This was one of the most difficult reads I have read on this Substack. It even prompted me to subscribe. I am not an American, but my entire life I have admired USA for its strength of judiciary and independence of its legal system. It is truly sad to see how once great system is slowly eroded by ideological zealots.
Slowly I am starting to believe that "wokeness" has supplanted religion in part of US population, and that followers of new religion are acting no different than Inquisition during Dark Ages => noone is pure enough, and who is pure is decided by wokest of the woke. Any attempt to resist is severely punished.
What is currently happening in US universities, reminds me of Lysenkoism, when entire field of Biology in USSR was captured by Trofim Lysenko and his followers. This went so far that for some 30 years USSR was teaching pseudo-science and any dissent was severely sanctioned. During this time USSR biology researched was literary decimated.
Sadly in US this woke ideology is not contained in one field, but it seems that it is slowly affecting STEM fields, this will damage US future for sure. In the beginning I thought, that this would be just a phase, but slowly I am loosing hope, since this illiberal ideology is lowly creeping over to Europe and infecting its universities.
It is a religion. We are spiritual beings and are called to worship. This is part of a hyper-puritanical twisted, sick faith that includes climate alarmism
“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.” - Friedrich Nietzsche
Sometimes, I don’t think Nietzsche was as anti-religion as many cast him but he recognized the on coming horrors the destruction of religion would bring as we try to create new moral codes to base society on.
I see many on the progressive left re-inventing ideas long held by the religious right (#MeToo for example) but they think they have new profound insight.
This is what Jordan Peterson recognized and has lectured on. That Nietzsche was brilliant and horrified at what he could see happening when we can no longer worship God.
Regardless of whether I agree with Jordan Peterson's opinions (I happen to, for the most part), it is his present reality that is informative. He does indeed lecture, but he is being cancelled almost as often as being allowed to speak. Because his ideas do not conform to the narrative of the majority of the student body - he is thus deemed unworthy of an audience. He is a victim of the era this article describes.
I get the opposite feeling from this. That a big part of the problem with 'wokism' is precisely BECAUSE it resembles a religion. It's not that things like CRT are not worth discussing, they certainly are. It's that they think it is above any and all criticism. That kind of moral absolutism is very much mirrored in organized religion.
I mean, you don't need religion to know the difference between right and wrong. Basic morality can and does exist just fine without any religious foundation.
I agree that it functions in many ways like a religion. As has been noted before it has its own catechism and certainly allows for "heretics" and "blasphemers" to be excommunicated. But we seem, as humans, to be motivated to worship something. "without worship, you shrink; it's as brutal as that." Peter Equus
I've been making this point on boards lately myself. We do seem to have a need to believe in something greater than ourselves for psychic health. However, the regressiveness of some religions drove many away and this created a vacuum. It appears that woke religion has rushed in to fill it.
I am astonished and saddened at how easily our children are turning away from the principles of individual liberty. What kind of world do they think they will usher in without it? Do they realize how totalitarian and brutal it will be? That they are working to regress us into a pre-feudal state of tribalism? Are they truly that poorly educated and myopic? I am starting to lose hope after reading this article and this one: https://freeblackthought.substack.com/p/why-did-critical-race-theory-emerge?s=r
I totally understand your feelings, I've had those same worries myself. It makes it hard to have hope. P.S. I just read the excellent article that you provided the link to.
Hmm, I've never heard of it quite like that. Are you saying that you think we are somehow predisposed to worship a divine being? Or that it's in our DNA or something like that?
I think all humans have a common drive to validate our own existence and, by extension, purpose. A reason for being if you will. But whether or not that drive manifests itself through divine worship is another matter.
For myself, I left the church decades ago and never looked back. And I haven't substituted that with any other religion since. I consider myself better off because of it. But that is just my personal experience, and I certainly would never try and force that view on anyone else - everyone is free to worship, or not worship, who or whatever they want.
But it's quite another thing to try and say that religion is the basis of all morality. There's very little in the grand and ancient history of our species to suggest that.
i agree with all but the last paragraph. You're right that it's not the basis of ALL morality. Or, at least, I think You're right. But history HAS shown that religions have formed the BULK of moral ideas for thousands of years.
Not saying this is anything like YOU, Elliot. But a lotta people threw the baby out with the bath water by walking away from religions they grew up with.
Me? EXACTLY 50% Fundamentalist Atheist. I was raised that way. That leaves 50% Religio-Spiritual. Not much difference between the Atheist Religion and the others, AFAIK. But that's just me.
It is incompatible with all other world views because it doesn’t tolerate dissent. Any questioning of the narrative = lack of morality. They are “social justice,” after all…
It is the replacement Civil Religion for the Constitution that the Liberals tore down, the Republic Biden overthrew with rioters and National Guardsmen.
Woke if it worked- it doesn’t- would be competent.
Then again Jonestown ran well enough until some meddling Congressmen responded to their constituents complaints about abuse.
The Reverend Jim Jones was Human Rights Commissioner for San Francisco you know.
Conformity, which is what your quote is alluding to - is corrosive. Both the progressive left and the conservative far right exhibit it. People, especially when young, find their self validation when meeting others sharing the same cultural view.
Agreed 100%. I agree both the left and right have issues with group think but I have come to believe there are checks on conservatism in a liberal democracy while only positive feed back exist in a liberal democracy against progressivism.
True enough. The common thread in conformist groupthink is that dissent is absolutely not permitted. No thinking other than their own is valid, so much so that an outlier opinion is construed as a threat. Thus the hundreds of speakers once invited to events at universities are then cancelled by school administrations cowed by students who can't bear to hear a contrasting position. It amazes me that the denizens of the far left don't see a mirror of themselves in Communist China, Putin's Russia or the impenetrable North Korea. Never mind other repressive regimes in history.
Sad to say, but the iconic debates in the '60's between William Buckley and Baldwin or Vidal simply could not take place today. Buckley wouldn't be permitted to set foot on campus.
“Groupthink is a phenomenon that occurs when the desire for group consensus overrides people's common sense desire to present alternatives, critique a position, or express an unpopular opinion. Here, the desire for group cohesion effectively drives out good decision-making and problem solving.”
As a closet sociologist, I would love to know what about the pedagogy used to raise our current generation of young people contributed to them being so conformist. I was raised in the 60s and 70s - a time when exploring individuality was encouraged and a strong cultural norm. It is mind-boggling to me that we have morphed into the current conformist culture so quickly.
Conservatives have the NUMBERS behind them. More people are conservative in nature, tho they don't always vote along those lines. And Conservatives don't seem to be very good at organizing people to their benefit, right?
You're right. But I'm still undecided if that's a bug or the destiny of progressivism. I think we'll see if many opt outta the Radical ILliberals views.
Every group exhibits some level of conformity, that's what makes it a group.
I think you'll find that blind conformity is not limited to young or left/right - we see that social media is making a mockery of independent thought through all strata (stratum?) of society.
There's a LEVEL where we are all Spiritual beings. You could also look at it that the Woke religion is pretty doggone ANTI-Spiritual, couldn't Ya? I dunno, but I SUSPECT that a lotta the Woke are the ones that gave up on their religion and had-ta find a new one. ICBW.
Agree with rest. Climate change. One-worldism. I think they're all of a bundle.
The entire thrust of Liberalism was taking all power from the Church, so usury would be legal. Also the landed peasants exploited more ruthlessly than ever.
1. Racism exists: Critical Racist Theory judges people by the color of their skin, not the content of their character. It's racist by definition. So racism does exist. However, to claim that the US hasn't improved since the 1950's is ridiculous. I have a wonderful black sisteer in law. In the 1950's that would have been illegal in several states. We ain't perfect, but we've come a very long way in my lifetime.
2. The climate is changing: Yes, the climate is always changing. However, the question is whether the climate is changing because of fossil fuel use. The answer to that is at best unproven. Is it worth killing thousands of Ukrainians to maybe turn down the temperature by .1 degree Centegrade? Most likely not. Can we use nuclear for reliable, uninterupted power? Not according to mean green fantasies, which shows they're not serious about the problem.
3. Covid was/is real and a deadly killer of millions: OK, but did the masks and lockdowns have an effect that saved any lives? Locking down healthy populations was unprecedented in history. The statistical results show that it was at best not a statistically significant improvement over protecting the vulnerable over 55 population. In other words, lockdowns and mandates were an abuse of power by the authorities using The Science (TM), which changed regularly to suit the convenience of the government.
4. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: There's an old Bob Hope joke. He says he's OK with legalizing gay sex, but he left California because he was worried they would make it mandatory. I don't care what LBGTQ++ folks do. I have lots of life long Gay friends. But please don't tell me a trans women should compete in women's sports, or share their locker rooms. That's ridiculous.
Let's get a grip and preserve the Constitution and rule of law democracy, not "our democracy," from Russia Hoaxes, rogue surveillance FISA warrants, censored Hunter Biden laptop scandals, and lies "experts" tell to make us obey.
Racism exists: It is not the center of every action taken, or not taken. Viewing every action through a lens that searches for racism creates a mindset that there is no action/inaction that does not center in racism.
OK Charles...are you stating that because you know your numbers exist, that's the cure or should we have No Cure?
1) racism racism racism...everywhere, always...so nice, is that you?
1a) continue what has been taking place (US), most of the world, not all; l.e. remove slavery...which?
2)climate has been changing, long before man. It is getting warmer, not colder. Which do you prefer? We as a nation, the US have been cleaning rivers etc. for 50/60 that i know about, more to be done.
2b) to attempt to adjust the climate without Proper precaution should cause Great harm, be careful. Lithium batteries are a problem, not so much with Natural Gas.
)EASY...any man/women can Jump off the cliff, the landing "not so easy" thanks Charles.
Yes. And like other religions it tends to make people tribal, dividing them into the righteous and the non believers. As a lifelong atheist this reign of wokeness (or whatever You wanna call it) disgusts me as much as any backward theocracy. And no, it has absolutely nothing to do with progress as the true believers may think.
I am glad l this article mentioned the issue with school administrators. For those of you who do not follow Peter Boghosian, the topic has been explained in detail on his substack. It was school administrators who first pursued DEI initiatives in college campuses. Similarly, administrators are been imposing these “woke” curricula in public schools (my young kids currently have a state-mandated critical pedagogy framework and I am not too happy about). Remember that these administrators are graduates of Ed Schools and that Richard Delgado himself who bragged (several years ago) about how many scholars in the field of education are now considered critical race theorists.
Exactly. Ballooning administration has dramatically inflated college costs in the last 30 years. It's destroying the liberal character of universities. It polices students' sex lives and their personal lives. It systematically tolerates and encourages aggressive, sometimes violent, far left groups.
Is there any reason to continue supporting American colleges and universities in their current form? They are the source of the problem. First steps would be, stop sending your money and kids there. Next steps, encourage others to do the same.
Thank you jt! I highly recommend Peter’s substack and his current series on Ed Schools (for which he is collaborating with Dr Lyell Asher). They talk in detail about deficits in education and how they relate to Ed Schools “social justice” politics.
Alejandra, are you a sentry for the woke culture warriors? Think of the horrors of it all, Critical Pedagogy running rampant through high school, how dare they teach kids to challenge authority based on critical thinking; civilization, as we know it, will and!
Except for one minuscule detail: we should not conflate the analytical processes most people associate with critical thinking with the critical lens/ critical consciousness that is part of critical pedagogy. The former overlaps with enlightened liberalism and the scientific method and emphasizes ideals such as viewpoint diversity and objectivity. The later—according to my kids’ own critical pedagogy framework—focuses on power dynamics and oppressed/oppressor hierarchies (please feel free to search for NY state’s culturally responsive sustaining education framework). In addition, according to a 2006 paper on the topic by Howard Doughty, critical consciousness questions the very ideals behind enlightened liberalism; leading me to wonder whether the two constructs are at all compatible. My kids are being taught in school to understand the world through one single lens; how is this in any way critical thinking? They will question my authority all right, but will they be able to question the authority of whomever is imposing these critical pedagogies?
Incidentally, were you aware that Peter Boghossian’s area of expertise is critical thinking? He is a fallible individual—like the rest of us—but *he* knows what critical thinking is. Why would he be making a case against these critical pedagogies and the Schools of Education that promote them?
Alejandra, are you telling me there not teaching enlightened liberalism and the scientific method? Cannot power dynamics, and oppressed/oppressor hierarchies, be introduced within enlightened liberalism using the scientific method? They are not mutually exclusive, are they?
They kind of are when kids are learning to see the world using one single specific lens staring very early in their education (critical thinking requires that multiple perspectives are analyzed and evidence is presented while valuing individual conclusions). Please take a look at this framework: the critical lens/critical consciousness is one of the top 3 educational imperatives listed as part of the framework’s vision (the second is to make k-12 students “sociopolitically conscious”). I am not a conservative, but k-12 education politicized to such a degree? Why are we at all surprised with the conservative backlash?
The liberal/democratic student writing an editorial for the NYT complained about self-censoring and the ostracization of dissenting voices in her University (UVA) just last week…could it be just a random coincidence that CRT lists “criticism of enlightened liberalism” as one of its tenets? CRT has this in common with critical pedagogy, didn’t you know?
Just me, You said the gap between us was too far to bridge. I held back. But I'm obliged to point out that the gap is found in Your inability to think clearly. And learn from Your betters. Sorry, but Truth.
jt, I am glad you enjoyed Peter’s substack; I find his latest series to be quite relevant and very well researched.
What Just me doesn’t appear to understand is that the ideas coming from “social justice” are indeed included as part of viewpoint diversity. What makes the “social justice” ideology unique, however, is that it is a criticism of enlightened liberal ideals and, as such, has a tendency to undermine their impartiality. What is science when it is not objective? What is The Rule of Law when we begin applying double standards? What is critical thinking when some ideas are beyond reproach because they label themselves “antiracism,” “social justice,” and “diversity and inclusion?”
Jt, I was endeavoring to be polite, knowing that having a conversation with someone who is willfully ignorant is futile. Particularly when considering they think they’re brilliant. Your very definition of The Dunning-Kruger effect, here are two descriptions of you in the past and the present; Charles Darwin, “ignorance is more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” And Neil deGrasse Tyson; “Knowing enough to think you are right, but not knowing enough to know you are wrong.”
In 1962 the Port Huron Statement, the SDS manifesto, proclaimed that if the "New Left" could take over the universities they could indoctrinate the young and be the source of knowledge for the country. The New Left has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. 1962 was the beginning of the new totalitarianism -today it has morphed into wokism. The left took over the universities from extraordinarily naive liberals. No one who has studied the leftist march through the institutions should be surprised that now the inevitable has happened - the destruction of the US legal system. Conservatives have their sins but their fear of the left was not one of them. Liberals controlled the universities for a very long time, but never understood the totalitarian impulse of the left. They NEVER fought to preserve the universities, I believe they were cowards when confronted by leftist tyrants. Now every institution in America is owned by the woke tyrants, and liberals are still surprised that the woke are not really helping the downtrodden. They are still surprised that the woke rhetoric does not match the results, that the downtrodden do not benefit. Wokeness is a deep sickness. No one should believe its veneer of doing good is real. No one should assume there is rationality behind its policies. There is only a power impulse.
But everyone should fear them because they run the country, and they control who goes to jail and who does not, who is fired and who is hired. There are still many brave and good Americans, but with no institutional power. Many of us have enormous concern that our election process may be irredeemably corrupt because now it appears to also be controlled by the wokesters.
It is critical that everyone who has some concern that our country and its values may be lost must work to make our next elections adequately fair. We need volunteers and money. Help at your local level or at a higher level, but do not sit out the last battle to save America.
You have put your finger on the problem very precisely.
I suspect that the reason it was so easy for the Woke to take over is that everything they say is couched in terms of "helping the oppressed." How could anyone be AGAINST that? The reality of what they believe is, as you pointed out, ineffective at helping anyone...except helping themselves to power.
But I think you give Liberals (at least the left-wing ones) a little too much credit. The Democratic party has been "helping the oppressed" for 50 years, in ways that for the most part do not actually help.
Yes. NAFTA was the last nail in the coffin for the working class in the Rust Belt, where I grew up. I couldn't believe that a Dem would work to pass this and kill Glass Steagall. I was a political naif. I am much more sophisticated now and no longer have any faith in the Dems. I've become an independent although I am starting to call myself a "Pro-humanist" which seems to be a political concept that people from both sides can rally around. This idea is being pushed by both fairforall.org and 1776unites.org.
That said, the magnitude of institutional capture that has happened in this country is so overwhelming, I am wondering if the growing pushback will have any effect.
Keep one thing in mind. The greatest FEAR of the Dems is that the numbers are against them. For all they've done and bought and sold to get a lotta Democratic partisans, they're now the party of the Elites. As long as that's true, the numbers are gonna be against them, if people see them for what they are. May take a while, of course, and things could go south before then. But still...
Even longer than that... it seems to me that the Democrat leadership, for over a century, and for all their virtue signaling and hypocrisy, has really had only one plank in its party platform: to expand their own voter base. By declaring "war on poverty" and pitting the impoverished against the non-impoverished, they've actually taken on the role of the very "oppressors" they rant against. By scapegoating the "haves" and promoting "wealth redistribution" and "equity" instead of equality, they've gradually and patiently created a victim class out of what used to be a robust and productive population. Not to say that the Republicans are all pillars of virtue; it's just that their "brand", if you will, calls for the promotion of self support and personal responsibility. They're not above using the scapegoat tactic when they encounter a plausible scapegoat, but this is not as long-range a strategy as building a well-established welfare state. Wokeism is just another handy tool to keep the divide-and-conquer engines running. I'd like to think Lincoln's wisdom still applies: "You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." Or are too many of the people getting too intellectually lazy to avoid being fooled?
You may well be correct. It seems like I've read that FDR's policies actually lengthened the Depression, but I haven't studied that subject in enough detail to evaluate the truth of that claim. But I do know that LBJ's policies did considerably more harm than good, and Democrats continue to cling to those same ideas.
If you look at Democrats' policies from LBJ forward with the perspective that the central purpose was to perpetuate the racism that the Democrats could no longer openly embrace, a lot of otherwise inexplicable things make sense. Such as the utter failure of Democrats to solve the problems of urban areas they've had under one-party-control for decades.
Not that they've actually let their BIPOC politicians in on that secret. But when you give people money, power, and ego-props, they are not likely to question the ideology they've been told is vital for people of their race to embrace (an ideology that, curiously enough, comes largely from Marxist white people).
At this point, though, it no longer matters whether anyone in the Democratic party is still aware of the desired destination of their forerunners. The die was cast, the path was chosen, and they march down it to their ruin...the ruin of us all.
Yeah, I'd like to know more about FDR's reign. The TIME?
I gather LBJ was racist, at least to an extent. I dunno that's a general policy of white Dems or not. But, like You "said," no matter now.
But SOME might see the sorry state of Dem cities, and start drawing the necessary conclusions as to the efficacy of their ideology. Coming from Black and White Marxists, to boot. The policy of money, power, and ego-props over the welfare of the citizens who, for whatever reason, still trust in them..
LBJ was pretty typically racist for a Democrat of his era. The problem for the Democrats was that Civil Rights was going to pass whether they wanted it to or not. Some rejected that idea, rallying around George Wallace, but those with the grit to face reality (and LBJ certainly had that) had to make some difficult calculations about how to remain in power in a post-Civil-Rights country. It's my opinion that his handouts to black people were intended as a kind of poisoned pill--quieting down their complaints and making them think that the Democrats were somehow suddenly on their side, while the seeds of future failure for blacks were being sown.
But as I said, whether LBJ and the other (now quietly) racist Democrats were able to foresee (and therefore intend) the end result of their policies, those policies have caused just as much harm as if they were intended to.
As for how much racism remains among white Democrats, you only have to look at Biden's comments about Obama ("I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy") or Hillary's campaign's reference to Hispanic voters as the "Taco Bowl" to see that you don't have to scratch white Democrats of their generation very deeply to find the racist inside.
I'm not 100%, but suspect that large numbers are too intellectually lazy, or were told WHAT to think instead-a HOW to think. Mebbe more the latter. Dunno.
It’s no different than any movement that claims sole moral truth, whether religious or secular like the Red Guards or Khmer Rouge. When you are in possession of Sole
Moral Truth, any means are justified against your opponents, because they do not merely have bad ideas, they are Bad People.
