The left and “misinformation”
This would be funny if it weren’t so ominous:
House Democrats are pressing cable and streaming services over their decisions to host channels that the lawmakers accuse of spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories that lead to “real world harm.”
Reps. Anna Eshoo (Calif.) and Jerry McNerney (Calif.), senior members of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, sent letters to the companies on Monday questioning their “ethical principles” involved in deciding which channels to carry and when to take action against a channel.
“Some purported news outlets have long been misinformation rumor mills and conspiracy theory hotbeds that produce content that leads to real harm,” they wrote.
CNN? MSNBC?
No, of course not:
“Misinformation on TV has led to our current polluted information environment that radicalizes individuals to commit seditious acts and rejects public health best practices, among other issues in our public discourse.”
The letter specifically calls out Newsmax, One America Network (OANN) and Fox News.
Note two key words there. The first is “misinformation.” Preventing the spread of “misinformation” has been the excuse given for clamping down on the free exchange of ideas on tech giants such as Twitter. The second is “seditious.” It’s been a favorite charge of the left’s since January 6th, and its definition has been extended to cover nearly anything on the right that challenges the current administration or the orthodoxies of leftist thought that now hold sway in so many arenas in the US. The unspoken third word is “insurrection,” widely applied by the left to the events of January 6th. That word has become so ubiquitous now that preventing further “insurrection” from the right is probably understood to be the underlying justification for this sort of tyrannical action on the part of the left.
Reichstag fire.
And all of this comes from the same people who had no problem whatsoever with four years of Russiagate madness being disseminated far and wide, common threats to kill President Trump, and many months of destructive leftist and anarchist anti-government and anti-police riots.
I will close with a passage I’ve used before. It’s from Through the Looking Glass, and it’s the part where Alice has the following chat with Humpty Dumpty [emphasis mine]:
…As I was saying, that seems to be done right – though I haven’t time to look it over thoroughly just now – and that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents – ‘
‘Certainly,’ said Alice.
‘And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!’
‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t – till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”‘
‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that’s all.‘
The left aims to be master, and it thinks it will be. Perhaps it even thinks it already is. At the very least, it doesn’t seem to think that the right will ever use such tactics against the left.
This is certainly very ominous, and the relentless campaign by the left against freedom of expression augurs very badly indeed. Today’s idiotic statements by M Garland, laughably unqualified to be AG, should be of great concern to anyone who cares about the gradual erosion of our fundamental and constitutional liberties and about the increasing criminalizing of conservative dissent. The recent so-called commentary from WaPo, the NYT, as well as CNN and MSNBC blaming the recent spate of attacks on Asian-Americans (almost all committed by young blacks) on Trump, on his supporters, on “white supremacy”, on xenophobia, on COVID or on the use of the term “China-virus” is the most perfect example of real misinformation which one could possibly find.
Now the 2nd Amendment has been declared as false information and censored online. h/t Insty
https://www.recoilweb.com/1776-united-censoring-the-second-amendment-165803.html
Hammering us down.
Am I Mushroom being covered in Manure, or am I a Turtle pulling my head in. A bit of both. And just totally depressed. My Country is gone.
Thankfully, my wife and I are in mid 70’s.
The campaign of intimidation began before Trump took office, with Hillary’s delegitimazation of Trump’s presidency, Obama’s (et al.’s) smear campaign against Trump (AKA Russiagate, or the Russia Hoax, which was initiated by Hillary and taken up by Obama’s administration and the weaponized security apparatuses), and the several impeachment circuses, which were intended to further whip up anti-Trump sentiment.
The media did the rest.
Covid was a gift to them all, with numbers inflated and potential medical solutions ridicules, downplayed and falsely stigmatized by the Democratic Party and its media and “science-based” apparatchiks.
The intimidation will only get worse.
They will stop at nothing and they have no shame.
Remember: the transformation of America means getting—and keeping—power at all costs. This is why Trump was such a shock to them; such a nightmare. And realizing that Trump was about to be re-elected is what energized them to go all out to bamboozle the American people.
All with the relentless assistance of a lying media and an Orwellian info-tech sector.
Evil time…that are about to get much worse; since it doesn’t matter what they say (they will say anything) and it doesn’t matter what they do (they will do everything). They believe they are protected and believe that nothing can stand in their way.
They are absolutely right about the first.
The second, therefore, should logically follow, but we shall see how that plays out, since dictators must control EVERYTHING and ultimately start believing their own lies, which usually leads to their downfall.
Nonetheless, before that can happen, there is a lot for them to destroy.
And they’re perfectly willing to do it.
Misinformation on TV has led to our current polluted information environment that radicalizes individuals to commit seditious acts and rejects public health best practices, …
There are five clauses in the above. I’d connect the first and last for starters. “Misinformation on TV” leads to rejection of “public health best practices.” It’s all about safety damn it.
I love the “best practices” bit. It may not be good science and it may not work well to achieve obviously desirable goals, but government has chosen a framework of action and we demand groupthink and compliance.
If our temperate language doesn’t spur the masses to disgust and outrage, then: Pollution — Sedition — Lies — Racism — Injustice. Or my favorites:
Unconstitutional — Undemocratic — Unpatriotic. (Just keep the emotion going.)
Remember when the couple ate fish tank cleaner because Trump said hydroxychloroquine would protect you from COVID-19? There it is. Ipso facto.
Humpty Dumpty is just saying what is true. Doesn’t make sense to blame the messenger. If humans are not masters of what words mean I can’t imagine who or what could possibly be in their place.
There wouldn’t be anything wrong with it, if the Left didn’t deliberately equivocate for the purpose of obtaining power.
My favorite flavor has to be the “if-by-whiskey” variety.
“Then one day, suddenly, it ends, it changes, I don’t understand, it dies, or it’s me, I don’t understand that either. I ask the words that remain? sleeping, waking, morning, evening. They have nothing to say.”
? Samuel Beckett, Endgame
When we analyze this war in a materialistic way and ask when is it going to end and who will be the winner and the loser, it means that we do not see the endgame.
— Bashar al-Assad
If there’s not any endgame, we’re in quicksand. We take one more step, and we’re still there, and there’s no way out.
