MIT "Cancels" A Geophysicist

The postmodern-progressive left is destroying academia.

   It's destroying academia because it is an antirationalist movement, opposed to the very idea of dispassionate, rational inquiry, including science. Destroying academia is, to some extent, an end in itself. But it is also a means to the greater end of destroying Western civilization. Of course that sounds mad--it's an instance of a paradigmatically mad belief. If you were writing a novel and wanted to instantly establish that a character was a kook, one way to do it would be to put some instance of x is trying to destroy Western civilization! in his mouth. Rhetorically, one might be better off to not say such things, true though they might be. It's been suggested to me many times that I shouldn't say such things even though I believe them. It's probably good advice. But I can't help but say the things I think are true. For much of my life, I thought everybody was like that.

   Incidentally, here's a measure of how far they've gone toward destroying academia: feeling compelled to say what you think unfits you for life in a contemporary university. Survival in contemporary academia is easiest for people who (a) share the fantastically insane postmodern-progressive worldview and/or (b) are very good at not saying what they take to be true.