obtained texts created by others. It rarely makes news when
news, reads it in a newspaper, or encounters it online.
Your faithful Peasant is going to share with you a case regarding
the latter. Harvard President Claudine Gay recently stepped down
from her position after being caught at more than a few instances
of such activity. Now, with Harvard being regarded as one of the
leading institutions of higher education in these United States one
would think that it would act to protect its image and reputation
in the face of such a scandal. But Harvard has a different set of
priorities.
Harvard's bigwigs don't want to lose Claudine Gray; they in fact
staunchly defend her and will not hold against her the thievery of
other people's work. In fact, they have offered her a senior faculty
teaching position! Contrast this to what they would do, and have
in fact done, to students caught plagiarizing. Furthermore,
Gray checks two important boxes for a modern, progressive,
elite and elitist institution: she is both black and female.
Wokeism rears its ugly head in this story. Gray wrote a response
piece to what all was discovered about her and why she resigned
from the presidency of Harvard which was published by the
New York Times on January 4. She wrote "Those who had
relentlessly campaigned to oust me since the fall often trafficked
in lies and ad hominem insults, not reasoned argument.
They recycled tired racial stereotypes about Black talent and
temperament,". Gay gave little notice to the substantive criticism
of her management of Harvard and her abject failure to take action
against antisemitism on Harvard's campus, with Jewish students
made uncomfortable in the bigotry-charged environment which
ex-President Gay allowed, if not encouraged, to take root.
Former New York Times editorial page editor James Bennet wrote
in the Economist toward last year's end that his former employer
"is becoming the publication through which America's progressive
elite talks to itself about an America that does not really exist."
This is also the case with places like Harvard University.
This is also the crux of the indoctrination of a nation,
one generation at a time.
Gay writes that the campaign to oust her "was merely a single skirmish
in a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of American society"
and that "trusted institutions of all types --- from public health
agencies to news organizations --- will continue to fall victim to
coordinated attempts to undermine their legitimacy and ruin their
leaders' credibility."
Now let's unpack Claudine Gay's statement and examine everything
thoroughly, shall we? First, the unravelling of public faith in the
pillars of our society was begun from within, what with leaders
who have introduced and implemented radical ideas and programs
which have hurt the institutions which they were hired to steward
with judicious leadership. Elite institutions, including but not at all
limited to the media (certainly including social media), big business
(formerly a bastion of conservative politics and economics), and
public health organizations have eroded their own credibility and
fueled public distrust. They have followed the rhetoric of former
First Lady, U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, and presidential
candidate Hilary Clinton denouncing as deplorables the great mass
of the country that doesn't share the Left's extreme views, i.e. if you
favor voter ID laws then you're a racist; if you oppose modern
progressive cultural strictures on expression of thoughts and ideas
regarding gender identity and pronoun usage then you're a bigot;
if you dare to question left-wing climate policies or even the idea
that climate change is solely a consequence of human activity then
you're an anti-science ignoramus.
An example involving a once highly regarded medical publication:
The Lancet, a once-eminent and greatly respected scientific journal,
published a 49-page denunciation of former President Donald Trump's
policies in 2021. Its composition claimed that Trump's policies were
"appeals to racism, nativism, and religious bigotry (which) have
emboldened white nationalists and vigilantes, and encouraged police
violence and, at the end of his term in office, insurrection" and
"threaten an upswing in armed conflict." Sounds like the Lancet is
transitioning from writing about medicine to writing fiction.
But this is the lunacy which the Left has engaged in to defame and
destroy Donald Trump and his chances of winning back the presidency.
The Lancet merely joined the cacophonous chorus. Claudine Gay is
already a highly visible and audible member.
Is it any wonder that, according to a recent Gallup Poll, just 18%
of the American people said they had a great deal or a lot of confidence
in newspapers, and 14% said likewise of big business, while confidence
in higher education has dropped to 36% this year from 67% in 2015.
Gay further writes that campaigns against institutions "often start
with attacks on education and expertise, because these are the tools
that best equip communities to see through propaganda." How
amusing coming from her! Elites like Gay use their education
and expertise to indoctrinate and enforce ideological conformity in
their institutions, vilifying and misrepresenting the arguments of their
critics instead of engaging with them in clean, honest debate, which
quite frankly they are afraid to do because they know they won't win.
That is why they strain to shut up and shut out their critics.
It's also why they have one set of rules for their own, and another
set for everyone else. And the public's cynicism toward these
institutions grows all the while.
These institutions have lost the respect of the public because of their
wild rocket rides over to the fringes of rational thought. Once they
stop these flights of dreadful fancy and work to rebuild the
foundations upon which they were established, if they ever desire to,
that lost respect will slowly return. Will this happen? Time will tell.
MEM