— Richard Shelby
When “progressives” talk about disinformation, they mean information and ideas they did not originate, approve, and/or support their narratives. This is why their “fact-checkers” could give their Pinocchio’s for falsity to the Right while stating factually true BUT… then give the “context” to support their narrative that shows why it is “false.” Or cover the Left, with excuses like, what they really meant was or it was a verbal stumble or a stutter if they report it at all.
News is not shown or written anymore. All media now provide Narratives with Context to steer the listener, watcher, or reader where they want.
Of course, they must get rid of “misinformation,” for the good of the people. Other views will disturb their peace and rile them up. They need docile sheep to lead successfully.
In their minds, it isn’t censorship to suppress this “misinformation” but actually a common good and goal in creating good citizens and perfecting the world.
If the Ends justify the Means, then any action can be justified.
The Means have to be justifiable in and of themselves, not based on a perceived End.
If evil Means are used for some supposedly Noble End, that End is then tainted with Evil.
Evil begets only evil.
None of this could have happened without support from GOP and neoconservatives who joined the campaign to criminalizeTrump and his supporters…you might consider finding new title for your blog. Neocons are now Mudd to me due to their TDS, so I don’t think really you are one.
@Homeric:
Patriarchal Linear Thinking going on there. Check your privilege!
🙂
@Laurence Jarvik:
We have always been at war with East Asia and The New Neo blog title has always been a reflection of her obsession with the philosophical themes explored in The Matrix.
@Homeric:If the Ends justify the Means
What, except for an end, could possibly justify a means? How can a means possibly justify itself?
The end is necessary to justify the means. It is not, however, sufficient, and there are certainly means that can’t be justified by any end.
I said it before. The day even Fox News started calling Bruce Jenner a “she”, I knew we were in trouble. That was a watershed moment. Something so fundamental as that, where we are being required to affirm delusion. Delusion that we know is a lie! I do not care how many people it offends. It is not “ mean” or “ hate” to speak the truth that boys and girls cannot just switch places. The haters are the ones waging war on truth. They hate truth and those who dare to speak it.
For me … he or she can call themselves whatever they want. I draw the line when they demand that I must follow the lies.
Piss on them!
“The unspoken third word is “insurrection,” widely applied by the left to the events of January 6th. That word has become so ubiquitous now that preventing further “insurrection” from the right is probably understood to be the underlying justification for this sort of tyrannical action on the part of the left.” neo
In their paranoiac arrogance, they’re pursuing a course that will ensure “politics by ‘other’ means”. By their own calculations, 80% of the US Military still retain loyalty to the Constitution. Sec. Def. Austin’s purge will fail, as it will simply drive that 80% underground.
The left’s ideological imperatives guarantee that they will greatly over react to protests. The more oppressive they become, the more eyes will be opened. The greater will grow the determination that tyranny cannot be allowed to continue.
Tragically, the left is pursuing essentially the same course that the British did in the later years just before the American revolution. Adding to “no taxation without representation”… no representation, no redress of grievance and no rule of law.
The democrats are intent upon utterly disenfranchising half of America.
They are pursuing actions that cannot but be seen as other than tyrannical and thus are courting a terrible reckoning.
Barry Meislin,
“The intimidation will only get worse.
They will stop at nothing and they have no shame.”
Indeed. “Coming Soon | Climate Lockdowns”
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/coming-soon-climate-lockdowns/
Homeric,
“If the Ends justify the Means, then any action can be justified.
The Means have to be justifiable in and of themselves, not based on a perceived End.
If evil Means are used for some supposedly Noble End, that End is then tainted with Evil.”
Not quite that simple.
When evil means are used, then whatever the means necessary to end evil is justified. What separates the perpetrator of evil and the just who may employ evil measures from being equally guilty of evil is ironically, the end sought. The perpetrator revels in its use of evil. The just pursue ending evil and dependent upon circumstance, may be forced to employ evil; i.e. Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not using the atomic bomb would have resulted in either 5-25 million deaths in a conventional invasion of Japan or, allowing an eventual resurgence of a brutal, evil militarized Japan.
We are entering a very dangerous time. Losing freedom of information is part of it. I also think economic collapse is coming. Markets need information. They will not function with the sort of suppression of information we are beginning to see. A few billionaires, like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos do not know how to run an economy even if they think they do.
Dems appear to be edging up to another episode of ethnic cleansing. Of which there are many examples in US history.
Stephen Molyneaux, Cancel culture is a dress rehearsal for mass murder (about 6 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L0dPKpfHRA
Perhaps we can take a cue from Oz.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/02/bad-news-facebook-tyrants-homegrown-aussie-news-app-now-number-1-app-store-beating-facebook-downloads/
Australia is an incredibly cucked nation of cacophonous Twitter Karens and beaten down shamefaced menfolk. Crocodile Dundee is a fairy tale, alas. So wouldn’t call it a victory for the forces of light. Still, anything which hurts FaceBook is good. So there’s that.
@Mike+K:
They *do* know how to run a greatly pared back stripped down streamlined eco paradise world where most of us no longer exist. Think Big. Big Pits.
“From Oz…”
…where some are still fighting valiantly against the same forces of darkness and death:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/aussie-mp-craig-kelly-quits-liberal-party-becomes-independent_3707044.html
Powerful reflections and thoughts here, after neo’s sharp warning. We have enemies within. They must be dealt with if not simply put down.
Cancel culture is a dress rehearsal for mass murder
JimNorCal:
Who remembers this glorious bit of gore and blindness from 2010?
–“10:10 mini-movie – No Pressure”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDXQsnkuBCM&has_verified=1
10:10 was a British climate change campaign to get people, businesses, cities, nations to commit to reducing carbon emissions by 10%. The video shows people in authority explaining the campaign to subordinates and requesting commitment with the tagline, “No pressure.”
However, some skeptics are flushed out. Then the leader smiles and presses a big red button and the skeptics explode in a massive gouts of blood and scraps of cloth. “No pressure” indeed!
The first people executed in this manner are … schoolchildren!
It’s unbelievable that the video even got made, much less shown on national television. There was, thankfully, an outcry and the perps shut down the video posthaste.
I’d say they got ahead of their skis on that one. You don’t threaten people with death until much later in the game. And even then, you don’t mention schoolchildren.
