Just anecdotally as a former grad student at Harfraud, data contrivance and model "overfitting" is ubiquitous, especially in anything "social science" oriented. I can't tell you how many graduate theses I saw that were fundamentally verificationist in methodology: only supporting data is cited (or sorted) to verify a sloppy thesis. Only falsifiable hypotheses are scientifically valid (which is not to say they are true however! Just feasibly testable.) But postmodern verificationist thesis "research" (as it's always called) is just ideologically driven garbage. Data is almost like, an aesthetic at this point – the fetish of graphical modeling and crap; Mattias Desmet hits this nail on the head in his book The Psychology of Totalitarianism. Both academia and corporations are obsessed with the aesthetic of data; big surprise. When so much has been cleverly rationalized with sophisticated modeling nowadays then you have to trust your nose: if it smells like bullshit, it probably is. The 21st century has to be navigated by scent way more than I'd like!
From "The Psychology of Totalitarianism" by Mattias Desmet: Totalitarianism is "gaining strength and speed with each generation--from Jacobins to the Nazis and Stalinists..." I agree that today's progressivism is a form of totalitarianism. The two main forms of totalitarianism--communism and fascism--are virtually identical; Hitler was a socialist who borrowed many of his ideas from Karl Marx. My recent "2026" Substack discusses "The Ideology that Captured Our Culture" at https://2026.substack.com/p/the-ideology-that-captured-our-culture
Exactly. The Nazi Party was officially named the National Socialist German Workers' Party. Today, progressives would be more appropriately named the National Neo-Marxist Party and they have heavy control over the U.S.
The bigger problem in my opinion is that studies based on data and "curated" with p-values often are not replicated. If a finding is valid then others should be able to use a different but plausible analytical approach, or apply the same methods to new data under different settings, to see if the results still stand. That is why honest researchers share their data and computational code with others (some journals already require this). Although there has been a lot of talk about the replication crisis, the professional reward for researchers who replicate the studies of others is not great.
She was hired by Jews because it was antiwhite to do so, then she was fired by Jews when the mob they created came for them.
Anybody who doesn't explain it this way is lying. Only the schools with non-Jewish presidents were interrogated in front of Congress. Jewish money controls Harvard, even after Jeffrey Epstein.
The logical fallacy that "correlation = cause" also has a long history as a tool of manipulation in the sciences, medicine, and psychology. The more orders of inference required in order to confidently assert a conclusion--and the more threadbare the foundation of factual knowledge--the more vulnerable the extant raw data is to manipulation. Correlations are closely aligned with causation in structural engineering, say, or electronics design; it's fairly easy to establish the limits of "tolerance" in those endeavors. Once the topic turns to (for example) AI, that reliable linkage is upset. Consider the "large-language model" of AI; it's entirely correlation-based! which explains how hilarious some of the declarations of AI programs can get. The more "advanced" large-language models aren't really improved in terms of their cognition; they're merely programmed to demur, deflect, and deny more often, about their ability to give an answer. The programmers of the algos at least have to be given credit for finally acknowledging how badly wrong a correlation-reliant model can potentially get, even with a stupendously massive data set to draw on.
Numbers provide an illusion of Objective Authority, because they're entirely denotative. But the most important thing is not the numbers; it's the nature of the question(s) being asked, and the limitations of the ability of the data set(s) to provide cogent answers. Ask bad, clueless, woefully incomplete, biased questions, and the accuracy of a mathematical result doesn't matter, as far as its worth as an answer.
"... what they show is only a correlation, not a causal relationship.
"... this leads to a correlation in the data—without any causal effect from the election of black representatives.
This is very basic. For many people who work with data, such considerations about possible alternative hypotheses are the first thing we think about. But for some reason it was not considered in the paper, which means that the conclusion it makes about causality is invalid."
BINGO: The Left assumes cause that fits their view & vision without considering perfectly logical alternatives. Thomas Sowell (& others) have repeatedly shown & specifically debunked that the Left assumes correlation is cause.
It isn't just "the Left" that indulges in the logical fallacy that "correlation = cause."And it isn't a problem that's confined to sociological topics.
What I'm noticing is that the era of Big Data is overawing people- including professional researchers who should know better. It's so easy to do data correlations these days, often generated from huge data sets. This is done in some fields of science and medicine as much as in any academic social discipline or humanities field. One of the newest data fads is a heightened focus on "regression analysis and causative inference"- generating conclusions based on counterfactual hypotheses. The tool doesn't entirely lack value, but it's inherently limited. It can provide useful guidelines to follow a fruitful avenue of research, but it isn't probative. Yet it's increasingly being treated as if it was- or, at any rate, its findings are often assigned much more value than they possess.
There's also an increasing amount of swooning over "data forwarding"- drawing conclusions about future trends projected from assorted multivariate vectors that already exist in data sets. (Numbers! Big ones!) I'm noticing a lot of this in regard to projections of economic behavior, and also the "public mind" on other questions, like political questions. The researchers and readers of those findings need to increase their wariness, not their credulity. . Correlations drawn from a whole lot of numbers and a whole lot of factors crunched together do not add up to Prescience, much less Omniscience.
DEI is an intellectual death spiral. Ideological purity requires moral bankruptcy that leads to intellectual depravity. The result is dysfunctional institutions that progressively fail from incompetence which attempt to compensate for the failures by increasing requirements for intellectual depravity that worsen the incompetence. This closed intellectual system ends in collapse unless interrupted by rational outside actors who break the trance. We are at a moment of truth that will determine whether our civilization survives.
As an exhausted, brain-fog-riddled mother of 5 I can clearly understand the preposterousness of her thesis based on the info given here. Why was this not caught 20 years ago??? As the kids say, "I can't even"...
When the guy says this is "very basic", he means basement-level basic. There's no way she (and those who hired her) didn't know that this was sloppy, disingenuous work.
You're giving her too much credit. She isn't smart enough to know that it's sloppy, disingenuous work. Seriously. She probably didn't even write those papers. Anyone can copy and paste. Affirmative action means not smart. She's an affirmative action hire and doesn't have the capacity to think.
It'll be a cold day in hell when a black woman loses tenure. Affirmative action means you don't have to actually be qualified for the job in the first place.
I doubt if Gay actually wrote anything. She's an affirmative action hire and was an affirmative action student. They don't have to pass tests, write legitimate papers and dissertations, or know anything. They get "degrees" because they are black. Pretending she wrote it is absurd. Additionally, anyone who "peer reviewed" her stuff wouldn't find fault with any of it because she's black!
