“In the same way the
intelligentsia for many years labored unconsciously to destroy itself by
hesitancy and submission in the face of unremitting blackmail from the extreme
left.”
Leszek
Kolakowski, Main Currents of
Marxism
The “intelligentsia” referred to
above by Leszek Kolakowski in his magisterial work on the history of Marxism is
the class of Russian intellectuals that succumbed to Stalin’s usurpations in
the 1930s. Once Stalin had obliterated his opposition by the late-1930s,
genuine intellectual inquiry and the possibility for an open, honest
examination and criticism of ideas and vigorous philosophical and scientific
exchange essentially ended.
The destruction of the
intelligentsia that Kolakowski observed in Russia under the Bolsheviks bears an
eerie resemblance to what has taken place here in the U.S. since the 1960s with
the left in a non-stop, accelerated assault on American institutions. The instrument of the destruction Kolakowski
refers to is “unremitting blackmail” which now abounds. “Hesitancy and
submission” are the order of the day from craven, pusillanimous university
administrators such as the President of the University of California, Donna
Shalala, an American Andrei Zhandov. Her
recent diktat to the UC faculty on “microaggressions” is truly ominous. See the
elaborate censorship code online at the UC’s President’s Office website.
“Blackmail”, this single word
perhaps best describes the modus operandi of the left in shutting down the
long-prized freedom of speech and tolerance for the expression of unpopular
opinions and ideas in America. Blackmail
is essentially a form of coercion, and as the history of the 20th
century amply documents, the signature “achievements” of the left during this
period were themselves monumental feats of coercion – Stalin’s forced
collectivization of the Russian peasants in the 1930s, the post-WWII Sovietization of central and
eastern Europe, Mao’s Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution in the
1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Many other
examples, of course, could be listed.
Blackmail has worked well for the
left in the U.S. and it is perhaps worthwhile to consider an historical
definition of the word in order to get a good sense of how well the left has used
it to make a mockery of its unending raptures for “diversity” and to impose a
mindless ideological conformity centered on victim groups and their grievances.
Blackmail: “a tribute anciently exacted on the
Scottish border by plundering chiefs in exchange for immunity from pillage.”
“Plundering
chiefs” actually wonderfully describes the race-careerists like Al Sharpton and
Jesse Jackson, professional blackmailers, if you will. The tribute they exact
is simply the fear and attention from white leaders that affirms their self-proclaimed
status as “black leaders and spokesmen” and the leverage that comes with it to
enforce their various demands – reparations, punishment for the failings in
sensitivity, employment for “professionals” to monitor the “progress” that
never comes. The immunity they offer is a temporary suspension of their accusations
and threats if the submission they demand is sufficiently self-effacing and the
compliance is unquestioning and complete.
Sharpton’s forte is riot fomenting. He needs to be soothed and
accommodated lest mobs hit the streets. Hillary
Clinton when running for the Senate in New York arranged to meet with and kiss Sharpton’s
ring, paying tribute, of course, in exchange for votes.
More
recently, Presidential candidate Martin O’Malley in order to appease the
sensitivity police chiefs had to grovel and beg for forgiveness for his
outrageous remark, “All lives matter,” betraying an insensitivity typically
afflicting white politicians.
“I meant no disrespect,” O'Malley said
in an interview on This Week in Blackness, a digital show. “That was a mistake
on my part and I meant no disrespect. I did not mean to be insensitive in any
way or communicate that I did not understand the tremendous passion, commitment
and feeling and depth of feeling that all of us should be attaching to this
issue.”
Was
he sufficiently contrite? Did he really understand this depth of feeling
that “all of us should attach to this issue”? Yes, all of us, of course. Only the plundering chiefs are qualified to
judge and they are not to be rushed.
O’Malley’s
apology is all too typical and to get a sense of where things are headed with
this kind of disgusting pandering and pathetic caving to the bullying
ideologues one should contemplate the rituals of “self-criticism” in places
like Mao’s China, and Stalin’s Russia where an “official” template for the interpretation
of any matter of significance set the parameters for discussion. The words, the
tone, the phrasing, all were rigorously circumscribed. Deviation could be
quickly and easily detected and would lead to a range of sanctions.
The plundering chiefs now abound in the
universities. They occupy positions suitably
embellished with lofty titles such as Dean of Equity and Inclusion and Vice President
for Diversity and Multiculturalism. They
represent and speak for the “under-presented”.
The tribute they exact, beyond the installation in their own positions
as exalted, well-compensated commissars with an ample assemblage of staff that
reflects the gravitas of their mission, is a considerable power to monitor the speech
and behavior of the students and the employees of the universities. They set the highest standards for sensitivity,
the observance of which requires lectures, workshops, videos, training sessions
and penalties for infractions. At the
University of California as instructed by President Shalala in her recently
promulgated Tool: Recognizing
Microaggressions and the Messages They Send, one is forbidden the “Use
of the pronoun ‘he’ to refer to all people” because it sends the message that “Male
experience is universal.” Any
unruly, independent-minded professor can without too much worry blow off the
complaints of a dean, provost or even a university president, but when summoned
by a Diversity and Equity Commissar, he will soon discover within a depth of
respect and a submissive posture he never knew he possessed.
Difficult as this may be to believe, in 1966 George
Lincoln Rockwell, the founder and head of the American Nazi Party was invited
to speak at Brown University by the “Open Minds Forum.” That is correct. It is
not a misprint. Rockwell also came to
Michigan State University in 1967 to speak. The student who introduced Rockwell
to an audience that actually quietly listened to Rockwell had this to say:
“It is our belief that hatred is best exposed
so that all may see it and all may examine its patterns and its capabilities. It is an issue that today we must struggle to
overcome. It is through an understanding hatred in others that we can overcome it
within ourselves. We are a society of laws and constitutional guarantees which
ought to protect and preserve that which we abhor. Yet the laws in the end will
stand to protect us against tyranny and subjection. It is my hope that our audience this
afternoon will recognize and respect the constitutional guarantees given to all
the citizens of this nation. There are
those who wish to destroy our lives by forcing our citizens to respond
according to the methods they prescribe. This we must avoid. This man’s organization
thrives on riots and other overt reactions.
Because his philosophy embodies the
emotion of hatred, do give him the satisfaction of returned hate. For this
is what he is seeking.” (Strong applause)
These are thoughts from a time long ago and a place
far way. That was then and this is now.
Then, such was the high value attached to free speech and the willingness
to be exposed to the widest range of opinions and perspectives that a real live
Nazi could actually visit and speak uninterrupted on an American university
campus. Now, sensitivity reigns and the only
speakers admitted to ivy halls are those who will not offend, the ideologically
safe ones who emit words of support and comfort. For prospective speakers to
our institutions of higher learning and open inquiry, they must fit within the
prim and proper confines of the narrowest range of ideological conformity.
On the fringe and outside the range of acceptability
now are not Nazis and the like who once could come and go, but people like
former Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, who had to withdraw from her speaking
engagement at Rutgers University last year because of threatened disruption.
How pathetic and depressing is this state of affairs and what does it portend?
No comments:
Post a Comment