Frankenstein's Monster, Social Justice & Higher Education
There are seeds of self-destruction in all of us... -Dorothea Brande
Frankenstein's Monster, Social Justice & Higher Education
My post Conformity is Diversity - Thought Police on Campus treated the practice of providing financial incentives to engage in social justice activism and ideology propagation among the student body of college campuses across America. I described that trend as part of a full spectrum assault on divergent world views on campuses across the country that sacrifices real diversity of opinion on the altar of politically correct social justice doctrine.
The dominance of this ideology is not just at the level of the student body, it has spread throughout the entirety of the educational establishment. This metamorphosis of the educational establishment has taken decades. Today a few (by no means all) of the contributing factors will be considered. The readers of this series on social justice have seen me touch on the Frankfurter School in previous posts and here I most highly recommend reading David Galland's: "The Birth of Cultural Marxism: How the "Frankfurter School" Changed America as a primer for some of the considerations included here.
The Upward Spiral of Weaponized Virtue-Signaling
As Galland points out, "The social movements of the 1960s—black power, feminism, gay rights, sexual liberation—gave Marcuse a unique vehicle to release cultural Marxist ideas into the mainstream. Railing against all things “establishment,” The Frankfurt School’s ideals caught on like wildfire across American universities."source. This increasingly appears to be the advent of the social justice movement and political correctness as a major societal force in the west as we know it today.
Fast forward twenty five years to the 1990s, and it appears the Boomers who adopted the concept of social justice from the early 1960s to early 1970s have raised many (but by no means all) similarly-minded GenXers, who have already assumed their positions of power in the educational establishment - particularly the older members of Gen X. (edit - see Clemdane's comment below). This multi-generational emphasis on social justice is now bearing its logical fruits.
As the social justice movement swelled with the children and grand-children of the Boomers at the universities, the "revolutionary" nature of social justice began to fade despite continuing to be trumpeted as revolutionary. Indeed, tolerance of different lifestyles, the belief that race was largely a cosmetic difference and people should be paid the same for the same work became the norm. It was largely accepted that there was still work to be done, but most everybody was onboard. It was only a question of time until we were on the best path to a just society. The "revolution", for many, had achieved one of its most critical goals.
But the younger generation who had no first-hand experience of the rights movements of the 1960s, primed and ready to fight for "justice" by their parents, found itself with nothing left to fight for. This lead to an intensification of the criteria for "justice", not only should people be equal before the law, they should be equal in terms of how others view them socially and culturally (edit - see valued-customer's comment below). This means no matter what someone believed, it should be considered equally valid in keeping with the belief system that preaches subjective realities are just as valid as objective ones. Nevertheless, the white Christian hetero-normative paradigm retained its status as "oppressive" by the mere fact it constitutes the majority of society.
The caterwauling of social justice indignation today appears largely a form of hyperbolic virtue-signaling that was nascent, as best I can tell, sometime in the late 1980s with (comparatively) reasonable complaints about sexism and racism. When students were rewarded with increased social status for getting a peer expelled or faculty member fired, it incentivized others to do the same. Accusations of "mere" sexism and racism are hardly capable of raising an eyebrow anymore, though still more than sufficient to get people fired. This has resulted in an ever sinking threshold for inappropriate behavior and an ever increasing intensity in the degree of virtue-signaling. Enter microaggressions.
Microaggressions as Macro-Transgressions - The Next Frontier
As I postulated in Conformity is Diversity - Thought Police on Campus, 'microaggression sensitivity' could be defined as the ability "to emotionally interpret anything (words, silence, actions, non-actions) as offensive, discriminatory, hateful and bigoted in any situation, anytime and anywhere for any reason." The result was students seeking relative improvements in social status via virtue-signaling and policing their peers for microaggressions, but it was only a question of time until the virtue-signaling began creeping up the hierarchical ranks.
