This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
Are we beyond shame?
Zionism sought to create an exclusive Jewish state and empty the world of Jews who would all flock to the Jewish colonial settlement to live in a racist intolerant state. Similarly, these international forces are intent on transforming Arab and Muslim countries into Israeli-style exclusive enclaves of "intolerant" Muslims whom the ("Judeo-Christian") world must not tolerate on account of their own alleged intolerance.
In this vein, I should mention that one week before the terrorist attack in Alexandria, the Egyptian authorities uncovered a major Israeli spy ring in the country. Given the history of Mossad bombings of Egyptian post offices, cinemas, cultural centers, and train stations in the 1950s, and Mossad bombing operations across the Arab world that have never ceased to the present (the Mossad has always had a flair for car bombings), it would be important to investigate possible or even potential links between the Mossad operatives and the church bombers.
Do we seriously consider it normal now for this to come out of our universities?
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Aug '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
Didn't our president matriculate at the same university ? What did he write about ? Oh that's right, we can't see it.
They ought to combine UC Irvine and Columbia and let them do an extension course facility in Mecca next to the fake Big Ben.
Can it get any worse ? Sounds like a professor in Berlin, circa 1939. Intolerant ? Takes one to know one -
to paraphrase Safire
Nattering nabobs of nabkaism.
Edited on Jan 8, 2011 at 8:41amDec '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
Claire Berlinski, Ed.:
Do we seriously consider it normal now for this to come out of our universities? ·
=> Garbage in, garbage out.
Nov '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
This professor sounds like Kahlid the bartender in Port Said where, a few years ago, I had a good night of conversation and stacking up empty bottles of Stella. Kahlid is a good man with a kind heart and he would believe all of this nonsense. But Kahlid can be forgiven. His government and his religious leaders have brainwashed him, and he would face severe rebuke if not actual danger if he tried very hard to think differently.
The professor is a self-made man.
Edited on Jan 8, 2011 at 9:01amJun '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
A few weeks ago, my 28-year-old son--who is reading more deeply on the Israel/Palestinian issue and the statism/free enterprise issue (he's become enamored by clear-minded thinkers like Tom Sowell)--asked me a good question: "How can these people (liberals and professional Israel haters) believe what they believe?
My answer wasn't very good, but it included the fact that academia (with notable exceptions like VDH, Paul Rahe, Robert George, and others) has become an echo-chamber for silly, counter-factual arguments, that many academic writers simply have given up on the rigor of actual thought and weighing of the evidence, that political correctness has become a substitute for actual thought, and, finally, that few academics are going to get ahead spouting anything outside the lines of accepted academic discourse. [And then, to get to the guts of my answer, I think I said something like, and furthermore, "they're stupid idiots."]
I must admit that the answer to his question is perplexing. Conservative political thought tends to be rigorous, fact-based, and unsentimental. Liberal thought is about making us all feel better.
Edited on Jan 8, 2011 at 9:26amJul '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
When I matriculated in the early 80's, it was the radical priests pushing unilateral disarmament (I inconveniently corrected them to surrender on this topic repeatedly) with impassioned speeches about how the Soviets did not really want to boss us around and all would be well.
Most of us knew these clowns for what they really were, and as alumni have neglected to contribute to their departments, but Obama comes from another planet, more credulous to these ridiculous stories. I imagine that Columbia alumni tend to support this sort of thing since it is so strongly associated with the school.
If the Muslim man in the street actually understood the internecine carnage racked up each year by Muslims against Muslims, the spiral would quickly spin out of control.
[This comment has been redacted by an editor.]
If we do not learn from the other, we risk becoming like them.
How does Homecoming Week sound?
Edited on Jan 8, 2011 at 10:39amJul '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
tabula rasa: ...