The "elite" whites who're paid by the socialist/communist, plutocrat cabal to destroy everything white (Western civilization) by hiring foul, incompetent, immoral, affirmative action pukes like Gay. It's the same ones who put dumb, doddering Biden as the head puppet in D. C.
No. Jews aren't white. It doesn't matter how much anyone lies about this.
If that were true, when antiwhite politics are pushed at Harvard, including the hatred of whiteness by Jews like Noel Ignatiev, they would have had it shut down. They didn't because they're not white.
When Israel gets criticized, they shut it down immediately. Because they're not white. They are Zionist Jews, and that is the bedrock of their identity.
You're just not smart enough to see understand what's going on and how Jews operate.
Lol "elite whites." You don't get accusations of "antisemitism" if you do that because everyone understands what's going on. When I start discussing the Zionist Jews who control Harvard, "antisemitism" accusations start immediately. Because whites don't control Harvard.
Just stop it. The jig is up and I'm tired of stupid people.
It's a little bit confounding the dance they do with intersectionality. Because it is simultaneously all about race and not really about race. You can see that with the treatment of Larry Elder or Clarence Thomas or any black conservative. We're all for you, but if you disagree then we're done with you big time. Which means it's really about ideology, and an anti-western one, because they view the west as white, which in large part it has been, even if not completely.
A much larger issue where the liberal elite confuse correlation cause and is climate change. They insist that the observation that earth surface temperature and CO2 levels in the atmosphere are increasing together proves that a minuscule amount of CO2 — 0.04% of total atmospheric gas — is the root cause of climate change and vigorously ridicule and suppress any explanation of how they may instead be correlated. The commonly held notions that CO2 somehow creates an insulating blanket over the earth or somehow “reradiates” heat back to the earth is based on profound misunderstanding of the ideal gas laws and basic thermodynamics. Another example on a grand scale of the left assuming correlation is cause!!
Environmentalism rejects the notion of progress and wants to somehow take civilization back to its pre-industrial state or hasten the demise of Homosapiens in favor of other, oppressed ("endangered") species. Humanity is Satan . . . the nonhuman world is Paradise. It is yet another Millennialist cult that's sprung up to fill the void left by the murdered Christian God.
Remember "The Hellstrom Chronicle"? They're rooting for the cockroaches.
Environmentalism is simply cleaning up the mess after it has been made. Like wiping your ass after taking a dump. Maybe the news hasn't reached you yet on the QAnon board. We all have to live here together,clean up after yourself,did you miss that lesson in 2nd grade?
OK, let's say "environmental activism" or "the environmental movement."
There's a difference between environmental stewards looking for real, pragmatic solutions to pollution and the degradation of the natural world, attempting to find a stable ecological balance between the man-made and the natural world, versus religious zealots who chain themselves to statues, deface old paintings, block rush-hour traffic, run around in Puritan women's dresses, and so forth, allegedly to "raise awareness" about global warming--an issue that has spawned hysterical responses to predictions of future conditions that may or may not come to pass. This "problem" has given environmentalists more reason to demand anti-human policies like those batted around at Davos by Darth Schwab and his ilk.
You are right there is a difference. I'm thinking you and I are part of your first example. Your language suggests you care as do I. I live in the US West and am an avid year round outdoor participant. Your second example I would respond by saying," Who cares!" Show me any group and there will be the extremists within,usually a very small part of the group. I try not to live my life worrying about those folks with their hats and flags and exaggerated language. It's just a distraction. One project I'm doing now is building an off-grid home in the high desert,not because I'm a prepper but to see how energy efficient I can build a comfortable home that is completely self contained. I'm utilizing old and modern technology and local materials. I'm pro-human by the way.
There’s a huge problem in higher education that probably has little to do with the heavy viewpoint bias toward progressivism. Peer review doesn’t mean true. Far from it. Data used in a peer reviewed publication is almost never reviewed by the peer reviewers. Please listen to this discussion: Adam Mastroianni on Peer Review and the Academic Kitchen. Abstract below.
“Psychologist Adam Mastroianni says peer review has failed. Papers with major errors make it through the process. The ones without errors often fail to replicate. One approach to improve the process is better incentives. But Mastroianni argues that peer review isn't fixable. It's a failed experiment. Listen as he makes the case to EconTalk host Russ Roberts for a new approach to science and academic research.”
I am referring to "he makes the case ... for a new approach to science and academic research". I want the one-paragraph summary of this "new approach".
James Lindsay deserves the Nobel Prize for his work at New Discourses. He has done more to raise awareness of the neo-Marxist capture of our institutions than anyone (Besides Mr. Rufo, that is) and elucidates the ideology thoroughly, clearly, and credibly. Pluckrose and Boghossian, co-authors of the hoax papers with Lindsay, are worthy allies and colleagues.
The affect this capture of our institutions will have on our republic is probably worse than anyone thinks.
Thank you Chris for shedding even more light on Gay. So now we know Gay is a racist white-hater, a plagiarist, and a p-hacker. Which means she hates, steals, and does fraud.
It appears the emperor (The Harvard board) has no cloths. I just hope others see how nakedly corrupt they are too.
Kat, I agree she was hired for hating whites (which include jews, and asians). Important distinction. As to being fired by jews who "control" Harvard, I would use the word "influence" instead but having said that, I agree. Of course, Jews are leaving Harvard, are denied entry like Asians -- I myself am embarrassed so many Jews are liberal despite themselves.
(As to the reason why so many jews are liberal, IMHO, it's because most jews are anti-religion. Half assimilate every generation. But religious jews are almost always conservative. This has a parallel with Christians. A great topic, but I digress.)
In the end, to oversimplify a bit, yes, jews who witnessed the backfiring of their own lefty beliefs on themselves, conservatives upset about racism, good people who view islamo-terrorists as a threat, believers in integrity and truth, and a coalition of pragmatic interests, came together to expose the rot and make the ouster of Gay happen. I am at least thankful middle-of-the-road dem jews, despite their continued idiotic leftism, reacted in self-interest. In that respect, it represents a split within the left which should be exploited in its fullest by conservatives to kill DEI, racism, anti-capitalism, globalism, and institutional capture by the left. It could not come too soon.
Jews are not white. If Jews were white, saying "abolish whiteness" would be illegal to say at Harvard. It isn't. That was celebrated while statues were torn down, whites attacked, buildings burned. Nobody was dragged in front of Congress because whites do not control Harvard (though they founded it) and Jews are not white.
And Asians definitely aren't white. The only way white people can get upset about the takeover of the US by foreign influences is put Asians first. Thanks for proving my point, lol.