As we can see, weaponized virtue signaling against student peers is no longer sufficient, nor is it considered particularly revolutionary. Revolution must have a repressive authority against which it can aim its vitriol. Thus the next logical step was that faculty members began being targeted, as the case of Evergreen College has conclusively demonstrated, though there are hundreds of other relevant examples. Now (thankfully), we also see this behavior directed at the final frontier on campus, the management and administration that has actively enabled this insanity. But it won't stop there, don't worry, I predict the Department of Education is next. Microaggressions are becoming macro-transgressions. This is a perfect case of Frankenstein's monster rising up to destroy its mad master.
It is not as if the faculty wasn't aware of this slowly encroaching victimhood mindset and escalating outrage culture. As secure positions in academia have become increasingly rare commodities, every faculty member fired resulted in every remaining faculty member policing themselves ever more carefully.
Of course, virtue-signaling isn't limited to students, and soon social justice themed seminars began appearing either a) as a genuine attempt to academically investigate the belief system of social justice, b) in order to virtue signal "hey, I'm a good faculty member! Please don't report me to the administration" or c) to intentionally and actively expand the ideology's base population. There may be more reasons, but the point is that the rise of doublethink on college campuses today has been aided and abetted by those on the inside.
Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead!
Despite the increasingly thin ice being trod upon, the entrenched social justice warriors at college campuses nationwide are still locked into their ideological trajectory. That administrations have sided with the emotionally-driven social justice students who trumpet their (self-)victimization and assign the blame to educators for failing to give them special treatment for their intellectual incompetence and emotionally fragility, just to give an example, is shameful to say the least.
In most incidents covered in the mainstream media, the administrations have taken the side of the infantilized few (or the many, as the case may be) and hung their faculty out to dry. This has destroyed the lives of countless intelligent and thoughtful people who are genuinely interested in research and instruction but held "divergent" political or social beliefs. It also sends a sign to those clinging to their jobs, go with the flow or else.
Some of them fight back against the injustice and sue after the fact when it is too late to save their jobs, many however vanish into the private sector performing jobs far below their level of intellectual competence, depriving society of the best and the brightest in favor of the cosmetically diverse. This is The Great Dumbing Down in all its resplendent idiocy.
Very few institutions of higher learning have taken a (minor) stand against this new irrational drive for anti-free speech authoritarianism based on emotional fragility. Two examples of those that have include the University of Chicago's stance against trigger warnings and safe spaces, or the Oklahoma Wesleyan University president's position against safe spaces.
If more institutions of higher education don't get on board with Chicago and Wesleyan, the rampant intellectual ruination of the west is all but guaranteed. Make no mistake, we are witnessing the penultimate stage of actual full-blown collapse of higher education right now. And it isn't restricted to the States anymore, I can say with confidence it has infested Britain, continental Europe and Australia - as well as any universities that are hiring people from those areas.
Institutionalizing the Insanity
Nevertheless, the ongoing institutional suicide has gone into overdrive in recent years. Many universities are now enshrining the social justice movement in their administrations and faculty structures, paying for administrators (who earn more than actual educators in many cases) to provide "a safe listening space", compile "bias reports", "enact cultural appropriation prevention initiatives" as well as promote "social justice initiatives". Given that management growth across the board (non-teaching posts) has outpaced growth amongst both faculty and the student body, this should be of concern. Indeed, management now outnumbers teachers at many universities today. It shouldn't be surprising that the public University of California system is the worst culprit nationwide.
http://www.trbimg.com/img-56219465/turbine/la-me-g-adv-uc-spending-web/650/650x366
Further, the list of universities and colleges with declared "Diversity and Social Justice" degree programs(this is a Google search link, just to give you an idea) is mind-boggling. Just take a look at some of these B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degree programs in social "justice" (each hyperlink leads to a Google search result).
I shudder to imagine how inculcated these graduates will be after 4, 6 or 12 years of adherence to a belief system that promotes doublethink, especially when their ability to make a living will be tied to sustaining the viability of the social justice belief system. Keep in mind that all of these programs are taxpayer funded to supply faculty, administration and management. Not to mention the gamut of prizes, grants, scholarships and loans students are taking out to get degrees that many will never be able to pay off.