Looking back at an old Guardian article on this fiasco, I find the 10:10 founder rationalizing the film:
_____________________________________________
“Doing nothing about climate change is still a fairly common affliction, even in this day and age. What to do with those people, who are together threatening everybody’s existence on this planet? Clearly we don’t really think they should be blown up, that’s just a joke for the mini-movie, but maybe a little amputating would be a good place to start?” jokes 10:10 founder and Age of Stupid film maker Franny Armstrong.
But why take such a risk of upsetting or alienating people, I ask her: “Because we have got about four years to stabilise global emissions and we are not anywhere near doing that. All our lives are at threat and if that’s not worth jumping up and down about, I don’t know what is.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/sep/30/10-10-no-pressure-film
_____________________________________________
They’ve been trying to stampede the world into climate change for decades now with these grave threats of doom. But each deadline passes and they make up a new one. Armstrong’s deadline passed in 2015.
I keep wanting to concede, “You’re right and we blew it. Now go away and let the world die in peace.” However, it doesn’t work like that.
For the most part, The Left didn’t pay much attention to OAN let alone knew it existed. (I’m not sure how many markets OAN is in, but I guess it’s smaller than Newsmax). Only until that one college football player had issues with it, which he found on a twitter pic of his coach wearing an OAN t-shirt, did the network’s public infamy rise. Similar with Newsmax; once OAN was put out there with Fox, Newsmax was thrown into the mix.
The Left practically keeps an encyclopedia of anything right of them. On surface level it’s places like Wikipedia, SPLC and the ACLU. Then if you dive down to the next level it’s RationalWiki then Right Wing Watch (who admit it in their “about” page that it’s sole existence is to monitor right-wing ideas and rhetoric).
The Left is more obsessed of the right than the right is obsessed with The Left. And despite all the monitoring The Left isn’t anywhere near close in genuinely understanding the right.
At some point the adults started answering to the children. In the ’60s, when the children were throwing tantrums, most all adults saw their outbursts as unworthy of their attention, let alone tried to empathize with why the children were mad.
But tantrums make for good news coverage. We watch it. We comment on it. We argue over it. Good news coverage leads to healthy ad revenue. And that feedback loop means we see more and more of it. And seeing it encourages more infants to cry and stamp their feet. And the positive results they get encourages more folks to “negotiate” that way.
We are stuck in a very dangerous loop. Until the grown ups step in and send the children to bed without their supper it will only get worse. Or, perhaps, there just aren’t enough grown ups left.
Rufus T. Firefly:
In the late 60s, enormous numbers of adults in positions of authority, especially in universities but not limited to that, saw the tantrums as worthy of attention. Not only that, they caved to the demands of the children. That’s a good part of what Allan Bloom’s book The Closing of the American Mind was about. His description of the professors and administrators at Cornell and around the US during the late 60s describes the trends that continue unabated to this day.
His quote from those days: “Students discovered that pompous teachers who catechized them about academic freedom could, with a little shove, be made into dancing bears.”
Now the teachers are no longer pompous, and they only talk about academic freedom if it’s freedom for the left rather than the right.
Geoffrey
Your reply is pretty much how I used to think about this issue. But I’ve become more suspicious of trusting pat answers regarding uncertain outcomes.
For example the figures of 5-25 million deaths, quite a large range, I used to hear the figure as 1 million casualties. But this is just a numbers game then. The fact is no one really knows how many would have died. But the question I ask of myself is, was dropping the bombs the only acceptable alternative?
The problem I face is that I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with the idea that we had to vaporize innocent people, (women, children, and babies) in order to achieve victory. If I was a writer of alternative history fiction, I could write a slew of different scenarios about how we didn’t drop the bombs but instead, isolated and contained Japan in such a way as they would never pose a threat again. (For example, prevent them from ever again having a Navy or Air Force which we certainly had the power to do when it came down to just the island of Japan remaining). I do not accept the pat answer that there would have been an “eventual resurgence of a brutal, evil militarized Japan” as the only possible outcome.
Perhaps I’ve grown too much of a conscience as I gotten older.
But am I right when I stated “evil begets only evil”? Yes that is very simplistic. But I like the simplicity. Ahh but we made Japan a nice safe place for democracy and turned them from a militaristic nation into a peace seeking one…true. But we also proved that having atomic bombs is what makes truly great national powers and the nuclear arms race began, and someday that may bite us (I’m thinking of Iran). Unintended consequences.
Of course maybe all that was inevitable anyway.
I don’t like the justification of means that I believe to be intrinsically evil (dropping A-bombs qualifies) to be based on a perceived desired outcome. I’d rather we try to achieve outcomes using other means. Killing innocent people is intrinsically evil, in my opinion at least. The question: was no other choice available? Okay, maybe our desired End of “unconditional surrender” was wrong. Could we have accepted something less than that?
So for me, the Ends do not justify using any Means to achieve it, even if those Ends are what we ultimately desire. I believe there are always other alternatives that are not intrinsically evil.
As a post script, as my suspicion of governmental agencies (FBI, CIA, DOJ, etc) has grown over the last few years, I’m skeptical of any data/analysis (the Ends) they provide in order to justify their actions. Which now include suppression of individual liberties in order to prevent another “insurrection”.
Are there any memoirs of liberal academics who have had second thoughts about academia and its capitulation to the left over the years?
I can’t think of any. I’d be interesting to read such accounts of the period.
neo,
Regarding adult reaction to ’60s unrest. I thought about that when I was writing it, and was worried someone might call me out on it, but I meant adult attention in degrees of scale.
My folks both worked. Blue collar kids from blue collar backgrounds. My mother raised by immigrants who spoke a foreign language at home. That was the common demographic. All the adults in my world; plumbers, garbagemen, mechanics, machinists… all thought protests were idiotic, especially campus unrest. “Those rich kids live in dormitories and get three meals a day and all they have to do is go to a few classes. What do they have to be upset about?!” America was the land of opportunity and anyone who complained was a whiner, or bum. And that had to be the viewpoint of the majority of Americans. 70%? 80%?
