America's iconic Marxist historian

WND ^ | 05/22/11 | Ellis Washington

[EllisWashingtonReport]

I join [the Communist Party USA] without enthusiasm, but with a sense of obligation. ... My fundamental reason for joining is that I don't like capitalism and want to get rid of it. ~ Richard Hofstadter (circa 1938)

Like the proverbial frog in a cauldron of water, the distinction separating a warm bath and frog soup is only a difference of a few degrees. Likewise, people are dumbstruck with how America's academy (i.e., colleges, universities, law schools and, to a degree, public schools) has gradually devolved since the 1860s from vaunted institutions of higher learning to breeding grounds for Marxist socialist groupthink and vast shantytowns of Social Darwinism, postmodernism, education atheism and anti-intellectual propaganda.

Today's offering will critically examine the work of an iconic figure of the academy.

As an historian, I became introduced to the works of Richard Hofstadter (1916-70) rather late in my academic studies.

[Erasmus]

Marxist Historian.

Two words which amuse, when in each other’s company.

[redpoll]

As someone who has been an academic for the past 15 years, this is an easy one to answer.

The academy is socialism writ small. We have committees that have committees deciding everything, from the size of paper clips to the curriculum of the schools. Expertise is everything. There are plans for this and plans for that, and meetings about changing the plans, and plans about meetings to propose new plans to supercede the old plans. We have a guaranteed job for life, and it is almost impossible get rid of us, even if there are obvious signs of incompetence. We have guaranteed pay that only goes upward to reflect greater expertise, which is measured in college credits and degrees, meaning that other academics are conferring expertise on their fellows. Like other socialist enterprises, politics mediates all interactions, so people tend to take the easy route and spout the expected slogans and phrases needed to gain advancement from those academics conferring the credits and degrees.

It is amazing anything works at all, but, then again, the Soviets managed to produce just enough food to hold off starvation, most of the time. We manage to produce some educated people anyway. Who wouldda thunk it?

God willing I will see vouchers and the destruction of the Union Supposedly Representing Me, but I don’t think so.

In the meantime, think of me operating as the anti-Gramscii, making the long march through THEIR institutions. LOL