It's not just the US. It's an international ideology. It's a regressive blend of politics, religion, education, and culture that has totally captured the US and is actively working to spread its gospel everywhere.
But it has started in the US. I could watch it over many years now. The newest BS first appears in the US and one or two years later You find the same BS in Europe.
LOL! :-) Actually, John Cleese has come out about the fact that Monty Python would not be able to be made today. How sad is that? It's some of the best satire and parody the planet has ever known. When your arts are shrinking, your culture is in trouble.
KEY TAKEAWAY: “Indeed, a review of the legal studies literature suggests that when CRT “questions the very foundations of the liberal order,” this is no grad-school intellectual exercise, but rather a strategy for transforming our entire legal system into one that privileges group rights over individual rights. If you want to transform the foundations of American society (without using rifles), you need a theory of the law, and you need a farm system for training federal judges. (Just ask the Federalist Society.) This, in a nutshell, is why CRT emerged from legal studies.”
Imagine - training future lawyers and judges to subvert the rights of individuals in favor of group rights. What an elegant coup of our entire legal system based on individual rights. Who needs a revolution when you can sneak it in through the back doors of academic and criminal justice systems? Just incredible.
This is why I am willing to partner with conservatives to save my country. WAKE UP, people. Realize that these people are willing to do anything to get revenge and reparations for the wrongs of the past including applying the law unfairly and inequitably. They realize that fiscal reparations are a non-starter, politically. So they are coming in through the back door in every institution. It is a hungry, vengeful beast. And, if we don't kill it, it will kill America.
Great points. I am constantly amazed by the useful idiots who will say well, sure these woke types are problematic, but man, isn't Trump terrible? And it's like you've got to be able to make a comparison and choose the lesser evil. These left wing ideologies are in control of mass media, Silicon Valley and all the tech companies associated with it, major corporations, Wall Street, and the bureaucracy in DC. To name a few. So sure, I find things on the right to worry about, but the cultural power and influence that they wield pales in comparison to that of the left. So we should act accordingly.
It is 1000% a religion. The only hope is that people start to attach consequences to anyone who engages in this sort of behavior and/or thinking. I hate to get into partisan politics but it's simply a fact that this thinking is coming HEAVILY from Democrat strongholds. So in electoral terms everyone who sees this has to attach consequences to them, because they're the ones who can do something.
Bruce...Lenno asked me, are you religious, my answer was no, but i would rather live next door to someone who goes to church, rather then live next to someone who steals from the 7-11. I believe that religion is Mostly Positive in that it functions as a crutch, necessary until...then.
Chesterton nailed it when he said that the problem when people give up religion is not that they believe in nothing but rather that they believe in anything! He later made the equally astute observation that the danger of a loss of faith is not unrestrained vice but unrestrained virtue!
I use “M.” like the French do, for Monsieur but ALSO for Mesdames and Mademoiselle EQUALLY. ALL CAPS are ITALICS. I don’t read what I type before I post, so errors are expected.
You've got the right of it, M. Raziel. Sad, but Truth..
Chesterton nailed it when he said that the problem when people give up religion is not that they believe in nothing but rather that they believe in anything! He later made the equally astute observation that the danger of a loss of faith is not unrestrained vice but unrestrained virtue!
On your observations about "wokeness" as a new religion, I agree. For an excellent exposition of this thene, read the excellent book "Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America" by black Columbia Professor John McWhorter. Of course, any Ideology, whether Communism, Fascism, or Wokeism are simply Secular Religions. Most atheists object to being called "religious" and see the whole "religion thing" as beneath them and their dignity and intelligence, but this is not true. If "religion" is simply "one's belief in God (or "Ultimate Reality," then if you don't believe in God, that's your religion. Even the U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged as much. "Culture" arises from a predominant "cult," and Wokeism is supplanting the much maligned Judeo-Christian "cult" upon which much of Western Civilization rests.
The modern American university is a progressive madrassa married to a non profit married to a corporate bureaucracy married to a liberal convent married to an adult daycare center married to a tech-media-Democratic party complex.
Results may vary by institution. The article focuses a lot on the "elite" law schools at "elite" universities on the coasts, but I suspect the situation may be different in "lesser" law schools elsewhere in the country, especially those in large, public universities. I teach at a large public university - one that doesn't have a law school - and, so far, capture by the illiberal left is incomplete.
(In fact, we faculty are more concerned about repression from the illiberal right, which would dictate a too-narrow reading of American history and ban the discussion of "contentious" issues in the classroom. But you know the old song: clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right . . .)
Anyway, perhaps we should look to those "lesser" institutions, reign in the administrative bloat, and take what opportunities we can to draw students into the truly (small-l) liberal tradition of free and fearless inquiry, unfettered expression, and the rule of law.
I graduated from one of those lesser law schools - and I can tell you it is pervasive, as the ABA has mandated certain course requirements now, which apply to all accredited law schools. Also remember who the deans of these law schools are - usually Harvard/Yale/Stamford or some other Top 14 school graduates. What I can tell you, though, is that there is boldness and creativity coming out of those lesser schools. A number of my classmates have started practices of their own with client bases that include representation of "unpopular" individuals and view (one representing anti-vaxxers now). If they are the only ones representing these types of clients, I see a great financial future for them.
Just to be very clear, I refer to schools as "lesser" only in terms of how they are perceived by people who don't know much about education. I didn't study law, but I am the product of public universities, and think I'm better for it.
I love to hear about the boldness and creativity in your Alma mater. The irony, I suspect, is that their actions are probably a reflection of what the schools used to impart about 75 years ago.
The same thing has happened to medical schools and hospitals with respect to accreditation. All are tied to government through Medicare, which pays for numerous faculty and resident positions across the U.S. It's amazing how the purported necessity for a centralized accrediting agency (rather than results) lays the foundation for the financial bribing that will come later
Bob K - I'm not sure what ideological bubble you reside in (as we all do), but the woke mobs are everywhere, not only in the so-called elite schools. All the large state universities have it now, according to hundreds of articles and testimonials pouring out of those places onto Youtube and various other sites like Campus Watch.
As for your little aside about what you call the illiberal right... it is the conservatives today who are actually liberal and progressive, in the literal sense of the words. We believe in freedom of thought, and what more liberal cause is there than that? Don't confuse conservatism with narrow minded religious fundamentalists, though even they are not as extreme as the Woke Left today, in my opinion.
Well, I'm watching bills making their way through the legislatures of several states in the South which, if enacted, would dictate ideologically narrow interpretations of history and forbid the teaching of "divisive concepts" in the classroom. This has a notably chilling effect on faculty who, at my institution at least, are rallying to affirm a broad conception of academic freedom.
For what it's worth, I intend to challenge my colleagues in an upcoming meeting on just how committed they would be to those same principles if it were a left-wing Twitter mob coming after one of us.
In my experience, most of the faculty are moderate in their views and committed to freedom of thought and expression; but they're also very busy and want to avoid undue trouble. What matters then is how much ideological pressure is coming from students and from administrators. My observation is that the pressure is much lower at large public universities than it may be at the more exclusive (or stuck-up) private universities and colleges.
The faculty at most universities are fearful of being canceled. So, they are going along to get along.
Regarding the banning of CRT from classrooms such as in Florida: it is heavy handed and perhaps counter-productive, but it is a reaction to an equally heavy-handed ideology that is taking over classrooms. The children aren't being taught "there are two sides to this" or "some say reparations are necessary" or even "some say black people invented the light bulb, elevator, and telephone" (all 3 are exaggerations of the actual contributions of black inventors). They just assert those concepts as fact, and anyone who questions is labeled a racist and can be (and have been) suspended or even expelled.
There are a lot of examples of this extremism and I think Bob K is whitewashing this to an extent by saying "Well I don't see woke cancelation but I sure do see conservatives canceling ideas". This is actually a typical comeback -- they change the subject when it gets too uncomfortable. Sorry, Bob, the subject is liberal academia.
Oh, I see woke cancellation all right. Almost every day there's another story in the Chronicle of Higher Education or insidehighered about another faculty member pilloried for some perceived offense against the righteous or other.
All I'm saying is that the problem is not evenly distributed across institutions, and my own institution may be somewhat less prone to that kind of capture. Part of the reason is that my institution places a heavy emphasis on science and engineering.
If you were to tell engineers, for example, that an mathematics and an insistence on "getting the right answer" are products of white supremacy, they would - and should - laugh in your face. If you're designing a bridge, people's lives will literally depend on you "getting the right answer" to math problems. Steel and concrete and gravity don't care who your parents were or what color your skin might be nor even, I dare say, what pronouns you prefer.
I agree, science & engineering are relatively less woke, but even MIT recently has been canceling people. And in California, math is now racist in K-12, as I'm sure you're aware. Just wait until this idiocy trickles up to universities.
But the reason those "ideologically narrow interpretation" bills are working their way through the legislature is precisely BECAUSE these states can see what is happening to our institutions, and are desperate to find some way to reverse the tide. Woke ideology seeks to capture -- and has, indeed, been capturing -- school kids at their most moldable. How do we prevent the collapse of our institutions if we don't stop that practice?
If I'm not allowed to introduce "divisive concepts" for discussion in the classroom, how else are students supposed to learn to engage in reasoned deliberation about the difficult issues of public life?
What's striking is that those arguing for prohibitions on such concepts often appeal to the comfort of students: talking about race or other difficult things makes students (at least the white boys among them) "uncomfortable."
(Snowflakes fall hard on the right and the left, it seems.)
Am I forbidden from having students in a course on political theory read the work of Habermas, who is associated with "critical theory", and so guilty by association with the right's trumped-up bogeyman of CRT?
Heck, there are even those on the right who would ban the works of Kant, apparently based on Ayn Rand's shallow misreading of him, because he characterized his approach to philosophy as "critical", which has a word in common with CRT, so . . . All this despite Kant's robust defense of free and fearless inquiry in "What is Enlightenment?"
May I have students read selections from Marx's economic manuscripts? It's hard to understand the history of the 20th century without understanding Marx!
Darwin makes people uncomfortable, so should I exclude any mention him from any discussion of the intellectual history of the past two centuries?
Just how far does this go?
The ultimate problem is that I work in a public university in one of these states, and those at the top of the hierarchy have substantial power to mete out punishments for those who cross one of their ideological lines, which is far more chilling than anything a lefty Twitter-mob might do.
I think the ultimate problem leads to You to defend the right of teachers to do whatever they want.
The problem is that the people preaching "divisive" concepts, like CRT, won't ALLOW other views to be presented against it, or it never would-a seen the light-a day.
Anything so incoherent would-a been drowned OUT by common sense, if nothing else, if it'd been allowed.
The opposite of ANYTHING-GOES isn't DON'T TEACH ANYTHING, right?
Almost all of the discussion, and I believe all of the legislation, is about primary school teaching and, to a lesser extent, secondary school teaching. I have not seen anyone propose that universities should avoid any topic...one of the goals of "higher" education used to be teaching people to be critical and to think.
So check those laws in Southern states out before critiquing them...just like the "don't say gay" lie, they are mostly to keep irresponsible (and generally wrong, IMO) views out of the lower grades.
When I went to school we learned the three Rs for the first eight years. Based on hiring today, that would be a good place to start. We had rhythm band in kindergarten...not lessons where the white and black children were separated so they could demonstrate oppression.
This has to stop and if the laws seem a little heavy handed that is because the law is a blunt instrument but may be the only one to stop some of the most ludicrous and pernicious things from happening.
I live in a Red State whose legislature recently shot down "divisive concepts" Bill for exactly that reason. Still, I think everyone here is better off that the Universities have to work with an overwhelmingly conservative state legislature because one point of view can't fully dominate. Universities on the west coast are lost to traditional liberal values. I think.
The thing is, Trump's not even a conservative. He's a nationalist and a pro-business traditionalist. He's quite pro-states-rights, as witness his reluctance to crack down on urban violence. He also opposed the mandatory lockdowns, at least once it became clear that the "15 days to slow the spread" was a crock.
I admit I'm weird. I'd like to see the Dept. of Education gotten rid of. College and Primary and Secondary. Failed at all three, right? And going downhill from their, now.
Dept of Education was created near the end of the Carter Administration (agencies raised to Cabinet level, to create an impression they were "doing something" about the schools).
Since then, they've spent approximately $2 trillion (adjusting for inflation) and in every single year since 1979, student performance has declined. The U.S. today is below 3rd World performance levels in many fields. They learn better geography and reading skills in a dirt floor grass hut school in rural Africa.
I just saw recently what the percentages were paying for ed. Dunno I saved the link. Almost all-a it state and local. About split evenly. But feds have outsized role in determining things. Seems all wrong to me, all the way around.
oh! write by intuition and make a lotta mistakes: Meant to say money Dept of Ed spent could go to school vouchers. That'd be the OTHER main benefit of my OUTLANDISH proposal.
You're probably right. I'm ignoramoose and couldn't say, myself, what all needs to be gotten rid of. I signed petition of Convention of States but was a loooong time ago. Recall it was about going small-government, IIRC.
I'll hafta go back and look at it again. I liked what I saw, but don't RECALL it like the back of my hand. I dunno what the steps are, even. And then, if passed, how to implement? But I'll take a gander that Way. You may be right to hope it'll work, M. Mack.
jt..."how to implement" is a toss, agree. At this stage, since pointed out by another, our schools are in a hurt since the Fed Takeover. I think, the COS would able the States to cover the lowdown and make adjustments on schools...tis a maybe.
I would like to see the DoE actually do what it is intended. I think there is value in it but it hasn’t proven so in the past 10-20 years. They have been asleep at the wheel.
For sure, the Ivy League has compromised itself. Many law firms and companies now not only avoid interviewing at the Ivy League but make great efforts to hire the cream-of-crop at so-called second tier schools which are gradually rising in prominence.
I do not find this to be true in the legal industry - we are hopelessly elitist. The top tier firms, and even mid size and in-house legal departments, continue to set their minimum application requirements to include only graduates of top tiered law schools (i.e. the Ivies), or only some impossibly high class ranking for individuals who attended an optically-acceptable lower-ranked school. At some point in your career, it matters a bit less, but I have worked for someone for five years who regularly and subtly reminds me of how much more prestigious their alma matter is than mine. Even though that person would 100% lost if I left tomorrow.
Sorry to hear about ‘Ivy League arrogance’ - both my husband and daughter are ‘Harvard’ and both work hard and are respectful of others or at least I hope. That said, some of my husband’s peers are nauseating and I don’t think particularly talented. I am not close enough to my daughter’s cohort to observe but she has told me that the cohort behind her 20 to 30 year olds today are rather unimpressive, ie she is having a hard time recruiting (finance). She constantly complains about the lack of a ‘work ethic’; she’s quite the workhorse herself. In the immediate family, we have Smith, Wellesley, MIT, Yale & Columbia - and all realize that fancy schools mean nothing if you have a weak moral center, little or no creativity and no ambition once you leave the collegiate iron gates.
My husband runs a 'medium-sized', well-known consulting firm. Awhile back their Yale-hire showed up at work at 10 am and left at 3 pm regularly; it was said this dude oozed entitlement. Just that hire prompted them to look for the 'other cream' at non-Ivy-League schools. It only takes one dud to get a sour taste.
Take a look into the unending investigations into the "stolen election." Former WI Supreme Court justice Michael Gableman is a glaring example. There are illiberal forces on the right that want to end democracy as we know it. It does no good to apply scrutiny and criticism selectively. There are dangerous wingnuts of all political stripes.
I view progressives as very scary, at the University level. They've been turning out students who are further and further to the left. Dunno if it's true, but saw of a study that 30% of professors were Marxists. Even if it's in the ballpark, that's pretty scary.
Gimme a ballpark figure of how many Repubs there are teaching in tertiary education?
Oh, I'm fully aware of the illiberal left, and increasingly annoyed by it. I was speaking of my own context, in which the illiberal right is the more pressing problem. If I were teaching in a state school in another region, or if I were teaching at a private "elite" university or liberal-arts school, the illiberal left would be the greater concern.
Bob, we ALL would like to know what City/State has this problem. I am an academic and well exposed and can find no one complaining of illiberal right wing capture. I want to know where this is so I can go there.
Bob, I know about those places. I want to know what city/state YOU are in where you are currently experiencing right wing culture issues you find noxious. All the institutions you mentioned are in response to the disaster out there. (Except for Hillsdale which has done this differently for years.)
Bob K. I assure you that law schools everywhere are being captured by the wokeness described in this piece. More obviously so at the “elite” schools (of which I’m a product), but even at the “lesser” ones.
Out of curiosity I have to ask, what contentious discussions is the right actually trying to get banned in universities? As opposed to K-12 public schools, where gender ideology and CRT have been big issues. I haven't really heard of any major figures on the right calling to ban classroom discussions in higher education, except to criticize the dominance of CRT as the only acceptable thought. On the contrary, those that I read and listen to argue for open debate and the right for all views to be heard without fear of reprisals. But maybe your school is located in a conservative red state with something else going on.
Oops: Just saw your reply below partly answering my question, sorry. Still, these bills seem like they'd be directed more at elementary and secondary education, not post-secondary.
Well I think that's certainly true at the college level and anywhere that adults engage in speech, but for instance in Florida, they are certainly (correctly, in my opinion) trying to put the brakes on teaching of radical gender ideology in the very early grades, which is a no-brainer. So technically they are trying to ban speech somewhere, that of public school teachers. But again, I have no problem with it, because children's development and well-being take precedence over those teachers' free-speech rights.
Parents have a right to know what is being taught to their children. There is no conceivable reason why kindergartners need to be taught about transgenderism. I had major objections to "alternative lifestyles" being taught to very young children because they become confused. Then if they are approached by a pedophile they are easily victimized because they learned in school this behavior is normal and acceptable.
Naomi, Elected officials requested that the State University of New York, Brockport, cancel an April 9 event by; speaker Jalil Muntaqim, University did not cancel the event, but they did resend the funding for the speaker. How about some conservative cancel culture? Berea College administrators call on students and staff to boycott; The Berea Torch, a student publication. Moving on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a student was prohibited from asking others to wear masks. All this was in March. It may come as a shock, but conservatives are not the bastions of free speech.
Jt, I’m not holding my breath; but, when one makes a statement, the burden of proof falls upon their shoulders; therefore, you need to prove; “The OVERWHELMING number of cases on the left make a joke of it.” I fully anticipate some meaningless trite reply or excuse!
Kate, Elected officials requested that the State University of New York, Brockport, cancel an April 9 event by; speaker Jalil Muntaqim, University did not cancel the event, but they did resend the funding for the speaker. How about some conservative cancel culture? Berea College administrators call on students and staff to boycott; The Berea Torch, a student publication. Moving on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a student was prohibited from asking others to wear masks. All this was in March. It may come as a shock, but conservatives are not the bastions of free speech.
I'm not familiar with any of these things, but first, boycotts are not cancel culture. They are not one and the same. Boycotts offer a choice; you can choose to participate or not participate. Second, without more information on the mask incident, requiring people to wear masks is not "free speech." It's a mask mandate.
Who made you the authority on cancel culture? It would seem you have a bit of difficulty with reading comprehension. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a student was prohibited from asking others to wear masks. Meaning a singular student was told he could not ask people on the campus to wear a mask.
You seem to regard yourself as quite the authority so I could ask you the same thing. You are going to have to come up with a better example than that before I'm convinced there's widespread conservative cancel culture on campuses that comes anywhere close to the chokehold the left currently employs at institutions.
I agree. My blanket statement is an exaggeration, but I do think it's more true than not at some of your more "renowned" institutions that have proven to be remarkably reliable in churning out constitutionally delicate creatures not long for this world.
I remember the McCarthy era too. A teacher at my elementary school was fired/left due to his views. It was bad but nothing like what is currently going on.
The unfortunate aspect of that period is that the truth got buried. FDR’s admin was riddled with communists and sympathizers. A honest thorough investigation should have been done. I just finished “Stalin’s war” which elucidated much of this. Stalin played FDR and Churchill like a fiddle. Another brilliant psychopath.
I do agree. I was a very young child at the time but I remember it well because my parents were terrified of McCarthy. I suppose it felt to them like the Soviet purges or the early days of the Nazis. The teacher who had to leave the school taught in the upper grades. At that time our elementary school was K-8. This teacher taught either 7 or 8th grade. He was popular and a good teacher, but back then our teachers were excellent overall. They had gotten their jobs during the Depression when it was very competitive to get a government job. Many of the parents in my neighborhood had been taught by these same teachers when they were in school. You can't get away with anything when your parent/s had the same teacher you have. Of course, it would have been a community disgrace to misbehave in school at any time.
