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I have been wondering for a long time just when and how my academic discipline of sociology was going to hit bottom, to cross over from being merely deeply troubled and cognitively impaired to enter fully into a state of true madness. Maybe I will be able to date that decisive moment to Oct. 22 or 23, 2023, when a group of sociologists released an open letter entitled “Sociologists in Solidarity with Gaza and the Palestinian People.” This document is in equal parts vicious anti-Semitic conspiracy theory and moronically lopsided “analysis” of facts and events.
LinkedIn saw numerous sociologists sharing the letter, encouraging peers to sign, or “liking” it. The organizers have stopped taking signatures, but not before 1,921 signed it. And not just no-name faculty and grad students. Full professors from universities like Arizona State, California-Berkeley, Oxford, Cambridge, Brown, and Michigan. Texas A&M’s Joe Feagin, the 91st president of the American Sociological Association, was the 25th person to sign this open letter (and the ASA’s response? Dead silence). We could say this dung emanated from the bowels of some of our top sociology programs.
The writers agonize over the “genocide” being committed by Israel against the citizens of Gaza. No mention of why they are stuck there to be used as human shields. The so-called inhumane evacuation Israel has ordered is described as the vicious actions of an “apartheid” regime. Apparently, Israel is begging Palestinians to flee the anticipated points of invasion because it wants to kill more of them. Hamas facts and figures are treated as fully reliable; Israeli assertions are ignored no matter how solid their receipts. These open-letter sociologists do not like the “mean” ways Israeli officials talk about the Hamas butchers (not about Palestinians in general): “Israel’s Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, remarked, ‘We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.’” Apparently, this is “racist and dehumanizing” — but not the Hamas atrocities that led to Gallant’s statement in the first place: filming the killing an elderly woman with her own phone, then uploading the video to her Facebook page; chopping off arms and feet; beheading children; torturing, murdering, and mutilating a man, his wife, and their two young children while consuming their holiday meal; rapes so violent they broke their victims’ pelvises; filmed executions of civilian hostages. The sociologists who signed the open letter did not even seem bothered by a baby being cut out of a pregnant woman before both were beheaded.
I cannot think of any clearer, more visible sign that the discipline of sociology is in serious trouble than this letter. When you can register this many useful idiots this quickly, something is terribly wrong. They would have easily hit 4,000 or more if they had left it open longer. Do I know there are still lots of good folk studying sociology? Yes. Are those who wrote and signed this the norm among sociologists? Probably not, but between those who signed and those who are silent, or even supporting — well, Houston, we have a problem.
So, what to do?
First, any university and academic department that has faculty, especially prominent ones, who signed this open letter should denounce it. If they do not, we should treat these departments as pariahs. We should not recommend them to any aspiring graduate students. We should not invite their “experts” to speak. This is not about denying anyone’s academic freedom. This is about calling out stupidity and hate. This is about using freedom of choice (you know, “pro-choice”) to choose something other than promoting places that harbor anti-Semitic craziness. Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University, recently issued a strong statement condemning conservative group Turning Point USA when two of its members “harassed, pushed and injured” an English professor. Yet just in the first 30 signatures alone on this ugly open letter, there are three distinguished ASU professors. So far, no statement from Crow. How is that for a balanced threat assessment?
Second, write department heads, deans, and presidents in your natural circles and tell them what you think. Don’t we all have free expression? Both of my graduate alma maters are represented on this list. American University had four signers, three of them sociologists at the prestigious School of International Service as faculty or fellows. New York University had a whopping 12 — thankfully only one faculty member, but 10 Ph.D. students and one post-doc. They are about to hear from me.
Third, let donors and trustees of these places know what you think. Do they really want their time and treasure invested in promoting cognitively vacuous bigotry? Do they really want to subsidize people who defend murderous, genocidal butchery and cruelty? Consider the donor revolts at places like the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard over those schools’ refusals to stand up to pro-Hamas protesters, hiding behind platitudes that suggest donors keep writing big checks and let administrators defend the academic freedom of those calling for Jewish blood. Purse strings are powerful. Make sure that those who hold them know what is going on.
Fourth, check out those graduate students, post-docs, and non-tenured professors who signed. If you are an academic looking to hire a sociologist or two, those should be off your list. Forever.
In the past, I have argued that sociology is worth saving. Heck, I did so again just a few weeks ago in a Kirkwood Center podcast interview, even as I described the problems that have led to this awful open letter. I still believe this, even as the cancer of fact-averse leftist indoctrination, radicalism, and activism has metastasized throughout the body of academic sociology. There is a lot of good work done by solid, well-trained, and objective sociologists across the ideological spectrum. I read and use their work constantly and am thankful for it.
But this cannot go on. It is not just the people who believe and defend monstrosities like this open letter but also those who look the other way or even support them doing so. Like most predominantly progressive academics, sociologists claim to be obsessed with “safe spaces.” But not “safe” for conservatives. Not “safe” for Christians with traditional religious convictions. And now, apparently, not “safe” for Jews.
Way way back in 1960 when I was an undergraduate and encountered Sociology as an academic discipline I took three or four courses before I began to smell something rotten. I had not cared for psychology either for the same reason, but I returned to psychology for what I could take from it. Later, as a graduate student, I discovered Counseling and Counseling Psychology, disciplines focused on the practice of ways of getting people to heal themselves. I think the odor I picked up with Sociology in 1960 and 1961 was the stink of Leftist ideology.
I took an introductory Sociology course at college in the late 1960s. I was totally lost because they kept talking about what “Vayber” said and wrote and I didn’t recall reading any “Vayber” in our homework reading even though I thought I had done it all. Turned out “Vayber” was Max Weber. How embarrassing.
