Anyone who has a naive belief in the power of higher education to instill morality has not studied the history of German universities in the Third Reich.
Yes the student mobs of 1933 Germany have just been about forgotten -- the book burnings at the doorstep of Friedrich-Willhelm University were just one manifestation.
There was early anti-Hitler momentum in academia, though -- in the UK it was led by nuclear physicist Leo Szilard, William Beveridge, Ernest Rutherford and Harold Laski.
In the US, it resulted in the formation of the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars. One Edward Murrow who later became the American voice of the Blitz and helped to bring down Joseph McCarthy served as the general dogsbody. The aim was to get Jewish academics places in American colleges and universities (often at cut rate prices)
Harvard notably refused-- the then president A Lawrence Lowell made a specific declaration against giving places to emigres or in protest against Nazi policies, a policy confirm the following year by his successor James Bryant Conant.
Other universities and colleges did try to help -- the roll call includes University of Chicago, California Institute of Technology (who sponsored Einstein), MIT, Mount Holyoke, Stanford and Columbia. In the end, 91 academics were saved by US efforts.
It is easy to overlook the glimmers of good when faced with an onslaught of evil.
And the reason why 'calls for genocide to any group' are always against university policy (or should be) is that they are an incite to violence and incitements to violence are not protected speech under the First Amendment. Even when you consider the robust nature of political argument (see NYT v Sullivan 1964), the line was drawn before actual incitement to violence.
What is truly scary is that many polls show that people don’t believe the holicaust happened. One said that Only 55 percent of Black Americans are convinced the Holocaust is not a myth, others that 20 percent of young people feel similarly. What a failure in higher education and secondary education that these trends can occur.
Dr. Robert Malone terms the madness that gripped Germany as a "mass formation psychosis." It isn't only our universities that are in the cold grasp of a similar madness.
Almost every American company, law firm, organization etc. fell over themselves to issue some virtue signaling twaddle over the alleged "murder" of George Floyd and their dedication to the idiocy of Ibram X. Kendi and other nitwits. But when real atrocity stared them in the face on October 7th, most remained silent. Masses of robotic cretins. Led by cowards and fools. My disgust for them knows no bounds.
I take issue with only a sentence at the end of this important essay” Todays academic leaders would never recognize themselves as the heirs of those Brenda condemned insisting they are on the left whereas Brenda’s targets were on the right”. I would submit that the current DEI establishment and its leaders now entrenched and drunk on their power within the elite universities, in fact studied Nazism in depth. They know exactly what they are doing and how best to do it. They have taken our vocabulary and secretly repurposed it and applied it with an opposing meaning . Diversity, equity and exclusion... thinking no one will recognize their subterfuge. That is why it has taken the sane world so long to wake up to their deceit. We are awake now. We must hope that it is not too late .
This is a very good essay, but I'm saddened that the writer is still caught in myth that fascism is somehow magically a "right-wing" thing. Communism, socialism, and fascism are merely different flavors of the same ideology--an ideology that requires all individuals to serve the needs of the ideology in control of the state, with the promise that those who comply well enough will prosper.
As a young CPA working on tax returns, I was surprised to see so many doctors with poor investment choices. A senior tax partner told me that those who think they are very intelligent are often the easiest to dupe.
A glimmer of hope is that the DEI / critical race theory / identity politics that led to the current madness was not, unlike Nazism, directed exclusively at the Jewish community. It was aimed at the core values of America and had middle America as its target.
That means that today, unlike 1930s Germany, the Jewish community is not alone but is joined by all Americans who believe rules apply equally to everyone, men with beards in dresses are still men, advancement should be by merit instead of race. Public opinion surveys consistently confirm this:
A groundswell of American popular opposition to these woke ideologies is the major force in restoring balance, sanity and decency in public life. That is the great difference between today and 1930s Germany.
It leads us with so many questions. How did we as parents allow such behavior in our universities, and presently allow woke infiltration into our public schools? Why are the majority of Jews Democrat Liberals? Why were they so enamored of President Roosevelt, when surrounded by antisemitics, did nothing to save the Jews from the Holocaust? Why is there so much hate and killing on this beautiful planet?
I've also been following this trend with dismay for the last several years, and I studied German history as well, so much of this excellent piece was familiar. But even if there are the stirrings of backlash now, I still don't understand how so many adults who had responsibility tolerated this nonsense. Looking the other way from looting and crime, upending livelihoods for non-offenses, wholesale cultural arson, personal destruction--the Oberlin bakery case alone should have shocked every adult's conscience--all were met by shrugs and complicity from grown men and women in positions of authority.