I must admit that the answer to his question is perplexing. Conservative political thought tends to be rigorous, fact-based, and unsentimental. Liberal thought is about making us all feel better. · Jan 8 at 9:18am
Edited on Jan 08 at 09:26 am
If I may offer an amendment, Liberal thought is about conforming to a vile herd for hire, grant seeking buffoons in support of any funding source and prepared to vilify anyone inconvenient enough to interfere with ever higher funding levels. If those silly Zionists would outbid the Commies, Nazis, and Islamists they could rule academe.
Nov '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
Your son might find some insight in Arthur Koestler’s essay “Woe To The Shepherds” which can be found in Bricks To Babel (1980): Here is an excerpt:
A closed sysem has three peculiarities. Firstly, it claims to represent a truth of universal validity... In the second place, it is a system which cannot be refuted by evidence, because all potentially damaging data are automatically processed and reinterpreted to make them fit the expected pattern.... In the third place, it is a system which invalidates criticism by shifting the argument to the subjective motivation of the critic, ...(a) facts are deprived of their value as evidence by scholastic processing; (b) objections are invalidated by shifting the argument to the personal motive behind the objection.
The atmosphere inside the closed system is highly charged; it is an emoional hothouse…The trained, “closed-minded” theologian, psychoanalyst, or Marxist can at any time make mincemeat of his “open-minded” adversary and thus prove the superiority of his system ....
Our universities have become closed systems.
Dec '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
You mean the school that gave us Cloward and Piven? The one at which Bill Ayers hung out with Obama? You mean the one where Obama's terrorist-supporting buddy Rashid Khalidii now has a chair? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashid_Khalidi].
Yep, I'd believe that, in a heart beat.
Jun '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
Perhaps the better question might be, why do these thoughts and criticisms have to be so sophomoric, even idiotic? By their standing and academic credentials these "thinkers" are rated by their institutions as superior to us peons. Yet, by any objective standard these academics are idiots. I don't mind a good argument against Israel when it is well posed, but this is stuff that I don't even hear from my friend when he is off his meds and who happens to be a medically diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic with strong opinions on Middle-East. For what it's worth I'd rather talk to my paranoid buddy than most academics, at least he listens to the counter position and then factors it into his thinking.
Dec '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
I've noticed that Columbia has the highest-ranked departments in some of the wussiest subjects -- Journalism and Education. Why have a professor of "Intellectual History" in the first place?
TeeJaw, I very much like your assessment of the closed system. One can see the signs among any group of like-minded people, but the bias of the media keeps conservatives from going too far down that road.
Sep '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
I consider that seriously normal and that, if I complained, I'm sure I would be told that I'm stifling academic freedom. The only solution to that kind of tripe is for parents and alumni to stop sending money to these cesspools.
Nov '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
This has been going on for a long time, Claire. Once the first generation of hippies became tenured professors, colleges became hotbeds of leftwing radicalism. Conservative professors were methodically forced out. Counter-factual thought raised to the level of sheer howling madness is now the norm. By the current standards of academia, Joseph Massad is neither extreme nor radical. It is no surprise to anyone in Ricochet that American campuses are wretched hives of liberal scum and progressive villainy.
The real point is this: Massad is obviously a vicious Jew-hater, and his article is more evidence of a disturbing trend that Mark Steyn has noted. Anti-Semitism is on the rise in the world, and in a more virulent form than ever before. The hatred is being driven by Islamofascists who have taken up the banner the Nazis dropped.
The Muslim world was profoundly influenced by Nazi propaganda during WWII, and that unholy association is now bearing poisonous fruit.
May '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
Columbia seems to corrupt minds. Simon Schama went there as an interesting historian. He is now an unreadable hysteric. Can the place be saved?
May '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
All of mankind yearns for same thing: certainty and truth. Alas, where you believe you have found it makes all the difference in the world.
Everyone begins their own philosophy with the words of Jefferson, "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." But none are. If anyone's truths were that powerful and self-evidential, there would be no differences of opinion.
