In Contemporary Academia, Resentment Towards Western Culture Is Bred
Western institutions of higher education have become incubators of Cultural Marxism, re-education centers for anti-Western indoctrination, and an oppressive regime of censorship.
Universities are the Petri dish of culture. They are where the men and women of the future are moulded, where a new generation of talent is refined. That is why, out of all the issues facing the West today, academia’s flirtation with Cultural Marxism and its embrace of the authoritarian tendencies that accompany it are so endangering. And its effects are already reverberating through society.
Take a street interview that has recently gone viral on social media, for example. A young, white British man interviewed by an African community interests group was asked, “What is British history?”, to which he replied, “Looting and stealing. That’s all it is…we went over there and just stole stuff. That’s all our history is.”
British history spans nearly 1,000 years, and over that time, great feats in literature, science, sports and art were achieved. I doubt I need to go over how influential the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Shakespeare, Austen, Football, and Rugby have been in shaping world history, let alone Western history. Yes, the empire existed. Yes, there was plundering and looting. But to equate an entire millennia of a culture to one historical period is insulting. Not only is his remark an ahistorical observation but it also provides an insight into how widespread and rampant this indoctrination is, a microcosm of a greater issue.
While universities have always attracted left-wing populists, the extent of the malaise is more extreme than it has ever been in history. Anti-western ideology is prevalent in our universities, our high schools, our colleges, and in academia itself, indoctrinating a new generation into its cult, forcing them to become self-flagellating masochists willing to turn on their families and communities. It is a parasite we must upend, root and stem, lest it kills us all.
Speaking as a third-year Law student, I have witnessed this perversion first-hand. Every group on campus involves some form of left-wing activity, be it talks to tackle so-called ‘systematic racial discrimination’, to campaigns to defend and house refugees in the local community. Left-wing political groups drastically outnumber right-wing ones by a five-to-one margin, and most professors are sympathetic, if not outright dedicated, to these ideological persuasions.
The ‘decolonisation’ of reading lists, the imposition of ideological litmus tests such as “diversity statements” when applying for jobs or grants, decisions regarding who speaks and works on campus and who does not, and the transformation of universities more generally into hyper-political organisations - all point to how authoritatian the university campus is becoming, particularly to suit the interests of the progressive Left.
One only has to look at how many speakers have seen their presentations cancelled over so-called ‘hate speech’ to understand how intolerant and hostile the university campus has become to any deviating thought. Eminent figures such as Kathleen Stock, a renowned philosopher and writer; Rod Liddle, a journalist for the Spectator; Gregory Clark, a professor at the London School of Economies; Ken Loach, a director whose films explore growing income inequality; and many others, have all been banned, censored or otherwise threatened for their views. Universities, once considered the venue of debates, where thoughts and ideas were embraced or challenged, have now become insular echo chambers, where group-think must be regurgitated in order not to be ostracised.
And research suggests that the crisis is only worsening. A recent study conducted by the Higher Education Policy Institute confirms we are facing a deep cultural problem that is becoming more pronounced with each generation. Crucially, unlike studies in the past, the Institute tracked the attitudes of a representative sample of university students over the past six years, between 2016, the tumultuous year of the Brexit referendum, and today. The findings are devastating.
They point to a new generation of university students who are increasingly supportive of removing from campus words, books, ideas, speakers, and events they find uncomfortable or offensive. This generation has been raised to prioritise their “emotional safety” above all else, and are more willing to impose restrictions on others, to curtail views they disagree with, most of which predominantly falls on the right side of the political spectrum.
Student support for refusing to sell tabloid newspapers on campus, on the grounds of sexism, has rocketed 24 points, to 62%. Support for banning speakers who offend students has more than doubled, to 39%. Support for firing academics if they “teach material that heavily offends some students” has also more than doubled, to 36%. And support for removing memorials of potentially controversial historical figures has rocketed 25-points, to 76%.
Culture only exists as long as the people protect it. If the new generation continues on this destructive path, how long will it take until our statues, our monuments, and even our museums are pulled down and desecrated? It is a worrying thought but a very visceral one.
At fault is the divergence universities have taken from their founding mission to search for truth through free enquiry. Increasingly, over the last two decades, these generational and ideological factors have collided with a new ethos in universities that prioritises “student satisfaction” as the main, if not only, metric that really counts.
Conservatives are as much to blame as the Left. By focusing relentlessly on the marketisation of universities, by talking about students as consumers, they have created a climate in which the demands of students, not academics, increasingly shape the intellectual culture.
Another, less discussed, factor is perhaps the overwhelming dominance women hold on university campuses. According to the latest government statistics, 60% of British university students were females. While fearsome, combative women are still around (see Kathleen Stock, J.K. Rowling), most of those on campus appear to be fragile and easily receptive to emotional trauma, forcing the university’s facilities to bend themselves to accommodate their ‘safe space’. This may seem like a generalisation, but unlike men, women are largely averse to public confrontation and thus abstain from the culture of insult that stems from debating new and different ideas. Since women are largely more empathetic than their male counterparts, they are more amenable to the highly, emotionally charged call-to-arms offered by left-wing political ideology, being persuaded by left-wing stances on gender liberation and decolonisation.
My own sense is we’ve expanded the university sector too far and raised expectations too high. Most of these students, especially in the humanities, lack the skills to find a well-paid job after graduation, unless it’s in the grievance industry or its surrogate, HR. Many young people would be better served with an apprenticeship leading to a commercially useful skill, or a degree that actually leads to some form of critical thinking instead of regurtiating dogma.
In order to remedy this growing crisis, a significant cultural reset of our universities is necessary. Those that censor or intimidate lecturers should face consequences, both financial and legal. The government also needs to desperately roll out a new statute outlining the responsibilities of universities in protecting and defending academic freedom and hold them to this standard. It might also be wise to diversify the academic talent by encouraging more students to pick up apprenticeships or online university courses, rather than marketing the university experience as the only post-A-Levels career path. But, more broadly, we, as a society, need to stop being cowered by this culture of censorship and challenge this perversive sub-culture head-on.