'Academic Shock'

Academic Shock

August 26th, 2015

Preamble: The purpose of this blog is to discuss the primary focus of academia today. If you think traditional disciplines, e.g., math, science, and history are being taught ... better have another think.

Recently there has been a dramatic transformation in the emphasis on and focus of education throughout academia in America. Curriculua have been dominated by mandatory sensitivity/diversity training, defined by academicians as 'learning how to exercise civility towards 'historically disadvantaged groups' of students identified by gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Cutting to the chase using the knife of reality, these courses are specifically designed to disparage Whites by teaching that the successes and achievements of their race were built on the backs of poor disadvantaged minorities.

This is classic Marxism[1] disguised as political correctness propagated by progressives and multiculturalists, but Marxism nonetheless. It is the same repulsive rhetoric Obama arrogantly spewed when he had the temerity to advise business owners that they were not the ones who built their businesses. His debasing insinuation being that their success was solely attributable to minorities.

The boorish, radical black activist, ex-community organizer, and Saul Alinsky acolyte certainly should know about building a successful business. After all, his vast experience was based on causing systemic disruption in America by inciting racial tensions and chaos, and teaching Chicago's black ghetto thugs how to shake down White owned businesses.

Sensitivity Training Begins Early: This blog will focus on upper level educational institutions, but be assured that the same type of 'politically correct' sensitivity training begins in elementary school. Students entering college have already been spoon fed and well indoctrinated in sensitivity training by ultra liberal politically correct Marxist instructors, or as they prefer to be called, progressives.

Academia's Sacred Cows: The professed purpose of sensitivity training is to foster respect, empathy, and inclusion for people in the aforementioned 'historically disadvantaged groups' in Whites. The result, however, has been to thwart freedom of speech by anyone outside of the so called disadvantaged groups throughout academia where freedom of expression has generally been thought to deserve more liberty and tolerance than in the outside world. Such groups are academia's sacred cows protected at all costs under the broad umbrella of political correctness to the exclusion of all others who have not bought into this utter stupidity.

White Guilt: As outrageous as it may seem sensitivity training takes precedence over traditional disciplines expected to be taught at higher levels of education. Specifically, it operates to indoctrinate individuals into ultra liberal Marxist ideology instead of teaching traditionally useful subjects, e.g., math, science, and history.

The major focus of sensitivity training is to lay racism and blame for the perceived ills of 'historically disadvantaged' groups at the feet of White Western Europeans and their descendants, particularly White males. The intended purpose of this is for all White students to acknowledge inherent guilt and privilege then undertake a thorough catharsis provided through a group study course conducted by ultra liberal progressives tossing insults at them.

The Roots Of Sensitivity Training: In order to better understand the reason for this transformation in academia it is important to have a brief understanding of its history, the underlying ideology, and the pervasiveness of Marxism, euphemistically called progressivism and multiculturalism today as discussed in this blog. These euphemisms will be collectively referred to as progressive(s).

The goal of modern day Marxism's founding fathers, circa 1921, was to annihilate the culture of western civilization and supplant it with Marxist ideology through an indefensible cultural revolution. They believed that human society was divided into two basic groups: the privileged oppressor and the marginalized oppressed that included the economically deprived, women, racial minorities and homosexuals. The critical component in achieving their goal was to cause a power shift from the privileged to the marginalized group.

Transformation Of Consciousness: Founding Marxists posited that the marginalized groups could achieve this power shift by converting their internalized oppression into a transformation of consciousness. This would enable them to reject conventional assumptions and values held by the privileged group, which in turn would ultimately catalyze the desired transfer of power to their groups.

This scenario of transforming one's consciousness is the very core of sensitivity training in academia today. Accordingly, it is stressed and administered in terms of and under the guise of progressivism using inclusion, diversity, and tolerance as a foundation.

In his book, "Thought Reform 101", University of Pennsylvania professor and noted prolific author Alan Charles Kors writes the following:

"Diversity grants from foundations to academia are specifically used to build some form of moral and political re-education into freshman orientation. Central to these orientation programs is to uproot internalized oppression, which is a critical concept in diversity education at most universities".

Kors serves on the board of directors of FIRE: The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and is a leading advocate for freedom of speech in academia. He describes his experience at an academic conference sponsored by the University of Nebraska where the attendees articulated the view that "White students desperately need formal 'training' in racial and cultural awareness. The moral goal of such training should override white notions of privacy and individualism."

