It is not necessary for a government to be
thoroughgoingly despotic for us to live in a totalitarian condition in which we
are afraid to say some things and—what is even worse—are required to say
others. In such a condition, we are obliged to deny what we believe and assent
to what we do not believe.
There is no better way to destroy the human
personality than this. As a result, people become cynical, time-serving, and
increasingly self-absorbed. Their impotence breeds apathy. Once they start to
utter things for the sake of their careers or their peace and quiet that they
do not believe, they lose all self-respect and probity and thus their standing
to resist anything. People without probity are easy to control and manipulate;
the purpose of political correctness is not to enunciate truth but to exercise
power.
The present totalitarian threat comes not from
government, as it once did, but from the universities and the intellectuals, or
semi-intellectuals, that they turn out. The governments of liberal, or
once-liberal, democracies lamely follow the fashions and obsessions that emerge
from universities, and few politicians have the courage or the stamina to
resist them. To do so would require a willingness to present an intellectual
case against them, not once but repeatedly, as well as the mental equivalent of
a rhinoceros hide to be unaffected by the opprobrium and insult to which they
would be subjected (insult these days being the highest form of argument).
Suffice it to say that we do not live in times propitious to patient
argumentation by politicians about matters of principle. What cannot be said in
three words will not be heard, so that surrender is the default setting.
“Academic
drivel seeps out and soaks into what some people call the real world.”
A young researcher of my acquaintance, of a type
who would once have easily found a job in a university, being both extremely
well qualified academically and temperamentally suited to the scholarly life,
now finds there is almost no place for him in the world of universities.
Multilingual, he could work in any of several countries, but his applications
are turned down, almost certainly in favor of people less able or qualified
than he. His problem is that he is interested in the wrong things. Even
applying for a job, particularly in American universities, is now a kind of
Calvary for the person who does not share modern academic-bureaucratic
obsession with race and sexual proclivities. In order to apply, the applicant
must fill forms about his attitude toward diversity—there being, of course, no
permissible diversity in attitudes toward diversity.
Many universities now demand a personal “diversity
statement” from the applicant. According to one university:
[The] purpose of the statement is to
identify candidates who have professional skills, experience and/or willingness
to engage in activities that would enhance campus diversity and equity
efforts….
This requires of the successful candidate either a
full commitment to the fatuous ideology of diversity or an ability to act as if
he adhered to it. To admit that all that you want to do is to study the life
and times of, say, William the Silent, the Khedive Ismail, or Dr. José Gaspar
RodrÃguez de Francia, and convey your enthusiasm for this subject to others,
would be fatal to your chances. You must want, in the cant phrase of our times,
to make a difference, in other words to reform society into a totalitarian
dictatorship of virtue.
Here is advice on what you should write in your
diversity statement:
Concentrate on issues such as race,
gender, social class and sexual orientation. Don’t try to tone down your
statement by writing about how it is hard to be a Kansan in Missouri, for
example. Instead, write about racial oppression, sexism, homophobia,
transphobia, ableism or some other commonly recognized form of oppression.
In other words, you must bring your straw to the
fires of resentment, so that the diversity bureaucracy will never extinguish
them and therefore never be out of a job.
You might have thought that there was little
opportunity for Diversity-Thought (Human Resources Maoism) in disciplines such
as biology, the physical sciences, or engineering—but you would be wrong. The
applicant has to promise to promote racial, sexual, and class diversity in the
physics lab, though this, of course, might—indeed would—mean discriminating
against the best people as established by such socially retrograde criteria as
research record. Here is the opening sentence of a diversity statement
recommended as a model for those who are applying for a post in a university
department of science and engineering:
I am well aware that being a
scientist or researcher does not mean just being successful in research. At the
same time one should be excellent in his/her interactions with the community
and the students, in his/her role to lead the academic society and in
responsibilities to transform the community.
No Isaac Newton need apply, then, because he was
notably not excellent in his interactions with the community, nor were his
numerological and alchemical speculations likely to transform it.
Not being familiar with the academic world, I checked
a website on which university academic jobs in the humanities were advertised.
This is the kind of thing that I found:
We specifically welcome candidates
with interdisciplinary teaching expertise in one or more of the following
areas: postcolonial studies, decoloniality, critical race theory, queer of
color critique, ethnic studies, indigenous and/or settler colonialism studies,
disability studies, feminist theories, gender and sexuality studies,
transnational studies, or composition and rhetoric with a specialization in any
of the above areas. As we strive to create the most intellectually diverse,
equitable, and inclusive institution that we can, we especially encourage
candidates from historically underrepresented groups to apply.
Comment is redundant.
But does any of this matter? I think it does.
Academic drivel seeps out and soaks into what some people call the real world.
My acquaintance, despairing of academe, tried for a job in the private sector
(again in America). The application form included the following question: “Are
you interested in any of our diversity and affiliation groups, yes or no?”
(The correct answer is not difficult to guess, nor
are the consequences of getting it wrong.) The groups in question were LGTBQ,
blacks, Latinos, women, and Asians.
But what about the poor foot fetishists? Who speaks
for them?
Rigid
Diversity - Taki's Magazine - Taki's Magazine (takimag.com)
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