Daniel Greenfield has written a piece for Frontpagemag.com which is a stand out. He believes that the ivy league schools, Harvard especially, had not only been home to Nazism but also a source for some elements of Nazism and other socialist movements. Now, putting aside the implied name calling that comes with terms like Nazi and Socialism, he makes a key point in the article. The “Elites” have long believed the antidote for capitalism is socialism. To them, capitalism is too free, too opened, too chaotic. So, the “Elites” have devoted decades to dampening down the fires of freedom associated with capitalism. They admired and longed to emulate the likes of Mao, Stalin and Hitler.
Mr. Greenfield has an excellent point. He identified some of the seeds of tyranny. However, he doesn’t bear down on the other part of modern tyranny. The “”Elites” of the 21st century have become way smarter than their 20th century ancestors. The way in which the “Elites” seek to impose socialism for the last 100 years has become increasingly complex and subtle. Academic psychology and sociology have made the tyranny project so much more effective. While some people have made fun of psychology, they have made profound advances in the scientific understanding of fear, panic, and the induction of other harmful states in people’s minds. To better understand this point, please see “Remember to Smile When You are Killing Millions of People.”
Whether you are talking about the kind of violent revolution espoused by Trotsky, or the more gradual approach of Gramsci, the end state is still the same; i.e., The destruction of capitalism and the principles of individual liberty that power it. A related argument would be that the decision to use a gradual approach requiring a deeper intellectual understanding of the human mind inherently appealed to academics. So, over time, they increasingly bought into the tyranny project. Those who can remember back to the 1960s know that by the early 1970s, the process of pushing out conservative academics began in earnest. Now, surveys will tell you that less than 10% of academics on the nation’s campuses are recognized as conservative.
With conservatives out of the way, the decision by modern Marxists to follow the Gramsci model of imposing communism gradually opened up a whole world of thought which has infiltrated academic psychology and sociology. It is easy to find a range of shocking experiments about how easily individual liberty is expunged by a change of environment, the over expression of authority, and other means. This has been aided by an improved understanding of propaganda, psy-ops, and the varieties of false information. This has all served as grist for Cultural Marxism. The manipulation of people’s perception around gender, racism and class has been consistently pushed in the direction of ever greater centralized control. The Academy remains steadfast in its commitment to creating the intellectual framework, and cultural values need to implement and sustain that centralized control. People not in universities may understand it as a group of people who hate this country and do not believe in the U.S. Constitution. What people miss is the depth of the commitment by a shockingly large number of academics to see the tyranny project through to its conclusion.
So, there are historical figures to consider when it comes to the intellectual development of modern day tyranny. The most important one that Mr. Greenfield needed to include and highlight was Herbert Marcuse. He provided the critical analysis of America that set the stage for other branches of “radical” thinking which has brought us to the upside down, inside out, pretzel logic that informs critical theory today.
There is an odd article that asks: The number of Communists killed before overthrowing old non-communist Government vs the number of Communists killed after Communist came into power?
A comment from one of the reader is a good summary response:
“Out of power, Communism is gangsters, dreamers, and psychopaths shouting slogans and making utopian promises. When communists get into power in a country, they ruthlessly kill off factional rivals and potential sources of recruits for a counter-revolution. Then they rob and exploit the wealth of the country.”
We see this being played out with the pro-Hamas demonstrations around America during April. That a number of academics joined the students in shouting “Death to America, Death to Israel” shows that this nation has a fundamental problem which can no longer be downplayed or ignored. It has sure taken long enough. Wholesale replacement of the so-called intelligentsia is in order. Allowing people to continue teaching hatred for one’s own country can only lead to destructive results. The administrations are part of the problem too as well as being gutless enablers. There are more than enough useful idiots and true believers in academia who believe whole heartedly in Communism, which requires a whole hearted hatred of America. It gets worse. Now, as noted below, it has become so bad you cannot avoid the parallels with Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
Kristallnacht University
It is hard to miss the emerging parallels between anti-semitism in Nazi Germany during the 1930s and what is happening today. Should we rename Harvard “Kristallnacht University”? The translation says something better: The Night of Broken Glass University. Mr. Greenfield’s article suggests as much. The problem is that what is happening on the Harvard campus and other ivy league schools, as well as others, spans more than just one night, and took a lot more than one night to explode into what we see now. Now comes the Harvest of Evil displayed on these campuses. You have students who don’t know why they are protesting. Others chant slogans they don’t understand. Still others are conforming out of fear. You may ask how can this kind of idiocy sustain a movement? It seems untenable. Bonhoffer’s Theory of Stupidity will tell you otherwise. No, unless decisive action is taken, this can and will get out of control.
Mr. Greenfield focuses on what would appear to be the starting point for the development of the tyranny we see today. But did he really find the point in time where we are approaching an existential threat to our constitutional republic? Did he touch on what is driving the tyranny train in America? Sort of. This is not a pleasant thing to say, but anti-semitism appears to be the most overt expression of a deeper problem in the minds and hearts of the people we call the “Elites.” It is not about anti-semitism. It is about the other stuff that gives rise to anti-semitism. Curing anti-semitism means curing the other illnesses first. This is explored in the other article “Remember to Smile When You are Killing Millions of People.”