Outside of the sciences, universities are useless. Regulars around here have heard me use the phrase, "scourge of self-credentialing." Marxists academics gather to design courses, pour their ideology into their students and then credential those who obediently fall into line. Then they create prizes for one another and use these to move their ideas into the mainstream.
"Dr. X got her PhD from Ivy University and holds the Days and Fuzed Chair in Political Studies at Enormous State. She has a Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer in Criticism and The MacArthur Foundation Award for her seminal study, 'Over Arching Concepts of the Feminization of Culture in the Fight Against Racism, Misogyny and Zionism.'
Dr. X lives with her partner in the Village and their 14 cats."
Dr. X has never worked a productive day in her life.
May '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
TeeJaw
The atmosphere inside the closed system is highly charged; it is an emoional hothouse…The trained, “closed-minded” theologian, psychoanalyst, or Marxist can at any time make mincemeat of his “open-minded” adversary and thus prove the superiority of his system ....
Our universities have become closed systems.
My latest ex-girlfriend is a professor at a prestigious university here in DC, she was educated overseas and then at an elite school in the states for post-grad work. I, on the other hand, am self-educated. Armed only with the facts (i.e. socialism has failed, the jews are the prey not the predator) she was constantly infuriated in our discussions. She came from an echo chamber, and more than one of our arguments ended with her saying, "there are no facts." Talk about a closed system! This is _exactly_ how the left frames the debate... All evidence is trumped by how they feel, because they are smart and I am not. One thing she constantly ignored, the difference between education and intelligence. My IQ is higher!
I know one thing for sure, I prefer the facts no matter how good the sex was!
Jul '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
An Intellectual History of Israel:
So, me and a bunch of other Jews was hangin' around, you know, like after the Holocaust?
So this one Jew says, "Hey, why don' we make a, like, Jewish colonial settlement somewhere?"
And this other Jew says, "Yeah, Jews would flock to that."
So I says, "Anyplace in particular?"
And the first Jew says, "Not really, but it would be nice if it was somewhere that we could, you know, like mess with the Muslims."
So this other Jew says, "This is gonna be a racist place, right?"
And the first Jew says, "Absolutely. And intolerant."
And we all go, like, "Racist and intolerant? Oy! Count me in!"
Edited on Jan 8, 2011 at 12:09pmRe: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
The more important the university, the more likely it is that some Saudi benefactor has funded an institute or department for the propagation of nonsense like the article that Claire turned up. This money comes with strings attached and everyone knows it.
Aug '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
What's all the fuss? I read that sort of stuff in certain Irish newspapers all the time.
Dec '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
Kenneth: An Intellectual History of Israel:
So, me and a bunch of other Jews was hangin' around, you know, like after the Holocaust?
So this one Jew says, "Hey, why don' we make a, like, Jewish colonial settlement somewhere?"
And this other Jew says, "Yeah, Jews would flock to that."
So I says, "Anyplace in particular?"
And the first Jew says, "Not really, but it would be nice if it was somewhere that we could, you know, like mess with the Muslims."
So this other Jew says, "This is gonna be a racist place, right?"
And the first Jew says, "Absolutely. And intolerant."
And we all go, like, "Racist and intolerant? Oy! Count me in!" · Jan 8 at 12:06pm
Edited on Jan 08 at 12:09 pm
Encore!
It's those damned Juice again, bein' all racist by wantin' to stay alive an junk.
Every time I read something like this, I thank my lucky stars that I went to an Engineering school, not a Liberal Arts school.
My professors all thought that turning a profit was not only good, but the entire point of business.
I'd have never made it through a Liberal Arts college.
May '10
Re: This Was Written by a Professor of Intellectual History at Columbia University
Ah, I see the head Zionist and her flock of Zionizing Zionist disciples.
I'm disgusted but not surprised. The "I Hate Israel" refrigerator magnets sell well in academia. New York is perhaps the prime breeding ground for this kind of "intellectual." Its a combination of envy, cultural relativism, and anti-capitalism.
Edited on Jan 8, 2011 at 5:47pm