Academic Suicide: Expression of the Wrong Viewpoints

 

Political pressure and intimidation wins victories, but history pronounces the final verdict. While history had smiled upon the West, history castes its frown on the failed states of Islam, Communism, Hinduism and Buddhism.

In How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity, Rodney Stark summarizes history’s judgments:

• To the extent that other cultures have failed to adopt at least major aspects of Western ways, they remain backward and impoverished.

In light of what had been the very obvious success of the West, by virtue of various indicators – justice, social justice, medical care, and general well-being – it is amazing that so many Western intellectuals and their universities have turned virulently against the very principles that have made the West great. Stark notes this antagonism - this self-destructive, auto-immune response:

•  It is widely claimed that to offer a course in “Western Civilization” is to become an apologist “for Western hegemony and oppression” (as the classicist Bruce Thornton aptly put it).  Thus, Stanford dropped its widely admired “Western Civilization” course just months after the Reverend Jesse Jackson came on campus and led members of the Black Student Union in chants of “Hey-hey, ho-ho, Western Civ has got to go.”  More recently, faculty at the University of Texas condemned “Western Civilization” courses as inherently right wing, and Yale even returned a $20 million contribution rather than reinstate the course.

In the West, antagonism against Western principles is “in,” and almost all of our Western elites have embraced this “politically correct” stance. Oddly, it’s now the non-Westerners who demonstrate a greater freedom to write about Western contributions. Former editor of the Sunday Telegraph, Dominic Lawson, in a review in the Sunday Times of Niall Ferguson's new book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, carries a quote from a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in which he tries to account for the indisputable success of the West, to date:

• “One of the things we were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world.

•   “We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic, and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had.

• “Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system.

• “But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is so powerful.”

However, for a Western academician to utter these words is to commit academic suicide.

National Socialism in the First Grade

Totalitarianism requires thought control. Consequently, such a society has its gatekeepers controlling the flow of information. Adolph Hitler had a lot to say on the subject:

• In every really great revolutionary movement propaganda will first have to spread the idea of this movement. Thus, it will untiringly try to make clear to the others the new train of thought, to draw them over to its own ground, or at least to make them doubtful of their own previous conviction…The organization receives its members from the followers in general won by propaganda. (Mein Kampf)

Hitler understood that propaganda and mind control had to include the nation’s youngest members. Western mind-controllers understand this principle:

• For a North Carolina first grader who wrote a touching poem about her grandfather's military service in Vietnam, everything was fine until she made a reference to God. At that point, officials at West Marion Elementary School deleted the line before the 6-year-old could read it aloud at a school assembly after a parent complained about the religious reference. The line read, "He prayed to God for peace, he prayed to God for strength."

Although this kind of censorship is justified by the concern to not offend others, this is just a hypocritical ruse. If offending others was truly their concern, they might have expressed some concern about offending this first-grader. However, the secular authorities envision this little child as Hitler had – as the object of indoctrination into the “new train of thought.”

This agenda separates children from their parents and the child from his childhood, making the State into his primary custodian. After all, the State knows what’s best about their children, while their parents are mired by repressive God-myths!

In this case, it’s a matter of raising children for sexual consumerism – children who would have no objection to any form of sexual experimentation. I would guess that if this first-grader had instead reported about his sexual feelings, his paper would have been used as a model for other first-graders.

Thought Control, Propaganda, Repression and the Gay Agenda

Totalitarian regimes reign through the control of the flow of ideas. To control “the nerve centers of the state,” is to control thinking and to secure compliance as one astute politician had put it:

• In every really great revolutionary movement propaganda will first have to spread the idea of this movement. Thus, it will untiringly try to make clear to the others the new train of thought, to draw them over to its own ground, or at least to make them doubtful of their own previous conviction…The organization receives its member from the followers in general won by propaganda. (Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf)

Today, perhaps in slow-motion, the arm of propaganda is sweeping across the West, pushing aside any convictions or human rights that stand in its path. Recently, two women grad students in counseling programs in state universities were expelled because they didn’t believe in gay marriage and refused remediation.

More recently, Mayors Tom Merino of Boston and Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, announced plans to use their powers to prevent Chick-fil-A (CFA) from expanding its business in these two cities. Why? Because CFA has blatantly expressed its support for heterosexual marriage!

Who cares about their oath to uphold the Constitution and its First Amendment guaranteeing free speech if it detracts from one’s political agenda!

In California, State Sen. Ted Lieu, the author of  Senate Bill 1172, seeks to ban sexual orientation conversion therapy (SOCT) for California minors—even if they or their parents want it.

In order to pass such a repressive and discriminatory bill, the propaganda machinery has been ejaculating all manner of negative messages against SOCT:

• Such treatment, which seeks to change a patient's sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual, is widely criticized in the psychological community as scientifically ineffective and even dangerous. It is blamed for depression and suicide attempts in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths. 