Meanwhile, legislators in my state have requested - and received - a list of courses in which "divisive concepts" are "taught". Now, what do you suppose that list is for? What do you think we faculty are meant to think it is for?
Do you think divisive concepts are not being taught? Is the crushing wave of ideological capture we are seeing coming out of nowhere?
I completely understand bristling at the notion that you can't discuss ANYTHING in class ... at the same time, there has clearly been a shift to teaching certain ideological concepts throughout primary and secondary school as if they were neutral fact, while giving no time or voice to competing ideas, or to neutrality, or to the importance of treating people with alternate views respectfully, or to the importance of a free exchange of ideas and opinions.
So, how else do/can we stop indoctrination in a single religious viewpoint in our schools than to try to choke up on the indoctrination? If there is a viable alternative approach, I am open to considering it.
So, you think it's okay for those with political power to use it to suppress incorrect thoughts? If that's what you think, is it a principle you think should be applied universally, or only when the people you like hold political power?
And people here say my concerns about the illiberal right are off-base! Too many people on this discussion seem perfectly content for legislators to root out wrongthink, as long as those legislators have an R after their names.
It's not that they oppose the building of pyres, only that they think the "woke" left has the wrong list of heretics in need of burning.
The answer is to defend free speech, to defend free inquiry, even if that means standing up for the rights of people who believe things you find reprehensible . . . but then to engage those people in debate.
It takes hard work, dedication, a willingness to be uncomfortable, to be challenged. That's the price of living in an open society . . . if that's what anyone actually wants, any more.
For quite some time I’ve been putting it out in the ether that ESG is collusive anti-competitive behavior. The Arizona AG just opened an investigation into this.
So I will continue to put out into the ether that Republicans should run on eliminating student debt by prosecuting Universities for defrauding students.
You can’t pay your loans because the education you got does not have any value. It’s literally the exact same thing as Trump University. Just on a MUCH larger scale because I think Trump was only charging like $6500 or whatever.
The scandal of hire education is mind boggling. As you note, the system is simply producing too many degrees that are not resonating in the market place. It’s underemployment at its finest. And the perpetrators of the crime have no skin in the game. Their endowments keep growing and they have zero accountability for the problem they are causing. A farce of epic proportions.
I’m sure that’s true. I never looked into it because just on it’s face it was reprehensibly dishonest for people to be outraged about it when he was just copying the business model of every university that exists.
It’s like how his tax fraud case is based on him doing the thing that literally everyone in real estate does.
KD... point that cannonade proper...might work. "run on eliminating/by prosecuting/ for defrauding"... You've got all the ammo for a just ambush, million dollar(6/7) salary to the people running these schools.
Along with these schools donating to Campaigns, using tax payer money...illegal but
jt...gonna work on da links. In the meantime, were you interested in both the salary and the donations. Since the direct donating is illegal, the info is there, but...valid.
On the salary end, easy. Many big 10 and ivy schools, probably all, have salaries in the 6 to 7 Million range for the top pay scale.
Coaches are making 6 to 7 Million, plus a house to boot, along with "on call" private Jet.
My take on that money is more power to them. Except for one thing: It leads to entering a bubble of an echo chamber that the mind can't find it's way outta, right? As far away from common sense as one could get, unfortunately. And college presidents there to lead kids? To where, but oblivion? That's just me. ICBW.
I have the same problem. I didn't know, when I went to graduate school, that my subject (English Literature) had been completely taken over by Leftists (they were not called Woke quite yet). No one bothered to warn me that my dreams of becoming a college professor would NEVER be possible.
Perhaps they thought I would "convert" to that ideology, which would have made it possible. But moderate classical liberals don't get hired. So I left with an M.A. and a lot of anger.
After a long stint as an adjunct (where at least I got to teach), I got sick of how horribly the administration treated adjuncts (in addition to how poorly we were paid). I make more money now as a security guard, and I don't have to take my work home with me.
But I will NEVER be able to pay off my student loans. And I think that my professors and their ilk deserve to be financially responsible for locking me out of the job I trained for--the job that would have allowed me to pay off my loans.
I am sorry for your current realities. Hearing stories like yours makes me relieved that I was fiscally conservative about taking on college debt. I have 2 Associate degrees - one in Arts and one in Science. These are far below my intellectual capabilities but I couldn't take the risk of going into as much debt as a decent 4-year college requires because I had no safety net of any kind. As it turns out, I am a business owner so I didn't need the paper. But, I didn't know this at the time.
That said, I do miss having had a higher level education. I have poor debating skills and my writing is not very sophisticated compared to many of the more eloquent commenters on this and other substack boards. I wish I had been able to achieve more verbal fluency and better critical thinking skills. Ah well - we make our choices and must live with them.
You and me both, Sister. I'm so woefully uneducated I blush. Never followed current events until lately. Technical skills I had 20 years ago are worth less than spit now.
Choice made. Choices lived with. Can't complain, other than the above.
I said it was on the students who took on their debt, who were mebbe told to "follow their dreams" and succumbed to wishful thinking. OBVIOUSLY, not the case with You.
So, SO, *SO* sorry for my comment, and YOur situation. The WRONGNESS of it makes me sick. I hope You can recover from it, although not financially. I gather bankruptcy doesn't eliminate student loan debt? Someone here or someplace mentioned that should be changed.
Would You take that route if it was offered. Not that it should be NECESSARY. Like M. Penny said, these are cases of outright fraud. Legal fraud, no doubt, but fraud nonetheless. I dunno. Stunned by the situation and my ignorance of it.
I was just LUCKY to be born in a moment in history where it worked out for me. My BELIEF is that wherever a person is in life is 50% due to personal agency and 50% pure unadulterated luck. I've heard a friend say, "I'VE EARNED EVERYTHING I'VE GOT!" I agree to a point, but we were all lucky just to end up in the U.S.
Or mebbe not, the way things are headed. I may be "lucky" to be gone before the worst hits (unless a very serendipitous change comes about, which I'm still hopeful for).
Bankruptcy does not eliminate student loan debt, which is a huge part of the problem. And considering that my student loan debt--with all the compounded interest--is higher than the value of everything my husband and I own, bankruptcy would be an option I would look at.
Ultimately, the real problem is that universities have become industries, sucking in the raw product of students (often students who have no business going to college to begin with) and churning out degrees without any concern about whether those degrees will allow their graduates to become gainfully employed. And since that the university industry is funded largely by student loans--which place none of the risk on the university--they have been able to keep doing it long beyond the point where THEY would have gone bankrupt if they had to cover the defaults by students who couldn't get jobs.
Another problem is that the place of universities in our culture has changed. Rather than being reserved for the best and brightest (as they still are in Europe), American culture has made college the presumptive goal for all students, regardless of their aptitude. Instead of channeling the non-bookish into skilled trades, beginning in high school (as they do in Europe), the entire curriculum is focused on getting kids into college. It hasn't helped that manufacturing--the main source of well-paying jobs for the non-bookish--has been steadily sent offshore for the past 40 years.
Since EVERYONE is "supposed" to go to college, we've ended up with lower high school standards, grade inflation, and the demonization of test scores. All of which has resulted in a lot of people going to college who lack the preparatory training or the aptitude or both. Kids go party for a few semesters (because our culture insists that partying is integral to the college experience), then flunk out or realize that college is not for them. THE RESULTING STUDENT DEBT NEVER GOES AWAY.
Although I found your comment insightful, as is normal for you Celia, please allow me to pick a minor nit.
Your description of how our society has bastardized the concept of higher education is spot on, but perhaps our concept of the professional trades is a bit skewed.
I have many dear friends who are in the trades. Some of them started out with a hand me down tool box and a beat up F-100 pickup. Twenty years later, they have 10 or 20 well paid employees.
Several of my friends who are plumbers, welders, etc. are in their mid life far better off than even many doctors and lawyers in terms of wealth and standards of living.
One of my friends is a neurologist who has educated me about the many forms of intelligence. Her major point is that a university education can intellectually cripple some types of very bright people.
I've enjoyed reading your many comments, Celia, and look forward to reading your ideas in the future.
I didn't observe any rambling, M. Celia. In fact, it confirmed a lotta what I thought about the issue. I thought You were 110% right in everything You "rambled" about. ;)
Yeah, I think the European model is a lot more appropriate. I think a lotta the problems revolve around the Corporati REQUIRING a 4-year degree for EVERY opening. Whether actually necessary to do the job or not. So everyone is directed, to everyone's cost.
While i didn't agree with FREE 2-year college, would like to see that expanded. Give the regional companies some say in the curriculum, and make them pay for the pipeline of school to jobs, is my thinking, at this time.
Haha, clever way to put it. But I should say, American universities were not like this 30 or 40 years ago. Even 20 years ago, they weren't. It's happened in the last 10 years or so. The seeds were planted in the 1980s and 1990s and began to really have an effect in the 2000s. The 2008 crisis had a definite effect as well. It disillusioned in the millennials in their future prospects in American society.
At the same time, the liberal elite stepped up, into overdrive, the machinery of distraction (largely about race) via the media and academia. The first sign was the 2008 Obama campaign. It solidified the Democrats' alliance with Big Media, marked a breakthrough in its alliance with corporate America (especially Wall Street), and initiated a burgeoning alliance with Silicon Valley.
The distraction machine went even further into overdrive with the prospect of Obama's re-election campaign:
At the same time, the zombies of the far left reawakened. Dissatisfied with the status quo that Obama largely embodied, it demanded more control over the Democratic platform in 2012. This is when BLM was born. The bankrupt liberal establishment became ever more desperate the pander to this small but highly influential constituency, further weakening its claim to being a party that represents almost anyone.
You are absolutely right. The seeds were planted earlier and I suspect they were probably more evident in humanities departments. However, it didn’t really spread to the rest of the university until the last ten years or so. And then it went into hyperdrive following George Floyd’s death.
At least this is my perspective as a professor at a large R1 university for the last 20 years. The past few years, in particular, have been almost unbearable. It’s nothing like it used to be: the students are ill prepared academically, hopelessly woke, and DEI has become the official religion in my department. I have graduate students who can’t do basic elementary school math (e.g., division) for Pete’s sake!
The first wave of professors who considered it their moral duty to use their lecturns as bully pulpits to instill their Far-Left beliefs in their students was absolutely in place by 2000, when I started graduate school. But it wasn't until 2010 or so that these ideas had leaked out into the mainstream. And it was in 2016 that hysteria over Trump convinced the Democrats to embrace large portions of that ideological.
"The bankrupt liberal establishment became ever more desperate the pander to this small but highly influential constituency, further weakening its claim to being a party that represents almost anyone."
See, I look at that as a statement of fact, rather than opinion. ICBW (I Could Be Wrong), but I think most here would agree.
And what I see is an Achilles heel. So, no. I don't agree with those who are ready to give up hope. That's just me.
Bari - I absolutely do NOT know how, with your age, education and work history, you came to this philosophy in this time and place, but it gives me some hope. What is so baffling nowadays is how so many of the brightest and best educated among us are so completely blind to the consequences of the policies they advocate. Have they no self-awareness; do they not see the slippery slope of censorship and self-censoring? Do they not have the least understanding that theirs are the attitudes cultivated in the general public by all totalitarians throughout the world who in the end would take every freedom they now enjoy?
Thanks for this great article. I have the twin advantages of 1) being retired, so my job is never under threat, and 2) having been completely immune to others' opinions even when it was. May this blog, an outpost of real liberal thought, IMHO, grow to dwarf The Times, and do it soon. There is no time to lose.
No they do not see the inevitable consequences of their histrionics. They are right-fighters and are willing to burn down 1000+ years of justice to achieve their goal (which will not work anyway). They really are no different than the young man who burned the pawn shop.
This is why they are so dangerous. Reminds me of a movie I watched years ago called Agora with Rachel Weisz. It was about fanatical Xtians burning down the libraries of Alexandria. Turns out, the story is apocryphal. Current narrative has it that the libraries were destroyed over a period of a couple hundred years from various causes including neglect but there is no hard evidence. However, the story itself was about how destructive fanatics (the convicted self-righteous like today's woke cohort) can be in taking out the edifices of education and enlightened discourse. I found it shocking at the time I watched it. Now, I just realize that I was naive.
I have been frightened of totalitarianism all of my life. The books I read about it: 1984, Animal Farm, The Gulag Archipelago, The Hiding Place, Inside the Aquarium, The Killing Fields, etc. all placed this scourge outside of the US. I pacified my fear by thinking that I was lucky enough to live in a country where these types of predations would never happen. Well, here we are...
And who would have taught them the liberal values you describe? Their parents? Their schools? Their peers? Their institutions? If you never look, you'll never find.
Sooner or later, Americans will vote with their feet, many later than others. Red states are already big beneficiaries, but they will fall, too. Then the diaspora will begin in earnest. One big question: will anywhere want us? I mean, it's one thing to accept Muslim terrorists, but Americans...
I know someone in graduate school working on a PhD who is treated horrendously by his peer for wanting to work on a 19th century American writer who was an abolotionist, bnot abolitionist enough for his class mates. My sense is that they feel morally compromised unless they harass my friend.
But here is the thing: I asked him if they had any sense, or cared, for historical texture and change. He said "no". But even more, they emphatically DO NOT want to know or understand historical texture.
Well, I think the Young ones should be forgiven. When they are young even the brightest minds can be very foolish, not being aware of the consequences when they are carried away by passion and the furor of the youth. I guess that's part of being young. (I know that, because I used to be young myself!) But in a healthy society it should be the older, who have replaced their furor of youth with experience and wisdom, who keep the young mavericks in check instead of caving in and outright capitulating in the face of the foolishness of the young. Or: It's the cowardliness of those who know better that is doing the damage here.
The problem here is that Woke ideology has become a secular religion, with all the worst features of religions. The elders didn't quite mean to create a *religion*, which puts them at a loss as the young crusaders run roughshod over them.
The sad reality is that those elders are responsible for planting these illiberal ideas in those young heads. Saying "not THAT far" makes them look like the enemy they've trained the youth to fight. And many of them are finding themselves Canceled as a result of daring to call for reason.
In a society where heresy against the Woke ideology has much the same effect on one's career and propects as McCarthyism had, it takes more courage than most of these people have to resist the avalanche they themselves set off.
Original sin (being born white) with no clear path to redemption from that sin, although "tithing" (giving your job and your stuff to black people and giving your money to the Democrats and BLM) might help you feel a little better about yourself. Not that you deserve to! Witch hunts (destruction by Cancellation, McCarthy style) for heretics (anyone who disagrees). Religious tests (how well do you embrace our beliefs?) for public office and both public and private employment.
And the list of sins continues to expand: are you male? (rapist!) straight? (bigot!) cis? (pervert!) The heretical crimes become easier to commit ("silence is violence!") and the Shibboleths make it harder and harder for non-adherents to get an education or keep a job.
Tenure isn't quite as protective as you might think. Tenure means that your employment contract has no renewal requirement. You can still be fired if you fail to perform your duties or if your personal behavior is "abhorrent." And resisting Woke ideology is considered abhorrent by these kids.
What probably happens more often is that a campaign of hate drives the target to resign.
I hadn't seen that about tenure. And I'm sure You're right about people heading for the exits pretty fast when they're being attacked like that. All I can say for CERTAIN is I'm glad I'm retired and have some free time.
This morning I read a great essay on Quilette about the shifting of classroom priorities over the years - from teaching children how to cope with and prosper in the world as it is, to changing the world so that those children are not annoyed or offended, destroying a great many important things in the process. Very thoughtful article.
Bari - this guy's name is Jeremy Adams; he published a book called "Hollowed Out: A Warning About America's Next Generation." I'm ordering it post haste. If he could be convinced to publish a little missive here, I think we'd all be honored. (edited to add content)
Yes. Where are the adults in the room? I've been asking this question for over 5 years now. I just don't get it. Are all of the leaders in the US moral cowards? Is Shelby Steele correct when he surmises that white guilt over racism is what is driving us to cede authority to these totalitarians?
Well, the accusation of racism is certainly the club that they expect to be beaten over the head with if they don't go where the students lead. Any degree of discomfort with the direction of the ideology is labeled "White Fragility." It's a very easy ego-crusher to use on those who have been taught that being inherently racist is the "natural condition" of all white people.
If you mention "white guilt," it will be very fervently denied that such a thing exists at all (although they will champion the phrase "white privilege" endlessly). But a lot of the fear really is about somehow being racist without knowing it.
I like to take the position that people are individuals and (try at least) to judge them that way. I read a little history in the mornings, and finally realized that the great strength of the Constitution is its breakaway from group identity and social caste politics, emphasizing the individual only - individual rights, individual responsibilities. Bari, her wife, her (sister, I assume) appear to have the highest journalistic standards (How rare nowadays!), so previous social circles are to me irrelevant. It's a new day.
As for her being attacked at the Times, sometimes the worst things result in the best outcomes. Thank God they were so nasty. Thank God.
My dad used to say that you couldn't tell a thing about a person when things were going well; it's when times are hard that you see who has what it takes. Times of plenty and of calm do not reveal anything; it's when there are REAL costs to one's livelihood and reputation that bring out those with courage - as Thoreau said, quoting Napoleon: "Three-o'-clock in the morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest."
What will kill the Democrats come November is their willful ignorance about what really happened in the 2020 presidential election. There is so much proof that only refusing to look makes one continue to not know.
"Doom ourselves?" Hilarious. As Truman is reputed to have said to Tojo when Tojo told him to go to hell, "We'll see who goes to hell." I've always wondered if Tojo thought about that as he fell through the trap door. (edited to correct spelling)
jt...Jan 6 was , for the very most part, spontaneous. The "Doom" is the play of the sponsor of OUR Courts, which has taken great length to prosecute Without Trial.
Which is what this Article is... bout.
Election stolen or not, maters little, the correction, so as not to continue, is key...me
Thing is, if You think the election was stolen, You gonna HAFTA think the same thing when (likely) the same thing happens to Trump again, right? Then where will we be?
Other than that, yeah, matters little. If it brings in Voter ID laws, that'd be great.
They to privilege and the others victims Jim so even if you somewhat in the middle it’s going to become very difficult for a person to stand up and be counted
In the now- infamous Smithsonian poster about Whiteness, one of the *White* traits listed (which has never been commented on really) was English Common Law. What is this shorthand for -- the concept of precedent, innocent until proven guilty otherwise known as the Golden Thread of Justice), the cab rank principle (the notion that lawyers can not chose their clients if they are free), the jury system, the concept that the law should apply equally to the most deserving in society as well as the least (Hill v Texas 1942 -- equal under the law), and ultimately the rule of law?
It is a very worrying development for American Society indeed if such fundamental safeguards of a free society are being undermined in the way that this piece implies.
Very worrying it’s a one way ticket to hell it’s running thru our lives in USA at the moment I’m not sure how we can pull it straight even if we vote against the Democrats in November and again 2024 this has been going on since 1980’s and now we see our institutions have all been captured and this is only the beginning or should I say the end sadly
New parties take to long to form they gain momentum to start only to fizzle out to nothing we need to unite behind a major party whose message resonate with us at the moment it is difficult because there is so much lying and with SM and MSM you just don’t trust anybody but as we get closer to November I’m hoping it will be Cometh the hour cometh the party at the moment we have nothing
Yeah, because it always comes down to which party and virtually EVERYBODY believes there's only one a sensible person would choose. See the problem?
Fact is, there IS only one party, looked at in a certain Way. The uniparty. Where all sides lose because one side or the other wins. Doesn't matter which side, as long as the doom is assured, right? <sarcasm>
I go back and forth. That was my view, before I became infatuated with the idea that Repubs could see the flaws that are getting in their own way. Third party a lot harder to implement. But if it's gonna be a uniparty after all?
Me? I was a little too young for the 60s. I'd like the right to learn from 'em, and MARCH in the STREETS. I think they're too individualistic to get their act together to do it tho.
Don't bother. I'm not as curious as I sounded. And I'm pretty sure that, although I fear the worst, it's probably WORSE than I fear. Or mebbe it'll be next years exam. Dunno.