Conclusion
The institutionalization of social justice in higher education is all the more troubling because it, as I have discussed at length in my post The Social Justice Movement is Its Own Worst Enemy, embraces the socially divisive concepts of identity politics, safe spaces, segregation, the sexist discrimination of the "advantageous disadvantaging" of men, microaggressions, sensitivity training, biological relativism, gender dysphoria, restricting free speech and the entire doublethink construct that is the social justice movement.
The absence of critical thought, self-reflection and logic that is the social justice movement is the most socially destabilizing force that has ever been introduced into western civilization. Ironically, it is the taxpayer who is unwillingly or unwittingly funding the active dissolution of social cohesion and civil society as we know it.
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tags: education politics justice marxism collapse
I am predicting a massive, tidal-wave level backlash against all of this. You can call me a cockeyed optimist if you like, but we can already see the way the public has turned against these places like Mizzou and Evergreen, as enrollment at both continues to plummet, as do alumni donations. What is really weird is that these social justice hothouse flowers are truly living in a bubble that no logic or opposition can penetrate, unaware that now the entire world is watching them, judging them. And the youngest generation (younger than current college age) is more conservative than the Millennials by far and I predict they will turn against all of this.
Also, I had a bone to pick with your lumping Gen X in with the Boomers - "Boomers have raised similarly-minded GenXers." No no no no no. No way. I am Gen X and we are the anti-Boomers. We were the cynical generation that got really sick of the hippies and their holier than thou causes, their preaching about how unique and enlightened their generation is, more than any other before or since, blah blah blah. We are the survivor generation, the ones who were neglected as children, who grew up in a recession, not a boom, and who became cynical and looked out for ourselves in a tough world. The Millennials take after the Boomers much more than we do. The late Boomers are the parents of the Millennials and taught them that you always have to find something to protest and stand up for your rights! (even if your rights aren't being compromised.)
Yes, there were a few of these people starting in my generation. The earliest Boomers were starting to have kids in my generation, but those were the outliers. When I was at Berkeley as an undergrad (believe it or not!) in the late 80s/early 90s there was already conflict between a much more conservative student body and the "Holdover Hippies" of the town of Berkeley who had settled there in the 1960s and never left. Sure, there was a small group of wannabe hippies in my class, and guess what? I was one of them. I came to Berkeley thinking "Finally someplace where I can experience what the 1960s were like and not feel so heartbroken that I missed them!" But I quickly saw the extremes of the Left and my time at Berkeley, more than any other factor in my life, transformed me from a far Left liberal to a centrist Liberal. Yes, I still call myself a Liberal. I am a Classical Liberal, the kind who want free speech, open discussion, freedom of expression, let all viewpoints be aired, if we disagree than let's debate it logically, etc. The kind from the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley, which would now be considered tantamount to a Nazi group by the SJW crowd. And one who embraces capitalism. I believe in a free market, both of goods and services and of ideas. I also believe in a social safety net for our most vulnerable citizens, the elderly and the destitute.
Agreed. @clemdane.
You make a good point, of course not all of Gen X are on the SJ bandwagon. I have to say though, I spent almost 20 years in the university environment, all the way through the post-doc phase, and as a member of Gen X born in the early 70s, my similarly aged peers were for the most part very much on the social justice train, though we didn't call it that back in the early 2000s when we entered university. And that is where my commentary about people largely believing the rights movements had achieved its goals comes in - as was pretty much my opinion at the time. But the rhetoric of oppression and the necessity of the rights movement was still very much in play.
It is worth considering that the early Gen Xers (Gen X is typically described as born between the early 60s and the early 80s) are now in their mid 50s and have been professors for the last 10 to 15 years. This means they likely have first-hand experience of the rights movement as young children. Replete with their parents' narratives of why social justice is necessary. I would contend the complete spiraling out of control has come under their watch. Of course the Boomers very much laid the groundwork for what we see right now.
Every Gen Xer I know acknowledges the financial straits the Boomer bequeathed us, but as to a backlash against their social policies... especially among the older members of our cohort, I just don't see it. Younger members of the cohort are more divided on the issue and as the contemporary social justice movement escalates its juggernaut-lemming rush for the cliff, are turning against it. Gen X may be the generation that makes social justice peak and then is still around long enough to clean up the mess in the upper hierarchy. I am fallible of course, so maybe there is something I am missing.
