Prof. Bret Weinstein: ‘What I have seen functions…like a cult’

Hotair.com ^ | 6-14-18 | John Sexton

[DeweyCA]

Last month, Professor Bret Weinstein gave testimony before Congress on his experience at Evergreen State College and what he believes it means for our future as a nation. Weinstein posted video of his testimony on YouTube last week (see below). Here’s a bit of what he said:

Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of the day that 50 Evergreen students–students that I had never met–disrupted my class, accusing me of racism and demanding my resignation. I tried to reason with them. I felt no fear because I knew that, whatever my failings might be, bigotry was not among them…

The protestors had no apparent interest in the very dialog they seemed to invite. I was even more surprised by the protestor’s fervor in shouting down my actual students–some of whom had known me for years. The cruelty and derision reserved for students of color who spoke in my defense was particularly chilling. If not discussion, what did they want? I was one of Evergreen’s most popular professors. I had Evergreen’s version of tenure. Did they really think they could force my resignation based on a meritless accusation?

They did think that. And they were right….

What is occurring on college campuses is about power and control–speech is impeded as a last resort, used when people fail to self-censor in response to a threat of crippling stigma and the destruction of their capacity to earn.

These tools are being used to unhook the values that bind us together as a nation–equal protection under the law, the presumption of innocence, a free marketplace of ideas, the concept that people should be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. Yes, even that core tenet of the civil rights movement is being dismantled.

Am I alleging a conspiracy? No. What I have seen functions much more like a cult in which the purpose is only understood by the leaders and the rest have been seduced into a carefully architechted fiction. Most of the people involved in this movement earnestly believe that they are acting nobly to end oppression. Only the leaders understand that the true goal is to turn the tables of oppression.

This idea that the reigning far-left dogma has similarities to a religion is something I’ve written about before. The comparisons are more than superficial. That’s not to say intersectionality is viewed as a religion by its adherents, but it often does seem to function as one, giving them purpose, a conversion experience, a sense of right and wrong, even the original sin of privilege.

In professor Weinstein’s prepared remarks he also offered a warning which is cut from the video below: “Weaponized ‘equity’ is a means to an unacceptable and dangerous end, and it is already spreading from college campuses to other institutions—it happened on college campuses first because colleges are soft targets.” He added, “The emergence of this mentality, and this style of argument, at the highest levels of the tech sector and the press should alarm us greatly. The courts will not be far behind.”

Obviously, that’s contrary to progressives who routinely mock the idea that bad behavior on a few, far left college campuses represents a significant threat to anyone. But if Weinstein is correct, what we’re seeing now is the first wave of a cult-like phenomenon which will continue to grow and spread unless it is successfully opposed. Here’s the edited together video of his testimony. His prepared remarks are about five minutes followed by ten minutes of questions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRIKJCKWla4

[DeweyCA]

Prof. Bret Weinstein has been a liberal progressive professor for many years. He has finally seen the results of his philosophy when he, himself, was harassed and condemned as being racist by students at his college.

These Leftist progressive atheist students need to have a god, a cause bigger than themselves, that they can heroically give themselves to, so that they can feel like their lives are significant. They think that THEY are the saviors of the world and that THEY should rule over all others so that they can bring about a utopian heaven-on-earth. The students have not thought through their beliefs and actions, but their thought leaders, who are radical Cultural Marxist professors, (or community organizers like Saul Alinsky or Barack Obama) know exactly what they are doing. These college students are merely self-righteous "dupes" (Lenin's term), in the struggle to bring elitist totalitarianism to America.

The article also has some good links to previous articles where the author talked about how progressivism functions as a religion for many people.

[robroys woman]

Brown Shirts.

[I want the USA back]

The country as a whole is not a repressive fascist dictatorship. However, colleges are. They put into practice what the left wants for the whole country. They want to eliminate anyone who disagrees with the leftist agenda and take their money.

If you let leftists get into power, this is what you will have.

[redhead]

I see. And, nothing he saw in the years of the past administration could be seen as functioning as a cult? The mind reels...

[marktwain]

I was skeptical at first.

But this is a well done, articulate, and eye opening exposition of the truth.

[robroys woman]

Yeah. The fact that he’s still teaching there is interesting.

I’m from the Seattle area and have acquaintances in the Olympia area. We called them Greeners back in the 70’s.

I’ve never taken that school, or anyone from it, seriously.

[circlecity]

I guess it doesn’t become a fascist cult until you’re on the losing end. Trotsky found that out much to his dismay.

[Political Junkie Too]

Any good cult leader worth his salt would begin his indoctrination speech with "We are the ones we've been waiting for."

-PJ

[Candor7]

What I have seen functions…like a cult’>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

That’s no accident. Its planned.There is no higher clear and present danger to our country.

And YOU need to know HOW:

” Barrack Obama: The Quintessential Liberal fascist”

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html

[DeweyCA]

Weaponizing "equity" is their tactic. The Leftists' concept of "equity" which means equality of results (not "equality of opportunity") is what drives them. These social justice warriors think that they are the "righteous" ones, who fight for fairness and justice, and so they feel morally superior to the rest of us. They are cultist dupes who are participating in the march toward socialism and authoritarian governments like in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and so many other communist atheist countries. And they are being led/motivated by a few activist Leftist professors (and community organizers & union leaders) who want to rule over the rest of us.