I agree that some adults were paying and giving attention to the unrest, and that encouraged the trend, but I guarantee such things would have been put down in my neighborhood, posthaste, if any “hippies” dared try such a thing. Even though the demographics of that neighborhood are relatively unchanged, one could easily hold a Pride/BLM/Save the Sea Urchins parade there with no pushback. The opposite, one would get encouragement and support.
huxley,
Camille Paglia might be an example of an Academic who is very honest about what she got wrong early on. Wasn’t David Horowitz once in Academia? Dennis Prager probably fits also. I haven’t heard him in years, not even sure if he’s still on, but Michael Savage (who once featured our erudite hostess, neo on his program) was/is an Academic, I think.
Although not officially an Academic, David Mamet has a wonderful memoir on the subject.
Bjorn Lomborg has written a fair amount (including a book or two) on his progression from an Eco Warrior to a man with very sensible views and prescriptions regarding climate change. There’s also another man whose name escapes me, who wrote a book last year on a similar conversion. He and Bjorn are both Academics. I don’t recall if she’s written a book, or not, but climatologist Judith Curry has spoken and written on her conversion to accepting reality.
“Even though the demographics of that neighborhood are relatively unchanged, one could easily hold a Pride/BLM/Save the Sea Urchins parade there with no pushback. The opposite, one would get encouragement and support.”
I should have added, “today.” As opposed to my childhood.
Homeric:
Well the Japanese were preparing for national suicide (see Saipan) to resist the Americans and British and were being slowly starved (submarine and mine warfare supplemented by carrier and surface forces eliminating all their shipping), and of course bombed to ashes with conventional means. But they would not surrender. So the decision was made and the war was ended. The Japanese survived as a people and a culture.
Facts. Sad, but facts.
Rufus T. Firefly:
What I’m hoping for is a liberal academic who is still liberal yet sees the drawbacks and might explain their capitulation at the time.
Paglia is an outlier, who doesn’t quite fit on any grid, and she spoke up early in the game.
I suppose the explanation for such academics is mundane, boring and unflattering. Stick to your classwork. Don’t make waves. Try to reach retirement with a nice pension.
BTW, aren’t you concerned about the sea urchins? What’s up with that?
om and Homeric,
I too wonder about the necessity of the bombings. I think a part of the calculus was the number of existing A bombs and the significant amount of time required to refine more uranium to create more. Of course, no one but a few folks in the U.S. knew those facts and limitations, but if the three we had (Gadget was deployed in a test) were not used for maximum efficiency and effectivity more war and death (including massive U.S. casualties) may have resulted. I have no idea if that calculus was correct, but I do think that was a very important variable in the decision to detonate both.
And, I think Japan was given the opportunity to surrender prior to both detonations, correct?
It seems a demonstration of the bomb’s might and force could have been done on or near Japan in a much less populous area, and I know it was considered, but there was also a question of whether the Japanese would capitulate if there was not significant carnage.
Awful, awful things to calculate.
huxley,
I assume the sea urchins are just fine. Haven’t checked in with them for a while, but no news is good news. The anemone of my anemone is my friend.
I assume you have heard of Jodi Shaw, recently (very recently) of Smith College? Not officially an academic, but an administrator, and, I believe, still a rather ardent left leaner who is speaking out very vocally and articulately against speech, race and gender prohibitions.
Wouldn’t Jordan Peterson fit your definition? Certainly Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying fit your requirement, except they are no longer officially attached to a University through no fault of their own.
Oh, also there is a woman Law Professor, very fearless… U Penn… What is her name. I’ll be right back… Amy Wax!
Awful, awful things to calculate.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Easy for me. My father would have been a paratrooper in the invasion of Japan. On D-Day 50% of the paratroopers died.
Instead my father was part of the occupying force and returned with an appreciation of Japanese architecture and the tea ceremony, as well as his life and all his limbs.
Once I looked into the matter for myself, I’ve not had any doubts about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It saved 100,000s of lives — American and Japanese — if not millions.
Rufus T. Firefly:
I don’t meant to play “Yes, but” games. I’m looking for academics who were closer to the sixties and never took a stand.
Jodi Shaw is amazing. I’m kinda hoping for a neo post on her.
Of all people, Naomi Wolf seems to have figured it out:
Naomi Wolf sounds alarm at growing power of ‘autocratic tyrants’.
Homeric,
Before anyone undertakes to discuss the moral calculus with you, perhaps ot would be wise for everyone to get on the same page regarding the situation concerning the facts on the ground.
Therefore what I would recommend is a moderately in-depth review of the war with Japan during the last year of the conflict up to, and including the use of the atom bomb.
In fact, even a cursory review of the literature such as found in relatively popular mid century works such as “The Fall of Japan”, or “Zero”, make plain both the desperate situation on the home islands, and the absolute committment of the military rulers of Japan to persist until the Japanese people themselves were annihilated in a glorious sacrifice.
Japan had no capital ships left, it had no fuel, the fishing fleet was incapable of feeding the people, the merchant shipping was destroyed, inter island traffic disrupted, 70% of Tokyo destroyed by fire bombing, only three or four cities yet unruined ( because in the case of 3 of them, the Americans were saving them for the effective demonstration of the atom bomb if it became necessary) . American capital ships roamed the coast looking for targets still worth the shells to expend on them, and yet the Japanese authorities were still intent on hoarding 7000 motley aircraft in order to enjoy one last Kamikaze blow out; while planning on sending school kids armed with bamboo spears off on banzai charges once the allies landed.
Add to that, that Americans had dropped leaflets warning the Japanese to evacuate the target cities, and in fact many people had fled to the countryside previously.
The Americans and the British could have blocaded the islands and in 6 to 8 months a substantial portion of the population would have been dead of starvation … without, I reckon, the military being in the least dissuaded regarding a last stand.
And in some sense the surrender was, in legal if not in practical terms anyway, a bit less than unconditional.
Had the bomb not been dropped, probably no allied prisoners of war would have been left alive by the time the allies strolled in to a self-annihilated Japan. And that scenario would have involved the complication of probably having to kill 3 million Japanese soldiers and colonizers in China ( they had killed ten million Chinese in 13 years of conflict) and elsewhere who would not have surrendered unless commanded to by the emperor.
My guess is that 80 percent of those in uniform, and 12 to 20 million civilians would have died before it was over in say, 1947.
In any event, I don’t know why you think it would have turned out much different than in Okinawa with regard to Japanese casualties. Though by starving them to death and bombarding all the rest of their cities and villages to ruin, American casualties probably could have been kept down, and the outer islands seized.