This is the very essence of Marxism's group based morality that states: "That which is moral is what best serves the interests of oppressed or marginalized ethnic, racial, and gender groups". Or more to the point, the means justify the end, their applicability and veracity notwithstanding.

Another example is Harvard's Kennedy School of Government that mandates all incoming students take White Privilege: a course espousing rhetoric that blames the achievements of Whites on using minorities as stepping-stones.

The list of institutions mandating courses to transform student's awareness of consciousness through sensitivity training goes on ad infinitum. Suffice to say that this is the heart of academia in America today and its ramifications have significantly affected America's dramatically changing culture.

Psychotherapy: Abraham Maslow, a member of the founding Marxists was in large part responsible for developing the psycho-therapeutic techniques used in modern day sensitivity training. The purpose of these techniques is to change an individual's worldview and convince each one that they are the sole authority in their own lives.

This is accomplished through participation in small group encounter sessions of self-examination where each student thoroughly discusses her, his, or 'its' subjective feelings and becomes aware of their consciousness. The intended results are professed to be liberation, sensitivity, inclusion and tolerance. In reality, however, the only purpose is to empower and provide preferential treatment to the 'historically disadvantaged' groups, hence another subtle step towards transferring power to them.

Intolerance In Academia: It is abundantly clear that the so-called subordinate 'historically disadvantaged' groups and their extreme left wing advocates collectively represent the overwhelming majority in American academia. They strongly discourage and rarely tolerate reasoned and informed dissent. Anyone disagreeing with them on issues regarding race, gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation is publicly and relentlessly vilified as being a prejudiced racist, fascist, sexist, or simply mentally ill.

Forced Uniformity: This tactic of relentless vilification is classic Marxist political correctness and consistently used today by progressives to impose uniformity in thought, speech, and behavior. It revolves around historically disadvantaged 'victims groups' and strongly suggests that in order to avoid vilification one must be nonjudgmental and fully embrace their moral absolutes: diversity, choice, sensitivity, sexual orientation, and tolerance. In other words, agree, shut up, or face the consequences.

Code Police: To ensure uniformity and compliance with their extreme left wing views speech harassment codes have been adopted and implemented on campuses. Enforcement is effected through self appointed code police who report perceived and real violations to a designated academic department where action is taken as deemed appropriate. That department metes out punishment in accordance with their subjective interpretation of the school's diversity/sensitivity code relative to the alleged violation. ... today's version of medieval Star Chamber justice. Sensitivity training is always included in the punishment and the great majority of 'offenders' are White males.

Restricting Free Speech: Academia superficially extols the fundamental virtues of free speech and academic freedom in promoting the intellectual development of all members of their community. Inherent therein is the freedom to express the most bizarre and offensive ideas without fearing some sort of retribution, being ostracized or demonization.

Paradoxically, however, certain categories of academia's sensitivity codes deemed to be offensive speech, behavior, looks, and even thoughts are banned. The reasoning: they can create a hostile environment that deprives 'historically disadvantaged' student groups from being able to participate in university life. Ergo, the hypocrisy of restricting one group's freedom to ensure that of another, albeit in blatant violation of the First Amendment, is perfectly acceptable conduct in academia because it is politically correct.

Eroding Traditions: The breadth of defining speech and harassment codes is consistently becoming wider and more punitive in nature. Long standing names of lecture halls and teams, mascots, banners, logos, Tee shirts, statues, food types, traditional expressions and mannerisms are all being viciously attacked and often removed because they are considered as being offensive to a 'historically disadvantaged group' and politically incorrect. In a great majority of institutions requiring a prospective student to 'check' the appropriate box disclosing their ethnicity, sex, and any other personal information is strictly verboten because it is politically incorrect.

The Core Of Diversity Education: The underlying purpose of diversity education in academia is to delegitimize traditional education, American culture, and history. These disciplines are then supplanted with teachings of pseudo-study groups based on race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. The result is crystal clear: the founding Marxists' goal of transferring power from the dominant to subordinate group in order to facilitate freeing themselves from the yoke of oppression has been achieved with resounding success. Today's 'historically disadvantaged' groups are indeed the protected darlings of academia and take full advantage of their lofty standing. This preferential treatment and sense of superiority continues into normal societal life where political correctness dominates as you clearly see in every aspect of America today.

Unfortunately the days of meaningful traditional education are gone.

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[1] Marxism used herein is cultural Marxism, founded circa 1921 in Frankfurt Germany, which replaced traditional economic Marxism. However, the goal of destroying Western Civilization and replacing it with Marxist ideology remained the same.

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