You make another good point when you mention that the free speech movement of the hippies would be "considered tantamount" to Nazis today, but that only serves to underline my contention that the foundational rhetoric laid by the Boomers and the perpetuation of it by the Gen Xers has spiralled out of control. I don't know if you read the link to the Galland article or not, but he does a good job of showing how this ideology has evolved over time.
And fortunately it appears the backlash has begun. I threw in a caveat to the text to account for your concerns.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful feedback! I really appreciate it when people take the time to consider my arguments, even when they don't agree. It is this exchange of the mind that I find challenging, exhilarating and hopefully helps me achieve a greater state of clarity on the issues of the day (not to mention make me a better person). Cheers!
This post has received a 2.50 % upvote from @buildawhale thanks to: @cupidzero.
I agree that the "revolution" of that began in the 60s required new targets to fuel itself. It reminds me of the Terror durning the French Revolution that continuously demanded new heads to be sacrificed at the guillotine. Robespierre ultimately became its last sacrifice, after the revolutionary committee finally realized that the revolutionary beast is consuming itself with themselves as the next meal. It seems that revolutionaries make for poor governors. I think the current sociopolitical revolt of the radicals is the final stage of the leftist revolution consuming itself along with her architects. Will the radical leadership realize their precarious position in time to stop the beast? Or will they be sacrificed at their alter as well?
I don't think the radical leadership is capable of stopping the beast, even if they wanted to. It has achieved an autonomous dynamic that will devour them. Of course, it may be that their goal is the bringing down of the west and they will gladly go with the fuzzy feeling of martyrdom to their ultimate demise. Very good parallel drawn to the French Revolution! Thanks for the feedback!
My caveat to this post is that this SJW movement may have started in the 1990s with generation X, it gained major followers under generation Y or the Millennials. I went to university from 92-95 and it was nothing like what I am viewing on university campuses today. There was still some common sense.
Undoubtedly it has reached new heights with the rise of the Millenials and some of the older Gen Ys, but today in my classes among the Gen Ys I am starting to see real pushback, which makes me hopeful. By the way, I wrote this having been in the university environment from 1991 to 2011, so I had some longitudinal perspective at many levels within the educational establishment that I tried to bring to bear. It looks like you agree with me here on Gen X, but disagree insofar as you agreed with Clemdane above, can you clarify? Thanks for your response!
You can have both classical liberal and social justice beliefs without being an SJW. I also believe in free speech, open discussion and freedom of expression. It's a matter of how far you want the pendulum to swing. In my opinion, it's swung too far one way. I have some hope that generation Z (my son's generation) will be able to see through the current psychological fog and assist in putting the pendulum back to centre.
Okay, I see it now. I also consider myself a classical liberal in many respects as well, but today believing in free speech strangely makes me a conservative...? It seems like the political orientation terminology these days just isn't keeping up with events on the ground.
I addressed the pendulum concepts a few times in my writings thusfar, the most succinctly I believe in my post Meritocracy is Dead where I said "The radical doublethink of privileging anybody based on their race or sex to combat racism and sexism is beyond mind-boggling. Rather than establishing a meritocratic system that requires the non-consideration of race and sex, the exact opposite has occurred. This is not a "response mechanism" to solve a problem, it is a reactionary swing of the pendulum that perpetuates and hastens the complete dissolution of social cohesion by transferring "privilege" to a new group. The very idea that the pendulum could now be swinging away from the SJW movement has resulted in its advocates engaging in preemptory defensive violence to silence words of opposition." (with associated links to provide examples, check the post if you are interested.
Thanks for taking the time to provide the clarification, I appreciate it!
I'm glad that my clarification helped. I will check out your other post. It sounds interesting. I never thought that my beliefs would tag me as a right -wing libertarian minarchist either but that seems to be the way the world is today.
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STOPThanks for this valuable post. Shitty as our societies have always been, with all the mindless greed and superstition, I’m sure the hordes of SJW hypocrites can make them even worse.
Your comments make me laugh out loud sometimes. And yes, the more momentum the social justice movement gathers, the more epic the crash will be.
Listening out for a HUGE crash...