But the militarists were not going to surrender on their own under any circumstances; not to save the remains of their cities, not to save the Japanese ‘race” itself.
Take time to once again review the literature. You will probably go back to being less sensitive.
Rufus T. Firefly et al:
Many many posts on the blog about Hiroshima and the bomb: see this.
Oh, that’s nice.
I see OM already said what I said, and did it in one paragraph. LOL
Ah, well. We all get wound up once in awhile.
Some of us have fathers and grandfathers who didn’t have to face suicide charges ( even though uncles did) , because of those bombs.
Rufus T. Firefly:
And that is probably still true of the group you mention, who often are Trump supporters. But even in the 60s, it wasn’t true of the “elites” – particularly in academia. That ended up mattering a great great deal in terms of policy, and not just in the universities but in the institutions they ended up being involved in (such as the media).
Japan and A Bombs.
The Japanese Military and a large chunk of the general populace needed a face-preserving excuse to surrender. ‘Face’ is just a word to educated Westerners. It’s very hard to explain until you come up against it. Calling it Pride doesn’t do the term justice.
The Japanese were quite prepared to commit national suicide in order to preserve their collective Face. Makes zero sense to us. Doesn’t need to make sense to them: it’s part of who they are.
Dropping two totally novel bombs and causing massive civilian casualties with what the science fiction author Iain M Banks would have called an Outside Context Problem gave them a way out. Hirohito could pretend to overrule the brave military in order to ‘save’ his civilian population from paleface death rays, etc… and the military could pretend to follow their notional prime directive of total obedience to the Emperor and bingo… Faces saved all-round and let the good times roll.
Everyone was happy except for Yukio Mishima who eventually got a stomach ache and lost his head over the whole thing.
The conventional large scale fire bombing of Japanese cities killed many times more civilians than the two atomic bombs. There’s basically nothing pre-1945 in Nagoya for example. Same is true of vast swathes of Tokyo and other cities. This, however, was ‘Normal’ warfare and did not provide any loophole permitting capitulation. The ‘One Bomb Did This’ newspaper headlines were needed for that.
And the best thing for the Japanese is that it gave their Extreme Right and Left something to agree on. Japanese love all being in agreement… or at least the feeling of it. That’s why they all went bonkers together in the 30s.
And what they now agree on is that the A-Bombing was an evil perfidious racist whitey atrocity. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Rufus, Huxley, et al.,
There aren’t many academics still around who were in positions of administrative authority in the late 1960s-early 1970s. Perhaps the best example of an old school left-to-right academic shifter is Thomas Sowell, who began his academic career in the late 1950s as a Marxian economist and who witnessed the cave-in at Cornell in 1969. Alan Charles Kors–retired from Penn and co-founder with Harvey Silverglate of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)–isn’t really a shifter, but he is a liberal academic who found himself defending conservatives and conservative values as the Left moved further, well, left.
Among recent examples, Rufus mentioned Amy Wax at Penn and Bret Weinstein, formerly of The Evergreen State College. Other classically liberal or left-leaning academics who have done some left-to-right shifting, or who could at least be called conservative-curious, include Daphne Patai at UMass-Amherst, Jonathan Haidt at NYU, and Laura Kipnis at Northwestern (she was on the receiving end of a Title IX star chamber inquisition a few years ago). All Jews by the way, along with Kors, Wax, and Weinstein, and of course Allan Bloom himself. That’s for the Blood, Stock, and Breeding scorekeepers on this forum. (Always enjoy reading your stuff, Zaphod–bracing and funny. Keep it coming. Durban, eh? Black Week! Spion Kop!).
Glenn Loury at Brown and John McWhorter at Columbia are two contemporary black academics who have, with great verve and courage, taken on the Left, although only McWhorter could be described as politically left-of-center to begin with.
Zaphod: “The conventional large scale fire bombing of Japanese cities killed many times more civilians than the two atomic bombs. There’s basically nothing pre-1945 in Nagoya for example. Same is true of vast swathes of Tokyo and other cities.”
Indeed. My late father served as a 21-year-old USAAF ground crew tech sergeant with a B-29 bombardment group on Tinian. He said that the Tokyo firebombing raids of March 9-10, 1945 exceeded Hiroshima or Nagasaki in death and destruction.
“…or who could at least be called conservative-curious…”
No doubt, they’d merely call themselves “seekers of sanity”, trying to find a way to exist in the slough of madness, hate and destructiveness that far too much of academia—and the so-called (or “once”) liberal world—has become.
Dershowitz, too, though he’s not necessarily a professional academic.
There must be others, perhaps many others, who dread how the Democratic Party and Liberalism, all too generally, has been “fundamentally transformed”.
Brave people all of them, they are trying to push back against a tsunami of insanity, aggression, intimidation and violence.
(I must admit that Naomi Wolff’s declaration was, for me, a complete surprise. When someone like her speaks out, then you know that things have truly turtled. And certainly, Glenn Greenwald has been utterly magnificent…. Another extraordinary surprise.)
Barry M.,
There are plenty of liberal academics who are aghast at what is happening in higher ed. Most of them are too frightened to speak up; many of them are retiring if they can. For a rough anecdotal idea of the magnitude of the problem, see this piece by the aforementioned John McWhorter:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/academics-are-really-really-worried-about-their-freedom/615724/
Like physicsguy, I have spoken up at my institution. Like physicsguy, my speaking up hasn’t done a damned bit of good. May even have encouraged the svolochi (https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the-meaning-of/russian-word-04d374f89490f92af7120ad7c042780f27c03058.html). They like it when people complain. Causes pain, and causing pain is what they like.
@Hubert:
Genesis 18:26 — Gotta keep score you know. Don’t worry, no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to get to zero. Shofar, sho good! 😛
A point I make often is that that the myth of ‘Us’ as in melting pot civil society is wearing very thin and frayed. All groups will increasingly need to police their own if some semblance of harmony is to be preserved. Really it’s how things have been done for most of human history. Which is why I’m big on Daniel Greenfield. In an Us and Them World (I didn’t make it) it takes a lot of good guys to zero out one very bad apple. Refer all omplaints to the great ape DNA design department please.