[Rurudyne]

Brown Undies is more like it.

The Left has produced a generation of the perpetually and proudly **** stained.

[BfloGuy]

Yeah. The fact that he’s still teaching there is interesting.

He's not teaching there. He resigned (along with his wife, a biology professor) and received a settlement of $500,000.

[Ohioan]

You nail it. These are similar to the tactics that Ernst Roehm employed to destroy Academic Freedom in Germany.

Chanted name calling, of course, is one of the more primitive methods for Misdirection: Familiar Leftist Tactic, for diverting attention from actual causation for any problem, real or imagined.

[econjack]

I’ve never taken that school, or anyone from it, seriously.

That's exactly why it was selected: Lots of noise from "students" (I wonder...) who are non-thinking lemmings. If you don't believe this, just look at some of Jay Leno's "street interviews" with college students from some prestigious universities like Berkeley, USC, and UCLA. Most don't even know there are three branches of gov't. Yep, the Dept. of Education has dumbed things down to the point where, if you can fog a mirror, you can graduate.

[rightwingcrazy]

“the true goal is to turn the tables of oppression.”

In other words, oppression is a wonderful thing when they’re the ones doing it. Otherwise it’s the ultimate evil.

[Billthedrill]

The fact that he’s still teaching there is interesting.

He and his wife Heather Heying resigned, sued Evergreen and took a $500,000 settlement after receiving multiple death threats according to the Seattle Times. Given that the campus was patrolled by ball bat wielding hit squads, I don't think I'd have stuck around either.

[Steely Tom]

There's a guy on YouTube named Benjamin Boyd — himself an Evergreen grad — who has done (and is still pursuing) an extremely detailed investigation and analysis of the events that occurred at Evergreen in the spring of 2017, and the events that led up to it.

Long story short, the whole thing was touched off by two main factors:

1. A longstanding ideological and financial feud between the "hard science" faculty (of which Professor Weinstein was a part) and the more arts and social science oriented faculty and...

2. An adverse tenure committee decision involving a particular professor named Naima Lowe.

The hard-science/soft-science conflict is longstanding, and involves both ideology and personalities, as well as the struggle for financial and other resources within the Evergreen college budget process. The feckless and near-comical president of Evergreen, George Bridges, himself a "social scientist," strongly sided with the non-hard-science side of the conflict, and took a number of policy positions that were designed to marginalize the hard-science faculty; some of those decisions involved using students to do the dirty work, and the videos of the abusive students who confronted Professor Weinstein were just a small part of that.

The tenure matter was very incendiary. Naima Lowe is a real piece of work about which I hesitate to say more; there is a great deal of video available on YouTube and elsewhere that will tell you pretty much all you need to know about her/him.

[Sgt_Schultze]

I’m pretty sure as long as the agitators favored his position, they were tolerable. Once he became an unfavored target, his former team became the enemy.

[Political Junkie Too]

I posted this yesterday in a thread about why college students aren't learning. I'm reposting it here with a few modifications for relevance to this thread.

I recently watched a Jordan Peterson video of a lecture and Q&A with students at Lafayette College. I've seen much of his themes repeated over many videos, but this one seemed to nicely express a thought of what students are supposed to learn from liberal arts studies. As is typical with Peterson, he wanders around the subject with great detail until finally coming back to make his final point. It's no different with the clip I'm going to link at the bottom.

But first, let me summarize my take on it.

The student questioner asked Peterson about his thoughts on truth versus nihilism (the rejection of religion). Peterson often weaves riffs of Nietzsche, Jung, Freud, and Dostoevsky, and he does so here, too. He beings with Nietzsche's "God is dead" to start a journey that Christianity's "God is the highest truth" ultimately leads to its demise, meaning that one who finds truth (science and nature) ultimately rejects religious doctrine.

Peterson takes this rejection to the next step, which is Jung asking that if God is dead (meaning the morality of right and wrong), then what replaces it? Nietzsche says we're free to create our own new way; Jung says we should rediscover the values of the past. Peterson cites the ancient Egyptian story of Horus rescuing Osiris from the Underworld as a 6,000-year old example of a repeating theme throughtout humanity of people learning good versus evil through reviving the lessons of those who came before.

Peterson then concludes with this:

"That's what you're doing in University when you take a liberal arts course or degree. You're resurrecting your dead ancestors so they can live again in your form, but in conjoined union with you. You're the vision that gives the dead past its vitality and spirit. That's the purpose of being educated; that's your initiation. What you do when you're initiated properly in that regard is that you develop a comprehensive philosophy of good and evil, a deep philosophy of good and evil, and that protects you against the confrontations with malevolence."

It seems to me that students described here are following Nietzsche's model of making up a new value system for themselves. They are at college for a different purpose these days. They are not interested in learning the humanities of the past. They aren't interested in learning the value systems that protect them from being overwhelmed by life's injustices; they are the malevolence now.

Jordan Peterson Lecture and Q&A at Lafayette College - Truth vs. Nihilism question.

-PJ

[Steely Tom]

Given that the campus was patrolled by ball bat wielding hit squads

The baseball bat patrols were looking for Weinstein. He was their target.