are now revealed as being a pernicious force in this nation who have tried to hijack the educational system to colonize the future by indoctrinating young people into their own political beliefs. The backlash is already beginning and it's only going to get stronger now, because critics are no longer letting themselves be shouted down and silenced and because the general population of the US has now taken note of what they've been doing.

BTW, as somebody with a B.S. in Math & Computer Science, and many years' experience in the business world, I can tell you that the quotation with which the blog commences is right on target.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 05/01/03 03:41:36 PM
Categorized as Social/Cultural.