Can anyone even imaginne the anti semitic student mobs NOT gleefully particpateing in a burning of Jewish authored books in Harvard square? On today's trajectory violence agains the jews and then others is assured.
The shortest path to evil is calling it good, and while doing so granting license and approval to the lowest, basest, worst impulses in all of us.
If it is true that extremes meet (I need to figure out who said that: I do remember about where I read it), then it is very logical that the hatred of irrational haters has led to generalized and unapologetic (and indeed almost entirely unconscious) irrational hatred of people whose actual profiles and beliefs and lives are largely invisible.
The goal, you see, was banishing hate. But the method itself consisted in hate. The hate has grown, the vision has diminished, and what was once becoming rare--true bigotry--has grown wings and sprouted everywhere.
The Left has become what it claims to hate. Why wouldn't it? If perception and a sense of personal accountability are not part of the process, why would the hallucinations not deepen and multiply?
What intelligence adds to all this is an expanded capacity for delusion, nothing more. Far from making ridiculous beliefs less likely, it makes them MORE likely.
Just look. Yes. There, there, and there. You cannot miss it.
I am actually going to excerpt a story from the book "The Wisdom of the Idiots". I have things to do and probably an idiot myself for doing this, but the hell with it. Could be fun.
The Mad King's Idol
"There was once a violent, ignorant and idolatrous king. One day he swore that if his personal idol accorded him a certain advantage in life, he would capture the first three people who passed by his castle, and force them to dedicate themselves to idol-worship.
Sure enough, the king's wish was fulfilled, and he immediately sent soldiers onto the highway to bring in the first three people whom they could find.
These three were, as it happened, a Scholar, a Sayed (descendant of the Prophet Mohammad) and a prostitute.
Having them thrown down before his idol, the unbalanced king told them of his vow, and ordered them all to bow down in front of the image.
The scholar said:
This situation undoubtedly comes within the doctrine of 'force majeure". There are numerous precedents allowing anyone to appear to conform with custom if compelled, without real legal or moral culpability being in any way involved.'
So he made a deep obeisance to the idol.
The Sayed, when it was his turn, said:
'As a specially protected person, having in my veins the blood of the Holy Prophet, my actions themselves purify anything that is done, and therefore there is no bar to my acting as this man demands.'
And he bowed down before the idol.
The prostitute said:
'Alas, I have neither intellectual training nor special prerogatives, and so I am afraid that, whatever you do to me, I cannot worship this idol, even in appearance.'
The mad king's malady was immediately banished by this remark. As if by magic he saw the deceit of the two worshippers of the image. He at once had the scholar and the Sayed decapitated, and set the prostitute free."
That's a great story. I like the irony here too. Life has an amazing number of textures, if you feel for them.
But that book is one of my most prized possessions, along with my copy of the Tao Te Ching.
"Such arguments fell apart after October 7, as the response of “radical” students and professors to the Hamas atrocities against Israel revealed the realities of contemporary campus life. That hostility to Israeli policy in Gaza regularly slides into antisemitism is now impossible to deny."
First they came for the conservatives, and I did not speak out because they're hateful.
Then they came for climate skeptics, and I did not speak out because... science.
Then they came for the anti-lockdown crazies and I did not speak out because... science.
Then they came for President Trump, and I did not speak out because he says mean things.
Then they came for the Jews and "Oh my! We have a problem with intolerance!"
The hate and intolerance have been evident for a long time. Congratulations on the epiphany. You are welcome among the sane. Please check your other preconceptions at the door.
After visiting thr Holocaust museum in Washington D.C., I was struck by the high percentage of German Jews that were murdered in camps. They did not leave Germany in time - was it their disbelief that their most advanced country could do what was becoming obvious. My wife’s mother read Mein Kampf in Warsaw. And when war broke out she ran East.
Excellent article. I found the section describing the cost-benefit analysis of the continued support of an "idiot," and the economic benefits of killing mental patients to be particularly chilling/prescient. The merger of Canada's MAID program with their robust social welfare system seems more and more like an unholy alliance. The US better keep an eye on our neighbors to the north, and ensure such ideas don't fester here.
Romans 1:20-22 & Proverbs 9:10 are instructive. Humanism is ultimately hollow. Death comes, then what? We humans are profoundly finite making our arrogance disgusting. Well educated fools are dangerous. Where are the wise?
