Conformity Colleges

The Destruction of Intellectual Creativity and Dissent in America's Universities

David R. Barnhizer

• Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781510780293
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Administration

The United States' education system, especially its universities, is under attack by the ideological Left, dominated by advocates of Wokeism and Critical Race Theory. Marshall McLuhan was a brilliant thinker best known for his insight that "the medium is the message."Universities, as well as our entire educational "medium" including the K-12 system that feeds its graduates into the university and societal systems, are powerful and overarching mechanisms that we use to shape our understanding.For Western nations, the ideal of the university and of education generally has been to provide us with analytical skills, knowledge, and the ability to create and nurture a healthy society that benefits as many people as possible.That ideal, and the university as educational and social "medium, "is under severe attack. The power to use the university as an overarching "medium" that offers a strong sense of legitimacy to even flawed and overstated arguments and assertions is why the institution is a target of an ideological Left that is now dominated by advocates of Wokeism and Critical Race Theory. Once obtaining a strong power base in university disciplines and administrations, the revolutionaries of race, gender, and other radical interests metamorphosed from heroic moral beacons fighting and railing against injustice, and revealed themselves as ideological dictators.The truth is that what we now refer to as the Woke/Critical Race Theory activist movement—particularly that controlled by those who came to power in the past thirty years or so—were not simply seeking to expand the nature and content of the university curriculum, or even what is taught in the K-12 system. Their intent was and is to "destabilize, ""transform, " and supplant what is taught.They seek to create a culture that elevates their interests while aggressively repressing anything they see as an obstacle to power, including healthy discourse and debate. The activists of the Woke/Critical Race Theory Movement are not an honest intellectual movement. They are intense and aggressive political strategists, self-styled "revolutionaries" seeking to use our educational systems with the framed narrative of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) that is actually one of "Division, Enmity, and Intimidation/Indoctrination, " all the while claiming their interests are benign and aimed at healing.In reality, they are fracturing our fundamental social order, sowing discord, and deliberately suppressing the freedom of speech and thought essential to the well-being of our democratic republic. Conformity Colleges: T he Destruction of Intellectual Creativity and Dissent in America's Universities will help you understandwhat is happening and cometo grips with the need to challenge, counter, and reverse this"revolution." Nothing of significance can be done to stop what is going on unless the DEI administrative bureaucracy that now controls universities is dismantled or substantially weakened.

Table of contents

• Front cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction by Jeffrey Tucker
• CHAPTER ONE: They’ve Ruined the University
• CHAPTER TWO: As Marshall McLuhan Explained, the Medium Is the “Message” and the University Is a Very Powerful “Medium”
• CHAPTER THREE: The “Spiral of Silence”
• CHAPTER FOUR: Jacques Ellul’s Propaganda and Technological Society
• CHAPTER FIVE: The Infantilization of Mind Through “Democratic Despotism”
• CHAPTER SIX: The University Is Being Consumed from Within
• CHAPTER SEVEN: The Degradation of Merit and Ability
• CHAPTER EIGHT: We Need to Get Back to Having “Dangerous Universities”
• CHAPTER NINE: The Mass Formation Psychosis in America’s Universities
• CHAPTER TEN: Artificial Intelligence Systems Are Creating a “Mass Formation”
• CHAPTER ELEVEN: Linguistic “Quicksand” and Linguistic “Cleansing”
• CHAPTER TWELVE: Orwell and “Protective Stupidity”
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The “Argument Culture”
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Education’s Rejection of the Search for Truth
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Neo-Marxist Revolution in Universities
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN: The Repressive “Mass” Formed by Wokeism, Genderism, and Critical Race Theory
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Heroes, False Prophets, and Demagogues
• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: All Revolutions Need an “Enemy”
• CHAPTER NINETEEN: What Happens When the Revolutionaries Win?
• CHAPTER TWENTY: America’s “New Red Guard” and the Reincarnation of Mao Zedong
• CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: China’s Strategy of Propaganda and Division Harms America’s Universities
• CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: Real Diversity and Multiculturalism Contribute to Our Society
• CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: A DEI Victim’s Cautionary Narrative
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: The Split Between Woke and Traditional University Faculty
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: DEI Administrators Are in Control of the University
• CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: What Kind of Faculty Are DEI Systems Allowing Universities to Hire?
• CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: Regime Change: Repelling the DEI Assault on Higher Education
• About the Author
• Notes
• Topical Index by Chapter
• Index of Sources Cited