I think it likely all states have an ethics component on their bar exam. I think of ethics as the attorney's scope of representation and duty to others - clients, tribunals, and 3rd parties primarily. Although part of effective representation is knowing the law and the mechanics of it so ethics may be the way to go. Attorneys do take an oath when admitted to the bar. On a related note there is a push to do away with admission exams for both college and law school.
I have a lot of time for the Journal of Free Black Thought. Their pieces are always well-written and tend to make me think. As an aside one aspect, I had not considered until I read a piece by Joshua Rosenburg (British legal journalist) yesterday was the Right to Trial by Jury (composed non professional aka not schooled in law citizens) is something which English Common Law popularized. Other countries use different systems.
It is important for justice in the US to treat everyone equally -- thus ALL should be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
It means among other things that one cannot simply round up the usual suspects and charge one of them. And even if someone has committed a crime in the past, it needs to be proven that they committed the current crime they are accused of. It is why you have things like the admission of bad character evidence. The loopholes which some describe are actually the safeguards to a free society. It means the burden of proof is on the prosecution (aka the State).
There is a maxim which says better ten guilty men go free than one innocent suffer.
It is one of the underlying principles of human rights.
What is not good is trial by media. The media are not constrained by the rule of law or the presumption of innocence.
Access to a competent defence lawyer (aka checkbook justice) has become an issue -- both in the US (and the UK). How do you ensure that people who are accused of a crime are adequately defended and who pays for it, particularly as the people needing defence lawyers are often a section of the population most would call *least deserving*?
Those "checkbook" lawyers are just lawyers who established themselves coming up through the ranks. There are always lawyers in the ranks. Or rather there have always been such lawyers until this new bunch. The hive is antithetical to effective justice which is after all nothing more than a way for society to resolve disputes.
This has to be one of the most important pieces yet on Common Sense. Thank you for this. It would never have seen the light in any mainstream publications today.
The legal corruption was seen in force after the 2020 election. The Republicans were nearly unable to find lawyers to represent their side in the vote fraud challenges. Young lawyers who had stepped forward to help were threatened by their colleagues and their law firms with summary firing if they didn't immediately withdraw. There are few people who can withstand this sort of pressure when they sit on top of $100,000 in student loans (or more) and are just beginning their careers.
This sort of corruption always ends disastrously with people dead, lives and countries destroyed.
I saw judges declare they wouldn't allow investigations unless there was already proof of fraud, and evidence of fraud wasn't enough.
I saw judges delay action on evidence, then block any charges or investigations due to it having no effect because the election was over.
There seems to be no more recourse or means of accountability on behalf of the regular people. Journalists raided, corporate elections, captured institutions, a criminal family as executives.
They aren’t morons. As I read in Steven Hassan’s excellent book on cult mind control, intelligent people are not immune to cult indoctrination techniques. His BITE model applies here: Control Behavior, access to Information, and Emotions, and Thoughts will follow due to our brain’s bias toward minimizing cognitive dissonance. When people are punished for speaking freely and rewarded for virtue signaling (behavior), and media and entertainment companies all present the same point of view while suppressing others (information), and people are shamed for their race, sex, and orientation (emotions), it is no wonder that ideas that would have seemed terrible even a decade ago are now taken for granted.
I had to stop reading , it makes me sick what’s happening in this country -this generation is destroying everything and are allowed to do it - I’m scared it’s to late ,,,liberals……
The sad thing is I was talking to my nephew who h goes to a very high end college - he said I think I voted for the wrong guy - Biden - I was proud he could see the issues but he also said he knows many on campus who are communists/ believe in communism - even he was concerned ,,, I’m scared we have let this go to far to turn back - these people are everywhere- schools - college - workplaces.
Yes, they do matter. The first thing the illiberals do is destroy the meaning of words. They are illiberal whether they are Leftists, progressives, or whatever.
Liberals, this mess is your Frankenstein. You thought you'd be able to release the beast into the world to do your dirty work, and that you could control the beast until you realized the beast was coming for you. Now, the question is this - what are you going to do about it?
Crawl under a rock? They will be beating their chests in triumph while they have their foot on your neck. The idea that there will be some sort of self/awareness on their part is unrealistic.
But on the issue of liberals remaining silent, my sense of the matter is very keen. I’ve watched this for some time now. Liberals were more than happy to side with the left to destroy Trump. They yelled and screamed about it. Day and night. They threw temper tantrums. Now that Trump is gone and the left is eating liberals for lunch - not so much, they don’t know how to react. They have chosen to be silent hoping this too will pass. It were not for people like Bari Weiss, Andrew Sullivan and Matt Taibbi and Bill Maher - there would zero resistance to the left coming from liberals.
Assuming you are referring to liberals in power positions. I am a liberal and loathe woke ideology with the passion of a million butterfly sneezes (Moody Blues lyric). And, I voted for Trump, twice, because I saw this coming (Obama did very little good - sold out the little guy during the bailouts - and I didn't trust his rhetoric although I admit that symbolically, him being prez was a good thing - after someone called me racist for not voting for him I saw which way the wind was blowing) and felt he was the lesser of two evils. I am putting my campaign for reproductive rights on hold while I hold my nose and vote Republican for at least the next election and maybe more. I am desperate to stop these idiots from destroying the country although I realize that my one, puny vote is unlikely to do much. But, it will help me psychically to have done what I can.
Yeah, You're right. Problem is, with way things are, the bulk of the resistance is gonna hafta come from the peons, right? Good thing is that the NUMBERS of peons still make up the majority, and are allowed to vote.
I am a lawyer with long experience in the trenches, as we say; mostly retired now, but with 25 years in the judiciary behind me. I was educated at an elite law school. I can confirm the truth of this piece. The trend he describes is happening throughout the legal system, from law schools to law firms, the courts, and our related institutions. The ABA, originally concerned with professional development, advocacy, education, and networking among major firms, drifted leftward to the point of capture by wokeism; meanwhile, its membership has dwindled, shedding lawyers who prefer to focus on the practice and retaining those pushing leftist agendas. Its approaches to law school accreditation and the rating of federal judicial nominees are now designed to perpetuate leftism in the profession.
In the state where I practice, the law journal is increasingly full of social justice themes, as are the continuing ed classes offered as a condition of renewing one’s license. My law school now boasts a variety of courses with diversity, equity, and inclusion as the main emphasis. Traditional classes such as contracts, evidence, civil procedure, Con Law, are shot through with such themes, as “professionalism” in the practice of law takes on new meaning. Clinical courses are all about advocacy for “social justice.”
And don’t get me started on what’s happening in criminal law! Defunding the police, bail reform, sentencing, even the very act of charging and prosecuting a felon - every sentient person knows how changes in this realm have made us less safe. Ironically, a foremost task of government is to protect its people; but our governments at all levels have caved to people whose policies actually promote more crime.
So yes, this article is spot on. It speaks of the legal profession, and the same trend is unfolding in medicine. But that’s a story for another day.
spot on. Medicine too - In the UK there was a case where they said "there was no rape" on a hospital yard because they were all women there. The hospital hid that there was a trans-woman there. 90% of rapes are between M-W, but now with this "gender fluid"BS, I can see someone saying "I was feeling like a female" on the day of the rape, hence there was no rape, and if you have a Social justice woke judge, I can only see the verdict..
Yes, that UK hospital rape case was finally brought to light by an MP in the House of Lords. It was even caught on CCTV. The hospital dragged its feet on turning over the evidence for a year, until finally turning it over to the police. Meanwhile the victim, raped by a male patient in hospital, was told she was lying, because there were “no women patients” on the wards.
One thing we know for sure is that when left-wing scumbags who hate the United States seize total control of the justice system, the conservatives who criticize them will be called pro-Putin anti-American for doing so.
Tulsi Gabbard was accused of treason by the world’s foremost moderate for asking these people to please destroy their deadly viruses before abandoning a lab in a war zone, if you’re looking for an example of how retarded this line of attack can get.
See because you’re attacking America’s justice system so you’re anti-American now. You hate America. Never mind that the people running it are Democrat sacks of shit. Nope. Can’t criticize them or you’re anti-American now.
See they’ve highjacked the entire notion of anti-Americanism in a way that is just sophisticated enough to work on complete imbeciles. So expect a lot more
“We, the people who have explained in great detail for 50 years why we hate America the slave state on stolen land, are now in charge and you can’t criticize us or you hate America…..which we are killing.”
I am really really hating dumb people this morning.
I could get behind this if racism is treated as a factor in crimes for all races, and not just a weapon to be used against those of European descent. For example, most of the recent urban assaults against Asian Americans seem to be perpetrated by African Americans, yet I've not heard a whiff of 'hate crimes' or 'racism' when reporting those crimes. Racism is , imho, a tribal trait, common to all races, but has become, in our country at least, something that only people of European descent practice.
Agreed. Socioeconomic injustices can't be solved when we attribute the causes to racism. There's a whole lot of people of Euro descent in Appalachia who have the same problems with single parenting, high dropout rates and hopelessness as urban folks, yet are considered privileged because of their genetic makeup. Attributing these issues to racism simply ensures they won't ever be solved and these folks will continue to be wards of the state.
Yes it seems in general white people are the only group that avoids this now. My landlord is Puerto Rican and it amuses me how he talks about those Mexicans.
One reason there are so many Caucasian Black Supremists is the only way You're allowed to say anything is to join the side-a the Wokesters. I guess I should say, IMHO (In My "Humble" Opinion).
We have to remind people equity, pursued as a social policy, is the single greatest evil humanity has attempted in the past 100 years. Cambodia, the Chinese Cultural revolution, Zimbabwe, the Soviet Union and a dozen others were all exercises in equity.
Over 100 million dead; all sacrificed on the grand alter of equity. Rivers of blood flow and mountains of bones carry the horror of equity.
If evil exists, those that push equity are its acolytes.
I stopped when I left Christian fundamentalism. Then I started again in 2019 after three years of Seattle.
I think maybe it was watching the attacks on Kavanaugh made by people who would refuse to speak a word about the relationship between Clinton and Epstein, who didn't care a bit when it was revealed the nation's corporate media covered up evidence of rape to protect Democrats.
The current college students are the product of a generation of kids that were told over and over again that they are #1, that the world revolves around them and they were handsomely awarded trophies, medals and ribbons for merely participating in activities. They were taught that there are no winners and no losers. They were carted around by minivan or SUV from activity to activity. They were dropped off at school, they were picked up from school. They didn't ride bikes or walk anywhere. Whatever they demanded (cars, phones, I pads, etc.) they were given. The parents simply wanted to give their kids a better life than what they had. We now have a generation of brats, entitled college students who can do no wrong.
There’s one fatal catch that few people internalize: the pyramid has gotten very, very steep. There is not anywhere near enough room at the top for even these entitled Ivy League brats. They operate as if they will be the masters, with contempt for those below. News flash: most of ‘em are heading straight for the Below line, where they will get a chance to live under the dystopian system they themselves created…
You've got the right of it. Actually, or apparently, there's been an overproduction of college graduates for a while, and the Millennials are suffering for it. That's what I've gathered so far. Yeah, chuckle.
But it'll turn REAL serious when AI starts taking management jobs, right?
Also, Scot. I said pretty much the same above about change in Aesop's Fables. Right down the tubes.
That was my observation as well, but can't say as much because I didn't have kids. I view the Millennials and Zoomers, not ALL of 'em, but most-a 'em next to zero character at ALL.
So Nadine Strossen is worried that she will be attacked by the same mob that she helped create. The ACLU is one of the biggest attackers of our first amendment rights. They started with an attack on the Boy Scouts right to peaceable assembly when the Boy Scouts wouldn't do what they wanted, and now attack small businesses when the owner won't violated his or her religious beliefs.
Well they sure aren’t progressive because that assumes going forward. These clowns want to harken back to the Russian revolution bourgeoisie proletariat crap and of course their hero, FDR. They have no new ideas for the twenty first century. Their ideas are all 85-110 years old.
I had the same thought. This article definitely terrifies me, but I lose even more sleep over what Abigail Shrier reports. I am raising an 11 year old daughter in one of the most woke cities in the country. I feel constantly on guard about what she is being exposed to. As aware as my husband and I are about the gender ideology cult we are still so scared that the cult members will sink their claws into our daughter. The cult is currently in the process of destroying several of our friend’s children.
Phew! I KNOW I'm lucky not to hafta deal with that horror. NOBODY should hafta. I hold out hope that the laws, mebbe, will eventually shield children like Your's. But until then, i hope You have the strength to fight the good fight against 'em.
This was one of the most difficult reads I have read on this Substack. It even prompted me to subscribe. I am not an American, but my entire life I have admired USA for its strength of judiciary and independence of its legal system. It is truly sad to see how once great system is slowly eroded by ideological zealots.
Slowly I am starting to believe that "wokeness" has supplanted religion in part of US population, and that followers of new religion are acting no different than Inquisition during Dark Ages => noone is pure enough, and who is pure is decided by wokest of the woke. Any attempt to resist is severely punished.
What is currently happening in US universities, reminds me of Lysenkoism, when entire field of Biology in USSR was captured by Trofim Lysenko and his followers. This went so far that for some 30 years USSR was teaching pseudo-science and any dissent was severely sanctioned. During this time USSR biology researched was literary decimated.
Sadly in US this woke ideology is not contained in one field, but it seems that it is slowly affecting STEM fields, this will damage US future for sure. In the beginning I thought, that this would be just a phase, but slowly I am loosing hope, since this illiberal ideology is lowly creeping over to Europe and infecting its universities.
It is a religion. We are spiritual beings and are called to worship. This is part of a hyper-puritanical twisted, sick faith that includes climate alarmism
“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.” - Friedrich Nietzsche
Sometimes, I don’t think Nietzsche was as anti-religion as many cast him but he recognized the on coming horrors the destruction of religion would bring as we try to create new moral codes to base society on.
I see many on the progressive left re-inventing ideas long held by the religious right (#MeToo for example) but they think they have new profound insight.
This is what Jordan Peterson recognized and has lectured on. That Nietzsche was brilliant and horrified at what he could see happening when we can no longer worship God.
Regardless of whether I agree with Jordan Peterson's opinions (I happen to, for the most part), it is his present reality that is informative. He does indeed lecture, but he is being cancelled almost as often as being allowed to speak. Because his ideas do not conform to the narrative of the majority of the student body - he is thus deemed unworthy of an audience. He is a victim of the era this article describes.
God, of course, is nowhere to be found.
Politics is Power and the youth raised to believe the past is evil and corrupt are not bound by its laws.
I get the opposite feeling from this. That a big part of the problem with 'wokism' is precisely BECAUSE it resembles a religion. It's not that things like CRT are not worth discussing, they certainly are. It's that they think it is above any and all criticism. That kind of moral absolutism is very much mirrored in organized religion.
I mean, you don't need religion to know the difference between right and wrong. Basic morality can and does exist just fine without any religious foundation.
Yeah. John McWhorter wrote a whole book about how the wokesters have formed a religion for themselves.
I agree that it functions in many ways like a religion. As has been noted before it has its own catechism and certainly allows for "heretics" and "blasphemers" to be excommunicated. But we seem, as humans, to be motivated to worship something. "without worship, you shrink; it's as brutal as that." Peter Equus
I've been making this point on boards lately myself. We do seem to have a need to believe in something greater than ourselves for psychic health. However, the regressiveness of some religions drove many away and this created a vacuum. It appears that woke religion has rushed in to fill it.
I am astonished and saddened at how easily our children are turning away from the principles of individual liberty. What kind of world do they think they will usher in without it? Do they realize how totalitarian and brutal it will be? That they are working to regress us into a pre-feudal state of tribalism? Are they truly that poorly educated and myopic? I am starting to lose hope after reading this article and this one: https://freeblackthought.substack.com/p/why-did-critical-race-theory-emerge?s=r
I totally understand your feelings, I've had those same worries myself. It makes it hard to have hope. P.S. I just read the excellent article that you provided the link to.
Hmm, I've never heard of it quite like that. Are you saying that you think we are somehow predisposed to worship a divine being? Or that it's in our DNA or something like that?
I think all humans have a common drive to validate our own existence and, by extension, purpose. A reason for being if you will. But whether or not that drive manifests itself through divine worship is another matter.
For myself, I left the church decades ago and never looked back. And I haven't substituted that with any other religion since. I consider myself better off because of it. But that is just my personal experience, and I certainly would never try and force that view on anyone else - everyone is free to worship, or not worship, who or whatever they want.
But it's quite another thing to try and say that religion is the basis of all morality. There's very little in the grand and ancient history of our species to suggest that.
i agree with all but the last paragraph. You're right that it's not the basis of ALL morality. Or, at least, I think You're right. But history HAS shown that religions have formed the BULK of moral ideas for thousands of years.
Not saying this is anything like YOU, Elliot. But a lotta people threw the baby out with the bath water by walking away from religions they grew up with.
Me? EXACTLY 50% Fundamentalist Atheist. I was raised that way. That leaves 50% Religio-Spiritual. Not much difference between the Atheist Religion and the others, AFAIK. But that's just me.
Totally agree with you. Wokeism has become a religion. It is incompatible with God-centered religions. And it's out of touch with the real world.
It is the replacement religio civic and moral, and it is the real world now.
It is incompatible with all other world views because it doesn’t tolerate dissent. Any questioning of the narrative = lack of morality. They are “social justice,” after all…
It is a religion.
It is the replacement Civil Religion for the Constitution that the Liberals tore down, the Republic Biden overthrew with rioters and National Guardsmen.
Woke if it worked- it doesn’t- would be competent.
Then again Jonestown ran well enough until some meddling Congressmen responded to their constituents complaints about abuse.
The Reverend Jim Jones was Human Rights Commissioner for San Francisco you know.
Perhaps we should call him The Prophet Jones?
Conformity, which is what your quote is alluding to - is corrosive. Both the progressive left and the conservative far right exhibit it. People, especially when young, find their self validation when meeting others sharing the same cultural view.
Agreed 100%. I agree both the left and right have issues with group think but I have come to believe there are checks on conservatism in a liberal democracy while only positive feed back exist in a liberal democracy against progressivism.
True enough. The common thread in conformist groupthink is that dissent is absolutely not permitted. No thinking other than their own is valid, so much so that an outlier opinion is construed as a threat. Thus the hundreds of speakers once invited to events at universities are then cancelled by school administrations cowed by students who can't bear to hear a contrasting position. It amazes me that the denizens of the far left don't see a mirror of themselves in Communist China, Putin's Russia or the impenetrable North Korea. Never mind other repressive regimes in history.
Sad to say, but the iconic debates in the '60's between William Buckley and Baldwin or Vidal simply could not take place today. Buckley wouldn't be permitted to set foot on campus.
From this site: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_82.htm
“Groupthink is a phenomenon that occurs when the desire for group consensus overrides people's common sense desire to present alternatives, critique a position, or express an unpopular opinion. Here, the desire for group cohesion effectively drives out good decision-making and problem solving.”
As a closet sociologist, I would love to know what about the pedagogy used to raise our current generation of young people contributed to them being so conformist. I was raised in the 60s and 70s - a time when exploring individuality was encouraged and a strong cultural norm. It is mind-boggling to me that we have morphed into the current conformist culture so quickly.
It is far more dangerous coming from the progressive left than the reactionary right, where these tenets can inflict great harm on liberalism.
The left controls major institutions: media, entertainment, academia and definitely guiding corporate decisions.
This is the problem in a nutshell. Institutional capture.
Well they have Power and Conservatives have none.
Conservatives have the NUMBERS behind them. More people are conservative in nature, tho they don't always vote along those lines. And Conservatives don't seem to be very good at organizing people to their benefit, right?
You're right. But I'm still undecided if that's a bug or the destiny of progressivism. I think we'll see if many opt outta the Radical ILliberals views.
Every group exhibits some level of conformity, that's what makes it a group.
I think you'll find that blind conformity is not limited to young or left/right - we see that social media is making a mockery of independent thought through all strata (stratum?) of society.
I recommend ditching Your all's ADDICTION to social media, like I'm trying to do with nicotine. We'd all be the better for it.
There's a LEVEL where we are all Spiritual beings. You could also look at it that the Woke religion is pretty doggone ANTI-Spiritual, couldn't Ya? I dunno, but I SUSPECT that a lotta the Woke are the ones that gave up on their religion and had-ta find a new one. ICBW.
Agree with rest. Climate change. One-worldism. I think they're all of a bundle.
Communism always replaces God with the State.
Yeah. Radical ILliberals, too.
