alt Hacker NewsThe core fiction that enables the university to work is a dedication to 'truth' and progress through discussion. Safety and freedom is part of that bargain. Universities have failed on those accounts.
That breaks down when there isn't open discussion on campus. Communists were jeered but essentially allowed on campus in the 60s and 70s, even at the height of the cold war.
The left now holds a place of orthodoxy in the universities and power structures. Whether the 'right' can break it back into an enforced balance is yet to be seen.
Until then, the central tie of an otherwise diverse institution will break down and break into fragments. Which would be a shame. The opposition needs to "live" somewhere!
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There isn't really a valid reason to be a right wing authoritarian white supremacist except to extract wealth from working class people. The opposition can actually go shrivel up.
What even is a valid right wing take? Can't think of one in good faith.
> The core fiction that enables the university to work is a dedication to 'truth' and progress through discussion. . . . That breaks down when there isn't open discussion on campus.
Umberto Eco, “Ur-Fascism”: “Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Goering’s alleged statement (“When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun”) to the frequent use of such expressions as “degenerate intellectuals,” “eggheads,” “effete snobs,” “universities are a nest of reds.””
> The left now holds a place of orthodoxy in the universities and power structures.
Eco: “Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged.”
> Whether the 'right' can break it back into an enforced balance is yet to be seen. . . . The opposition needs to “live” somewhere!
Eco: “However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”