Yes the student mobs of 1933 Germany have just been about forgotten -- the book burnings at the doorstep of Friedrich-Willhelm University were just one manifestation.
There was early anti-Hitler momentum in academia, though -- in the UK it was led by nuclear physicist Leo Szilard, William Beveridge, Ernest Rutherford and Harold Laski.
In the US, it resulted in the formation of the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars. One Edward Murrow who later became the American voice of the Blitz and helped to bring down Joseph McCarthy served as the general dogsbody. The aim was to get Jewish academics places in American colleges and universities (often at cut rate prices)
Harvard notably refused-- the then president A Lawrence Lowell made a specific declaration against giving places to emigres or in protest against Nazi policies, a policy confirm the following year by his successor James Bryant Conant.
Other universities and colleges did try to help -- the roll call includes University of Chicago, California Institute of Technology (who sponsored Einstein), MIT, Mount Holyoke, Stanford and Columbia. In the end, 91 academics were saved by US efforts.
It is easy to overlook the glimmers of good when faced with an onslaught of evil.
And the reason why 'calls for genocide to any group' are always against university policy (or should be) is that they are an incite to violence and incitements to violence are not protected speech under the First Amendment. Even when you consider the robust nature of political argument (see NYT v Sullivan 1964), the line was drawn before actual incitement to violence.
What is truly scary is that many polls show that people don’t believe the holicaust happened. One said that Only 55 percent of Black Americans are convinced the Holocaust is not a myth, others that 20 percent of young people feel similarly. What a failure in higher education and secondary education that these trends can occur.
Dr. Robert Malone terms the madness that gripped Germany as a "mass formation psychosis." It isn't only our universities that are in the cold grasp of a similar madness.
Almost every American company, law firm, organization etc. fell over themselves to issue some virtue signaling twaddle over the alleged "murder" of George Floyd and their dedication to the idiocy of Ibram X. Kendi and other nitwits. But when real atrocity stared them in the face on October 7th, most remained silent. Masses of robotic cretins. Led by cowards and fools. My disgust for them knows no bounds.
I take issue with only a sentence at the end of this important essay” Todays academic leaders would never recognize themselves as the heirs of those Brenda condemned insisting they are on the left whereas Brenda’s targets were on the right”. I would submit that the current DEI establishment and its leaders now entrenched and drunk on their power within the elite universities, in fact studied Nazism in depth. They know exactly what they are doing and how best to do it. They have taken our vocabulary and secretly repurposed it and applied it with an opposing meaning . Diversity, equity and exclusion... thinking no one will recognize their subterfuge. That is why it has taken the sane world so long to wake up to their deceit. We are awake now. We must hope that it is not too late .
This is a very good essay, but I'm saddened that the writer is still caught in myth that fascism is somehow magically a "right-wing" thing. Communism, socialism, and fascism are merely different flavors of the same ideology--an ideology that requires all individuals to serve the needs of the ideology in control of the state, with the promise that those who comply well enough will prosper.
As a young CPA working on tax returns, I was surprised to see so many doctors with poor investment choices. A senior tax partner told me that those who think they are very intelligent are often the easiest to dupe.
A glimmer of hope is that the DEI / critical race theory / identity politics that led to the current madness was not, unlike Nazism, directed exclusively at the Jewish community. It was aimed at the core values of America and had middle America as its target.
That means that today, unlike 1930s Germany, the Jewish community is not alone but is joined by all Americans who believe rules apply equally to everyone, men with beards in dresses are still men, advancement should be by merit instead of race. Public opinion surveys consistently confirm this:
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/time-to-throw-the-intersectional
A groundswell of American popular opposition to these woke ideologies is the major force in restoring balance, sanity and decency in public life. That is the great difference between today and 1930s Germany.
It leads us with so many questions. How did we as parents allow such behavior in our universities, and presently allow woke infiltration into our public schools? Why are the majority of Jews Democrat Liberals? Why were they so enamored of President Roosevelt, when surrounded by antisemitics, did nothing to save the Jews from the Holocaust? Why is there so much hate and killing on this beautiful planet?
I've also been following this trend with dismay for the last several years, and I studied German history as well, so much of this excellent piece was familiar. But even if there are the stirrings of backlash now, I still don't understand how so many adults who had responsibility tolerated this nonsense. Looking the other way from looting and crime, upending livelihoods for non-offenses, wholesale cultural arson, personal destruction--the Oberlin bakery case alone should have shocked every adult's conscience--all were met by shrugs and complicity from grown men and women in positions of authority.
