Universities Today

By Philip Carl Salzman

Western Universities have been major contributors to our civilization and others through scientific discovery and humanistic scholarship. Knowledge both old and new has been expanded, enriched, and diffused. Universities have also been an important channel of upward social and economic mobility through academic achievement, thus reinforcing the vision of America as a land of opportunity. But since the 1980s, universities have increasingly turned away from producing and disseminating knowledge and taken up as their objective neo-marxist radical social reform, often labelled "social justice." Today universities focus on political propaganda and activism, and are increasingly like closed religious cults. America and Western civilization are portrayed as imperialistic, racist, and oppressive, with no redeeming features. In their own functioning, universities' much vaunted "diversity and inclusion" means favoring preferred genders and races, and excluding others. But diversity of opinion is no where to be seen, as views other than "social justice" are precluded or silenced. Universities have been entirely corrupted by leftist politics, and have contributed massively to the similar corruption of primary and secondary schooling, the civil service, and our legislatures and public officials.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781999271015

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Biography

Introduction

Between 1958 and 2018, I spent my life in colleges and universities, first as an undergraduate student at Antioch College in Ohio, then as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, and then fifty years as a professor of anthropology at McGill University, Canada’s premier university.

I chose academia, above all, because the search for understanding and explanation appealed to me as a worthy and gratifying pursuit. Teaching, too, seemed similarly worthwhile. As well, the freedom and independence granted to professors to follow their intellectual interest was attractive, especially in comparison with the conformity and obedience required by work in business or government bureaucracies. When I entered academia, if you did your teaching and research reasonably successfully, you were left alone to carry on.

Anthropologists, such as myself, had the freedom to take up any subject that they care to, for social and cultural anthropology is a broad field covering all aspects of society and culture. Biological anthropologists, anthropological archeologists, and linguistic anthropologists complement the work of social and cultural anthropology. Primary research for social and cultural anthropologists is through ethnography, the first hand study of people and their culture through residence in one or more communities, in many cases abroad. The wide range of cultures studied by anthropologists is a unique contribution of anthropology. At the same time, various theoretical points of view were tried out and tested, to see if they bear fruit in understanding and explanation.

I had the privilege of carrying out ethnographic field research among the Shah Nawazi nomadic tribe in Iranian Baluchistan, reporting that research in various articles and in Black Tents of Baluchistan. Following that I carried out research among Bharawad pastoralists in Gujarat, and Reika pastoralists in Rajasthan, northwest India, reporting that research in articles and in Pastoralists. Finally, I lived in Villagrande Strisaili, Sardinia, and reported findings in Pastoralists and especially in The Anthropology of Real Life.

When I began studying anthropology, it, like all social sciences, aspired to a scientific approach. After all, science has transformed knowledge and technology in other fields, and could, it was believed, provide a sound foundation for understanding society and culture. This, I assumed, would never change, but I was wrong. In the decades of the 1970s and 1980s, there was a paradigm shift, as the change was dignified, away from science. Objectivity was rejected in favor of subjectivity, impartiality replaced by advocacy, and knowledge was replaced by activism.

This great intellectual shift resulted from the convergence of three popular intellectual and social movements: Feminism championed advocacy, activism, and subjectivity. Marxism was framed as advocacy. And postmodernism deconstructed objectivity and left us with subjectivity and nihilism.

In consequence, universities shifted priorities from advancing knowledge to a political project that came to be called social justice, which characterized society as oppressors victimizing females and marginalized minorities. Universities took as their main objective the championing of alleged victim categories. Academic researchers no longer strive to discover the patterns of society and culture; rather, they begin with ideologically dictated truths, and seek only examples that affirm and illustrate those truths. Empirical findings that contradict ideological truths are suppressed.

Under the rationale of diversity, equity, and inclusion, preference is given to members of alleged victim categories in admission, funding, hiring, and special facilities and events, often segregated. Females, African Americans, Hispanics, Indigenous Natives (especially in Canada), LGBTQ++, the disabled, the poor, Muslims, and illegal aliens are favoured and celebrated, while males, whites, Christians and Jews, the abled, members of the middle class, and often East Asians are vilified and discriminated against.

Only social justice opinions are regarded as legitimate, and other views, critical views, are suppressed through selective avoidance in hiring and invitations, or silenced through de-platforming and characterization as alt-right, far right, fascist, KKK, and Nazi. The beloved diversity no longer applies to diversity of opinion, which is now rejected as a white male supremacy talking point. But universities do not leave policing to student and staff ideological vigilantes. They hired, at great cost, multitudes of political commissars called diversity, equity, and inclusion officers at every organizational level to police thought and expression. Social justice and anti-bias courses are set up, sometimes required for all staff, to re-educate those not sufficiently woke, and those who had strayed into unacceptable thought or language.

As someone who holds classical liberal values, I favor an even playing field, providing as much as possible equal opportunity to succeed. No one should be blocked because of gender, race, origin, ethnicity, etc. People of my ethnicity were blocked in the past by Harvard, McGill, and other elite universities. But, if in the past, the playing field was tilted in favor of the majority and against minorities, now it is tilted in favor of minorities and against members of the majority or unpopular minorities. This is not social justice and inclusion; it is intentional exclusion and injustice to members of unfavored categories.

Guidepost values for universities in the past, such as merit and excellence, have been rejected as white supremacism, and replaced by gender and racial diversity. This is a serious abdication of academic and pedagogical responsibility, and a path to mediocrity and partisan particularism. Universalistic values have been rejected by universities, in favor of partisan woke ideology. In a competitive and dangerous world, this ideological corruption is leading to the decline of the West. Universities will not mourn, for they now advocate the doctrine that the West is evil, and the rest are virtuous. The decadence of Western universities is saddening, but, more important, it is a dangerous mistake.