My experience as an undergraduate student in the mid-sixties, included visits from the Sociological “elite.” No, not Vayber…we weren’t that fortunate. However, we did merit a “trolling” visit from Yuri I. Bobrikove, a KGB apparat, maskerading as a cultural attache from the Soviet Embassy. He was actually quite charming. And he bore gifts….a very fine Vodka.
If smart people truly cared about Palestinians, they would be fully supportive of Israel’s drive to end Hamas.
Hamas is the first regime in history to actively use their own people as targets for war, to actively seek the death of their own subjects.
Smart people are smart enough to know that. Therefore this must be what they support.
Safe spaces protect no one of course. They are all about stifling and controlling what people can say.
When every socialist revolution end in famine and genocide and totalitarianism, it is not that smart people are any less aware of the history. It is what these sociologists want..
Intelligence does not correlate with goodness, except in the inverse, when it comes to modern academics. Pol pot had the right idea, wrong continent.
They don’t care about the Palestinians. Palestinian nationalism is synthetic and false- its goal is not the creation of a Palestinian state. If that’s all they wanted, they would have achieved it many decades ago. Most Palestinians don’t care if they’re (mis)governed by Hamas, Fatah, King Abdullah of Jordan, Assad of Syria or Hezbollah. They only care that Israel is destroyed and its Jews are eliminated. And they have the support of millions of “progressives” in the West, who are as nihilistic and hateful as Hamas.
Summed up quite accurately.
Back in the dinosaur days I took a sociology class where I learned the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath. Back then a sociopath was one who had a total disregard for accepted
rules and morays of decency toward people. This is what I found on todays magic web box:
An adult who has a personality disorder marked by antisocial behavior.
A person with an antisocial personality disorder, exhibiting antisocial behavior that usually is the result of social and environmental factors in the person’s early life.
Someone with a sociopathic personality; a person with an antisocial personality disorder (`psychopath’ was once widely used but has now been superseded by `sociopath’).
Whatever happened to the basic rule to not define a word using the same word being defined? This has the creepy essence of newspeak. However I did find some characteristics:
+break rules or laws
*behave aggressively or impulsively
*feel little guilt for harm they cause others
*use manipulation, deceit, and controlling behavior
In my humble opinion, Hamas and their minions should have their picture in the dictionary next to sociopath. It’s a rotten shame that sociology “experts” cannot see a sociopathic organization that would lop=off their head in a heartbeat.
The Intellical know-nothings with the low amount of intelligence and the I.Q. of a Rock and with four D,s a F and a H on their report cards
The worst thing is that this is not at all shocking. Noam Chomsky, darling of the wokeling Left, has asserted that “Holocaust denial has nothing to do with antisemitism” and also claimed the Khmer Rouge “averted a humanitarian disaster”. And parlour revolutionaries fawned obsequiously over Edward Said, who was laying specious intellectual arguments in favor of Palestinian terrorism and barbarity. Academia has been dishonest and intellectually bankrupt for the past 50 years, minimally.
It is clear that these 1,921 sociologists are Jew haters, humanity haters and ignorant of the true nature of islam. Since they fancy themselves to be intellectuals perhaps they should read the Koran instead of spending their time teaching in ivory towers.
The wannabe butchers who signed this letter are no different than the German professors of the 1920s who were down with Nazism. Forget about firing them. They should save us the trouble and just kill themselves.
Worse yet, I doubt they want to know anything about actual Islam as opposed to the sanitized CAIR version. It would cause cognitive dissonance and they are comfortable in their ignorance.
Sociology has always been the most front-and-center pseudo-science out there. At its roots it is little more than ideology masquerading as “science.” Its most important insights are restatements of things people know by common sense. I live in a retirement complex, and during the Covid pandemic hysteria period I was informed that ‘the literature’ reveals that older people, if isolated from human interaction, get lonely, that it’s bad for their overall health. Gee, we should be so grateful for that informative “literature.” Why, without it, how would we ever know some of these things?
when you hear anyone comment on israel and the current war , you know immediately if they use 2 words , its a dead giveaway that they are leftists . this includes gormless politicians and especially journalists [ euphemism for propagandists ] OCCUPATION and PALESTINIANS . neither which have a grain of truth . the only occupiers are arabs , of which the fakestinians are guilty of . so the fakestinians both in gaza and the west bank occupy jewish land . the term fakestinians didn’t exist prior to the 48 war and was coined after the 67 war . a two state solution is what israel is being coerced to adopt when time and time again the arabs have rejected it outright . time to play hardball israel . no more mr. nice guy . nice guys always lose , america being a prime example of all the wars they have been involved in since the 2 world war .
You too?
And:
Bush Jr told us that multiculturalism was the strength of our country.
Years ago when a few morons marched through the streets of Charlottesville screaming ”Jews will not replace us”, as if that was a real thing, and of course The Left, aka Anti Trump morons, called them as Trump supporters even though Trump denounced them all 100%
Now we see and hear actual followers Of The Left protect and defend those marching through the streets of Berlin screaming Kill the Jews or the ones in Sydney screaming Gas the Jews.
The youth across the Western World today should be known as the Useful Idiot Generation, UIG,, as their ignorance of which side they are on is truly amazing.
When I first seen the sign stating Queers for Palestine I really didn’t know whether to laugh or cry..
Do those idiots know what happens to Queers all over the islamic World or is that a racist question ?.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Videos of what happened in some of the Kibbutz have come out. Theres no way Iran, Hamas, or the PLO should get money from the US government to continue the war on Israel.
Theres no way Israel should halt its invasion of Gaza. The things that happened in those Kibbutz’ were barbaric and demonic. If the IDF don’t do their duty, eventually, God will. These massacres are inspired by Satan. People didn’t speak up when Hitler did his evil, and they shouldn’t be silent now! Harris’ daughter is raising money for political purposes to compete with money given to Israelis.