There is a reason

[mqbush]

There is a reason, history shows, why rising, soon-to-be dictators concentrate on demonizing intellectuals, why one of their first acts upon taking power is to close universities until they can be properly purged. It is because the educated, those who know history, those with strong critical thinking skills, who are verbally adept and nuanced, will see the charismatic, rising star as the predictable thug he is, will easily parse his most popularly successful jingoes, and could, therefore, be a threat to his conquest .

There’s a reason why it is that, as the right so bitterly complains, university faculty average more than 80% leftist. It is because intellect is structurally in disagreement with authoritarianism and hierarchy, and is consequently more democratic and egalitarian.

There’s a reason why those citizens who have been most hurt by anti-populist, rightist governments contrarily support even more radically rightist governments. Those who feel powerless and humiliated by their condition relish the visceral, hormonal charge they can get from “kicking ass” vicariously through the power of those at the top of the power hierarchy.

There’s a reason why the “culture war” is made out to be about Christmas, flags, one or two legal matters, instead of what it is. We must be kept from seeing that the “culture war” is not about a number of fake issues. As in Russia, where half of citizens to this day long for the days of Stalin, here, too, there is a core societal conflict between those who need authoritarianism and status quo, no matter how awful, and those with the imagination to see a better way.

[niyad]

1. as I have maintained for years, it is impossible to control an educated, thinking populace.

[lonestarnot]

2. So, nope to Cindy McCain as a drug addled boss who's husband can obstruct justice through political

clout and wield bourgeois principles while professing egalitarianism for social control to the very extinction of the worker bees attracted to the color red then! Cool I see! And I agree! K & R Culture/class war structured on who has the most power and money does suck in the land of the free and the home of the brave. cough cough.