The professoriate’s beautiful apocalypse
Will they take everyone else down with them?
Watching American academia’s current meltdown as it finally faces accountability for its abuses is certainly enjoyable. Indeed, the feeling of schadenfreude is overwhelming. After all, the professoriate has been getting away with its unethical, unprofessional, and sometimes illegal actions for a very long time. Many of us hoped this would eventually change, and now that it has, the pleasure is exquisite.
What is remarkable about the professoriate and its stormtroopers, however, is their apparent inability to stop digging the hole. For example, the recently resigned president of Columbia University agreed to improve her institution’s conduct in exchange for a resumption of taxpayer funds, yet she secretly worked to undo every one of her concessions. On some level, she must have known it wouldn’t work—but she did it anyway.
Nor has the demented behavior of the student protester-terrorists abated for a single moment. One would think that, if only for tactical reasons, they might tone down their genocidal antisemitic rhetoric and illegal activities. But they have, if anything, doubled down. In fact, they have gone so far as to all but explicitly threaten administrators and trustees with violence. There are also disturbing indications that some of them are now so dissatisfied with the results of their protester-terrorism that they are planning to turn to outright terrorism.
In other words, both the professoriate regime and its minions appear to be hellbent on a kind of collective seppuku—an enthusiastic suicide. Should the Trump administration continue holding them accountable, it is doubtful they can survive it.
To many of us, this would not be a bad thing, so long as no one gets hurt in the process. But it does raise an interesting question: Why is this happening at all? Why are the professoriate and its minions doing this? On some level, they must know that they are destroying themselves. We have grown so used to their egregious conduct that it does not even occur to us that it is, in many ways, inexplicable.
To some extent, the most likely explanation is that they enjoy it. It is thrilling to fancy oneself a prophet speaking truth to power and a revolutionary storming the barricades. Moreover, human beings have a strong streak of sadism and masochism in them, and privileged upper-middle-class people have few other opportunities to indulge it so publicly—or, at least, to indulge it without guilt.
A more likely explanation, however, is what might be called a fetishization of the means. It is not a coincidence that the process of establishing the professoriate regime is often referred to as “The Long March Through the Institutions.” This is a left-wing strategy of infiltrating society’s most significant institutions, conquering them from within, and then exploiting their power and prestige to achieve totalitarian goals.
To an extent, this type of subversion is simply the left’s old tactic of “entryism.” But in the case of the Long March, it has become not just tactical but strategic. It is now an end in itself.
The old left believed in a revolution from below: the inevitable rise of the working class, the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat, and eventually, the coming of utopian communism. In contrast, the professoriate regime believes the revolution will not come from the streets but from the classrooms and other esteemed institutions of the great bourgeois enemy. While the professoriate may employ street fighters, it is the professoriate itself that will ultimately conquer and rule.
One of the most concise descriptions of this strategy was provided by one of its leading practitioners: MIT academic Noam Chomsky, who is often seen by the radical left as a unique blend of prophet, demigod, and cult leader. During his well-known debate with Michel Foucault (Foucault won), Chomsky was asked about reconciling his work at an establishment institution with his radical political views.
“Now as to how I tolerate MIT, that raises another question,” Chomsky replied. “There are people who argue, and I have never understood the logic of this, that a radical ought to dissociate himself from oppressive institutions. The logic of that argument is that Karl Marx shouldn’t have studied in the British Museum which, if anything, was the symbol of the most vicious imperialism in the world, the place where all the treasures an empire had gathered from the rape of the colonies, were brought together.”
“But I think Karl Marx was quite right in studying in the British Museum,” the good professor stated. “He was right in using the resources and in fact the liberal values of the civilization that he was trying to overcome, against it. And I think the same applies in this case.”
As to what might come next, Chomsky mumbled a few vague left-wing shibboleths about “workers’ councils or other free associations.” It is clear, however, that he meant something much larger than that. The key words are “the civilization that he was trying to overcome.” That is, Chomsky advocated not just the toppling of a society but an entire civilization; an entire world painstakingly built up over thousands of years.
This is not a revolution; it is an apocalypse. Its partisans consider it a beautiful apocalypse, but it is an apocalypse all the same. And in its service, the engineers of the end must use “the resources and in fact the liberal values” of the civilization they seek to destroy.
I must say that I recognize this sentiment. It is not a right-wing fantasy. I grew up in an ultra-progressive suburb of Boston and knew several aspiring radicals. However, few of them planned to abandon the socioeconomic aspirations of the upper-middle-class environment they were born into. Almost all were on a college track, aiming for an Ivy League institution, and most told me they were pursuing education and professional advancement to work against “the system” from within.
Some of this was obvious bravado, and I suspect many have since abandoned their radical beliefs. However, enough of them probably retained their old romantic visions of revolution and acted on them when they gained some form of professional authority.
This would not be unusual. Chomsky himself has stated many times that his political views have remained unchanged since his teenage years. Many who view him as a prophet or a god were likely inspired by his example. Others probably held on to their adolescent convictions due to inertia and lack of curiosity. I am sure that some, despite their upper-middle-class backgrounds, simply weren’t very bright and never considered a change in perspective.
Given their sentiments, it is likely that these privileged radicals did not enter the business world or the military. I imagine they gravitated towards the NGO industry, government service, and academia.
This, I believe, is how we got here.
To be fair, radical and revolutionary sentiments are deeply ingrained in the American tradition. The United States was founded in a violent revolution, and both right and left-wing forces have frequently sought another. The Confederate States of America nearly succeeded in achieving one, and the country was on the brink of another in the late 1960s. Additionally, the United States has always had messianic tendencies, likely inherited from the original Puritan settlers. The “shining city on a hill” has been an American aspiration since its inception, and the history of the republic is littered with burned-over districts.
No radical in American history, however, has ever attempted to overthrow civilization itself. This ambition does not arise from any ideology or desire to improve society. It is rooted in something much deeper: A primal urge that can be intoxicating and unleash extraordinary energies but is ultimately of a distinctly suicidal nature.
There is a dark truth about human beings: Something in us desires the end of the world. It is not the most powerful force within us and is often overwhelmed or at least restrained by opposing desires—but it is unquestionably there. And it remains uncertain whether the human race will survive it.
What is certain is that once this apocalyptic drive takes hold, it will not stop until it is stopped. Those who succumb to its power are not rational or persuadable. They will follow their visions of the end unto death.
This, and this alone, is why the professoriate does what they do, even at the cost of destroying themselves. The question now is whether they will be allowed to take everyone else down with them.