“DEI” is a religious secular morality which breeds resentment camouflaged as compassion. Its sole aim is to supplant capitalism with totalitarian collectivism. Its virulent tentacles, namely transgender ideology, progressive racism (as anti-racism), environmental hysteria, and wealth destruction in the name of redistribution, are a threat to western classical liberal democracy, and a primary threat to national security. It has become a threat to national security because this corruption of ideals has moved from the universities to the offices of government, and should be resisted loudly, openly, and publicly.
This is spot on. I'd be curious how we came to the same exact conclusion. I would further it to say that the collectivism is actually the female cognitive bias, with its empathy-without-regard-to-order Borg-like herd.
Thank you for an excellent piece. What you describe is yet another example of the Critical Social Justice subverting scientific publishing. This is dangerous and damaging. Here are more examples of this type:
An excellent piece and well worth the read. Somehow the purveyors of the ideology of IDE have generated a large army of militant devotees. More believers of freedom, equality and truth should act together, stop hoping that the strength of our belief will naturally carry the day, step out of our passive mode and begin to take an active stance against IDE by demonstrating the real compassion and wonder of FET
A wonderful 'call-to-Arms' (of course, I may be accused of 'inciting violence' for use of that turn of phrase). There is a solution to this craze at the level of government—it's called voting.
If we keep voting for politicians who espouse this anti-truth masquerading as polite society, we will get the government what we asked for. Fascism by definition has many faces, and western "liberal democracies" are in the fast-lane for expanded state power and enforced thinking.
This is another case of "too little, too late," I'm afraid! Where were you 20-30 years ago, Professor Forest-Nishikawa, when woke ideology was in its infancy? How come you didn't reach your "breaking point" when something *could* have been done about woke dementia? Unfortunately, like I said, it is too late to do anything about this. All we can do is stare at this in disbelief, as it ruins our planet and the future of our children, and plunges the world into another "intersectionalist" nightmare.
And no, it is not Canada that imported this woke pestilence from the US! If anything, Canada has always been at the forefront of wokenness! Canada is renowned worldwide for being insanely woke!
Human nature it seems is amenable to institutionalized coercion when 'quality of life' is felt at risk.
The center has disintegrated under the pressure of oligarchs enabled (by such as Citizens United) to put their puppets in its place. Our reach exceeds our grasp and so the disenfranchised increasingly feel no recourse short of powerless actions tantamount (so far) to throwing tantrums, both encouraged and then subverted by power structures as a distraction from their real agendas.
I believe Jordan Peterson has much to say on this subject, and those that are driving it unknowingly for those that would and will eventually bring down the whole educational edifice upon their heads for the sake of the false god of equity. IDE or EDI call it what you will, it is the hill many will DIE on.
Appealing to a potential slippery slope is weak in general and is unnecessary in this case in which there are actual, specific instances of actual trouble already manifest. This article didn't clearly describe such much. I got the general advice that we should not conflate equity with equality of results, but beyond that, try as I might, I don't understand. I gather you are upset, but about what specifically? To try to understand, I Googled your name and found some additional essays in which I did find some specifics.
That Canada awarded $163k in a single grant that is a poster child for something you consider ideological nonsense, then so what? Give 'em a Golden Fleece Award and move along.
In introducing the following, the editor's note claims that the attack on free speech is much more dangerous than the subversion of the scientific method. I tend to agree with that claim. I would say that free speech is more foundational than and essential to the scientific method, although in reading the essay below, I am forced to think about the counter example in which nations (e.g. China) that do not practice free speech nevertheless practice the scientific method.
TLDR version of the following is "there are no substitutes for the Western Scientific Method. None. No theory from Canada's indigenous Elders can compete with Quantum Electro-Dynamics and above all no scientific method can be found from the « wisdom » of the Elders ..."
The guidelines for data collection on reviewers' demographics specify a choice "Prefer not to disclose." Many also offer the option to "self describe" in text.
As Carl Sagan said in 1996, "this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces." His full interview is linked below. It's perhaps worth copying one salient paragraph here. I have added some asterisks to emphasis his point about one value of free speech.
SAGAN: There's two kinds of dangers. One is what I just talked about. That we've arranged a society based on science and technology in which nobody understands anything about science and technology, and this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. I mean, who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don't know anything about it? And the second reason that I'm worried about this is that science is more than a body of knowledge. It's a way of thinking. A way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. *If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan political or religious who comes ambling along.* It's a thing that Jefferson laid great stress on. It wasn't enough, he said, to enshrine some rights in a Constitution or a Bill of Rights. The people had to be educated, and they had to practice their skepticism and their education. Otherwise we don't run the government—the government runs us. https://speakola.com/ideas/carl-sagan-science-last-interview-1996
"nations (e.g. China) that do not practice free speech nevertheless practice the scientific method" supports a claim that "free speech is more foundational than...the scientific method" when the "and essential to" part is left out and the resulting technologies are in service to oppressive regimes.
"No theory from Canada's indigenous Elders can compete with Quantum Electro-Dynamics and above all no scientific method can be found from the « wisdom » of the Elders ..."