Respect to your late Father. He was a lucky man to have seen the USA at its apogee. Have you read The Fleet at Flood Tide? A good rundown on the stupendous effort made to capture bases for the B29s to bomb Japan.
Durban. In that Earthly Eden, Elizabeth the Zulu maid and Petronella the Xhosa maid would not speak directly to each other. The carrying of assegais was not permitted, but their menfolk certainly got around with knobkerries which they periodically used to brain each other in inter-tribal brawls. However, most of the time they just took their frustrations out on Indian shopkeepers in the townships: easier to kill plus had more stuff to steal. Fortunately there was this peculiar innovation … can’t quite remember the name but started with a ‘A’ — it allowed us to live here and them to live over there and brain each other in peace. Worked, kind of :).
Elizabeth had the patience of a saint. She worked 6 days a week to support her husband who drove his car around the country following his soccer team to cheer and get involved in fights with opposing fans. Some fortunate Blacks in South Africa were known to possess automobiles in those far off times.
She loved 50s songs and used to walk me to kindergarten. It all made sense back then.
Hubert, there’s also William Jacobson of “Legal Insurrection”, who’s trying to push back, though I don’t know with how much success. No doubt you’ve come across his name.
Once upon a time, people would shake their heads and say, “The lunatics have taken charge of the asylum”.
Now, unfortunately, it is much more apt to say that the thugs have taken control of the levers of government, the media and academia.
And the Supreme Court stands directly in their path…along with the American people.
Related:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/02/smith-college-disputes-jodi-shaw-expose-our-equity-and-inclusion-training-has-not-created-a-racially-hostile-environment-for-white-people/
Barry M.,
Yes, I follow William Jacobson and Legal Insurrection. He recently launched a state-by-state guide to CRT training in higher ed:
https://criticalrace.org/
Parents need to read it. Withholding tuition dollars from CRT-corrupted schools–that is, almost all of them–is one of the very few things that will make a dent in this. I was hoping Trump’s EO 13950…
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/09/28/2020-21534/combating-race-and-sex-stereotyping
…would too, but it came way too late in the day and was, predictably, revoked on Day 1 of the reign of President Asterisk. Surprisingly, not a murmur about that from SCOTUS.
Nicole Neily’s Speech First is also a support-worthy organization that is fighting the good fight:
https://speechfirst.org/
She’s not an academic, but she knows how academe works and where its weak spots are.
Zaphod,
“A point I make often is that that the myth of ‘Us’ as in melting pot civil society is wearing very thin and frayed. All groups will increasingly need to police their own if some semblance of harmony is to be preserved.”
No argument there. I’m old enough to remember when it used to work that way.
“Respect to your late Father. He was a lucky man to have seen the USA at its apogee. Have you read The Fleet at Flood Tide? A good rundown on the stupendous effort made to capture bases for the B29s to bomb Japan.”
Thanks. He and my mother both. Losing them was tough, but in the natural order of things. Losing the America they knew, loved, believed in, raised us in, and helped to build has been beyond tough. Heartbreaking and infuriating at the same time.
Haven’t read “The Fleet…” yet. It’s on my retirement reading list, along with some titles suggested by your good buddy Om ;). BTW: did you ever pick up a copy of “Double-Edged Secrets” by Jasper Holmes? Available at ThriftBooks:
https://bit.ly/3aPaFJm
So you don’t have to give Mr. Bezos any more lolly.
Durban: we were friends with a SA expat family in our small New England college town in the 1960s-1970s. From Cape Town, not Durban. Father a former-businessman-turned-professor at the university; mother a RADA-trained actress; two charming and talented daughters. They talked about how lovely it was there. But they chose to live in the States, even then. Good antennae, perhaps.
@Hubert:
Within the last 12 months I gave Beelzebub Bezos his pound of flesh and bought Double-edged Secrets for my Kindle. Exactly the kind of reading I enjoy. I even googled up the address where Jasper Holmes was living on December 7 in Street View. I cannot for the life of me remember where the recommendation came from. Perhaps you have mentioned it in a thread here before? If so, thanks!
My Parents jumped ship in 1975. The Portuguese Colonies were on their last legs and things were looking a bit shaky. Cossacks are Coming Genes on the Maternal side and not all that far removed, so the antennae pretty good. The Rhodesians started showing up in Australia in 1980, the Anglo South Africans in mid 80s, and the Afrikaners in the 2000s. Come to think of it, mid 80s would be about when popular bloggers Peter Grant and Kim du Toit arrived in the USA.
A lot of Anglo and Afrikaner pilots working for Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong. The main thing is to get out if one can.
Hubert,
Best of luck to you in your battle for sanity within the walls of Higher Ed!
Thanks, Rufus. I’ve actually been very lucky. I got to do some interesting things, go to some interesting places, and make a decent living while doing it. I’d like to restore the kind of education I was lucky enough to receive for future generations, but the corruption is deep and probably not reversible without a massive paradigm shift and shaking-out process. Thanks to COVID and parental disenchantment, that may actually be on the horizon. My dream institution would be one where students can study American History, Russian Symbolist Poetry, and Gunsmithing. Or some other useful hands-on trade.
My question about earlier liberal academics was to understand their views in the sixties as the shift to the hard left was started to roll with campus protests and admin surrenders.
It seems like there might have been a Munich or Sudetenland moment as in pre-WW2, when a firm stand might have made a big difference.
Did academics figure the New Left stuff was just a fad and the kids would return to swallowing goldfish and panty raids in a year or two? (Assuming the goldfish and panty stuff weren’t urban legends.)
I am aware that today there are many academics — a public few and a private many — who are concerned with the current leftist takeover and pressure to get in line.
Huxley,
Well, S. I. Hayakawa briefly made a stand at SF State University in 1968, but later gave in to demands for an ethnic studies program.
As governor in California, Reagan was pretty tough too. Wasn’t enough to stem the leftward slide. Moral courage is not a common academic virtue. Even if there had been a Rhineland, Munich, or Sudetenland moment in the 1960s–and some have argued that Cornell 1969 was such a moment–academics probably would have come up with clever reasons why not acting was actually better than acting. Kind of like England and France in 1936-1938, come to think of it.
