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Why Are Academics -- and Others -- So Nasty?
American Thinker ^ | 18 Aug, 2025 | Christopher Chantrill

Posted on 08/18/2025 5:07:51 AM PDT by MtnClimber

We all know that our universities are the very last place to go if you want a free and open discussion of ideas. Only approved progressive ideas are permitted, and don’t you forget it.

Nothing new really. I’m reading 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus at the gym, and author Charles C. Mann is describing wars to the death fought by academics over the decades about various migration theories in the Americas and the all-important question of when modern humans first arrived here. There’s the Clovis theory:

The "Clovis First" theory posited that the Clovis people, identified by their distinctive stone tools found near Clovis, New Mexico, were the first humans to colonize the Americas, arriving around 13,500 years ago via the Bering Land Bridge.

The academicians were arguing over whether the Americas were populated by humans before the last Ice Age when the sea level dropped enough for humans to be able to walk across the Bering Strait.

Divided the academics may be, but they are united in sneering at the efforts of amateurs grubbing around in the dirt on their farms and backyards without the trifecta of formal qualifications, government grants, and approved methods of analysis.

It’s odd how humans fight to the death over ideas. I get the necessity of fighting to the death on the border against those who would dispossess and despoil us and rape our women. But why do religions all seem to agree upon the necessity of eliminating heretics? Is heresy a life-or-death issue? That goes in spades for our modern secular religions like communism. And why do all political regimes wage war on the opposition? Why do academics insist that all the professors in the university department hew to the same ideology of logic and reason

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: academia; academics; books; education; leftism
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To: tired&retired

Thank you for posting that. It was necessary.


41 posted on 08/18/2025 7:11:14 AM PDT by GingisK
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To: MtnClimber

Insecurity.

Academia exists as a resting place for those who have served the cause. Prominent politicians end up teaching at U’s when they are put to pasture.

Few there have any talent, and the entire system of research is now being investigated. Seems if someone gives you a research grant, that someone is looking for ‘science’ to justify the conclusion being funded.


42 posted on 08/18/2025 7:12:31 AM PDT by RinaseaofDs (Imagine what we'll know tomorrow.)
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To: Red6

Your comments are very accurate.


43 posted on 08/18/2025 7:17:06 AM PDT by tired&retired (Blessings )
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To: GingisK

Ain’t sure bout nutin these days... just my observations dealing with academics at a technical college for a couple of decades.


44 posted on 08/18/2025 7:19:12 AM PDT by LastDayz (A Blunt and Brazen Texan. I Will Not Be Assimilated.)
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To: LastDayz
Ain’t sure bout nutin these days...

That is the hallmark of wisdom.

45 posted on 08/18/2025 7:21:50 AM PDT by GingisK
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To: GingisK

“Ain’t sure bout nutin these days...”
“That is the hallmark of wisdom.”

So true. Very wise words.

We also learn, “that which we attach ourselves to and try to control, actually controls us.” This is true of all attachments, except to God. That attachment is very freeing.


46 posted on 08/18/2025 7:29:18 AM PDT by tired&retired (Blessings )
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To: tired&retired

“I observe this same behavior in so called Bible Thumpers or Biblical Academic Scholars, especially here on FR.”

I think the difference is the amount of sway they can exert. Secular academics exert power over a huge swath of government, business, and culture. The bible thumpers are more focused on minute details surrounding why they are going to heaven and you are not. Most people just ignore them.


47 posted on 08/18/2025 7:35:07 AM PDT by beef (The pendulum will not swing back. It will snap back. Hard.)
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To: tired&retired

It has to do with people owning their knowledge as a possession and forming an ego identity around their possession of the knowledge.


Folks,

Read Retired’s post. Read it again, read it a 3rd time and let your lips move.

Religion is about knowledge. God wants a RELATIONSHIP with you. God doesn’t want your obedience, he want your hearts.

Conservatism is a way of thinking it is not a particular position.

https://kirkcenter.org/conservatism/ten-conservative-principles/


48 posted on 08/18/2025 7:44:09 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued, but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere)
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To: beef

It is the anger that I find interesting.

If we had a discussion on whether Unicorns exist presumably (hopefully) there would be no name calling and attempted intimidation.

The reason would be that everyone is very comfortable in their view—so would not be upset by someone challenging it.

The nastiness is a clue that the nasty person has their own subconscious doubts about their view.

Getting back to academia—the professors are terrified that there are people out there who are smarter than they are and can debunk them.

If they shut off discussion it saves their ego—for one more day.


49 posted on 08/18/2025 7:50:43 AM PDT by cgbg (It was not us. It was them--all along.)
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To: Dr. Franklin
"Each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand mediocre minds appointed to guard the past"
attributed to Maurice Maeterlinck.

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition to mediocre minds"
Einstein

GMTA

50 posted on 08/18/2025 8:13:50 AM PDT by spankalib
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To: MtnClimber

They’re nasty because they are insulated from the fruit of their ideas.


51 posted on 08/18/2025 8:14:34 AM PDT by spankalib
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To: tired&retired

Thank you. On first reading I believe I understand or at least have a feel for much of what you wrote. By “have a feel for” I mean an intuitive understanding without the words to express it at the moment.


52 posted on 08/18/2025 8:26:34 AM PDT by KrisKrinkle (c)
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To: MtnClimber

Why are elites so nasty? Because YOU are a peasant and forget your place.

This is why yah need to remember the vulnerability of the nose.


53 posted on 08/18/2025 9:10:14 AM PDT by bobbo666
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To: MtnClimber
Henry Kissinger used to say that academic battles were so vicious because so little was at stake. Or maybe that was just attributed to him.

Professors are often little people who pride themselves on one thing. Challenge them on that one thing and they can turn ferocious.

Also, everybody has a history. If your mentor gave somebody a hard time years ago, that person will take it out on you.

54 posted on 08/18/2025 9:18:10 AM PDT by x
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To: cgbg

“It is the anger that I find interesting.”

What gets me is their love of profanity, especially the F-word. My high school physics teacher had it nailed : “Profanity is the means by which a weak mind expresses itself forcefully.”


55 posted on 08/18/2025 2:38:04 PM PDT by beef (The pendulum will not swing back. It will snap back. Hard.)
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To: MtnClimber

Bkmk


56 posted on 08/19/2025 8:30:17 AM PDT by sauropod
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To: MtnClimber

It’s the personality of leftism

Usually unhappy from childhood
Arrogance borne of the self fulfilling notion they are morally superior to all of humanity before them
Ends justifies means as well

Just less happy people who fault external forces beyond their control for their misery rather than themselves

It’s feminine in a way


57 posted on 08/19/2025 8:33:06 AM PDT by wardaddy (This forum has seen better days )
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To: MtnClimber

I can be cordial with lefties and never grant political opinion
They cannot
They just can’t
They have to announce
I very very rarely engage


58 posted on 08/19/2025 8:35:40 AM PDT by wardaddy (This forum has seen better days )
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