The entire thrust of Liberalism was taking all power from the Church, so usury would be legal. Also the landed peasants exploited more ruthlessly than ever.
Your knowledge on this surpasses mine. Totally believe Ya tho.
The New Racism,
Climate alarmism,
COVID mythology, and
Sexual perversion
The new religions of the irrational left.
While I agree that this post raises critically important issues for us I also know that;
1) racism exists
2)the climate IS changing
3) COVID was/is real and deadly killer of millions
4) WTF?
Let’s get a grip and protect our American democracy from the coup plotters and Proto-authoritarians
1. Racism exists: Critical Racist Theory judges people by the color of their skin, not the content of their character. It's racist by definition. So racism does exist. However, to claim that the US hasn't improved since the 1950's is ridiculous. I have a wonderful black sisteer in law. In the 1950's that would have been illegal in several states. We ain't perfect, but we've come a very long way in my lifetime.
2. The climate is changing: Yes, the climate is always changing. However, the question is whether the climate is changing because of fossil fuel use. The answer to that is at best unproven. Is it worth killing thousands of Ukrainians to maybe turn down the temperature by .1 degree Centegrade? Most likely not. Can we use nuclear for reliable, uninterupted power? Not according to mean green fantasies, which shows they're not serious about the problem.
3. Covid was/is real and a deadly killer of millions: OK, but did the masks and lockdowns have an effect that saved any lives? Locking down healthy populations was unprecedented in history. The statistical results show that it was at best not a statistically significant improvement over protecting the vulnerable over 55 population. In other words, lockdowns and mandates were an abuse of power by the authorities using The Science (TM), which changed regularly to suit the convenience of the government.
4. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: There's an old Bob Hope joke. He says he's OK with legalizing gay sex, but he left California because he was worried they would make it mandatory. I don't care what LBGTQ++ folks do. I have lots of life long Gay friends. But please don't tell me a trans women should compete in women's sports, or share their locker rooms. That's ridiculous.
Let's get a grip and preserve the Constitution and rule of law democracy, not "our democracy," from Russia Hoaxes, rogue surveillance FISA warrants, censored Hunter Biden laptop scandals, and lies "experts" tell to make us obey.
Ha! I was about to reply with essentially the exact same responses, but then i checked to see if someone beat me to it, and here we are.
Very detailed response and I won’t respond further - there’s too much here to get into / and I want to smoke my cigar and relax
1. 110% correct.
2. 110%.
3. 110%.
4. 110%.
Provisional. I may learn otherwise, but doubt it.
Doug...nice Grip
Racism exists. Systemic and structural racism, as described by the subjects of this essay, do not.
Racism exists: It is not the center of every action taken, or not taken. Viewing every action through a lens that searches for racism creates a mindset that there is no action/inaction that does not center in racism.
It is POWER.
Politics is Power.
Racialized Politics is just Power by Race.
(It should be mentioned this will probably work the other way too, see Trump).
OK Charles...are you stating that because you know your numbers exist, that's the cure or should we have No Cure?
1) racism racism racism...everywhere, always...so nice, is that you?
1a) continue what has been taking place (US), most of the world, not all; l.e. remove slavery...which?
2)climate has been changing, long before man. It is getting warmer, not colder. Which do you prefer? We as a nation, the US have been cleaning rivers etc. for 50/60 that i know about, more to be done.
2b) to attempt to adjust the climate without Proper precaution should cause Great harm, be careful. Lithium batteries are a problem, not so much with Natural Gas.
)EASY...any man/women can Jump off the cliff, the landing "not so easy" thanks Charles.
Politics is Power.
Thanks Jim. :)
name a period of time climate has not changed in 1890 they said we would be under water in 40 years
The Coup was the National Guard installing Biden.
Quite unwillingly, not really unwittingly. Its rather like the Freikorps saving the Social Democrats in Germany in 1919.
The coup is over, but at least we got rid of Trump!
Sad...
It is a religion, I agree.
Yes. And like other religions it tends to make people tribal, dividing them into the righteous and the non believers. As a lifelong atheist this reign of wokeness (or whatever You wanna call it) disgusts me as much as any backward theocracy. And no, it has absolutely nothing to do with progress as the true believers may think.
Exactly. It's not about progress but power, and a bit of revenge.
Well said.
Agree with Brian Katz. Well said.
Agree Madjack.
I am glad l this article mentioned the issue with school administrators. For those of you who do not follow Peter Boghosian, the topic has been explained in detail on his substack. It was school administrators who first pursued DEI initiatives in college campuses. Similarly, administrators are been imposing these “woke” curricula in public schools (my young kids currently have a state-mandated critical pedagogy framework and I am not too happy about). Remember that these administrators are graduates of Ed Schools and that Richard Delgado himself who bragged (several years ago) about how many scholars in the field of education are now considered critical race theorists.
Exactly. Ballooning administration has dramatically inflated college costs in the last 30 years. It's destroying the liberal character of universities. It polices students' sex lives and their personal lives. It systematically tolerates and encourages aggressive, sometimes violent, far left groups.
Is there any reason to continue supporting American colleges and universities in their current form? They are the source of the problem. First steps would be, stop sending your money and kids there. Next steps, encourage others to do the same.
GREAT ideas.
Third step, cut off funding from the government. That would cut the head off-a the snake.
Not from...not an absolute, but the "Constitution of States" just might allow control and it is 1/2 way there.
And the school Administrators outnumber those who teach. Go figure.
That's been the dramatic change in American higher education in the last 30 years. This is the reason it costs so much and is so repressive.
And people wonder why the cost of higher education has exploded…gotta spend all that gubmint cheese somehow
Sorry about the typos. I hate typing in the little boxes for a reason.
Naw. You're fine as YOur ideas are FINEST.
Thank you jt! I highly recommend Peter’s substack and his current series on Ed Schools (for which he is collaborating with Dr Lyell Asher). They talk in detail about deficits in education and how they relate to Ed Schools “social justice” politics.
TYTY for tip. Saw https://boghossian.substack.com/p/how-ed-schools-won?s=r and found this to be fascinating: https://boghossian.substack.com/p/reverse-q-and-a-tour?s=r
Also saw a book about Direct Instruction, which I don't think I'd heard-a before. TYTY again, Alejandra!
I can't promise, but I'll give it a look. TYTY for recommending.
Alejandra, are you a sentry for the woke culture warriors? Think of the horrors of it all, Critical Pedagogy running rampant through high school, how dare they teach kids to challenge authority based on critical thinking; civilization, as we know it, will and!
Except for one minuscule detail: we should not conflate the analytical processes most people associate with critical thinking with the critical lens/ critical consciousness that is part of critical pedagogy. The former overlaps with enlightened liberalism and the scientific method and emphasizes ideals such as viewpoint diversity and objectivity. The later—according to my kids’ own critical pedagogy framework—focuses on power dynamics and oppressed/oppressor hierarchies (please feel free to search for NY state’s culturally responsive sustaining education framework). In addition, according to a 2006 paper on the topic by Howard Doughty, critical consciousness questions the very ideals behind enlightened liberalism; leading me to wonder whether the two constructs are at all compatible. My kids are being taught in school to understand the world through one single lens; how is this in any way critical thinking? They will question my authority all right, but will they be able to question the authority of whomever is imposing these critical pedagogies?
Incidentally, were you aware that Peter Boghossian’s area of expertise is critical thinking? He is a fallible individual—like the rest of us—but *he* knows what critical thinking is. Why would he be making a case against these critical pedagogies and the Schools of Education that promote them?
Alejandra, are you telling me there not teaching enlightened liberalism and the scientific method? Cannot power dynamics, and oppressed/oppressor hierarchies, be introduced within enlightened liberalism using the scientific method? They are not mutually exclusive, are they?
They kind of are when kids are learning to see the world using one single specific lens staring very early in their education (critical thinking requires that multiple perspectives are analyzed and evidence is presented while valuing individual conclusions). Please take a look at this framework: the critical lens/critical consciousness is one of the top 3 educational imperatives listed as part of the framework’s vision (the second is to make k-12 students “sociopolitically conscious”). I am not a conservative, but k-12 education politicized to such a degree? Why are we at all surprised with the conservative backlash?
The liberal/democratic student writing an editorial for the NYT complained about self-censoring and the ostracization of dissenting voices in her University (UVA) just last week…could it be just a random coincidence that CRT lists “criticism of enlightened liberalism” as one of its tenets? CRT has this in common with critical pedagogy, didn’t you know?
"Cannot power dynamics, and oppressed/oppressor hierarchies, be introduced within enlightened liberalism using the scientific method?"
Yep, except it won't get the desired results, so they skip the latter bits.
Critical thinking mean we shouldn’t take an ideology calling itself “social justice” at face value.
Indeed, neill, what are the desired results?
Just me, You said the gap between us was too far to bridge. I held back. But I'm obliged to point out that the gap is found in Your inability to think clearly. And learn from Your betters. Sorry, but Truth.
jt, I am glad you enjoyed Peter’s substack; I find his latest series to be quite relevant and very well researched.
What Just me doesn’t appear to understand is that the ideas coming from “social justice” are indeed included as part of viewpoint diversity. What makes the “social justice” ideology unique, however, is that it is a criticism of enlightened liberal ideals and, as such, has a tendency to undermine their impartiality. What is science when it is not objective? What is The Rule of Law when we begin applying double standards? What is critical thinking when some ideas are beyond reproach because they label themselves “antiracism,” “social justice,” and “diversity and inclusion?”
Jt, I was endeavoring to be polite, knowing that having a conversation with someone who is willfully ignorant is futile. Particularly when considering they think they’re brilliant. Your very definition of The Dunning-Kruger effect, here are two descriptions of you in the past and the present; Charles Darwin, “ignorance is more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” And Neil deGrasse Tyson; “Knowing enough to think you are right, but not knowing enough to know you are wrong.”
In 1962 the Port Huron Statement, the SDS manifesto, proclaimed that if the "New Left" could take over the universities they could indoctrinate the young and be the source of knowledge for the country. The New Left has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. 1962 was the beginning of the new totalitarianism -today it has morphed into wokism. The left took over the universities from extraordinarily naive liberals. No one who has studied the leftist march through the institutions should be surprised that now the inevitable has happened - the destruction of the US legal system. Conservatives have their sins but their fear of the left was not one of them. Liberals controlled the universities for a very long time, but never understood the totalitarian impulse of the left. They NEVER fought to preserve the universities, I believe they were cowards when confronted by leftist tyrants. Now every institution in America is owned by the woke tyrants, and liberals are still surprised that the woke are not really helping the downtrodden. They are still surprised that the woke rhetoric does not match the results, that the downtrodden do not benefit. Wokeness is a deep sickness. No one should believe its veneer of doing good is real. No one should assume there is rationality behind its policies. There is only a power impulse.
But everyone should fear them because they run the country, and they control who goes to jail and who does not, who is fired and who is hired. There are still many brave and good Americans, but with no institutional power. Many of us have enormous concern that our election process may be irredeemably corrupt because now it appears to also be controlled by the wokesters.
It is critical that everyone who has some concern that our country and its values may be lost must work to make our next elections adequately fair. We need volunteers and money. Help at your local level or at a higher level, but do not sit out the last battle to save America.
You have put your finger on the problem very precisely.
I suspect that the reason it was so easy for the Woke to take over is that everything they say is couched in terms of "helping the oppressed." How could anyone be AGAINST that? The reality of what they believe is, as you pointed out, ineffective at helping anyone...except helping themselves to power.
But I think you give Liberals (at least the left-wing ones) a little too much credit. The Democratic party has been "helping the oppressed" for 50 years, in ways that for the most part do not actually help.
Yes. NAFTA was the last nail in the coffin for the working class in the Rust Belt, where I grew up. I couldn't believe that a Dem would work to pass this and kill Glass Steagall. I was a political naif. I am much more sophisticated now and no longer have any faith in the Dems. I've become an independent although I am starting to call myself a "Pro-humanist" which seems to be a political concept that people from both sides can rally around. This idea is being pushed by both fairforall.org and 1776unites.org.
That said, the magnitude of institutional capture that has happened in this country is so overwhelming, I am wondering if the growing pushback will have any effect.
Keep one thing in mind. The greatest FEAR of the Dems is that the numbers are against them. For all they've done and bought and sold to get a lotta Democratic partisans, they're now the party of the Elites. As long as that's true, the numbers are gonna be against them, if people see them for what they are. May take a while, of course, and things could go south before then. But still...
I'll take whatever hope I can get these days...
Even longer than that... it seems to me that the Democrat leadership, for over a century, and for all their virtue signaling and hypocrisy, has really had only one plank in its party platform: to expand their own voter base. By declaring "war on poverty" and pitting the impoverished against the non-impoverished, they've actually taken on the role of the very "oppressors" they rant against. By scapegoating the "haves" and promoting "wealth redistribution" and "equity" instead of equality, they've gradually and patiently created a victim class out of what used to be a robust and productive population. Not to say that the Republicans are all pillars of virtue; it's just that their "brand", if you will, calls for the promotion of self support and personal responsibility. They're not above using the scapegoat tactic when they encounter a plausible scapegoat, but this is not as long-range a strategy as building a well-established welfare state. Wokeism is just another handy tool to keep the divide-and-conquer engines running. I'd like to think Lincoln's wisdom still applies: "You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." Or are too many of the people getting too intellectually lazy to avoid being fooled?
You may well be correct. It seems like I've read that FDR's policies actually lengthened the Depression, but I haven't studied that subject in enough detail to evaluate the truth of that claim. But I do know that LBJ's policies did considerably more harm than good, and Democrats continue to cling to those same ideas.
If you look at Democrats' policies from LBJ forward with the perspective that the central purpose was to perpetuate the racism that the Democrats could no longer openly embrace, a lot of otherwise inexplicable things make sense. Such as the utter failure of Democrats to solve the problems of urban areas they've had under one-party-control for decades.
Not that they've actually let their BIPOC politicians in on that secret. But when you give people money, power, and ego-props, they are not likely to question the ideology they've been told is vital for people of their race to embrace (an ideology that, curiously enough, comes largely from Marxist white people).
At this point, though, it no longer matters whether anyone in the Democratic party is still aware of the desired destination of their forerunners. The die was cast, the path was chosen, and they march down it to their ruin...the ruin of us all.
It's heartbreaking. I feel like an idiot for ever believing that the left championed individual liberty.
Now You make ME feel bad. REAL bad.
I believed it all until just a YEAR ago. Never paid attention to what was going on at ALL. Will probably NEVER convince Sisters otherwise.
Still, spilt milk, right?
Yeah, I'd like to know more about FDR's reign. The TIME?
I gather LBJ was racist, at least to an extent. I dunno that's a general policy of white Dems or not. But, like You "said," no matter now.
But SOME might see the sorry state of Dem cities, and start drawing the necessary conclusions as to the efficacy of their ideology. Coming from Black and White Marxists, to boot. The policy of money, power, and ego-props over the welfare of the citizens who, for whatever reason, still trust in them..
IM(H)O.
LBJ was pretty typically racist for a Democrat of his era. The problem for the Democrats was that Civil Rights was going to pass whether they wanted it to or not. Some rejected that idea, rallying around George Wallace, but those with the grit to face reality (and LBJ certainly had that) had to make some difficult calculations about how to remain in power in a post-Civil-Rights country. It's my opinion that his handouts to black people were intended as a kind of poisoned pill--quieting down their complaints and making them think that the Democrats were somehow suddenly on their side, while the seeds of future failure for blacks were being sown.
But as I said, whether LBJ and the other (now quietly) racist Democrats were able to foresee (and therefore intend) the end result of their policies, those policies have caused just as much harm as if they were intended to.
As for how much racism remains among white Democrats, you only have to look at Biden's comments about Obama ("I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy") or Hillary's campaign's reference to Hispanic voters as the "Taco Bowl" to see that you don't have to scratch white Democrats of their generation very deeply to find the racist inside.
I'm not 100%, but suspect that large numbers are too intellectually lazy, or were told WHAT to think instead-a HOW to think. Mebbe more the latter. Dunno.
You're right on both counts, M. Celia.
Hopefully people are waking up to the reality you outlined. Check this out: https://newdiscourses.com/2022/02/paulo-freires-prophetic-vision-education/
and this: https://freeblackthought.substack.com/p/why-did-critical-race-theory-emerge?s=r
It’s no different than any movement that claims sole moral truth, whether religious or secular like the Red Guards or Khmer Rouge. When you are in possession of Sole
Moral Truth, any means are justified against your opponents, because they do not merely have bad ideas, they are Bad People.
Yes, hence why all the dehumanizing language from the media: racist, homophobe, Trumper, anti-vaxxer, xenophobe, transphobe, TERF, etc ad inf
Yup - let's embrace TERF = Tired of Explaining Reality to Fools.
See https://twitter.com/bernardbagship1/status/1505216347764150287
Loving...perfect example of the media. thanks
LovingMother, Jim... (invisible like)
It's not just the US. It's an international ideology. It's a regressive blend of politics, religion, education, and culture that has totally captured the US and is actively working to spread its gospel everywhere.
But it has started in the US. I could watch it over many years now. The newest BS first appears in the US and one or two years later You find the same BS in Europe.
...and the zeal, reflexiveness, and illogic with which many are branded racists has a definite flavor of the Witch trials in Monty Python
“Well, she turned me into a newt....”
LOL! :-) Actually, John Cleese has come out about the fact that Monty Python would not be able to be made today. How sad is that? It's some of the best satire and parody the planet has ever known. When your arts are shrinking, your culture is in trouble.
https://freeblackthought.substack.com/p/why-did-critical-race-theory-emerge?s=r
KEY TAKEAWAY: “Indeed, a review of the legal studies literature suggests that when CRT “questions the very foundations of the liberal order,” this is no grad-school intellectual exercise, but rather a strategy for transforming our entire legal system into one that privileges group rights over individual rights. If you want to transform the foundations of American society (without using rifles), you need a theory of the law, and you need a farm system for training federal judges. (Just ask the Federalist Society.) This, in a nutshell, is why CRT emerged from legal studies.”
Imagine - training future lawyers and judges to subvert the rights of individuals in favor of group rights. What an elegant coup of our entire legal system based on individual rights. Who needs a revolution when you can sneak it in through the back doors of academic and criminal justice systems? Just incredible.
This is why I am willing to partner with conservatives to save my country. WAKE UP, people. Realize that these people are willing to do anything to get revenge and reparations for the wrongs of the past including applying the law unfairly and inequitably. They realize that fiscal reparations are a non-starter, politically. So they are coming in through the back door in every institution. It is a hungry, vengeful beast. And, if we don't kill it, it will kill America.
Great points. I am constantly amazed by the useful idiots who will say well, sure these woke types are problematic, but man, isn't Trump terrible? And it's like you've got to be able to make a comparison and choose the lesser evil. These left wing ideologies are in control of mass media, Silicon Valley and all the tech companies associated with it, major corporations, Wall Street, and the bureaucracy in DC. To name a few. So sure, I find things on the right to worry about, but the cultural power and influence that they wield pales in comparison to that of the left. So we should act accordingly.
It is 1000% a religion. The only hope is that people start to attach consequences to anyone who engages in this sort of behavior and/or thinking. I hate to get into partisan politics but it's simply a fact that this thinking is coming HEAVILY from Democrat strongholds. So in electoral terms everyone who sees this has to attach consequences to them, because they're the ones who can do something.
If it's a religion it is truly an evil cult.
Bruce...Lenno asked me, are you religious, my answer was no, but i would rather live next door to someone who goes to church, rather then live next to someone who steals from the 7-11. I believe that religion is Mostly Positive in that it functions as a crutch, necessary until...then.
"but it seems that it is slowly affecting STEM fields, this will damage US future for sure."
Yeah, it's so stupid, I would almost believe this woke nonsense was being funded by China, while else would we act so stupid?
I think there is a strong possibility that is the case.
Yeah, GOOD possibility. Wouldn't put it past them at ALL.
Never heard of Lysenkoism and I am so glad you mentioned it for further research for all of us. Thank you!!
If you are in Europe, do everything you can to fight this toxic dangerous garbage.
Chesterton nailed it when he said that the problem when people give up religion is not that they believe in nothing but rather that they believe in anything! He later made the equally astute observation that the danger of a loss of faith is not unrestrained vice but unrestrained virtue!
Love this!
I use “M.” like the French do, for Monsieur but ALSO for Mesdames and Mademoiselle EQUALLY. ALL CAPS are ITALICS. I don’t read what I type before I post, so errors are expected.