Chapter One: What Your Sons and Daughters Will Learn at University

Universities in the 20th century were dedicated to the advancement of knowledge. Scholarship and research were pursued, and diverse opinions were exchanged and argued in the marketplace of ideas.

This is no longer the case. Particularly in the social sciences, humanities, education, social work, and law, a single political ideology has replaced scholarship and research, because the ideology presents fixed answers to all questions. And, although the most important thing in universities today is the diversity of race, gender, sexual practice, ethnicity, economic class, and physical and mental capability, there is no longer diversity of opinion. Only those committed to the ideology are admitted to academic staff or administration.

Universities have been transformed by the near-universal adoption of three interrelated theories: postmodernism, postcolonialism, and social justice. These theories and their implications will be explored here.

There Is No Truth; Nothing Is Good or Bad

Postmodernism: In the past, academics were trained to seek truth. Today, academics deny that there is such a thing as objective Truth. Instead, they argue that no one can be objective, that everyone is inevitably subjective, and consequently everyone has their own truth. The correct point of view, they urge, is relativism. This means not only that truth is relative to the subjectivity of each individual, but also that ethics and morality are relative to the individual and the culture, so there is no such thing as Good and Evil, or even Right and Wrong. So too with the ways of knowing; your children will learn that there is no objective basis for preferring chemistry over alchemy, astronomy over astrology, or medical doctors over witch doctors. They will learn that facts do not exist; only interpretations do.

All Cultures Are Equally Good; Diversity Is Our Strength

Our social understanding has also been transformed by postmodern relativism. Because moral and ethical principles are deemed to be no more than the collective subjectivity of our culture, it is now regarded as inappropriate to judge the principles and actions of other cultures. This doctrine is called "cultural relativism." For example, while racism is held to be the highest sin in the West, and slavery the greatest of our historical sins, your children will learn that we are not allowed to criticize contemporary racism and slavery in Africa, the Middle East, and the equivalents in South Asia.

The political manifestation of cultural relativism is multiculturalism, an incoherent concept that projects the integration of multiple incompatible cultures. Diversity is lauded as a virtue in itself.  Imagine a country with fifty different languages, each derived from a different culture. That would not be a society, but a tower of babble. How would it work if there were multiple codes of law requiring and forbidding contrary behaviors: driving on the left and driving on the right; monogamy and polygamy; male dominance and gender equality; arranged marriage and individual choice? Your children will learn that our culture is nothing special and that other cultures are awesome.

The West Is Evil; The Rest Are Virtuous

Postcolonialism, the dominant theory in the social sciences today, is inspired by the Marxist-Leninist theory of imperialism, in which the conflict between the capitalist and proletariat classes is allegedly exported to the exploitation of colonized countries. By this means, the theory goes, oppression and poverty take place in colonies instead of in relation to the metropolitan working class. Postcolonialism posits that all of the problems in societies around the world today are the result of the relatively short Western imperial dominance and colonization. For example, British imperialism is blamed for what are in fact indigenous cultures, such as the South Asian caste system and the African tribal system. So too, problems of backwardness and corruption in countries that once were colonies continue to be blamed on past Western imperialism. The West is thus the continuing focus on anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist sentiment. Your children will learn that our society is evil, and the cause of all the evil in the wider world.

Only the West Was Imperialist and Colonialist

This ahistorical approach of postcolonialism ignores the hundreds of empires and their colonies throughout history, as well as ignoring contemporary empires, such as the Arab Muslim Empire that conquered all of the central Middle East, North Africa, southern Europe, Persia, Central Asia, and northern India, and occupied them minimally for hundreds of years, but 1400 years in the central Middle East and North Africa, and occupy them today. China, once the Communists took power, invaded Inner Mongolia to the north, Chinese Turkestan to the west, and Tibet to the south. Once in control, the government flooded these colonies with Han Chinese, in effect ethnically cleansing them. Postcolonialists have nothing to say about any of this; they wish to condemn exclusively the West. Your children will learn to reject history and comparisons with other societies, lest the claimed unique sins of the West be challenged.

Western Imperialism Was a Racist Project

Postcolonialists like to stress the racial dimension of Western imperialism: as an illustration of racism. But postmodernists are not interested in Arab slave raiding in black Africa, or Ottoman slaving among the whites in the Balkans, or the North Africans slave raiding of whites in Europe, from Ireland through Italy and beyond. Your children will learn that only whites are racist.

Israeli Colonialists Are White Supremacists

A remarkable example of this line of thinking is the characterization of Israel as a settler colonialist, white supremacist, apartheid society Allegedly white Israelis are oppressing Palestinian people of color. The (non-postmodern) facts make this a difficult argument to sustain. As is well established by all evidence, Jewish tribes and kingdoms occupied Judea and Samaria for a thousand years before the Romans invaded and fought war after imperial war against the indigenous Jews, and then enslaved or exiled most of them, renaming the land Palestine. Then, five centuries later, the Arabs from Arabia invaded and conquered Palestine, going on to conquer half of the world. The Jews returned to Palestine after 1400 years; most were refugees or stateless, so not colonists from a metropolis. Almost half of Israelis are Jewish Arabs thrown out of Arab countries, not to mention the Ethiopian and Indian Jews. Furthermore, Arab Muslims and Christians make up 21% of Israeli citizens. So to characterize multicolored Israelis as whites oppressing "Palestinian people of color’ is an imaginary distinction.

Canadian? You Have No Right to Stolen Native Land

If indigenous Jews are deemed to have no claim to their ancient homeland, then Euro-Canadians, Asian Canadians, African Canadians, and Latin Canadians are colonialist settlers without even an excuse. You have stolen Native land. The only moral course, according to postcolonialism, is to give everything back. At the very least, in order for decolonization