Hubert,
Regarding gunsmithing, a friend from High School retired as a firefighter in suburban Chicago and now earns a living as a gunsmith in Colonial Williamsburg. They demonstrate the art to visitors, but also sell the finished pieces. He said the waiting list for his work is years’ long. I don’t know what the pay is, but how do you look in a tricorn hat?
Reference Japan & dropping A bomb:
My understanding is the actual damage from the A bombs was basically comparable to the conventional bombing campaigns and was not, by itself, persuasive in convincing the Emperor and his advisors to surrender. However, it did give them the excuse to save face when they did surrender. But the real fear they had was after Hilter’s defeat, that Soviet Russia was massing a large army ready to attack the northern Japanese islands. They knew they could not survive facing a two front enemy and decided surrendering to the Americans/allies was preferable to conquest by Russia.
See: https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/
The Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan… Stalin Did.
Hubert:
Didn’t P. G. Wodehouse have a Russian Symbolist Poet as a minor character in one of his books? Or maybe it was a neo-vorticist? Purple Parabola of Joy?
R2L:
I’ve heard that line but considering that it came from Foreign Policy mag. and of course gives Uncle Joe the credit I’m skeptical at best.
And then of course there was only one bomb involved in each target. Not hundreds(don’t know the actual stats) of B-29s per raid. Well that might have focused their thinking a bit. Or not.
Rufus,
Sounds like classic camera repair: not many people doing it and long wait lists. Pay for gunsmithing isn’t bad, especially now, but the work is hard on the hands and the clientele can be difficult. The government regulations are onerous, as you would expect. I’ll bet they’re about to get a lot more onerous. (Tricorn: not a hat-wearer, but if I were I’d be more a pork-pie guy.)
Bottom line: not a bad as a post-retirement gig, but there are more reliable ways to make a living.
Hubert:
Hayakawa and Reagan are good examples.
I do remember the Reagan quote after Kent State, “If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with, no more appeasement.”
Then eleven days later Governor Reagan sent in the Berkeley Police and CA Highway Patrol armed to clear out People’s Park in Berkeley. One person, watching from a roof, died from multiple shotgun wounds. Over 100 civilians sought hospital treatment.
I had forgotten how violent People’s Park became. The sixties were pretty wild. The counterculture, foolishly or not, stuck to its ideals and was willing to suffer casualties. The official culture lacked the stomach to go full Tiananmen Square on young people, which was probably the right thing.
Perhaps the acquiescence of academia made sense at the time, as opposed to becoming ground zero for civil war.
As a result, though, the left got its studies departments and the confidence, rightly assessed, that they could push future administrations around, which they have.
Foreign Policy Magazine — Supporting the Foreign Policy Objectives of Foreigners since, well, Forever.
There was a joke in Yes Minister or Yes Prime Minister about the UK Foreign Office being called the Foreign Office because it existed to look after the interests of Foreign Governments.
Om,
Don’t know–I haven’t read Wodehouse. Any suggestions for a starter? Doesn’t have to include a Russian symbolist or neo-vorticist. Something featuring Spode, perhaps?
Zaphod:
“Yes, Minister” and “Yes, Prime Minister” are practically road maps for how we got here, but back then we could laugh at the absurdities.
Most brilliant political satire on TV ever. Plus, of course, Sir Nigel Hawthorne, as the wily Political Secretary.
Happy days!
@Hubert:
Bingo re camera repairs. Sherry Krauter and Youxin Ye have got no shortage of work. There’s two main guys in HK who do Leicas. The one I went to see a few years ago had half his studio given over to camera repairs and the other half to violin repairs. Don’t think he has an idle moment.
Hubert:
Re: Wodehouse — I say start with the “Jeeves and Wooster” show with Stephen Frye and Hugh Laurie. You can find them on YouTube. Or public libraries which carry DVDs.
If you want to read the books, start with “Carry On, Jeeves.” Both routes will get you to Spode.
YouTube also has several of the books as audio performances.
I was somewhat surprised a few weeks ago to discover my lesbian sister and her partner have watched “Jeeves and Wooster.” Not that they shouldn’t but it is from a male POV. The plots largely hinge on Bertie Wooster’s efforts to fend off his aunts and girlfriends from forcing him into marriage and responsibility.
Hubert:
Spode first appears in “The Code of the Woosters” (1938) with Bertie and Jeeves.
The Blandings Castle novels are a world of their own and quite funny without Bertie, Jeeves, the Drones, Bertie’s aunts, or Spode. There is a pig though.
You get the Pig or Spinoza. Or both sometimes. Pick your poison.
Ezra Pound vs. P G Wodehouse. Compare and contrast.
Pound would win a Cage Match. Prior form.
om:
Have you seen the TV “Blandings Castle” with Jennifer Saunders?
I was disappointed at first because I missed Jeeves and Wooster and the elegant world they inhabit. However, Blandings revealed its charms eventually.
Next on the list, Psmith (pronounced “Smith”).
If you have to explain a joke ….
Who is the Empress of Blandings or did you already know that Zaphod?
She wasn’t much good for making silk purses. That’s who she was. I know… I’m annoying.
huxley:
I haven’t seen the TV version of “Blandings Castle.” Blandings is entirely different as are the Wodehouse stories about golf and tales from the public house. I think we have all that he published. Too late tonight for a better answer.
Zaphod:
I just didn’t understand your comment. She was the Lord E’s pride and prize winner after all.
Om: “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”‘
(That may not be strictly true. There’s probably a factory in China doing just that.)
Spinoza as a reference to Jeeves. The silk purse sows ear is well known, even to me. Implying that Lord Emsworth would consider The Empress of Blandings a mere pig is inconceivable. If you have to explain it, you may have misjudged your audience or yourself?
Oh!
Here we go:
‘Say on,’ I said, and he said on, lowering his voice to a sort of rumbling growl which made him difficult to follow. However, I caught the word ‘read’ and the word ‘book’ and perked up a bit. If this was going to be a literary discussion, I didn’t mind exchanging views.
‘Book?’ I said.
‘Book.’
‘You want me to recommend you a good book? Well, of course, it depends on what you like. Jeeves, for instance, is never happier than when curled up with his Spinoza or his Shakespeare. I, on the other hand, go in mostly for who-dun-its and novels of suspense. For the who-dun-it Agatha Christie is always a safe bet. For the novel of suspense …’
Here I paused, for he had called me an opprobrious name and told me to stop babbling, and it is always my policy to stop babbling when a man eight foot six in height and broad in proportion tells me to. I went into the silence, and he continued to say on.