Guess who pushed the very concept of antiwhiteness in academia? You'll never guess. Noel Ignatiev has something in common with you, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altma, Larry Summers, Alan Garber, Alan Dershowitz, Jeffrey Epstein, Steven Pinker--just guess!
Criticism of Israel is not tolerated because Jews base their identity on Israel since they're not white. I won't even go into the Holocaust at the moment. Those are the two foundations of Jewish identity.
Come on, now. I didn't fall out of the sky yesterday. This isn't about right vs. left. Jewish donors to Trump were the biggest ones of the Republican party--Adelson, Marcus, Singer (they got the capital moved to Jerusalem, which was considered an impossible dream for years and I didn't hear any "liberal" Jews complaining). Both left and right Israeli politicians agree that angry third world Muslims should be shipped to the West (Rami Ben Barak and Danny Danon, as published in the WSJ).
This is pure, sheer Zionist Jewish power. That covers Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer as well as Jared Kushner and Benjamin Netanyahu. That is why Jews have been so successful at their collective identity politics in the US.
Crying about "woke" or DEI or globalism (hmmm....who pushes those things? Larry Fink, George Soros...hang on a minute) won't save you.
Wow Kat, if I say jews are whites it really offends you. First, I was using the term to mean "the left's view of oppressors." I do not care that much about racial groupings.
Second, it appears you think the entire Gay fiasco had nothing to do with left vs right. I agree the "ignition" of the issue was the Oct 7 Hamas massacre and that it led to jewish (and non-jewish) outrage against terrorists and outrage from Palestinian terrorist apologists which exposed their anti-semitism. It is interesting that you point to jewish identity to Israel but that is not universal and your bias excludes you from pointing out Arab and American's pro-palestinian support despite their links to islamo jew hatred. In any event, that "ignition" in the aftermath of the massacre exposed many things, but most importantly, it exposed the left's fundamental flaw when it was unable to denounce anti-semetism. It exposed the left's racialism. Its placement of ideology over academic integrity. Its rot. These issues are unrelated to jews and terrorists and israel. These are left vs right issues. These are purely American issues everyone should be concerned about.
Last, saying I am this guy "Noel Ignatiev" who I never heard of was a surprise so I scanned the New Yorker article you provided, only to discover some woke jewish anti-white activist. All I can say is, no, your assumption I am some lefty commie, white-hating pig based on my name is incorrect. As to "crying about woke won't save you," I do not seek saving. I am quite happy with who I am and suggesting otherwise, well frankly, feels you just enjoy being a prick.
[ note this is NOT about the article itself but merely the reference made to “Dansk industri” as danish trade association, last sentence of the second paragraph.
I stumbled because it didn’t seem like an accurate translation (being Danish so I really began to think and compare structures of big orgs and actors in Denmark lol). So looked it up
According to their own website, DI is “Confederation of Danish Industry”, not Danish trade association, which resonated a lot more with me
The confusion of correlation with causation is so rampant in academia, the news media, and partisan politics- and so often passively accepted- that it's a scandal. It's hardly reserved for any particular ideological "side", either.
One of the aspects I find most troubling about this classic logical fallacy and the lazy assumptions typically connected to it is that it's long been the stock in trade of the racist right wing. If ever there was a Tool Of The Oppressor that can't be trusted to Dismantle the Oppressor's House, the manipulation of correlative findings into causative conclusions is it. Uncritical acceptance of such confusion as if it were slam-dunk probative opens the door to massaging preconceived biases--maintaining shoddy narratives with the authority implied by the "objective" metric data used to fabricate the speculative "conclusions." And, from there, even more extravagant speculative leaps and mean cheap shots have a way of marching through.
Chris - If you will permit me an observation and suggestion, please.
Efforts toward constitutional-based E Pluribus Unum is not only a Conservative goal, but a common sense American goal.
Must avoid partisan demo-serving divisive posturing.
Moreover, the destructive nihilist disrupters are Progressives. It alienates legacy Democrats to misnomer the miscreants.
A suggestion - Document and Diagram and Disclose the U.S. Taxpayer-funded thousands of millions of Progressives Tax Deductions which have been mis-used to malign candidates, cripple law enforcement, instigate and coordinate urban riots, while funding the planned and orchestrated Importation of tens of millions of foreign nationals, bankrupting our healthcare and education and welfare infrastructure, and the integrity of our individual-responsible citizen voting system.
Publishing the Source and Application of “Tax Deductions” related to “Non-Profit” Demo-Advocacy groups - since 2008 - would be insightful, starting with the single-source est. $ 400 million 2020 influence of Progressive-targeted nation-wide county election Offices.
Don’t even have to name names - just expose the enormity of Goliath’s thumb on the scale of civil discord by their tax-deducted funding.
“The scandals at Harvard have revealed an ugly truth about America’s elite institutions: they have been unwilling, or unable, to self-correct.” Thank you for that, but let’s also start a wider conversation about OUR weakness to self-correct. All of us tend to avoid blame and humiliation. We want to see ourselves in high regard; to be respected within our communities and families. The simple act of admitting wrong and apologizing is surprisingly difficult and uncommon.
Certainly the strong progressive bias in higher education has lead to a great weakness in discourse there. It’s an unhealthy environment for dissent best captured in the book The Canceling the American Mind. When dissent does occur it’s too often not guided by norms of respect. Respect is just as important as free speech. Where’s the norm of respect at Harvard?
But there are more fundamental problems. We can point the finger at communist revolutionaries as you do in your book, but let’s go even deeper. Let’s start by looking in a mirror, at ourselves.
Here’s an excerpt from a book that everyone can benefit from, especially Claudine Gay.
“How to apologize: quickly, specifically, sincerely. Don’t ruin an apology with an excuse.
A proper apology consists of conveying the 3 Rs: regret (genuine empathy with the other) responsibility (not blaming someone else) and remedy (your willingness to fix it).”
The deeper problem here is us, our communities - down to the neighborhood, and our homes.
Here’s an idea. Let’s re-imagine our community churches, not as places involving worship to the supernatural. Let’s get completely away from that. Sure, we can and should admire real and fictional role models; talk about our favorite mentors and coaches; and even talk about our favorites fictional characters, but to pretend Jesus had supernatural powers? It’s outdated. It’s old fashioned. Everything in the known universe obeys the laws of physics, even Jesus.
Let’s move past the supernatural and re-imagine churches and our home as places for self-improvement; book clubs in which we read and discuss poetry and prose; for the enjoyment of songs that remind and evoke; venues to be introspective; for the enjoyment of sharing food; to discuss politics; and places for pick-up games. Let’s get out of our houses, and take a break from the TV and video games.
