The Treason of the Intellectuals

[mountaineer]

Niall Ferguson: The Treason of the Intellectuals
Anyone who has a naive belief in the power of higher education to instill morality has not studied the history of German universities in the Third Reich.
By Niall Ferguson
December 10, 2023

In 1927 the French philosopher Julien Benda published La trahison des clercs—“The Treason of the Intellectuals”—which condemned the descent of European intellectuals into extreme nationalism and racism. By that point, although Benito Mussolini had been in power in Italy for five years, Adolf Hitler was still six years away from power in Germany and 13 years away from victory over France. But already Benda could see the pernicious role that many European academics were playing in politics.

Those who were meant to pursue the life of the mind, he wrote, had ushered in “the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds.” And those hatreds were already moving from the realm of the ideas into the realm of violence—with results that would be catastrophic for all of Europe.

A century later, American academia has gone in the opposite political direction—leftward instead of rightward—but has ended up in much the same place. The question is whether we—unlike the Germans—can do something about it. ...

Today’s progressives engage in racism in the name of diversity. The nationalist academics of interwar Germany were at least overt about their desire for homogeneity and exclusion.   ...

The lesson of German history for American academia should by now be clear. In Germany, to use the legalistic language of 2023, “speech crossed into conduct.” The “final solution of the Jewish question” began as speech—to be precise, it began as lectures and monographs and scholarly articles. It began in the songs of student fraternities. With extraordinary speed after 1933, however, it crossed into conduct: first, systematic pseudo-legal discrimination and ultimately, a program of technocratic genocide.

The Holocaust remains an exceptional historical crime—distinct from other acts of organized lethal violence directed against other minorities—precisely because it was perpetrated by a highly sophisticated nation-state that had within its borders the world’s finest universities. That is why American universities cannot regard antisemitism as just another expression of “hate,” no different from, say, Islamophobia—a neologism that should not be mentioned in the same breath.  ...

https://www.thefp.com/p/niall-ferguson-treason-intellectuals-third-reich

[Bigun]

How to Really Fix American Higher Education

Our universities must return to their original purpose: to seek the truth and give youths the knowledge they need to flourish. Here are four ways to do that.

By Bari Weiss

December 11, 2023

On Saturday, less than a week after the most sordid congressional testimony in recent memory, University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill and chairman of the board of trustees Scott Bok resigned. Already, many are making the case that their resignations aren’t a moment of victory, but rather another sorry example of cancellation.

That’s the debate some editors at The Free Press are having right now in Slack.

Our own Peter Savodnik believes that Magill’s resignation is lamentable: “Her resignation is a blow to academic freedom. It amounts to little more than a cave—yet another prominent American institution succumbing to the angry mob.” For Jewish students, he argues, “it will make it worse by making an already illiberal academic environment even more illiberal.” (Read Peter’s essay here.)

I agree with Peter that being a good steward of the university’s brand and mission—and furthering that brand and mission through fundraising—is the main job of a university president. But Magill didn’t lose her job because she was canceled; she lost her job because she revealed in front of the country that she was not up to the task. She embarrassed Penn. And in the process of that hearing she exposed the grotesque hypocrisy not just at her university, but inside modern American higher education...

Excerpt: More at headline link

[mountaineer]

Harvard should contact Charmin to provide the paper on which the university prints all future diplomas, so they'd at least have some value.

[Bigun]

Harvard should contact Charmin to provide the paper on which the university prints all future diplomas, so they'd at least have some value.

  

[DefiantMassRINO]

Intellectualls like to form closed, cloistered echo chambers that have the same effect on intellect as inbreeding has on genetics.

[Bigun]

Intellectualls like to form closed, cloistered echo chambers that have the same effect on intellect as inbreeding has on genetics.

If anyone is interested to experience what true culture shock is they should work in the private sector fo about twenty years and then go to work for a major state university.

[unite for individuality]

How to Really Fix American Higher Education

Excerpt: More at headline link

There's no link attached to the headline.

[Bigun]

There's no link attached to the headline.

Fixed! (I think) @unite for individuality

[mountaineer]

Intellectualls like to form closed, cloistered echo chambers that have the same effect on intellect as inbreeding has on genetics.

Good analogy.

[mountaineer]

Ted Cruz
@tedcruz
Powerful: “We found that…these wealthy universities collected $45 Bn in taxpayer subsidies, special tax treatment, and federal payments…these schools are more federal contractors than educators—with fed payments exceeding undergraduate student tuition.”

It’s Time for Congress to Open Harvard’s Books
The U.S. tax code and federal contracts swell the coffers of wealthy Ivy League universities that teach hatred is OK. Taxpayers should cut them off.
by Adam Andrzejewski
December 10, 2023

In their congressional testimony last week, the presidents of Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Pennsylvania refused to denounce terrorism or explain whether calls for the genocide of Jews represent harassment or bullying on their campuses. Parents who watched this spectacle are wondering where the $80,000 a year they pay in tuition is going, and whether the “education” their children are receiving is worth the price tag. American taxpayers who can hardly afford an Ivy League education but are equally disturbed by the moral rot they’re seeing might be even more alarmed to discover that they are personally underwriting it.

While parents should be free to pay for any form of education they want, the fact is American taxpayers contribute more to Harvard than the parents of Harvard students do. Prohibitively expensive universities that turn out students who believe that open antisemitism and championing terrorism are forms of “social justice” do so on the taxpayer’s dime. That’s because they all enjoy tax-exempt status as “educational” public charities. But are these institutions in fact serving the public interest? And how much are the lessons that students are learning at these wealthy “public charities” costing the American taxpayer?

The auditors at OpenTheBooks.com, a nonprofit government-spending watchdog which I direct, examined 10 universities—the Ivy League, plus Stanford and Northwestern. We found that during a five-year period from 2018-22 these wealthy universities collected $45 billion in taxpayer subsidies, special tax treatment, and federal payments. In fact, these universities collected a stunning $33 billion in federal contracts and grants. It therefore seems these schools are more federal contractors than educators—with federal payments exceeding undergraduate student tuition.

Additionally, the universities we surveyed profit handsomely from “nonprofit” tax breaks amounting to a benefit of roughly $12 billion. Wealthy universities pay only a 1.4% “excessive endowments” tax on their gains whereas wealthy individuals pay up to 23.4% on their capital gains. ...

Read more at Tablet Magazine

[bigheadfred]

Ted Cruz
@tedcruz
Powerful: “We found that…these wealthy universities collected $45 Bn in taxpayer subsidies, special tax treatment, and federal payments…these schools are more federal contractors than educators—with fed payments exceeding undergraduate student tuition.”Read more at Tablet Magazine

Maybe that $45 B needs to be rechanneled  into an "American Academy" or something.