‘I said that I could read you like a book, Wooster. I know what your game is.’
From “Much Obliged, Jeeves”
Fair enough. I stand guilty of the crime of Lese Majeste as far as this Pig Empress goes. Just looks like breakfast on the hoof to me.
Zaphpd:
You be you. You aren’t a fictional character AFAIK.
huxley; Hubert; et al:
John Silber of Boston University, who actually (surprisingly) was a Democrat. His stint there started in the early 70s, however.
Neo,
Yes, Silber at BU. A Texas Democrat. With attitude. Drove the Left nuts for years. Still, they won, didn’t they?
Huxley and Om,
Thanks for the Wodehouse tips. I did watch “Jeeves and Wooster” on PBS in the 1990s, which is how I know about Spode. Fry and Laurie were brilliant. Books: I’ll start with “Carry On, Jeeves”. Could use some light reading these days.
Om and Zaphod,
You guys need to turn this into a vaudeville act. You’ve already got plenty of material ;).
Hubert:
In Zaphod’s 01 :40 cite Bertie is talking to Spode, although you may have already webbed that out. 🙂
Hubert:
It’s a fine mess I’ve gotten myself into.
Rufus, Hubert, neo et al:
I’m trying to understand how academia slid further and further to the left. I’m aware of the high-profile events and some of the personalities. But I’m not looking for those who threw themselves into the fray from either side and went public.
There’s the classic Burke quote about evil and good men doing nothing. I’m interested in Prof. Everybody, the academicians who watched and are still watching as their world was gradually taken over by the left.
Ideally, being a professor is a more serious calling than being a pipefitter or computer programmer. If nothing else it requires a commitment to academic freedom. Given the opportunity, we have heard many high, wise words to that effect. However, we have seen few efforts from the rank-and-file to uphold that commitment against the left over the past fifty years or so.
I’m wondering how that worked.
I’ve gotten to know a retired art professor. He’s an ex-hippie/artist who was mentored by one of the 60s NYC artists. He’s 78, still creating. When I see him in the cafe, he’s reading philosophy and taking notes.
As one might expect, he’s no Republican or conservative. However, to the point, he saw the SJW stuff coming on hard to the universities in the 2000s. He didn’t know what to do. He was near retirement, so he “got the hell out of there” as he put it.
Huxley,
“I’m wondering how that worked.” My off-the-top-of-my-head list of factors:
1. Reaction to anti-communist “purges” of American universities in the 1950s
2. Vast infusions of federal money in the 1960s (more money = more to lose), accompanied by…
3. Increased federal regulation (Hello, Dear Comrade Academic Administrators!)
4. Bogus professionalization and jurisdictional competition, as described in Andrew Abbott’s 1988 book “The System of Professions” aka “You’ll need a college degree for that” (see http://home.uchicago.edu/~aabbott/bionew2.html)
5. Vietnam (crisis of the postwar WASP establishment, politics starts encroaching on formerly academic concerns)
6. The sexual revolution and breakdown of traditional sexual mores (even profs want to get laid–see the September 1975 National Lampoon cover at http://rwinters.com/lampoon/Lampoon1975.htm)
7. The curdling of the civil rights movement into the politics of racial identity and the concomitant erosion of America’s foundational narrative
8. Retirement of post-WWII GI Bill generation of academics in the 1980s-1990s (exodus of people with other life experiences and backbone) and their replacement by…
9. Former 1960s student radicals and careerists who knew a cushy deal when they saw one and became academic enforcers. Remember: the Left gloms on to power and money like horse leeches glom on to a thoroughbred’s fetlock. Hence its focus on gaining control of rich private foundations, tax revenue, and (at the federal level) the secret police.
Plus the usual human failings: vanity, cowardice, greed, and power lust.
huxley, Hubert,
I wonder if adhering to the concept of academic freedom didn’t also exacerbate the revolution. For example, Engineering professors are likely an erudite lot. And, a fair amount of them are probably also interested in history, politics, anthropology… and have done a fair amount of self-education on those subjects. However, an academic honoring the tradition of discovery and science would be very hesitant to express professional opinions outside of her area of professional expertise. “Some of the stuff I hear from the Humanities department seems unscientific, or nonsensical, but I am no expert, perhaps they know something I do not.”
A Professor of Civil Engineering doesn’t want the Gender Studies department commenting on tensile properties of metals, so she keeps her opinions about what the Gender Studies Professors are teaching to herself. And, who knows? They may be right. I know they are not, but if you truly honor academic freedom you are very hesitant to denounce any path of potential discovery, no matter how ludicrous it appears on its face.
Hubert,
Number 9 is what is the most prominent as i see it.
With the addition that for the Left, as too with many other groups, when you have the power to select who will join your group you choose those you feel most comfortable being with.
The difference with the Left is that this was, until they got majority control, a hidden agenda. In most groups it isn’t hidden and being public can be resisted if contrary to the group’s ideals or accepted as a standard practice.
Doing this, in secret, was discussed in the mid/late 60s among the radical left as a way to take control of various institutions and it has played out for the 50 years since.
Rufus and geoff+b,
Neo has done a much better job than I did of answering Huxley’s question in a recent post. That said, here goes.
Rufus: I’d say it’s more a question of academic conformity than a traditional respect for academic freedom. It’s certainly not “viewpoint diversity”. Some varieties of nonsense get a pass, while other, more intellectually defensible viewpoints are howled down. Increasingly granular academic specialization is also a thing. That’s what I was trying to get at in my clumsy mention of Abbott and jurisdiction: it’s all about laying claim to your narrow little patch of academic turf and defending it against all comers. There’s very little career traction in the kind of rigorous interdisciplinary give-and-take you are hinting at, and a great deal of danger.
Geoff+b: yes, the academic radicals replaced the old guard, and they play by very different rules. The ex-English professor at SUNY-Oswego (“Upstate Consolation University”) whose essays Zaphod linked to in Neo’s post about this described the process in some detail:
https://www.thenewneo.com/2021/02/24/why-didnt-more-professors-oppose-the-gramscian-march-or-at-least-stick-up-for-free-speech/#comment-2543063