Sure, bring your Bible to church, and read it at home too, but try seeing it as truth in metaphor, art and fiction, as well as truth in non-fiction.
Unfortunately the building that brings a neighborhood together, to the extent that it does at all, is the neighborhood public school. Are these schools doing a good job of bringing about good character? Bringing communities together? Here’s a new school model that focuses on character as well as cognitive skills. https://www.thalesacademy.org/academics/real-world-skills?code=top15
I don’t see much introspection on the progressive left and these are the folks running public schools. They have no norm of repentance. They should not be our children’s thought leaders. They’re educated at schools that promote DEI. But that strategy shouldn’t be to replace the teachers? We need to get away from government funding of both higher education and K-12. Government funding of education is THE problem. Let’s separate school and state just as we separate church and state. To do otherwise is to invite conformity, fragility and censorship.
Let’s step back from the focus on Harvard and remember that everyone is vulnerable to pride, arrogance and complacency. Being humble, and admitting our mistakes requires vigilance and communities of self-improvement. That vigilance is missing in many families and communities. Why not improve our families and communities at the same time that we re-imagine higher education?
I agree Scott we need to get rid of gov run education. At this time, the voucher concept extended to all levels of education, along with the dismantling of today's accreditation system so private companies can offer higher education, feels the most plausible.
My influences will differ from yours, but based on my influences I believe he would say to withdraw your children from schools that promote DEI, and other Neo-Marxist, socialist and racist ideologies, (unless of course you’re a socialist and/or racist and in that case he would say live and let live, so long as one’s actions are peaceful).
He would remind us to protect and love our children, by spending quality with them; teaching them what they need to know; encouraging us to be good role models for them.
This starts by being introspective, humble and grateful. It also means being positive, hopeful, and entrepreneurial. It means being personally accountable; figuring out one’s duty and pursuing it. It means asking questions like “How can I help?” and “What can I do to make this situation better?”
As fathers we have a variety of important duties. We are protectors, teachers, providers, caretakers, warriors (and peace makers). Depending on the circumstances, we will need to spend more time on some of these roles than others. When it comes to Neo-Marxism and creeping totalitarianism, we need to step into the roles of protector and teacher. This might mean reducing our roles as provider.
As protectors and teachers we should educate ourselves about DEI—with its untruths, double standards, its contradictions—-and then teach our children what they need to know. Currently, I’m reading Animal Farm to my 12 and 9 year old daughters, and they are engrossed. Without adding much commentary they’re able to discern right and wrong in the narrative. I’ve also just read two other books with my 9 nine year old daughter, My Brother Sam is Dead (a historical fiction about the Revolutionary War) and The First Book of World War II, which is a concise history aimed at children written shortly after the war ended. The latter was motivated by October 7.
I’ve also just finished reading two books on Israel and Jewish history both by Daniel Gordis. I felt a duty to educate myself on Israeli and Palestinian history given the progressive and higher education view on that conflict. 1) Israel: A Concise History of a National Reborn and 2) We Stand Divided: The Rift Between American Jews and Israel.
I put my children in K-12 schools that promote excellent moral character such as Challenger School and Thales Academy, and I seek to put them in colleges that do they same, though I haven’t figured out great options for colleges yet.
When, and if I ever do feel confident that my children are safe from DEI and Neo-Marxism, I’ll get back to me, but right now most of my life is dedicated to them.
I think He'd treat college presidents like He did the hucksters and money changers in the temple. Maybe give a few sermons to the undergraduates who would gather to denounce him as a racist, homophobe, transphobe, MAGA supporter, and Zionist.
Great question. Arnold Kling’s book, The Three Languages of Politics is helpful here. In politics we have three distinct languages, one for each political tribe. The language used by a member of the progressive tribe signals to other progressives his loyalty to the tribe. As long as he maintains good standing within his tribe he feels self-worth. He seeks to avoid being shamed by members of his tribe. To be humiliated by other progressives is catastrophic to his well-being. This is the only humiliation that exists.
When challenged by members of another group, the progressive works to maintain standing within his in-group, falling back to the narrative which views the world as a struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed.
Trying to understand progressives without this model, makes it seem as if they are immune to humiliation. Claudine Gay is safe within her group as long as she continues to blame the oppressors that are challenging her.
The progressive sees you as being immune to humiliation. They don’t understand your unwillingness to side with the oppressed and against the oppressor. Have you no shame? You white-privileged oppressor!
They are safe within their tribe. Your words, and your condemnation have no effect on their in-group standing. You don’t matter to them.
You don’t speak their language and thus won’t be able to get through to them. They derive their no self-worth from you - a member of an out-group. All that matters is their in-group status.
Compare this to the individualist, the Anarchist or Libertarian who just wants to be left alone, "free to pursue his own life so long as he respects the equal rights of others."
That hasn’t been worked on very much, so it would take a significant effort, but I think my answer to your question about what Jesus would do is my best quick answer. Integrating the Three Language Model in there is a good exercise, and I’ll have to think about that for a day or two.
Just anecdotally as a former grad student at Harfraud, data contrivance and model "overfitting" is ubiquitous, especially in anything "social science" oriented. I can't tell you how many graduate theses I saw that were fundamentally verificationist in methodology: only supporting data is cited (or sorted) to verify a sloppy thesis. Only falsifiable hypotheses are scientifically valid (which is not to say they are true however! Just feasibly testable.) But postmodern verificationist thesis "research" (as it's always called) is just ideologically driven garbage. Data is almost like, an aesthetic at this point – the fetish of graphical modeling and crap; Mattias Desmet hits this nail on the head in his book The Psychology of Totalitarianism. Both academia and corporations are obsessed with the aesthetic of data; big surprise. When so much has been cleverly rationalized with sophisticated modeling nowadays then you have to trust your nose: if it smells like bullshit, it probably is. The 21st century has to be navigated by scent way more than I'd like!
From "The Psychology of Totalitarianism" by Mattias Desmet: Totalitarianism is "gaining strength and speed with each generation--from Jacobins to the Nazis and Stalinists..." I agree that today's progressivism is a form of totalitarianism. The two main forms of totalitarianism--communism and fascism--are virtually identical; Hitler was a socialist who borrowed many of his ideas from Karl Marx. My recent "2026" Substack discusses "The Ideology that Captured Our Culture" at https://2026.substack.com/p/the-ideology-that-captured-our-culture
Thank you for this clear explanation. The Nazis were National Socialists and they had heavy control over the country.
Exactly. The Nazi Party was officially named the National Socialist German Workers' Party. Today, progressives would be more appropriately named the National Neo-Marxist Party and they have heavy control over the U.S.