Can anyone even imaginne the anti semitic student mobs NOT gleefully particpateing in a burning of Jewish authored books in Harvard square? On today's trajectory violence agains the jews and then others is assured.
This is the essay I needed today from the Free Press to remind me they've still got it.
The shortest path to evil is calling it good, and while doing so granting license and approval to the lowest, basest, worst impulses in all of us.
If it is true that extremes meet (I need to figure out who said that: I do remember about where I read it), then it is very logical that the hatred of irrational haters has led to generalized and unapologetic (and indeed almost entirely unconscious) irrational hatred of people whose actual profiles and beliefs and lives are largely invisible.
The goal, you see, was banishing hate. But the method itself consisted in hate. The hate has grown, the vision has diminished, and what was once becoming rare--true bigotry--has grown wings and sprouted everywhere.
The Left has become what it claims to hate. Why wouldn't it? If perception and a sense of personal accountability are not part of the process, why would the hallucinations not deepen and multiply?
What intelligence adds to all this is an expanded capacity for delusion, nothing more. Far from making ridiculous beliefs less likely, it makes them MORE likely.
Just look. Yes. There, there, and there. You cannot miss it.
I am actually going to excerpt a story from the book "The Wisdom of the Idiots". I have things to do and probably an idiot myself for doing this, but the hell with it. Could be fun.
The Mad King's Idol
"There was once a violent, ignorant and idolatrous king. One day he swore that if his personal idol accorded him a certain advantage in life, he would capture the first three people who passed by his castle, and force them to dedicate themselves to idol-worship.
Sure enough, the king's wish was fulfilled, and he immediately sent soldiers onto the highway to bring in the first three people whom they could find.
These three were, as it happened, a Scholar, a Sayed (descendant of the Prophet Mohammad) and a prostitute.
Having them thrown down before his idol, the unbalanced king told them of his vow, and ordered them all to bow down in front of the image.
The scholar said:
This situation undoubtedly comes within the doctrine of 'force majeure". There are numerous precedents allowing anyone to appear to conform with custom if compelled, without real legal or moral culpability being in any way involved.'
So he made a deep obeisance to the idol.
The Sayed, when it was his turn, said:
'As a specially protected person, having in my veins the blood of the Holy Prophet, my actions themselves purify anything that is done, and therefore there is no bar to my acting as this man demands.'
And he bowed down before the idol.
The prostitute said:
'Alas, I have neither intellectual training nor special prerogatives, and so I am afraid that, whatever you do to me, I cannot worship this idol, even in appearance.'
The mad king's malady was immediately banished by this remark. As if by magic he saw the deceit of the two worshippers of the image. He at once had the scholar and the Sayed decapitated, and set the prostitute free."
That's a great story. I like the irony here too. Life has an amazing number of textures, if you feel for them.
But that book is one of my most prized possessions, along with my copy of the Tao Te Ching.
"Such arguments fell apart after October 7, as the response of “radical” students and professors to the Hamas atrocities against Israel revealed the realities of contemporary campus life. That hostility to Israeli policy in Gaza regularly slides into antisemitism is now impossible to deny."
First they came for the conservatives, and I did not speak out because they're hateful.
Then they came for climate skeptics, and I did not speak out because... science.
Then they came for the anti-lockdown crazies and I did not speak out because... science.
Then they came for President Trump, and I did not speak out because he says mean things.
Then they came for the Jews and "Oh my! We have a problem with intolerance!"
The hate and intolerance have been evident for a long time. Congratulations on the epiphany. You are welcome among the sane. Please check your other preconceptions at the door.
After visiting thr Holocaust museum in Washington D.C., I was struck by the high percentage of German Jews that were murdered in camps. They did not leave Germany in time - was it their disbelief that their most advanced country could do what was becoming obvious. My wife’s mother read Mein Kampf in Warsaw. And when war broke out she ran East.
Excellent article. I found the section describing the cost-benefit analysis of the continued support of an "idiot," and the economic benefits of killing mental patients to be particularly chilling/prescient. The merger of Canada's MAID program with their robust social welfare system seems more and more like an unholy alliance. The US better keep an eye on our neighbors to the north, and ensure such ideas don't fester here.
Romans 1:20-22 & Proverbs 9:10 are instructive. Humanism is ultimately hollow. Death comes, then what? We humans are profoundly finite making our arrogance disgusting. Well educated fools are dangerous. Where are the wise?