Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
The radical dogma that has been entrenched in universities 30 years has wedged its way into mainstream culture as its adherents graduate and go into influential fields such as teaching, entertainment, and journalism.
There was no broad public debate on whether the principle of equality of opportunity was sufficient to foster a just society, or whether it needed to abandoned and replaced with equality of outcome. No debate on whether treating people as individuals following universal principles is the best way to foster a liberal society, or whether our political identity is our group identity, and society is an unrelenting struggle between those identities.
People have been emerging from universities for decades now hewing to a kind of passionate orthodoxy on those issues. They are now deeply entrenched in influential fields in education and culture, and treat any challenge to that orthodoxy as immoral. Among the progressive left today, this stuff isn't up for debate. If you try to debate this dogma, treat it like any other scientific or political assertion, it's evidence that you're a misogynist and racist. They've become what Jonathan Haidt calls sacred values. Cultural Marxism really is a new religion, and should be recognized by moderates as such and challenged when it threatens liberal values. Just as moderate conservatives need to recognize the inflexibility of religious conservatives, and call them out when their dogma is a threat to tolerant, secular society.
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I must admit that - to me - you sound like the one on the witch hunt. These radicalized post-college students infiltrating the ranks of teachers, journalists, etc: I don’t see them. Maybe I know of or see a few - I know a few postdoc radicals in their 25th year of post-secondary education - but I don’t see them as widespread. At all.
Yes, some very successful professors have spoken out against illiberal behaviour from the radical left. Amusing that the professors you named are all millionaires many times over and certainly have never had problems getting their ideas out there if we’re going to worry about the radical left.
To me this example proves two points:
1. The radical left is weak and ineffective. They can’t even do the little things they want to do like shut newly rich Jordan Peterson up.
2. The radical left is a red herring and propaganda tool: witness the popularity and immediate acclaim of academics like Peterson, Harris, Pinker who bemoan the censorship attempted by the radical left.
I am not supportive of the radical left: I feel like they live in a different reality than the majority. And many are illiberal, entitled brats.
What I take issue with is the attitude that they are anywhere near as threatening to our society as the radical right. The radical left - largely because of focus on identity - tends to eat itself. Fights break out among groups championing different narrow agendas, faculties at universities are paralyzed with inactivity, and protesters can’t even agree on what they’re marching for.
Meanwhile, the federal government in the US actually had a policy to separate children from parents and detain them. There are many, many far right politicians, lobby groups, and think tanks with enormous power. They have a news station. It just isn’t equivalent, and should not be held as such.