Great book
Maybe Bill Ackman and Len Blavatnik are Nazis.
Look into it. Or they might be something else.
The bigger problem in my opinion is that studies based on data and "curated" with p-values often are not replicated. If a finding is valid then others should be able to use a different but plausible analytical approach, or apply the same methods to new data under different settings, to see if the results still stand. That is why honest researchers share their data and computational code with others (some journals already require this). Although there has been a lot of talk about the replication crisis, the professional reward for researchers who replicate the studies of others is not great.
You're spot on – I totally agree.
"Ideologically driven garbage" sums it up nicely.
I think you give them too much credit calling it ideology. I believe it's driven by avarice and niggardlyness!
Many thx; well explained!
She was hired by Jews because it was antiwhite to do so, then she was fired by Jews when the mob they created came for them.
Anybody who doesn't explain it this way is lying. Only the schools with non-Jewish presidents were interrogated in front of Congress. Jewish money controls Harvard, even after Jeffrey Epstein.
Rufo won't say that because he's a coward.
The logical fallacy that "correlation = cause" also has a long history as a tool of manipulation in the sciences, medicine, and psychology. The more orders of inference required in order to confidently assert a conclusion--and the more threadbare the foundation of factual knowledge--the more vulnerable the extant raw data is to manipulation. Correlations are closely aligned with causation in structural engineering, say, or electronics design; it's fairly easy to establish the limits of "tolerance" in those endeavors. Once the topic turns to (for example) AI, that reliable linkage is upset. Consider the "large-language model" of AI; it's entirely correlation-based! which explains how hilarious some of the declarations of AI programs can get. The more "advanced" large-language models aren't really improved in terms of their cognition; they're merely programmed to demur, deflect, and deny more often, about their ability to give an answer. The programmers of the algos at least have to be given credit for finally acknowledging how badly wrong a correlation-reliant model can potentially get, even with a stupendously massive data set to draw on.
Numbers provide an illusion of Objective Authority, because they're entirely denotative. But the most important thing is not the numbers; it's the nature of the question(s) being asked, and the limitations of the ability of the data set(s) to provide cogent answers. Ask bad, clueless, woefully incomplete, biased questions, and the accuracy of a mathematical result doesn't matter, as far as its worth as an answer.
Super astute and perfectly stated!
"... what they show is only a correlation, not a causal relationship.
"... this leads to a correlation in the data—without any causal effect from the election of black representatives.
This is very basic. For many people who work with data, such considerations about possible alternative hypotheses are the first thing we think about. But for some reason it was not considered in the paper, which means that the conclusion it makes about causality is invalid."
BINGO: The Left assumes cause that fits their view & vision without considering perfectly logical alternatives. Thomas Sowell (& others) have repeatedly shown & specifically debunked that the Left assumes correlation is cause.
Unless it's about adverse effects of the covid vaccines THEN of course it is ABSOLUTELY NOT causation! Never!
It isn't just "the Left" that indulges in the logical fallacy that "correlation = cause."And it isn't a problem that's confined to sociological topics.
What I'm noticing is that the era of Big Data is overawing people- including professional researchers who should know better. It's so easy to do data correlations these days, often generated from huge data sets. This is done in some fields of science and medicine as much as in any academic social discipline or humanities field. One of the newest data fads is a heightened focus on "regression analysis and causative inference"- generating conclusions based on counterfactual hypotheses. The tool doesn't entirely lack value, but it's inherently limited. It can provide useful guidelines to follow a fruitful avenue of research, but it isn't probative. Yet it's increasingly being treated as if it was- or, at any rate, its findings are often assigned much more value than they possess.
There's also an increasing amount of swooning over "data forwarding"- drawing conclusions about future trends projected from assorted multivariate vectors that already exist in data sets. (Numbers! Big ones!) I'm noticing a lot of this in regard to projections of economic behavior, and also the "public mind" on other questions, like political questions. The researchers and readers of those findings need to increase their wariness, not their credulity. . Correlations drawn from a whole lot of numbers and a whole lot of factors crunched together do not add up to Prescience, much less Omniscience.
DEI is an intellectual death spiral. Ideological purity requires moral bankruptcy that leads to intellectual depravity. The result is dysfunctional institutions that progressively fail from incompetence which attempt to compensate for the failures by increasing requirements for intellectual depravity that worsen the incompetence. This closed intellectual system ends in collapse unless interrupted by rational outside actors who break the trance. We are at a moment of truth that will determine whether our civilization survives.
As an exhausted, brain-fog-riddled mother of 5 I can clearly understand the preposterousness of her thesis based on the info given here. Why was this not caught 20 years ago??? As the kids say, "I can't even"...
When the guy says this is "very basic", he means basement-level basic. There's no way she (and those who hired her) didn't know that this was sloppy, disingenuous work.
And speaks volumes about why she was really hired.
Affirmative action. Only requirement is non-white.
You're giving her too much credit. She isn't smart enough to know that it's sloppy, disingenuous work. Seriously. She probably didn't even write those papers. Anyone can copy and paste. Affirmative action means not smart. She's an affirmative action hire and doesn't have the capacity to think.
Don't stop now, please. With more questions such as these, she'll lose her tenure as well.
It'll be a cold day in hell when a black woman loses tenure. Affirmative action means you don't have to actually be qualified for the job in the first place.
Being black means never having to say you're sorry.
I doubt if Gay actually wrote anything. She's an affirmative action hire and was an affirmative action student. They don't have to pass tests, write legitimate papers and dissertations, or know anything. They get "degrees" because they are black. Pretending she wrote it is absurd. Additionally, anyone who "peer reviewed" her stuff wouldn't find fault with any of it because she's black!
Who hired her?
Who fired her? Who is behind all of this? Who has the power and money at Harvard to do this?
The "elite" whites who're paid by the socialist/communist, plutocrat cabal to destroy everything white (Western civilization) by hiring foul, incompetent, immoral, affirmative action pukes like Gay. It's the same ones who put dumb, doddering Biden as the head puppet in D. C.
Jews aren't white
Yes, they're Caucasian. Askenazi Jews are of Russian origins and believed to have converted to Judaism.
No. Jews aren't white. It doesn't matter how much anyone lies about this.
If that were true, when antiwhite politics are pushed at Harvard, including the hatred of whiteness by Jews like Noel Ignatiev, they would have had it shut down. They didn't because they're not white.
When Israel gets criticized, they shut it down immediately. Because they're not white. They are Zionist Jews, and that is the bedrock of their identity.