You've got the right of it, M. Raziel. Sad, but Truth..
Chesterton nailed it when he said that the problem when people give up religion is not that they believe in nothing but rather that they believe in anything! He later made the equally astute observation that the danger of a loss of faith is not unrestrained vice but unrestrained virtue!
On your observations about "wokeness" as a new religion, I agree. For an excellent exposition of this thene, read the excellent book "Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America" by black Columbia Professor John McWhorter. Of course, any Ideology, whether Communism, Fascism, or Wokeism are simply Secular Religions. Most atheists object to being called "religious" and see the whole "religion thing" as beneath them and their dignity and intelligence, but this is not true. If "religion" is simply "one's belief in God (or "Ultimate Reality," then if you don't believe in God, that's your religion. Even the U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged as much. "Culture" arises from a predominant "cult," and Wokeism is supplanting the much maligned Judeo-Christian "cult" upon which much of Western Civilization rests.
Consider so-called "climate change"
The modern American university is a progressive madrassa married to a non profit married to a corporate bureaucracy married to a liberal convent married to an adult daycare center married to a tech-media-Democratic party complex.
Results may vary by institution. The article focuses a lot on the "elite" law schools at "elite" universities on the coasts, but I suspect the situation may be different in "lesser" law schools elsewhere in the country, especially those in large, public universities. I teach at a large public university - one that doesn't have a law school - and, so far, capture by the illiberal left is incomplete.
(In fact, we faculty are more concerned about repression from the illiberal right, which would dictate a too-narrow reading of American history and ban the discussion of "contentious" issues in the classroom. But you know the old song: clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right . . .)
Anyway, perhaps we should look to those "lesser" institutions, reign in the administrative bloat, and take what opportunities we can to draw students into the truly (small-l) liberal tradition of free and fearless inquiry, unfettered expression, and the rule of law.
I graduated from one of those lesser law schools - and I can tell you it is pervasive, as the ABA has mandated certain course requirements now, which apply to all accredited law schools. Also remember who the deans of these law schools are - usually Harvard/Yale/Stamford or some other Top 14 school graduates. What I can tell you, though, is that there is boldness and creativity coming out of those lesser schools. A number of my classmates have started practices of their own with client bases that include representation of "unpopular" individuals and view (one representing anti-vaxxers now). If they are the only ones representing these types of clients, I see a great financial future for them.
Just to be very clear, I refer to schools as "lesser" only in terms of how they are perceived by people who don't know much about education. I didn't study law, but I am the product of public universities, and think I'm better for it.
I love to hear about the boldness and creativity in your Alma mater. The irony, I suspect, is that their actions are probably a reflection of what the schools used to impart about 75 years ago.
The same thing has happened to medical schools and hospitals with respect to accreditation. All are tied to government through Medicare, which pays for numerous faculty and resident positions across the U.S. It's amazing how the purported necessity for a centralized accrediting agency (rather than results) lays the foundation for the financial bribing that will come later
Yeah. And the areas that need accrediting and licensing keep expanding, to boot.
I hope your classmates win! Maybe you can join them one day
If the judiciary goes it will not matter.
Bob K - I'm not sure what ideological bubble you reside in (as we all do), but the woke mobs are everywhere, not only in the so-called elite schools. All the large state universities have it now, according to hundreds of articles and testimonials pouring out of those places onto Youtube and various other sites like Campus Watch.
As for your little aside about what you call the illiberal right... it is the conservatives today who are actually liberal and progressive, in the literal sense of the words. We believe in freedom of thought, and what more liberal cause is there than that? Don't confuse conservatism with narrow minded religious fundamentalists, though even they are not as extreme as the Woke Left today, in my opinion.
Well, I'm watching bills making their way through the legislatures of several states in the South which, if enacted, would dictate ideologically narrow interpretations of history and forbid the teaching of "divisive concepts" in the classroom. This has a notably chilling effect on faculty who, at my institution at least, are rallying to affirm a broad conception of academic freedom.
For what it's worth, I intend to challenge my colleagues in an upcoming meeting on just how committed they would be to those same principles if it were a left-wing Twitter mob coming after one of us.
In my experience, most of the faculty are moderate in their views and committed to freedom of thought and expression; but they're also very busy and want to avoid undue trouble. What matters then is how much ideological pressure is coming from students and from administrators. My observation is that the pressure is much lower at large public universities than it may be at the more exclusive (or stuck-up) private universities and colleges.
The faculty at most universities are fearful of being canceled. So, they are going along to get along.
Regarding the banning of CRT from classrooms such as in Florida: it is heavy handed and perhaps counter-productive, but it is a reaction to an equally heavy-handed ideology that is taking over classrooms. The children aren't being taught "there are two sides to this" or "some say reparations are necessary" or even "some say black people invented the light bulb, elevator, and telephone" (all 3 are exaggerations of the actual contributions of black inventors). They just assert those concepts as fact, and anyone who questions is labeled a racist and can be (and have been) suspended or even expelled.
There are a lot of examples of this extremism and I think Bob K is whitewashing this to an extent by saying "Well I don't see woke cancelation but I sure do see conservatives canceling ideas". This is actually a typical comeback -- they change the subject when it gets too uncomfortable. Sorry, Bob, the subject is liberal academia.
Oh, I see woke cancellation all right. Almost every day there's another story in the Chronicle of Higher Education or insidehighered about another faculty member pilloried for some perceived offense against the righteous or other.
All I'm saying is that the problem is not evenly distributed across institutions, and my own institution may be somewhat less prone to that kind of capture. Part of the reason is that my institution places a heavy emphasis on science and engineering.
If you were to tell engineers, for example, that an mathematics and an insistence on "getting the right answer" are products of white supremacy, they would - and should - laugh in your face. If you're designing a bridge, people's lives will literally depend on you "getting the right answer" to math problems. Steel and concrete and gravity don't care who your parents were or what color your skin might be nor even, I dare say, what pronouns you prefer.
I agree, science & engineering are relatively less woke, but even MIT recently has been canceling people. And in California, math is now racist in K-12, as I'm sure you're aware. Just wait until this idiocy trickles up to universities.
They want to bring the social justice now to K-12 math education to CA students -https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/
But the reason those "ideologically narrow interpretation" bills are working their way through the legislature is precisely BECAUSE these states can see what is happening to our institutions, and are desperate to find some way to reverse the tide. Woke ideology seeks to capture -- and has, indeed, been capturing -- school kids at their most moldable. How do we prevent the collapse of our institutions if we don't stop that practice?
I don't see what You have against the prohibition on "divisive concepts."
Academics have abused their freedom, AFAIK.
If I'm not allowed to introduce "divisive concepts" for discussion in the classroom, how else are students supposed to learn to engage in reasoned deliberation about the difficult issues of public life?
What's striking is that those arguing for prohibitions on such concepts often appeal to the comfort of students: talking about race or other difficult things makes students (at least the white boys among them) "uncomfortable."
(Snowflakes fall hard on the right and the left, it seems.)
Am I forbidden from having students in a course on political theory read the work of Habermas, who is associated with "critical theory", and so guilty by association with the right's trumped-up bogeyman of CRT?
Heck, there are even those on the right who would ban the works of Kant, apparently based on Ayn Rand's shallow misreading of him, because he characterized his approach to philosophy as "critical", which has a word in common with CRT, so . . . All this despite Kant's robust defense of free and fearless inquiry in "What is Enlightenment?"
May I have students read selections from Marx's economic manuscripts? It's hard to understand the history of the 20th century without understanding Marx!
Darwin makes people uncomfortable, so should I exclude any mention him from any discussion of the intellectual history of the past two centuries?
Just how far does this go?
The ultimate problem is that I work in a public university in one of these states, and those at the top of the hierarchy have substantial power to mete out punishments for those who cross one of their ideological lines, which is far more chilling than anything a lefty Twitter-mob might do.
I think the ultimate problem leads to You to defend the right of teachers to do whatever they want.
The problem is that the people preaching "divisive" concepts, like CRT, won't ALLOW other views to be presented against it, or it never would-a seen the light-a day.
Anything so incoherent would-a been drowned OUT by common sense, if nothing else, if it'd been allowed.
The opposite of ANYTHING-GOES isn't DON'T TEACH ANYTHING, right?
Almost all of the discussion, and I believe all of the legislation, is about primary school teaching and, to a lesser extent, secondary school teaching. I have not seen anyone propose that universities should avoid any topic...one of the goals of "higher" education used to be teaching people to be critical and to think.
So check those laws in Southern states out before critiquing them...just like the "don't say gay" lie, they are mostly to keep irresponsible (and generally wrong, IMO) views out of the lower grades.
When I went to school we learned the three Rs for the first eight years. Based on hiring today, that would be a good place to start. We had rhythm band in kindergarten...not lessons where the white and black children were separated so they could demonstrate oppression.
This has to stop and if the laws seem a little heavy handed that is because the law is a blunt instrument but may be the only one to stop some of the most ludicrous and pernicious things from happening.
I live in a Red State whose legislature recently shot down "divisive concepts" Bill for exactly that reason. Still, I think everyone here is better off that the Universities have to work with an overwhelmingly conservative state legislature because one point of view can't fully dominate. Universities on the west coast are lost to traditional liberal values. I think.
" it is the conservatives today who are actually liberal and progressive, in the literal sense of the words. We believe in freedom of thought, "
As a conservative myself, I thought that was true for years, then watched in horror as Trump captured the party
The thing is, Trump's not even a conservative. He's a nationalist and a pro-business traditionalist. He's quite pro-states-rights, as witness his reluctance to crack down on urban violence. He also opposed the mandatory lockdowns, at least once it became clear that the "15 days to slow the spread" was a crock.
I admit I'm weird. I'd like to see the Dept. of Education gotten rid of. College and Primary and Secondary. Failed at all three, right? And going downhill from their, now.
Dept of Education was created near the end of the Carter Administration (agencies raised to Cabinet level, to create an impression they were "doing something" about the schools).
Since then, they've spent approximately $2 trillion (adjusting for inflation) and in every single year since 1979, student performance has declined. The U.S. today is below 3rd World performance levels in many fields. They learn better geography and reading skills in a dirt floor grass hut school in rural Africa.
I heard an engineering professor state that his top students today would have been bottom of the class 30 years ago.
They would likely be bottom of the class today, in Japan or China or Germany.
No doubt. How sad
Terry...nice stats...Not to mention, the immense funds coming from Universities and given to Political candidates, not legal, ...happens.
I don't doubt ANY-a that. $50B a year? That right? Pay it out in vouchers, if I had my Way.
Yes their budget ranges from $40B to $70B/year depending on the year.
I just saw recently what the percentages were paying for ed. Dunno I saved the link. Almost all-a it state and local. About split evenly. But feds have outsized role in determining things. Seems all wrong to me, all the way around.
We need so many useless federal institutions eliminated
Madjack...seems like the plan for the "COS",(Conv of States)
Yeah, just might work!
oh! write by intuition and make a lotta mistakes: Meant to say money Dept of Ed spent could go to school vouchers. That'd be the OTHER main benefit of my OUTLANDISH proposal.
You're probably right. I'm ignoramoose and couldn't say, myself, what all needs to be gotten rid of. I signed petition of Convention of States but was a loooong time ago. Recall it was about going small-government, IIRC.
jt...IF the "Convention of States" gets to pass, now halfway there, a chance for "gotten rid of", just might...reach.
I'll hafta go back and look at it again. I liked what I saw, but don't RECALL it like the back of my hand. I dunno what the steps are, even. And then, if passed, how to implement? But I'll take a gander that Way. You may be right to hope it'll work, M. Mack.
jt..."how to implement" is a toss, agree. At this stage, since pointed out by another, our schools are in a hurt since the Fed Takeover. I think, the COS would able the States to cover the lowdown and make adjustments on schools...tis a maybe.
(invisible heart) Even a mebbe looks pretty darn good to me at this point.
I would like to see the DoE actually do what it is intended. I think there is value in it but it hasn’t proven so in the past 10-20 years. They have been asleep at the wheel.
If anything should be local it should be education.
Right You ARE!
The only way to be totally free of a poisonous snake is?
For sure, the Ivy League has compromised itself. Many law firms and companies now not only avoid interviewing at the Ivy League but make great efforts to hire the cream-of-crop at so-called second tier schools which are gradually rising in prominence.
I do not find this to be true in the legal industry - we are hopelessly elitist. The top tier firms, and even mid size and in-house legal departments, continue to set their minimum application requirements to include only graduates of top tiered law schools (i.e. the Ivies), or only some impossibly high class ranking for individuals who attended an optically-acceptable lower-ranked school. At some point in your career, it matters a bit less, but I have worked for someone for five years who regularly and subtly reminds me of how much more prestigious their alma matter is than mine. Even though that person would 100% lost if I left tomorrow.
Sorry to hear about ‘Ivy League arrogance’ - both my husband and daughter are ‘Harvard’ and both work hard and are respectful of others or at least I hope. That said, some of my husband’s peers are nauseating and I don’t think particularly talented. I am not close enough to my daughter’s cohort to observe but she has told me that the cohort behind her 20 to 30 year olds today are rather unimpressive, ie she is having a hard time recruiting (finance). She constantly complains about the lack of a ‘work ethic’; she’s quite the workhorse herself. In the immediate family, we have Smith, Wellesley, MIT, Yale & Columbia - and all realize that fancy schools mean nothing if you have a weak moral center, little or no creativity and no ambition once you leave the collegiate iron gates.
It pains me to think of our legal or health systems as “industries”
Looks like “round up” has sprayed the vaunted “Ivy League”. Or perhaps they have grown into the “bush league”
lol. (Hope CC is right.)
I hope so, maybe someone with a Yale degree not finding a job could teach them a lesson.
My husband runs a 'medium-sized', well-known consulting firm. Awhile back their Yale-hire showed up at work at 10 am and left at 3 pm regularly; it was said this dude oozed entitlement. Just that hire prompted them to look for the 'other cream' at non-Ivy-League schools. It only takes one dud to get a sour taste.
You better readdress your priorities. The “illiberal right” is a minuscule bogeyman
Take a look into the unending investigations into the "stolen election." Former WI Supreme Court justice Michael Gableman is a glaring example. There are illiberal forces on the right that want to end democracy as we know it. It does no good to apply scrutiny and criticism selectively. There are dangerous wingnuts of all political stripes.
Not to mention those on the right eager to lick the boots of a dangerous autocrat (or two) to defend their "values" against those scary progressives.
I view progressives as very scary, at the University level. They've been turning out students who are further and further to the left. Dunno if it's true, but saw of a study that 30% of professors were Marxists. Even if it's in the ballpark, that's pretty scary.
Gimme a ballpark figure of how many Repubs there are teaching in tertiary education?
That's my point.
If you are more concerned about the illiberal right, you have already been captured by the illiberal left.
Oh, I'm fully aware of the illiberal left, and increasingly annoyed by it. I was speaking of my own context, in which the illiberal right is the more pressing problem. If I were teaching in a state school in another region, or if I were teaching at a private "elite" university or liberal-arts school, the illiberal left would be the greater concern.
Bob, we ALL would like to know what City/State has this problem. I am an academic and well exposed and can find no one complaining of illiberal right wing capture. I want to know where this is so I can go there.
How about the (forthcoming) University of Austin? or Berry College? or Hillsdale College? or Liberty University?
Bob, I know about those places. I want to know what city/state YOU are in where you are currently experiencing right wing culture issues you find noxious. All the institutions you mentioned are in response to the disaster out there. (Except for Hillsdale which has done this differently for years.)
You have no idea what is going on if you think the illiberal right is more of a problem the illiberal left.
Bob K. I assure you that law schools everywhere are being captured by the wokeness described in this piece. More obviously so at the “elite” schools (of which I’m a product), but even at the “lesser” ones.
Out of curiosity I have to ask, what contentious discussions is the right actually trying to get banned in universities? As opposed to K-12 public schools, where gender ideology and CRT have been big issues. I haven't really heard of any major figures on the right calling to ban classroom discussions in higher education, except to criticize the dominance of CRT as the only acceptable thought. On the contrary, those that I read and listen to argue for open debate and the right for all views to be heard without fear of reprisals. But maybe your school is located in a conservative red state with something else going on.
Oops: Just saw your reply below partly answering my question, sorry. Still, these bills seem like they'd be directed more at elementary and secondary education, not post-secondary.
I have heard of no conservatives attempting to ban anyone's speech anywhere.
Well I think that's certainly true at the college level and anywhere that adults engage in speech, but for instance in Florida, they are certainly (correctly, in my opinion) trying to put the brakes on teaching of radical gender ideology in the very early grades, which is a no-brainer. So technically they are trying to ban speech somewhere, that of public school teachers. But again, I have no problem with it, because children's development and well-being take precedence over those teachers' free-speech rights.
Parents have a right to know what is being taught to their children. There is no conceivable reason why kindergartners need to be taught about transgenderism. I had major objections to "alternative lifestyles" being taught to very young children because they become confused. Then if they are approached by a pedophile they are easily victimized because they learned in school this behavior is normal and acceptable.
I think You're both right.
Naomi, Elected officials requested that the State University of New York, Brockport, cancel an April 9 event by; speaker Jalil Muntaqim, University did not cancel the event, but they did resend the funding for the speaker. How about some conservative cancel culture? Berea College administrators call on students and staff to boycott; The Berea Torch, a student publication. Moving on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a student was prohibited from asking others to wear masks. All this was in March. It may come as a shock, but conservatives are not the bastions of free speech.
Sorry. Sure You can pick a few cases. The OVERWHELMING number of cases on the left make a joke of it.
Jt, I’m not holding my breath; but, when one makes a statement, the burden of proof falls upon their shoulders; therefore, you need to prove; “The OVERWHELMING number of cases on the left make a joke of it.” I fully anticipate some meaningless trite reply or excuse!
Ah, I remember those times, Golfer.
Unfortunately those bad habits I eventually shed have been picked up by many of the people who consider themselves to be "progressive."
It's worse now then it was in the 50s if we can forget the a*hole senator called McCarthy.
I do, however remember fondly the 60s when young women and men decided to forsake the conservative attitudes toward sex.
Kate, Elected officials requested that the State University of New York, Brockport, cancel an April 9 event by; speaker Jalil Muntaqim, University did not cancel the event, but they did resend the funding for the speaker. How about some conservative cancel culture? Berea College administrators call on students and staff to boycott; The Berea Torch, a student publication. Moving on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a student was prohibited from asking others to wear masks. All this was in March. It may come as a shock, but conservatives are not the bastions of free speech.
I'm not familiar with any of these things, but first, boycotts are not cancel culture. They are not one and the same. Boycotts offer a choice; you can choose to participate or not participate. Second, without more information on the mask incident, requiring people to wear masks is not "free speech." It's a mask mandate.
Who made you the authority on cancel culture? It would seem you have a bit of difficulty with reading comprehension. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a student was prohibited from asking others to wear masks. Meaning a singular student was told he could not ask people on the campus to wear a mask.
You seem to regard yourself as quite the authority so I could ask you the same thing. You are going to have to come up with a better example than that before I'm convinced there's widespread conservative cancel culture on campuses that comes anywhere close to the chokehold the left currently employs at institutions.
You're pretty funny. Kate's response is measured. Your's?
"Who made YOU the AUTHORITY..."
Well, I'd just ask same of You, Just me. How old are You to be muchuva authority on ANYTHING?
And Your reading comprehension? Why should a singular student be able to implement a mask mandate? Explain that, or don't. No matter either Way.
See reply above.
I agree. My blanket statement is an exaggeration, but I do think it's more true than not at some of your more "renowned" institutions that have proven to be remarkably reliable in churning out constitutionally delicate creatures not long for this world.
All of which must include the defense of unpopular opinions, Bob.
I'm old enough to have lived through the McCarthy era, as illiberal as anything we face today.
Thank you Bob for bringing a bit of healthy optimism to this thread.
I remember the McCarthy era too. A teacher at my elementary school was fired/left due to his views. It was bad but nothing like what is currently going on.
The unfortunate aspect of that period is that the truth got buried. FDR’s admin was riddled with communists and sympathizers. A honest thorough investigation should have been done. I just finished “Stalin’s war” which elucidated much of this. Stalin played FDR and Churchill like a fiddle. Another brilliant psychopath.
I agree, Naomi. The McCarthy era's impact was fairly narrow back then.