It has just been disclosed that the Colorado shooter had been seeing a psychotherapist. However, I guarantee that no one will begin to accuse this profession of creating maniacal “jokers” out of their hapless patients. The gay lifestyle is filled with enough risk factors without having to blame the counselor who attempts to help his client avoid the well-documented perils of this lifestyle.

Propaganda isn’t satisfied with merely putting forth its own view of things. It also has to discredit, intimidate and silence the opposition using whatever charges work best. Inevitably, it will clothe itself with the banner of pursuing equal rights, human rights, or concern for the masses. Propaganda, like rat poison, must be made enticing – mixing one part poison to four parts appetizing nuggets. Likewise, propaganda makes the claim that it is seeking justice, while it discredits its opponents as forces of repression and injustice.

According to Lieu, SOCT is absolutely illegitimate:

• "The attack on parental rights is exactly the whole point of the bill because we don't want to let parents harm their children. For example, the government will not allow parents to let their kids to smoke cigarettes. We also won't have parents let their children consume alcohol at a bar or restaurant. We have these laws to stop parents from hurting their kids. Preventive therapy hurts children, so this bill allows us to stop parents from hurting their children."

Lieu pleads the righteousness of his case. Counseling children, whose sexual interests are still very fluid, is compared to intoxication and smoking. SOCT hurts children, while magically the endless barrage of counseling that they receive from their secular state schools insures their welfare. Indeed, encouraging them to explore and pursue their sexuality, even if this means adopting the gay lifestyle – and this lifestyle is strongly associated with depression, suicide, STDs, and an abbreviated life-span – carries no associated risks! What madness!

According to this thinking, the secular state is the best overseer of the welfare of the children – even better than their own parents who love and have sacrificed for them. This is central to propaganda – “The State knows best – better than anyone else.” It is this rationale that is used to silence the opposition. After all, the State must gain ascendancy over the influence of the parents. Interestingly, the-State-knows-best philosophy has been tried and each time with horrific results. Think Communism and National Socialism – not very inspiring!

However, there are still those who will stand against the prospect of intimidation.

• A study conducted by Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas compared the “social, emotional, and relational” outcomes for children raised in different family structures, including children raised by heterosexual parents and those raised in homes in which the parents had been in homosexual relationships. It found that the children raised in homes in which parents had had homosexual relationships were disadvantaged in numerous ways.

However, Regnerus is now being punished because of his study. It is one thing for studies to be criticized, and they should be. This is a necessary aspect of accountability. However, criticism isn’t enough for the forces of repression. Two hundred academicians signed a petition demanding that Regnerus be brought up on ethical charges.

Regnerus’ study is certainly not beyond reproach, but neither is any other study, especially in this contentious field. Andrew Ferguson pointed out this fact in the Weekly Standard:

• The limitations of Regnerus’ study compare favorably with the shortcomings found routinely in the same-sex literature. It does no credit to the guild that researchers have choked on Regnerus’ paper while happily swallowing dozens of faulty studies over the last 20 years—because, you can’t help but think, those studies were taken as confirming the “no difference” dogma. “If the Regnerus study is to be thrown out,” wrote the Canadian family economist Douglas Allen in a statement supporting Regnerus, “then practically everything else [in the literature] has to go with it.”

Why didn’t these 200 academicians raise a whisper about these other studies? Unlike Regnerus’, these studies unsurprisingly came to politically correct conclusions. They oiled the gears of the propaganda machine. No surprise!

Consequently, Regnerus is now under investigation for ethics violations. Which academic will now risk his career to put forth a study that contradicts the prevailing dogma? Only the most courageous! Expect only one-sided studies and one-sided news!

However, it gets worse:

• Perhaps you are unaware of the “Commentator Accountability Project” of the powerful Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). It was launched earlier this year to hold media outlets (not commentators) accountable for allowing traditional marriage advocates (including this writer) to have a voice in the public debate.

How is it that the media has so quickly succumbed to these Nazi tactics? You don’t find any anti-gay-marriage arguments in the secular media, do you?

• One of its key concepts for twisting the arms of journalists is the slogan “bias is not balance.” How’s that for simply redefining pro-family opinion out of existence in the newsroom? I personally recall a leader of the Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association years ago state that allowing pro-family people to comment in news stories related to homosexuality was equivalent to letting the Ku Klux Klan have equal time in stories about race.

Therefore, we can forget about balanced reporting. This is becoming equated with “bias.” But then isn’t GLAAD’s stance also biased? Isn’t the idea that the State can prohibit certain forms of counseling – think free speech – also a matter of bias? If we think that pedophilia is wrong, is that too a matter of bias that must be silenced? Why not?

Sadly, propaganda works. Those who control the media and the universities mold the minds. They also determine politics – who can speak and who can’t; who goes to prison and who can exercise power. We will find that as reason and principle succumb to propaganda and politics, power will fill the vacuum and become the final arbiter.