You're just not smart enough to see understand what's going on and how Jews operate.
Lol "elite whites." You don't get accusations of "antisemitism" if you do that because everyone understands what's going on. When I start discussing the Zionist Jews who control Harvard, "antisemitism" accusations start immediately. Because whites don't control Harvard.
Just stop it. The jig is up and I'm tired of stupid people.
https://www.commentary.org/articles/liel-leibovitz/jews-are-not-white/
Yes they do...the standards are just far lower. Which is the whole point of DEI.
If the standards don't measure up to what "regular" standards for a job are, there's not much point in having standards that are inferior.
Bo Winegard for Harvard President ! ✌️✌️✌️ This can only constitute an improvement, anyway 😅
It's a little bit confounding the dance they do with intersectionality. Because it is simultaneously all about race and not really about race. You can see that with the treatment of Larry Elder or Clarence Thomas or any black conservative. We're all for you, but if you disagree then we're done with you big time. Which means it's really about ideology, and an anti-western one, because they view the west as white, which in large part it has been, even if not completely.
Whites created Western civilization.
A much larger issue where the liberal elite confuse correlation cause and is climate change. They insist that the observation that earth surface temperature and CO2 levels in the atmosphere are increasing together proves that a minuscule amount of CO2 — 0.04% of total atmospheric gas — is the root cause of climate change and vigorously ridicule and suppress any explanation of how they may instead be correlated. The commonly held notions that CO2 somehow creates an insulating blanket over the earth or somehow “reradiates” heat back to the earth is based on profound misunderstanding of the ideal gas laws and basic thermodynamics. Another example on a grand scale of the left assuming correlation is cause!!
Environmentalism rejects the notion of progress and wants to somehow take civilization back to its pre-industrial state or hasten the demise of Homosapiens in favor of other, oppressed ("endangered") species. Humanity is Satan . . . the nonhuman world is Paradise. It is yet another Millennialist cult that's sprung up to fill the void left by the murdered Christian God.
Remember "The Hellstrom Chronicle"? They're rooting for the cockroaches.
Environmentalism is simply cleaning up the mess after it has been made. Like wiping your ass after taking a dump. Maybe the news hasn't reached you yet on the QAnon board. We all have to live here together,clean up after yourself,did you miss that lesson in 2nd grade?
OK, let's say "environmental activism" or "the environmental movement."
There's a difference between environmental stewards looking for real, pragmatic solutions to pollution and the degradation of the natural world, attempting to find a stable ecological balance between the man-made and the natural world, versus religious zealots who chain themselves to statues, deface old paintings, block rush-hour traffic, run around in Puritan women's dresses, and so forth, allegedly to "raise awareness" about global warming--an issue that has spawned hysterical responses to predictions of future conditions that may or may not come to pass. This "problem" has given environmentalists more reason to demand anti-human policies like those batted around at Davos by Darth Schwab and his ilk.
You are right there is a difference. I'm thinking you and I are part of your first example. Your language suggests you care as do I. I live in the US West and am an avid year round outdoor participant. Your second example I would respond by saying," Who cares!" Show me any group and there will be the extremists within,usually a very small part of the group. I try not to live my life worrying about those folks with their hats and flags and exaggerated language. It's just a distraction. One project I'm doing now is building an off-grid home in the high desert,not because I'm a prepper but to see how energy efficient I can build a comfortable home that is completely self contained. I'm utilizing old and modern technology and local materials. I'm pro-human by the way.
There’s a huge problem in higher education that probably has little to do with the heavy viewpoint bias toward progressivism. Peer review doesn’t mean true. Far from it. Data used in a peer reviewed publication is almost never reviewed by the peer reviewers. Please listen to this discussion: Adam Mastroianni on Peer Review and the Academic Kitchen. Abstract below.
https://www.econtalk.org/adam-mastroianni-on-peer-review-and-the-academic-kitchen/
“Psychologist Adam Mastroianni says peer review has failed. Papers with major errors make it through the process. The ones without errors often fail to replicate. One approach to improve the process is better incentives. But Mastroianni argues that peer review isn't fixable. It's a failed experiment. Listen as he makes the case to EconTalk host Russ Roberts for a new approach to science and academic research.”
And what is this "new approach"?
As an academic scientist (and frequent peer reviewer), I doubt one exists.
By “new approach” are you referring to the sentence in the abstract above that reads: “One approach to improve the process is better incentives?”
That “one approach” to improve incentives is suggested by the host Russ Roberts.
Adam Mastroianni is the guest.
I am referring to "he makes the case ... for a new approach to science and academic research". I want the one-paragraph summary of this "new approach".
I want?
Well I'm not spending my time listening to a podcast. If a summary is not available, I'll just move on, thanks.
Pallesen's idea that left-biased things pass peer review more easily was tested when three people hoaxed a whole bunch of sociology/feminist journals six years ago with fake papers the conformed to woke viewpoints: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/10/dog-rape-and-mein-kampf-feminist-text-why-we-hoaxed-journals-terrible
James Lindsay deserves the Nobel Prize for his work at New Discourses. He has done more to raise awareness of the neo-Marxist capture of our institutions than anyone (Besides Mr. Rufo, that is) and elucidates the ideology thoroughly, clearly, and credibly. Pluckrose and Boghossian, co-authors of the hoax papers with Lindsay, are worthy allies and colleagues.
The affect this capture of our institutions will have on our republic is probably worse than anyone thinks.
Thank you Chris for shedding even more light on Gay. So now we know Gay is a racist white-hater, a plagiarist, and a p-hacker. Which means she hates, steals, and does fraud.
It appears the emperor (The Harvard board) has no cloths. I just hope others see how nakedly corrupt they are too.
Chris, keep up the great work.
She wasn't fired for hating whites, Mr. Silverberg.
That's the reason she was hired. She kept her job through antiwhite BLM craziness for that very reason.
She was fired by the Jews who run Harvard because she didn't stop criticism of Israel. That's why she was interrogated by Congress.
Why can't any of you be honest? It's exhausting.
Kat, I agree she was hired for hating whites (which include jews, and asians). Important distinction. As to being fired by jews who "control" Harvard, I would use the word "influence" instead but having said that, I agree. Of course, Jews are leaving Harvard, are denied entry like Asians -- I myself am embarrassed so many Jews are liberal despite themselves.
(As to the reason why so many jews are liberal, IMHO, it's because most jews are anti-religion. Half assimilate every generation. But religious jews are almost always conservative. This has a parallel with Christians. A great topic, but I digress.)