Now we have a full assault on our entire culture by a surprisingly small portion of our 330+ million citizens. Perhaps you agree.
Thank you for your comment.
I do agree. I was a very young child at the time but I remember it well because my parents were terrified of McCarthy. I suppose it felt to them like the Soviet purges or the early days of the Nazis. The teacher who had to leave the school taught in the upper grades. At that time our elementary school was K-8. This teacher taught either 7 or 8th grade. He was popular and a good teacher, but back then our teachers were excellent overall. They had gotten their jobs during the Depression when it was very competitive to get a government job. Many of the parents in my neighborhood had been taught by these same teachers when they were in school. You can't get away with anything when your parent/s had the same teacher you have. Of course, it would have been a community disgrace to misbehave in school at any time.
A most accurate comment about what post war American was like, Naomi. Thank you for your contribution.
Meanwhile, legislators in my state have requested - and received - a list of courses in which "divisive concepts" are "taught". Now, what do you suppose that list is for? What do you think we faculty are meant to think it is for?
Do you think divisive concepts are not being taught? Is the crushing wave of ideological capture we are seeing coming out of nowhere?
I completely understand bristling at the notion that you can't discuss ANYTHING in class ... at the same time, there has clearly been a shift to teaching certain ideological concepts throughout primary and secondary school as if they were neutral fact, while giving no time or voice to competing ideas, or to neutrality, or to the importance of treating people with alternate views respectfully, or to the importance of a free exchange of ideas and opinions.
So, how else do/can we stop indoctrination in a single religious viewpoint in our schools than to try to choke up on the indoctrination? If there is a viable alternative approach, I am open to considering it.
So, you think it's okay for those with political power to use it to suppress incorrect thoughts? If that's what you think, is it a principle you think should be applied universally, or only when the people you like hold political power?
And people here say my concerns about the illiberal right are off-base! Too many people on this discussion seem perfectly content for legislators to root out wrongthink, as long as those legislators have an R after their names.
It's not that they oppose the building of pyres, only that they think the "woke" left has the wrong list of heretics in need of burning.
The answer is to defend free speech, to defend free inquiry, even if that means standing up for the rights of people who believe things you find reprehensible . . . but then to engage those people in debate.
It takes hard work, dedication, a willingness to be uncomfortable, to be challenged. That's the price of living in an open society . . . if that's what anyone actually wants, any more.
That is wishful thinking.
Upvote for the Joe Walsh reference. :-)
How?
For quite some time I’ve been putting it out in the ether that ESG is collusive anti-competitive behavior. The Arizona AG just opened an investigation into this.
So I will continue to put out into the ether that Republicans should run on eliminating student debt by prosecuting Universities for defrauding students.
You can’t pay your loans because the education you got does not have any value. It’s literally the exact same thing as Trump University. Just on a MUCH larger scale because I think Trump was only charging like $6500 or whatever.
The scandal of hire education is mind boggling. As you note, the system is simply producing too many degrees that are not resonating in the market place. It’s underemployment at its finest. And the perpetrators of the crime have no skin in the game. Their endowments keep growing and they have zero accountability for the problem they are causing. A farce of epic proportions.
Nice dig. “Hire” education… as if I would actually hire any of them. Not.
🤣🤣
Donald Trump had literally nothing to do with Trump University apart from licensing his name.
I’m sure that’s true. I never looked into it because just on it’s face it was reprehensibly dishonest for people to be outraged about it when he was just copying the business model of every university that exists.
It’s like how his tax fraud case is based on him doing the thing that literally everyone in real estate does.
KD... point that cannonade proper...might work. "run on eliminating/by prosecuting/ for defrauding"... You've got all the ammo for a just ambush, million dollar(6/7) salary to the people running these schools.
Along with these schools donating to Campaigns, using tax payer money...illegal but
Got any links that point to this, Jim?
jt...gonna work on da links. In the meantime, were you interested in both the salary and the donations. Since the direct donating is illegal, the info is there, but...valid.
On the salary end, easy. Many big 10 and ivy schools, probably all, have salaries in the 6 to 7 Million range for the top pay scale.
Coaches are making 6 to 7 Million, plus a house to boot, along with "on call" private Jet.
My take on that money is more power to them. Except for one thing: It leads to entering a bubble of an echo chamber that the mind can't find it's way outta, right? As far away from common sense as one could get, unfortunately. And college presidents there to lead kids? To where, but oblivion? That's just me. ICBW.
jt...yes, oblivion to obnoxious...
I had a better site but (opensecrets.org) covers somewhat, not precise enough.
I have the same problem. I didn't know, when I went to graduate school, that my subject (English Literature) had been completely taken over by Leftists (they were not called Woke quite yet). No one bothered to warn me that my dreams of becoming a college professor would NEVER be possible.
Perhaps they thought I would "convert" to that ideology, which would have made it possible. But moderate classical liberals don't get hired. So I left with an M.A. and a lot of anger.
After a long stint as an adjunct (where at least I got to teach), I got sick of how horribly the administration treated adjuncts (in addition to how poorly we were paid). I make more money now as a security guard, and I don't have to take my work home with me.
But I will NEVER be able to pay off my student loans. And I think that my professors and their ilk deserve to be financially responsible for locking me out of the job I trained for--the job that would have allowed me to pay off my loans.
I am sorry for your current realities. Hearing stories like yours makes me relieved that I was fiscally conservative about taking on college debt. I have 2 Associate degrees - one in Arts and one in Science. These are far below my intellectual capabilities but I couldn't take the risk of going into as much debt as a decent 4-year college requires because I had no safety net of any kind. As it turns out, I am a business owner so I didn't need the paper. But, I didn't know this at the time.
That said, I do miss having had a higher level education. I have poor debating skills and my writing is not very sophisticated compared to many of the more eloquent commenters on this and other substack boards. I wish I had been able to achieve more verbal fluency and better critical thinking skills. Ah well - we make our choices and must live with them.
You may have already looked into this program but thought I would share anyway just in case: https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/forgiveness-cancellation
ooooh. just glanced. looks like You may have scored a WINNER, there, Lightwing!
You and me both, Sister. I'm so woefully uneducated I blush. Never followed current events until lately. Technical skills I had 20 years ago are worth less than spit now.
Choice made. Choices lived with. Can't complain, other than the above.
MY IGNORAMOOSE APOLOGIES, M. Celia M.
I said it was on the students who took on their debt, who were mebbe told to "follow their dreams" and succumbed to wishful thinking. OBVIOUSLY, not the case with You.
So, SO, *SO* sorry for my comment, and YOur situation. The WRONGNESS of it makes me sick. I hope You can recover from it, although not financially. I gather bankruptcy doesn't eliminate student loan debt? Someone here or someplace mentioned that should be changed.
Would You take that route if it was offered. Not that it should be NECESSARY. Like M. Penny said, these are cases of outright fraud. Legal fraud, no doubt, but fraud nonetheless. I dunno. Stunned by the situation and my ignorance of it.
I was just LUCKY to be born in a moment in history where it worked out for me. My BELIEF is that wherever a person is in life is 50% due to personal agency and 50% pure unadulterated luck. I've heard a friend say, "I'VE EARNED EVERYTHING I'VE GOT!" I agree to a point, but we were all lucky just to end up in the U.S.
Or mebbe not, the way things are headed. I may be "lucky" to be gone before the worst hits (unless a very serendipitous change comes about, which I'm still hopeful for).
Sorry, just rambling at this point.
Bankruptcy does not eliminate student loan debt, which is a huge part of the problem. And considering that my student loan debt--with all the compounded interest--is higher than the value of everything my husband and I own, bankruptcy would be an option I would look at.
Ultimately, the real problem is that universities have become industries, sucking in the raw product of students (often students who have no business going to college to begin with) and churning out degrees without any concern about whether those degrees will allow their graduates to become gainfully employed. And since that the university industry is funded largely by student loans--which place none of the risk on the university--they have been able to keep doing it long beyond the point where THEY would have gone bankrupt if they had to cover the defaults by students who couldn't get jobs.
Another problem is that the place of universities in our culture has changed. Rather than being reserved for the best and brightest (as they still are in Europe), American culture has made college the presumptive goal for all students, regardless of their aptitude. Instead of channeling the non-bookish into skilled trades, beginning in high school (as they do in Europe), the entire curriculum is focused on getting kids into college. It hasn't helped that manufacturing--the main source of well-paying jobs for the non-bookish--has been steadily sent offshore for the past 40 years.
Since EVERYONE is "supposed" to go to college, we've ended up with lower high school standards, grade inflation, and the demonization of test scores. All of which has resulted in a lot of people going to college who lack the preparatory training or the aptitude or both. Kids go party for a few semesters (because our culture insists that partying is integral to the college experience), then flunk out or realize that college is not for them. THE RESULTING STUDENT DEBT NEVER GOES AWAY.
I could ramble on, but I won't.
Although I found your comment insightful, as is normal for you Celia, please allow me to pick a minor nit.
Your description of how our society has bastardized the concept of higher education is spot on, but perhaps our concept of the professional trades is a bit skewed.
I have many dear friends who are in the trades. Some of them started out with a hand me down tool box and a beat up F-100 pickup. Twenty years later, they have 10 or 20 well paid employees.
Several of my friends who are plumbers, welders, etc. are in their mid life far better off than even many doctors and lawyers in terms of wealth and standards of living.
One of my friends is a neurologist who has educated me about the many forms of intelligence. Her major point is that a university education can intellectually cripple some types of very bright people.
I've enjoyed reading your many comments, Celia, and look forward to reading your ideas in the future.
I didn't observe any rambling, M. Celia. In fact, it confirmed a lotta what I thought about the issue. I thought You were 110% right in everything You "rambled" about. ;)
Yeah, I think the European model is a lot more appropriate. I think a lotta the problems revolve around the Corporati REQUIRING a 4-year degree for EVERY opening. Whether actually necessary to do the job or not. So everyone is directed, to everyone's cost.
While i didn't agree with FREE 2-year college, would like to see that expanded. Give the regional companies some say in the curriculum, and make them pay for the pipeline of school to jobs, is my thinking, at this time.
TYTY for the cogent discussion!
Like your comment. I won't ask you what your degree was, as long as you don't ask me mine. All I can say is that it didn't help very much afterwards.
I went along similar path, but I blew my savings so could only go to community college. So was easy to pay off my loans.
Back when I went, it wasn't a State school so credits wouldn't transfer.
Nowadays? I wouldn't go any OTHER way. $100K debts is on the people that took them out. And the people that advised them they needed to, right?
Haha, clever way to put it. But I should say, American universities were not like this 30 or 40 years ago. Even 20 years ago, they weren't. It's happened in the last 10 years or so. The seeds were planted in the 1980s and 1990s and began to really have an effect in the 2000s. The 2008 crisis had a definite effect as well. It disillusioned in the millennials in their future prospects in American society.
At the same time, the liberal elite stepped up, into overdrive, the machinery of distraction (largely about race) via the media and academia. The first sign was the 2008 Obama campaign. It solidified the Democrats' alliance with Big Media, marked a breakthrough in its alliance with corporate America (especially Wall Street), and initiated a burgeoning alliance with Silicon Valley.
The distraction machine went even further into overdrive with the prospect of Obama's re-election campaign:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/media-great-racial-awakening
At the same time, the zombies of the far left reawakened. Dissatisfied with the status quo that Obama largely embodied, it demanded more control over the Democratic platform in 2012. This is when BLM was born. The bankrupt liberal establishment became ever more desperate the pander to this small but highly influential constituency, further weakening its claim to being a party that represents almost anyone.
You are absolutely right. The seeds were planted earlier and I suspect they were probably more evident in humanities departments. However, it didn’t really spread to the rest of the university until the last ten years or so. And then it went into hyperdrive following George Floyd’s death.
At least this is my perspective as a professor at a large R1 university for the last 20 years. The past few years, in particular, have been almost unbearable. It’s nothing like it used to be: the students are ill prepared academically, hopelessly woke, and DEI has become the official religion in my department. I have graduate students who can’t do basic elementary school math (e.g., division) for Pete’s sake!
The first wave of professors who considered it their moral duty to use their lecturns as bully pulpits to instill their Far-Left beliefs in their students was absolutely in place by 2000, when I started graduate school. But it wasn't until 2010 or so that these ideas had leaked out into the mainstream. And it was in 2016 that hysteria over Trump convinced the Democrats to embrace large portions of that ideological.
You've the right of it, M. M.
"The bankrupt liberal establishment became ever more desperate the pander to this small but highly influential constituency, further weakening its claim to being a party that represents almost anyone."
See, I look at that as a statement of fact, rather than opinion. ICBW (I Could Be Wrong), but I think most here would agree.
And what I see is an Achilles heel. So, no. I don't agree with those who are ready to give up hope. That's just me.
No fair... you forgot about the athletic teams and the millionaire coaches.
Very true, a lot of them are only ostensibly progressive.
Bari - I absolutely do NOT know how, with your age, education and work history, you came to this philosophy in this time and place, but it gives me some hope. What is so baffling nowadays is how so many of the brightest and best educated among us are so completely blind to the consequences of the policies they advocate. Have they no self-awareness; do they not see the slippery slope of censorship and self-censoring? Do they not have the least understanding that theirs are the attitudes cultivated in the general public by all totalitarians throughout the world who in the end would take every freedom they now enjoy?
Thanks for this great article. I have the twin advantages of 1) being retired, so my job is never under threat, and 2) having been completely immune to others' opinions even when it was. May this blog, an outpost of real liberal thought, IMHO, grow to dwarf The Times, and do it soon. There is no time to lose.
No they do not see the inevitable consequences of their histrionics. They are right-fighters and are willing to burn down 1000+ years of justice to achieve their goal (which will not work anyway). They really are no different than the young man who burned the pawn shop.
This is why they are so dangerous. Reminds me of a movie I watched years ago called Agora with Rachel Weisz. It was about fanatical Xtians burning down the libraries of Alexandria. Turns out, the story is apocryphal. Current narrative has it that the libraries were destroyed over a period of a couple hundred years from various causes including neglect but there is no hard evidence. However, the story itself was about how destructive fanatics (the convicted self-righteous like today's woke cohort) can be in taking out the edifices of education and enlightened discourse. I found it shocking at the time I watched it. Now, I just realize that I was naive.
I have been frightened of totalitarianism all of my life. The books I read about it: 1984, Animal Farm, The Gulag Archipelago, The Hiding Place, Inside the Aquarium, The Killing Fields, etc. all placed this scourge outside of the US. I pacified my fear by thinking that I was lucky enough to live in a country where these types of predations would never happen. Well, here we are...
And who would have taught them the liberal values you describe? Their parents? Their schools? Their peers? Their institutions? If you never look, you'll never find.
Sooner or later, Americans will vote with their feet, many later than others. Red states are already big beneficiaries, but they will fall, too. Then the diaspora will begin in earnest. One big question: will anywhere want us? I mean, it's one thing to accept Muslim terrorists, but Americans...
If the US falls there will be nowhere to go.
Perhaps You should travel more.
Where do you know of that’s not a vassal state of the globalist order?
Qanon?
Trumpist?
Paranoid?
Or all of the above?
So nowhere?
If ever there was a heart that was needed but failed to show up, J R...
But where? My husband and I are afraid of what we see happening here, but we see the same insanity apparently flourishing in other countries.
I know someone in graduate school working on a PhD who is treated horrendously by his peer for wanting to work on a 19th century American writer who was an abolotionist, bnot abolitionist enough for his class mates. My sense is that they feel morally compromised unless they harass my friend.
But here is the thing: I asked him if they had any sense, or cared, for historical texture and change. He said "no". But even more, they emphatically DO NOT want to know or understand historical texture.
Well, I think the Young ones should be forgiven. When they are young even the brightest minds can be very foolish, not being aware of the consequences when they are carried away by passion and the furor of the youth. I guess that's part of being young. (I know that, because I used to be young myself!) But in a healthy society it should be the older, who have replaced their furor of youth with experience and wisdom, who keep the young mavericks in check instead of caving in and outright capitulating in the face of the foolishness of the young. Or: It's the cowardliness of those who know better that is doing the damage here.
The problem here is that Woke ideology has become a secular religion, with all the worst features of religions. The elders didn't quite mean to create a *religion*, which puts them at a loss as the young crusaders run roughshod over them.
The sad reality is that those elders are responsible for planting these illiberal ideas in those young heads. Saying "not THAT far" makes them look like the enemy they've trained the youth to fight. And many of them are finding themselves Canceled as a result of daring to call for reason.
In a society where heresy against the Woke ideology has much the same effect on one's career and propects as McCarthyism had, it takes more courage than most of these people have to resist the avalanche they themselves set off.
It has only the bad elements of religion because it’s a bad religion.
Original sin (being born white) with no clear path to redemption from that sin, although "tithing" (giving your job and your stuff to black people and giving your money to the Democrats and BLM) might help you feel a little better about yourself. Not that you deserve to! Witch hunts (destruction by Cancellation, McCarthy style) for heretics (anyone who disagrees). Religious tests (how well do you embrace our beliefs?) for public office and both public and private employment.
And the list of sins continues to expand: are you male? (rapist!) straight? (bigot!) cis? (pervert!) The heretical crimes become easier to commit ("silence is violence!") and the Shibboleths make it harder and harder for non-adherents to get an education or keep a job.
I'm sure You're right, M. Celia. But don't these people have tenure to protect them?
Tenure isn't quite as protective as you might think. Tenure means that your employment contract has no renewal requirement. You can still be fired if you fail to perform your duties or if your personal behavior is "abhorrent." And resisting Woke ideology is considered abhorrent by these kids.
What probably happens more often is that a campaign of hate drives the target to resign.
Thanks for the clarity on this. Appreciate your insights.
I hadn't seen that about tenure. And I'm sure You're right about people heading for the exits pretty fast when they're being attacked like that. All I can say for CERTAIN is I'm glad I'm retired and have some free time.
This morning I read a great essay on Quilette about the shifting of classroom priorities over the years - from teaching children how to cope with and prosper in the world as it is, to changing the world so that those children are not annoyed or offended, destroying a great many important things in the process. Very thoughtful article.
https://quillette.com/2022/03/25/the-death-of-authority-in-the-american-classroom/
Bari - this guy's name is Jeremy Adams; he published a book called "Hollowed Out: A Warning About America's Next Generation." I'm ordering it post haste. If he could be convinced to publish a little missive here, I think we'd all be honored. (edited to add content)
Yes. Where are the adults in the room? I've been asking this question for over 5 years now. I just don't get it. Are all of the leaders in the US moral cowards? Is Shelby Steele correct when he surmises that white guilt over racism is what is driving us to cede authority to these totalitarians?
Well, the accusation of racism is certainly the club that they expect to be beaten over the head with if they don't go where the students lead. Any degree of discomfort with the direction of the ideology is labeled "White Fragility." It's a very easy ego-crusher to use on those who have been taught that being inherently racist is the "natural condition" of all white people.
If you mention "white guilt," it will be very fervently denied that such a thing exists at all (although they will champion the phrase "white privilege" endlessly). But a lot of the fear really is about somehow being racist without knowing it.
Yeah, without knowing it. And heaven forefend You claim Your NOT a racist.
"You're in denial, and need to lose Your racism. Pay for another consultation, and I'll be Your savior."
She reached this point because they pushed her out of the NYT while attacking Jews at every chance.
Something about having your people and your person specifically attacked for unjustified reasons wakes people up to authoritarianism.
But don't forget that Bari and her social circle built that culture step by step.
I like to take the position that people are individuals and (try at least) to judge them that way. I read a little history in the mornings, and finally realized that the great strength of the Constitution is its breakaway from group identity and social caste politics, emphasizing the individual only - individual rights, individual responsibilities. Bari, her wife, her (sister, I assume) appear to have the highest journalistic standards (How rare nowadays!), so previous social circles are to me irrelevant. It's a new day.
As for her being attacked at the Times, sometimes the worst things result in the best outcomes. Thank God they were so nasty. Thank God.
Wholesome perspective!
How did she reach this point Jim? With that rare commodity, courage, that same courage exhibited by Berenson, Greenwald, and Naomi Wolf, among others.
Nat Hentoff and Fred Friendly would be very proud of these modern American heroes.
They're not perfect for they still can't see that the election was stolen but one step at a time, and maybe, just maybe, we'll turn things around.
