I get it, but the amount of college-bashing posts is starting to feel more like general anti-intellectualism rather than well-intentioned critique. There are based teachers who’ve been jailed, tortured, murdered and disappeared for protesting fascism. There are also teachers like my old history instructor, a coward who said that the transatlantic slave trade wasn’t a crime against humanity because “it was legal at the time.”
There are based teachers who’ve been jailed, tortured, murdered and disappeared for protesting fascism. There are also teachers like my old history instructor, a coward who said that the transatlantic slave trade wasn’t a crime against humanity because “it was legal at the time.”
In the west, there’s a lot of the latter and almost none of the former. I’m not anti-intellectual, but western academia often only opposes the status quo when it can be sure to do it in a useless way. The most widespread views are liberal because they have the ideological and material support of the ruling class. The problem isn’t that it’s worse than the rest of western society, the problem is that it’s part of the rest of western society.
You’re talking past LeninWeave. What you say is true, most professors are exploited. But the vast majority DO reproduce the hegemonic liberal worldview to their pupils, regardless of their tenure. Just as a working class person can have conservative views, a professor can repeat the western narrative. This has nothing to do with conservative anti-intellectual propaganda, which is concerned with things like CRT and maintaining the white supremacist status quo, which is very obviously not being defended here.
I know all of this. I was replying to your comment, and I didn’t say any of the things you’re implying here. All I said was that western academia isn’t any worse than western society, it’s a part of western society. Often it’s even a bit better.
There are based teachers who’ve been jailed, tortured, murdered and disappeared for protesting fascism. There are also teachers like my old history instructor, a coward who said that the transatlantic slave trade wasn’t a crime against humanity because “it was legal at the time.”
The vast majority of academics in the west are liberals. With extremely few exceptions, none of them are being jailed, tortured, or murdered for anything. That was the point of my comment. In my opinion academia in the west, as a whole, has no real revolutionary potential at this time.
The level of violence that activist-professors and -students face hasn’t reached Dirty War levels, but shit’s getting serious pretty fast. For now, victims are mostly losing their jobs (which is still really, really fucking bad if you ask me). But in five years? Ten years? I think we’re barreling towards more extreme forms of fascist retribution that’ll make Canary Mission look silly by comparison.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you, which is why my opinion is that academia in the west has no revolutionary potential at this time. That could definitely change in the coming years as the contradictions of capitalism intensify.
I get it, but the amount of college-bashing posts is starting to feel more like general anti-intellectualism rather than well-intentioned critique. There are based teachers who’ve been jailed, tortured, murdered and disappeared for protesting fascism. There are also teachers like my old history instructor, a coward who said that the transatlantic slave trade wasn’t a crime against humanity because “it was legal at the time.”
Professors are a land of contrasts
In the west, there’s a lot of the latter and almost none of the former. I’m not anti-intellectual, but western academia often only opposes the status quo when it can be sure to do it in a useless way. The most widespread views are liberal because they have the ideological and material support of the ruling class. The problem isn’t that it’s worse than the rest of western society, the problem is that it’s part of the rest of western society.
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You’re talking past LeninWeave. What you say is true, most professors are exploited. But the vast majority DO reproduce the hegemonic liberal worldview to their pupils, regardless of their tenure. Just as a working class person can have conservative views, a professor can repeat the western narrative. This has nothing to do with conservative anti-intellectual propaganda, which is concerned with things like CRT and maintaining the white supremacist status quo, which is very obviously not being defended here.
I know all of this. I was replying to your comment, and I didn’t say any of the things you’re implying here. All I said was that western academia isn’t any worse than western society, it’s a part of western society. Often it’s even a bit better.
The vast majority of academics in the west are liberals. With extremely few exceptions, none of them are being jailed, tortured, or murdered for anything. That was the point of my comment. In my opinion academia in the west, as a whole, has no real revolutionary potential at this time.
The level of violence that activist-professors and -students face hasn’t reached Dirty War levels, but shit’s getting serious pretty fast. For now, victims are mostly losing their jobs (which is still really, really fucking bad if you ask me). But in five years? Ten years? I think we’re barreling towards more extreme forms of fascist retribution that’ll make Canary Mission look silly by comparison.
youre pretty much making leninweave’s point for them by pointing out that the few remaining outspoken professors are being purged wherever possible.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you, which is why my opinion is that academia in the west has no revolutionary potential at this time. That could definitely change in the coming years as the contradictions of capitalism intensify.