In the end, to oversimplify a bit, yes, jews who witnessed the backfiring of their own lefty beliefs on themselves, conservatives upset about racism, good people who view islamo-terrorists as a threat, believers in integrity and truth, and a coalition of pragmatic interests, came together to expose the rot and make the ouster of Gay happen. I am at least thankful middle-of-the-road dem jews, despite their continued idiotic leftism, reacted in self-interest. In that respect, it represents a split within the left which should be exploited in its fullest by conservatives to kill DEI, racism, anti-capitalism, globalism, and institutional capture by the left. It could not come too soon.
Jews are not white. If Jews were white, saying "abolish whiteness" would be illegal to say at Harvard. It isn't. That was celebrated while statues were torn down, whites attacked, buildings burned. Nobody was dragged in front of Congress because whites do not control Harvard (though they founded it) and Jews are not white.
And Asians definitely aren't white. The only way white people can get upset about the takeover of the US by foreign influences is put Asians first. Thanks for proving my point, lol.
Guess who pushed the very concept of antiwhiteness in academia? You'll never guess. Noel Ignatiev has something in common with you, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altma, Larry Summers, Alan Garber, Alan Dershowitz, Jeffrey Epstein, Steven Pinker--just guess!
Criticism of Israel is not tolerated because Jews base their identity on Israel since they're not white. I won't even go into the Holocaust at the moment. Those are the two foundations of Jewish identity.
Come on, now. I didn't fall out of the sky yesterday. This isn't about right vs. left. Jewish donors to Trump were the biggest ones of the Republican party--Adelson, Marcus, Singer (they got the capital moved to Jerusalem, which was considered an impossible dream for years and I didn't hear any "liberal" Jews complaining). Both left and right Israeli politicians agree that angry third world Muslims should be shipped to the West (Rami Ben Barak and Danny Danon, as published in the WSJ).
This is pure, sheer Zionist Jewish power. That covers Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer as well as Jared Kushner and Benjamin Netanyahu. That is why Jews have been so successful at their collective identity politics in the US.
Crying about "woke" or DEI or globalism (hmmm....who pushes those things? Larry Fink, George Soros...hang on a minute) won't save you.
Just stop it.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/postscript/noel-ignatievs-long-fight-against-whiteness
Wow Kat, if I say jews are whites it really offends you. First, I was using the term to mean "the left's view of oppressors." I do not care that much about racial groupings.
Second, it appears you think the entire Gay fiasco had nothing to do with left vs right. I agree the "ignition" of the issue was the Oct 7 Hamas massacre and that it led to jewish (and non-jewish) outrage against terrorists and outrage from Palestinian terrorist apologists which exposed their anti-semitism. It is interesting that you point to jewish identity to Israel but that is not universal and your bias excludes you from pointing out Arab and American's pro-palestinian support despite their links to islamo jew hatred. In any event, that "ignition" in the aftermath of the massacre exposed many things, but most importantly, it exposed the left's fundamental flaw when it was unable to denounce anti-semetism. It exposed the left's racialism. Its placement of ideology over academic integrity. Its rot. These issues are unrelated to jews and terrorists and israel. These are left vs right issues. These are purely American issues everyone should be concerned about.
Last, saying I am this guy "Noel Ignatiev" who I never heard of was a surprise so I scanned the New Yorker article you provided, only to discover some woke jewish anti-white activist. All I can say is, no, your assumption I am some lefty commie, white-hating pig based on my name is incorrect. As to "crying about woke won't save you," I do not seek saving. I am quite happy with who I am and suggesting otherwise, well frankly, feels you just enjoy being a prick.
What's "woke"?
Define it.
[ note this is NOT about the article itself but merely the reference made to “Dansk industri” as danish trade association, last sentence of the second paragraph.
I stumbled because it didn’t seem like an accurate translation (being Danish so I really began to think and compare structures of big orgs and actors in Denmark lol). So looked it up
According to their own website, DI is “Confederation of Danish Industry”, not Danish trade association, which resonated a lot more with me
https://www.danskindustri.dk/english/
[I’ll continue to read article now]
The confusion of correlation with causation is so rampant in academia, the news media, and partisan politics- and so often passively accepted- that it's a scandal. It's hardly reserved for any particular ideological "side", either.
One of the aspects I find most troubling about this classic logical fallacy and the lazy assumptions typically connected to it is that it's long been the stock in trade of the racist right wing. If ever there was a Tool Of The Oppressor that can't be trusted to Dismantle the Oppressor's House, the manipulation of correlative findings into causative conclusions is it. Uncritical acceptance of such confusion as if it were slam-dunk probative opens the door to massaging preconceived biases--maintaining shoddy narratives with the authority implied by the "objective" metric data used to fabricate the speculative "conclusions." And, from there, even more extravagant speculative leaps and mean cheap shots have a way of marching through.
Yes DC, or to put it more simply, there are lies, damn lies, and correlations masked as science.
Chris - If you will permit me an observation and suggestion, please.
Efforts toward constitutional-based E Pluribus Unum is not only a Conservative goal, but a common sense American goal.
Must avoid partisan demo-serving divisive posturing.
Moreover, the destructive nihilist disrupters are Progressives. It alienates legacy Democrats to misnomer the miscreants.
A suggestion - Document and Diagram and Disclose the U.S. Taxpayer-funded thousands of millions of Progressives Tax Deductions which have been mis-used to malign candidates, cripple law enforcement, instigate and coordinate urban riots, while funding the planned and orchestrated Importation of tens of millions of foreign nationals, bankrupting our healthcare and education and welfare infrastructure, and the integrity of our individual-responsible citizen voting system.
Publishing the Source and Application of “Tax Deductions” related to “Non-Profit” Demo-Advocacy groups - since 2008 - would be insightful, starting with the single-source est. $ 400 million 2020 influence of Progressive-targeted nation-wide county election Offices.
Don’t even have to name names - just expose the enormity of Goliath’s thumb on the scale of civil discord by their tax-deducted funding.
Thanks
“The scandals at Harvard have revealed an ugly truth about America’s elite institutions: they have been unwilling, or unable, to self-correct.” Thank you for that, but let’s also start a wider conversation about OUR weakness to self-correct. All of us tend to avoid blame and humiliation. We want to see ourselves in high regard; to be respected within our communities and families. The simple act of admitting wrong and apologizing is surprisingly difficult and uncommon.
Certainly the strong progressive bias in higher education has lead to a great weakness in discourse there. It’s an unhealthy environment for dissent best captured in the book The Canceling the American Mind. When dissent does occur it’s too often not guided by norms of respect. Respect is just as important as free speech. Where’s the norm of respect at Harvard?