My dad used to say that you couldn't tell a thing about a person when things were going well; it's when times are hard that you see who has what it takes. Times of plenty and of calm do not reveal anything; it's when there are REAL costs to one's livelihood and reputation that bring out those with courage - as Thoreau said, quoting Napoleon: "Three-o'-clock in the morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest."
Nat Hentoff is rolling in his grave.
The main thing stopping the Repubs is thinking the election was stolen, which caused Jan. 6. Even if true, which it wasn't, You doom Yourselves.
What will kill the Democrats come November is their willful ignorance about what really happened in the 2020 presidential election. There is so much proof that only refusing to look makes one continue to not know.
"Doom ourselves?" Hilarious. As Truman is reputed to have said to Tojo when Tojo told him to go to hell, "We'll see who goes to hell." I've always wondered if Tojo thought about that as he fell through the trap door. (edited to correct spelling)
You make my point, Jim. Liked Your other post tho, so there is that.
Appreciate it. So very much at stake.
jt...Jan 6 was , for the very most part, spontaneous. The "Doom" is the play of the sponsor of OUR Courts, which has taken great length to prosecute Without Trial.
Which is what this Article is... bout.
Election stolen or not, maters little, the correction, so as not to continue, is key...me
Thing is, if You think the election was stolen, You gonna HAFTA think the same thing when (likely) the same thing happens to Trump again, right? Then where will we be?
Other than that, yeah, matters little. If it brings in Voter ID laws, that'd be great.
jt... 100%
TY, heart-like fails again. Always at the worst times. G'nite, friend.
They to privilege and the others victims Jim so even if you somewhat in the middle it’s going to become very difficult for a person to stand up and be counted
Jim...HOW as you state "Bari, came to this philosophy in this Time and Place"...lite
In the now- infamous Smithsonian poster about Whiteness, one of the *White* traits listed (which has never been commented on really) was English Common Law. What is this shorthand for -- the concept of precedent, innocent until proven guilty otherwise known as the Golden Thread of Justice), the cab rank principle (the notion that lawyers can not chose their clients if they are free), the jury system, the concept that the law should apply equally to the most deserving in society as well as the least (Hill v Texas 1942 -- equal under the law), and ultimately the rule of law?
It is a very worrying development for American Society indeed if such fundamental safeguards of a free society are being undermined in the way that this piece implies.
Very worrying it’s a one way ticket to hell it’s running thru our lives in USA at the moment I’m not sure how we can pull it straight even if we vote against the Democrats in November and again 2024 this has been going on since 1980’s and now we see our institutions have all been captured and this is only the beginning or should I say the end sadly
The Republicans are(perhaps, not in all cases) marginally better. Still think we need a new party that repudiates the uniparty
New parties take to long to form they gain momentum to start only to fizzle out to nothing we need to unite behind a major party whose message resonate with us at the moment it is difficult because there is so much lying and with SM and MSM you just don’t trust anybody but as we get closer to November I’m hoping it will be Cometh the hour cometh the party at the moment we have nothing
Ah well. There's an invisible like to what You "said," M. Michele.
Yeah, because it always comes down to which party and virtually EVERYBODY believes there's only one a sensible person would choose. See the problem?
Fact is, there IS only one party, looked at in a certain Way. The uniparty. Where all sides lose because one side or the other wins. Doesn't matter which side, as long as the doom is assured, right? <sarcasm>
Exactly now to find the right fit going forward that is the question currently what we have is a disaster
I go back and forth. That was my view, before I became infatuated with the idea that Repubs could see the flaws that are getting in their own way. Third party a lot harder to implement. But if it's gonna be a uniparty after all?
The only solution I see is that the principles espoused be the basis of all bar exams.
That'll take quite a turnaround, right Lynne?
Me? I was a little too young for the 60s. I'd like the right to learn from 'em, and MARCH in the STREETS. I think they're too individualistic to get their act together to do it tho.
I have not seen a recent bar exam. I will inquire.
Don't bother. I'm not as curious as I sounded. And I'm pretty sure that, although I fear the worst, it's probably WORSE than I fear. Or mebbe it'll be next years exam. Dunno.
I think it likely all states have an ethics component on their bar exam. I think of ethics as the attorney's scope of representation and duty to others - clients, tribunals, and 3rd parties primarily. Although part of effective representation is knowing the law and the mechanics of it so ethics may be the way to go. Attorneys do take an oath when admitted to the bar. On a related note there is a push to do away with admission exams for both college and law school.
Figures. <puke>
Very worrying. This piece also addresses/exposes the same issue: https://freeblackthought.substack.com/p/why-did-critical-race-theory-emerge?s=r
I have a lot of time for the Journal of Free Black Thought. Their pieces are always well-written and tend to make me think. As an aside one aspect, I had not considered until I read a piece by Joshua Rosenburg (British legal journalist) yesterday was the Right to Trial by Jury (composed non professional aka not schooled in law citizens) is something which English Common Law popularized. Other countries use different systems.
It is important for justice in the US to treat everyone equally -- thus ALL should be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
It means among other things that one cannot simply round up the usual suspects and charge one of them. And even if someone has committed a crime in the past, it needs to be proven that they committed the current crime they are accused of. It is why you have things like the admission of bad character evidence. The loopholes which some describe are actually the safeguards to a free society. It means the burden of proof is on the prosecution (aka the State).
There is a maxim which says better ten guilty men go free than one innocent suffer.
It is one of the underlying principles of human rights.
What is not good is trial by media. The media are not constrained by the rule of law or the presumption of innocence.
Access to a competent defence lawyer (aka checkbook justice) has become an issue -- both in the US (and the UK). How do you ensure that people who are accused of a crime are adequately defended and who pays for it, particularly as the people needing defence lawyers are often a section of the population most would call *least deserving*?
Those "checkbook" lawyers are just lawyers who established themselves coming up through the ranks. There are always lawyers in the ranks. Or rather there have always been such lawyers until this new bunch. The hive is antithetical to effective justice which is after all nothing more than a way for society to resolve disputes.
(heart)
This has to be one of the most important pieces yet on Common Sense. Thank you for this. It would never have seen the light in any mainstream publications today.
The legal corruption was seen in force after the 2020 election. The Republicans were nearly unable to find lawyers to represent their side in the vote fraud challenges. Young lawyers who had stepped forward to help were threatened by their colleagues and their law firms with summary firing if they didn't immediately withdraw. There are few people who can withstand this sort of pressure when they sit on top of $100,000 in student loans (or more) and are just beginning their careers.
This sort of corruption always ends disastrously with people dead, lives and countries destroyed.
I saw judges declare they wouldn't allow investigations unless there was already proof of fraud, and evidence of fraud wasn't enough.
I saw judges delay action on evidence, then block any charges or investigations due to it having no effect because the election was over.
There seems to be no more recourse or means of accountability on behalf of the regular people. Journalists raided, corporate elections, captured institutions, a criminal family as executives.
What are we to do??
We have too many highly-educated morons. Great piece.
They are not educated. They are credentialed.
Certified.
and certifiable.
They aren’t morons. As I read in Steven Hassan’s excellent book on cult mind control, intelligent people are not immune to cult indoctrination techniques. His BITE model applies here: Control Behavior, access to Information, and Emotions, and Thoughts will follow due to our brain’s bias toward minimizing cognitive dissonance. When people are punished for speaking freely and rewarded for virtue signaling (behavior), and media and entertainment companies all present the same point of view while suppressing others (information), and people are shamed for their race, sex, and orientation (emotions), it is no wonder that ideas that would have seemed terrible even a decade ago are now taken for granted.
I put both the 2015 book and his latest on my list. TYTY.
Couldn't agree more.
I had to stop reading , it makes me sick what’s happening in this country -this generation is destroying everything and are allowed to do it - I’m scared it’s to late ,,,liberals……
We need to rename them as illiberals. They have ruined the word liberal just as they previously ruined the word gay.
The sad thing is I was talking to my nephew who h goes to a very high end college - he said I think I voted for the wrong guy - Biden - I was proud he could see the issues but he also said he knows many on campus who are communists/ believe in communism - even he was concerned ,,, I’m scared we have let this go to far to turn back - these people are everywhere- schools - college - workplaces.
Right. May not be too far. Will be before long, if right things aren't done. That's for CERTAIN, right?
Leftists. Not liberals.
Regressives. Not progressives.
The words you use matter.
Yes, they do matter. The first thing the illiberals do is destroy the meaning of words. They are illiberal whether they are Leftists, progressives, or whatever.
Right.
Liberals, this mess is your Frankenstein. You thought you'd be able to release the beast into the world to do your dirty work, and that you could control the beast until you realized the beast was coming for you. Now, the question is this - what are you going to do about it?
Nothing. They will crawl back under their rocks, and hope the beast they've awakened doesn't come for them as well.
Crawl under a rock? They will be beating their chests in triumph while they have their foot on your neck. The idea that there will be some sort of self/awareness on their part is unrealistic.
But Terry is right when they start eating their own. And they will.
Liberals will remain silent.
Depends how You define "Liberals," right? I'm GUESSING, if there's enough time, the Center-Left will join up with the Center-Right, right? Or wrong?
You just got a Repub bias, AFAIK.
AFAIK ?
Sorry. Saves typing. I use it a lot: As Far As I Know. My Knowledge goes a LOT shorter than I like.
THe one I use the most: ICBW (I Could Be Wrong). The rest-a the time I'm comfortable where I stand on issues. But ICBW (haha).
Got it, I agree that I have some red team bias.
But on the issue of liberals remaining silent, my sense of the matter is very keen. I’ve watched this for some time now. Liberals were more than happy to side with the left to destroy Trump. They yelled and screamed about it. Day and night. They threw temper tantrums. Now that Trump is gone and the left is eating liberals for lunch - not so much, they don’t know how to react. They have chosen to be silent hoping this too will pass. It were not for people like Bari Weiss, Andrew Sullivan and Matt Taibbi and Bill Maher - there would zero resistance to the left coming from liberals.
Assuming you are referring to liberals in power positions. I am a liberal and loathe woke ideology with the passion of a million butterfly sneezes (Moody Blues lyric). And, I voted for Trump, twice, because I saw this coming (Obama did very little good - sold out the little guy during the bailouts - and I didn't trust his rhetoric although I admit that symbolically, him being prez was a good thing - after someone called me racist for not voting for him I saw which way the wind was blowing) and felt he was the lesser of two evils. I am putting my campaign for reproductive rights on hold while I hold my nose and vote Republican for at least the next election and maybe more. I am desperate to stop these idiots from destroying the country although I realize that my one, puny vote is unlikely to do much. But, it will help me psychically to have done what I can.
Yeah, You're right. Problem is, with way things are, the bulk of the resistance is gonna hafta come from the peons, right? Good thing is that the NUMBERS of peons still make up the majority, and are allowed to vote.
I am a lawyer with long experience in the trenches, as we say; mostly retired now, but with 25 years in the judiciary behind me. I was educated at an elite law school. I can confirm the truth of this piece. The trend he describes is happening throughout the legal system, from law schools to law firms, the courts, and our related institutions. The ABA, originally concerned with professional development, advocacy, education, and networking among major firms, drifted leftward to the point of capture by wokeism; meanwhile, its membership has dwindled, shedding lawyers who prefer to focus on the practice and retaining those pushing leftist agendas. Its approaches to law school accreditation and the rating of federal judicial nominees are now designed to perpetuate leftism in the profession.
In the state where I practice, the law journal is increasingly full of social justice themes, as are the continuing ed classes offered as a condition of renewing one’s license. My law school now boasts a variety of courses with diversity, equity, and inclusion as the main emphasis. Traditional classes such as contracts, evidence, civil procedure, Con Law, are shot through with such themes, as “professionalism” in the practice of law takes on new meaning. Clinical courses are all about advocacy for “social justice.”
And don’t get me started on what’s happening in criminal law! Defunding the police, bail reform, sentencing, even the very act of charging and prosecuting a felon - every sentient person knows how changes in this realm have made us less safe. Ironically, a foremost task of government is to protect its people; but our governments at all levels have caved to people whose policies actually promote more crime.
So yes, this article is spot on. It speaks of the legal profession, and the same trend is unfolding in medicine. But that’s a story for another day.
spot on. Medicine too - In the UK there was a case where they said "there was no rape" on a hospital yard because they were all women there. The hospital hid that there was a trans-woman there. 90% of rapes are between M-W, but now with this "gender fluid"BS, I can see someone saying "I was feeling like a female" on the day of the rape, hence there was no rape, and if you have a Social justice woke judge, I can only see the verdict..
Yes, that UK hospital rape case was finally brought to light by an MP in the House of Lords. It was even caught on CCTV. The hospital dragged its feet on turning over the evidence for a year, until finally turning it over to the police. Meanwhile the victim, raped by a male patient in hospital, was told she was lying, because there were “no women patients” on the wards.
Most of my life I thought the gubmint’s job was security and maintain the roads.
Now I’m finding out it’s “Equity”…whatever they choose that to mean on a given day
WELL-said, Sir Adams. Couldn't be said better. And, yeah, AMA same crap.
One thing we know for sure is that when left-wing scumbags who hate the United States seize total control of the justice system, the conservatives who criticize them will be called pro-Putin anti-American for doing so.
Tulsi Gabbard was accused of treason by the world’s foremost moderate for asking these people to please destroy their deadly viruses before abandoning a lab in a war zone, if you’re looking for an example of how retarded this line of attack can get.
See because you’re attacking America’s justice system so you’re anti-American now. You hate America. Never mind that the people running it are Democrat sacks of shit. Nope. Can’t criticize them or you’re anti-American now.
See they’ve highjacked the entire notion of anti-Americanism in a way that is just sophisticated enough to work on complete imbeciles. So expect a lot more
“We, the people who have explained in great detail for 50 years why we hate America the slave state on stolen land, are now in charge and you can’t criticize us or you hate America…..which we are killing.”
I am really really hating dumb people this morning.
So, typical Monday, then? 😉
Agreed. There's no escape from dumb, gullible people anymore. Its really depressing.
I am really really hating them today as well. In addition to moral cowards. I blame this article for bringing that out in me. ;-)
If only we could require law professors to live amongst the oppressed instead of gated communities,
"A conservative is a liberal who's been mugged"
It is rank elitism couched in camouflage.
Thomas Sowell calls them "The Anointed." LOL!
I've been meaning to read that book. LUV M. Sowell. I think it was him that I read first. Can'at recall for certain.
THAT's what I hope the Center-left SEES. Dunno, but hope.
I could get behind this if racism is treated as a factor in crimes for all races, and not just a weapon to be used against those of European descent. For example, most of the recent urban assaults against Asian Americans seem to be perpetrated by African Americans, yet I've not heard a whiff of 'hate crimes' or 'racism' when reporting those crimes. Racism is , imho, a tribal trait, common to all races, but has become, in our country at least, something that only people of European descent practice.
This disparity proves that racism is being used as a weapon, not as a shield.
This is why I view the use of morality in politics as a power grab and nothing more.
Agreed. Socioeconomic injustices can't be solved when we attribute the causes to racism. There's a whole lot of people of Euro descent in Appalachia who have the same problems with single parenting, high dropout rates and hopelessness as urban folks, yet are considered privileged because of their genetic makeup. Attributing these issues to racism simply ensures they won't ever be solved and these folks will continue to be wards of the state.
I agree 100 %.
(heart)
Read Hillbilly Elegy and saw the same. VERY similar symptoms to "urban" cultures.
I THINK it's probably very similar causes, but dunno enough.
Point is: White privilege? Invented by Black Supremists who have privilege in spades. Would be farcical, if it wasn't a sick joke.
But it is real and I get yelled at from my politically correct white friends for disagreeing with them.
Sorry to "hear" that. No fun for anybody except those who enjoy hating.
Yeah, You've got the right of it. NOTHING more. 100%. No matter what side, NOTHING more.
We will soon have an activist on the Supreme Court - just wait
We have already but you are correct that the type described in this article are about to join.
Yes it seems in general white people are the only group that avoids this now. My landlord is Puerto Rican and it amuses me how he talks about those Mexicans.
Boy howdy, you should hear how the Mexicans here in Acuna are talking about the Haitians coming thru here
The same way Dominicans talk about Haitians I wager.
One reason there are so many Caucasian Black Supremists is the only way You're allowed to say anything is to join the side-a the Wokesters. I guess I should say, IMHO (In My "Humble" Opinion).
Yes! People are often confusing: "to be attacked" and "to lose the fight because you are not strong enough".
We have to remind people equity, pursued as a social policy, is the single greatest evil humanity has attempted in the past 100 years. Cambodia, the Chinese Cultural revolution, Zimbabwe, the Soviet Union and a dozen others were all exercises in equity.
Over 100 million dead; all sacrificed on the grand alter of equity. Rivers of blood flow and mountains of bones carry the horror of equity.
If evil exists, those that push equity are its acolytes.
I never even USED the word evil. Never crossed my mind in 66 years.
Then I learned about the Fundamentalist Woke-ianity Religion. Never too old to learn.
I stopped when I left Christian fundamentalism. Then I started again in 2019 after three years of Seattle.
I think maybe it was watching the attacks on Kavanaugh made by people who would refuse to speak a word about the relationship between Clinton and Epstein, who didn't care a bit when it was revealed the nation's corporate media covered up evidence of rape to protect Democrats.
Ant...weariness from attacks on Kavanaugh and Kyle and those(media) attacks altered minds...forever
Selective blindness induced by tribal affiliation and protection of the narrative.
I began using the word “evil” again right around that time too. There really is no other word for what is going on.
The current college students are the product of a generation of kids that were told over and over again that they are #1, that the world revolves around them and they were handsomely awarded trophies, medals and ribbons for merely participating in activities. They were taught that there are no winners and no losers. They were carted around by minivan or SUV from activity to activity. They were dropped off at school, they were picked up from school. They didn't ride bikes or walk anywhere. Whatever they demanded (cars, phones, I pads, etc.) they were given. The parents simply wanted to give their kids a better life than what they had. We now have a generation of brats, entitled college students who can do no wrong.
There’s one fatal catch that few people internalize: the pyramid has gotten very, very steep. There is not anywhere near enough room at the top for even these entitled Ivy League brats. They operate as if they will be the masters, with contempt for those below. News flash: most of ‘em are heading straight for the Below line, where they will get a chance to live under the dystopian system they themselves created…
Doh! I hate it when that happens (chuckle…)
You've got the right of it. Actually, or apparently, there's been an overproduction of college graduates for a while, and the Millennials are suffering for it. That's what I've gathered so far. Yeah, chuckle.
But it'll turn REAL serious when AI starts taking management jobs, right?
Also, Scot. I said pretty much the same above about change in Aesop's Fables. Right down the tubes.
That was my observation as well, but can't say as much because I didn't have kids. I view the Millennials and Zoomers, not ALL of 'em, but most-a 'em next to zero character at ALL.
So Nadine Strossen is worried that she will be attacked by the same mob that she helped create. The ACLU is one of the biggest attackers of our first amendment rights. They started with an attack on the Boy Scouts right to peaceable assembly when the Boy Scouts wouldn't do what they wanted, and now attack small businesses when the owner won't violated his or her religious beliefs.
Yep. When the left eats it’s own.
Imagine if the socialist regressives actually do take over. Most of them will be up against the wall. And no doubt shocked by that.
Really like "socialist regressives". I may adopt that, along with illiberal.
Well they sure aren’t progressive because that assumes going forward. These clowns want to harken back to the Russian revolution bourgeoisie proletariat crap and of course their hero, FDR. They have no new ideas for the twenty first century. Their ideas are all 85-110 years old.
They learned all the tried-but-UNtrue lessons.
This is perhaps the most frightening article that I've ever read.
Naw. Look into Abigail Shrier and how teachers are GROOMING kids to change genders.
I had the same thought. This article definitely terrifies me, but I lose even more sleep over what Abigail Shrier reports. I am raising an 11 year old daughter in one of the most woke cities in the country. I feel constantly on guard about what she is being exposed to. As aware as my husband and I are about the gender ideology cult we are still so scared that the cult members will sink their claws into our daughter. The cult is currently in the process of destroying several of our friend’s children.
Ann...it is a test...stay yourself. thanks
(invisible like)
Phew! I KNOW I'm lucky not to hafta deal with that horror. NOBODY should hafta. I hold out hope that the laws, mebbe, will eventually shield children like Your's. But until then, i hope You have the strength to fight the good fight against 'em.