But there are more fundamental problems. We can point the finger at communist revolutionaries as you do in your book, but let’s go even deeper. Let’s start by looking in a mirror, at ourselves.
Here’s an excerpt from a book that everyone can benefit from, especially Claudine Gay.
“How to apologize: quickly, specifically, sincerely. Don’t ruin an apology with an excuse.
A proper apology consists of conveying the 3 Rs: regret (genuine empathy with the other) responsibility (not blaming someone else) and remedy (your willingness to fix it).”
That’s from Kevin Kelly’s latest book Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier. https://www.econtalk.org/kevin-kelly-on-advice-ai-and-technology/
The deeper problem here is us, our communities - down to the neighborhood, and our homes.
Here’s an idea. Let’s re-imagine our community churches, not as places involving worship to the supernatural. Let’s get completely away from that. Sure, we can and should admire real and fictional role models; talk about our favorite mentors and coaches; and even talk about our favorites fictional characters, but to pretend Jesus had supernatural powers? It’s outdated. It’s old fashioned. Everything in the known universe obeys the laws of physics, even Jesus.
Let’s move past the supernatural and re-imagine churches and our home as places for self-improvement; book clubs in which we read and discuss poetry and prose; for the enjoyment of songs that remind and evoke; venues to be introspective; for the enjoyment of sharing food; to discuss politics; and places for pick-up games. Let’s get out of our houses, and take a break from the TV and video games.
Sure, bring your Bible to church, and read it at home too, but try seeing it as truth in metaphor, art and fiction, as well as truth in non-fiction.
Unfortunately the building that brings a neighborhood together, to the extent that it does at all, is the neighborhood public school. Are these schools doing a good job of bringing about good character? Bringing communities together? Here’s a new school model that focuses on character as well as cognitive skills. https://www.thalesacademy.org/academics/real-world-skills?code=top15
I don’t see much introspection on the progressive left and these are the folks running public schools. They have no norm of repentance. They should not be our children’s thought leaders. They’re educated at schools that promote DEI. But that strategy shouldn’t be to replace the teachers? We need to get away from government funding of both higher education and K-12. Government funding of education is THE problem. Let’s separate school and state just as we separate church and state. To do otherwise is to invite conformity, fragility and censorship.
Let’s step back from the focus on Harvard and remember that everyone is vulnerable to pride, arrogance and complacency. Being humble, and admitting our mistakes requires vigilance and communities of self-improvement. That vigilance is missing in many families and communities. Why not improve our families and communities at the same time that we re-imagine higher education?
I agree Scott we need to get rid of gov run education. At this time, the voucher concept extended to all levels of education, along with the dismantling of today's accreditation system so private companies can offer higher education, feels the most plausible.
What Would Jesus Do about neo-Marxism and creeping totalitarianism?
That’s a great question.
My influences will differ from yours, but based on my influences I believe he would say to withdraw your children from schools that promote DEI, and other Neo-Marxist, socialist and racist ideologies, (unless of course you’re a socialist and/or racist and in that case he would say live and let live, so long as one’s actions are peaceful).
He would remind us to protect and love our children, by spending quality with them; teaching them what they need to know; encouraging us to be good role models for them.
This starts by being introspective, humble and grateful. It also means being positive, hopeful, and entrepreneurial. It means being personally accountable; figuring out one’s duty and pursuing it. It means asking questions like “How can I help?” and “What can I do to make this situation better?”
As fathers we have a variety of important duties. We are protectors, teachers, providers, caretakers, warriors (and peace makers). Depending on the circumstances, we will need to spend more time on some of these roles than others. When it comes to Neo-Marxism and creeping totalitarianism, we need to step into the roles of protector and teacher. This might mean reducing our roles as provider.
As protectors and teachers we should educate ourselves about DEI—with its untruths, double standards, its contradictions—-and then teach our children what they need to know. Currently, I’m reading Animal Farm to my 12 and 9 year old daughters, and they are engrossed. Without adding much commentary they’re able to discern right and wrong in the narrative. I’ve also just read two other books with my 9 nine year old daughter, My Brother Sam is Dead (a historical fiction about the Revolutionary War) and The First Book of World War II, which is a concise history aimed at children written shortly after the war ended. The latter was motivated by October 7.
I’ve also just finished reading two books on Israel and Jewish history both by Daniel Gordis. I felt a duty to educate myself on Israeli and Palestinian history given the progressive and higher education view on that conflict. 1) Israel: A Concise History of a National Reborn and 2) We Stand Divided: The Rift Between American Jews and Israel.
I put my children in K-12 schools that promote excellent moral character such as Challenger School and Thales Academy, and I seek to put them in colleges that do they same, though I haven’t figured out great options for colleges yet.
https://www.challengerschool.com
https://www.thalesacademy.org
When, and if I ever do feel confident that my children are safe from DEI and Neo-Marxism, I’ll get back to me, but right now most of my life is dedicated to them.
That’s some of what I believe Jesus would do.
What do you think he would do?
I think He'd treat college presidents like He did the hucksters and money changers in the temple. Maybe give a few sermons to the undergraduates who would gather to denounce him as a racist, homophobe, transphobe, MAGA supporter, and Zionist.
Great question. Arnold Kling’s book, The Three Languages of Politics is helpful here. In politics we have three distinct languages, one for each political tribe. The language used by a member of the progressive tribe signals to other progressives his loyalty to the tribe. As long as he maintains good standing within his tribe he feels self-worth. He seeks to avoid being shamed by members of his tribe. To be humiliated by other progressives is catastrophic to his well-being. This is the only humiliation that exists.
When challenged by members of another group, the progressive works to maintain standing within his in-group, falling back to the narrative which views the world as a struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed.
Trying to understand progressives without this model, makes it seem as if they are immune to humiliation. Claudine Gay is safe within her group as long as she continues to blame the oppressors that are challenging her.
The progressive sees you as being immune to humiliation. They don’t understand your unwillingness to side with the oppressed and against the oppressor. Have you no shame? You white-privileged oppressor!
They are safe within their tribe. Your words, and your condemnation have no effect on their in-group standing. You don’t matter to them.
You don’t speak their language and thus won’t be able to get through to them. They derive their no self-worth from you - a member of an out-group. All that matters is their in-group status.
Compare this to the individualist, the Anarchist or Libertarian who just wants to be left alone, "free to pursue his own life so long as he respects the equal rights of others."
That hasn’t been worked on very much, so it would take a significant effort, but I think my answer to your question about what Jesus would do is my best quick answer. Integrating the Three Language Model in there is a good exercise, and I’ll have to think about that for a day or two.