It is in the essential nature of Western science that nothing in science is settled. The single thread of its magnificent and fragile tapestry must constantly be pulled upon or, counterintuitively, it fails. (QED, like Newtonian physics, only works 'perfectly' at scale.) The evolution of human culture has (so far) achieved survival, by means of technologies derived from observation since the dawn of consciousness, in every possible niche, though at the always increasing and devastating expense of other species, of 'Nature', whose genetics evolve too slowly to adapt. Western science as a platonic ideal is both advanced and subverted by its technological derivatives and that peril is recognized by 'non-western' thought, while the fruits of its application are willingly embraced, though in many cases with feigned reluctance. The 'wisdom of Elders' comes from observation over millennia that has evolved in all 'advanced' cultures into various epistemologies, only one of which is what the author calls 'Western Scientific Method' and is the only one which canonizes the concepts of hypothesis and rigorously questioned theory. 'Elders' do not indulge in theory, contrary to the statement above, only in what has worked in the past for survival, some of which remains invaluable to social cohesion but is being co-opted by social science misapplied with DEI.
With you 100%. Why not 101%, since according to IDE proponents (now DEI, maybe one day DIE to reflect its effect on academic freedom) 100 is just a subjective value that does not reflect all the complexity of feelings and emotions. Maybe we just go back to Roman numerals (C%) and then we can make another acronym with a digital subtext. That will justify at least a small new bureaucracy, of which there is such a need these days to accommodate all the “ …. studies” graduates.
Since Dr Forest is in Japan: I have an extensive experience with the Japanese academia, and I can't help wondering why the American academia (or in the Anglosphere at large?) is so homogeneous because the Japanese counterpart is so ideologically diverse. Obviously, the Japanese academia is left-leaning (especially its humanity departments), but you can find many disagreements within the leftist professoriat as well. What is going on in the US is the coercion of one particular strand of leftism (e.g., transgenderism over gender criticism) onto everybody, which seems rather odd to me. After all, if you have affinity to unquestioning adherence to a dogma, there are better sections of the society where you belong better (church, politics proper, etc.) than academia.
“DEI” is a religious secular morality which breeds resentment camouflaged as compassion. Its sole aim is to supplant capitalism with totalitarian collectivism. Its virulent tentacles, namely transgender ideology, progressive racism (as anti-racism), environmental hysteria, and wealth destruction in the name of redistribution, are a threat to western classical liberal democracy, and a primary threat to national security. It has become a threat to national security because this corruption of ideals has moved from the universities to the offices of government, and should be resisted loudly, openly, and publicly.
This is spot on. I'd be curious how we came to the same exact conclusion. I would further it to say that the collectivism is actually the female cognitive bias, with its empathy-without-regard-to-order Borg-like herd.
Thank you for an excellent piece. What you describe is yet another example of the Critical Social Justice subverting scientific publishing. This is dangerous and damaging. Here are more examples of this type:
https://iopenshell.usc.edu/pubs/pdf/WokeSubvertPublishing_BookChapter.pdf
https://www.thefire.org/news/nature-human-misbehavior-politicized-science-neither-science-nor-progress
An excellent piece and well worth the read. Somehow the purveyors of the ideology of IDE have generated a large army of militant devotees. More believers of freedom, equality and truth should act together, stop hoping that the strength of our belief will naturally carry the day, step out of our passive mode and begin to take an active stance against IDE by demonstrating the real compassion and wonder of FET
A wonderful 'call-to-Arms' (of course, I may be accused of 'inciting violence' for use of that turn of phrase). There is a solution to this craze at the level of government—it's called voting.
If we keep voting for politicians who espouse this anti-truth masquerading as polite society, we will get the government what we asked for. Fascism by definition has many faces, and western "liberal democracies" are in the fast-lane for expanded state power and enforced thinking.
Stop voting for it.
This is another case of "too little, too late," I'm afraid! Where were you 20-30 years ago, Professor Forest-Nishikawa, when woke ideology was in its infancy? How come you didn't reach your "breaking point" when something *could* have been done about woke dementia? Unfortunately, like I said, it is too late to do anything about this. All we can do is stare at this in disbelief, as it ruins our planet and the future of our children, and plunges the world into another "intersectionalist" nightmare.
And no, it is not Canada that imported this woke pestilence from the US! If anything, Canada has always been at the forefront of wokenness! Canada is renowned worldwide for being insanely woke!
Thank you. Go with merit where ever it takes us.
Human nature it seems is amenable to institutionalized coercion when 'quality of life' is felt at risk.
The center has disintegrated under the pressure of oligarchs enabled (by such as Citizens United) to put their puppets in its place. Our reach exceeds our grasp and so the disenfranchised increasingly feel no recourse short of powerless actions tantamount (so far) to throwing tantrums, both encouraged and then subverted by power structures as a distraction from their real agendas.
Good for you. If I ever get this kind of request, your letter will serve as a model for my declining.
I believe Jordan Peterson has much to say on this subject, and those that are driving it unknowingly for those that would and will eventually bring down the whole educational edifice upon their heads for the sake of the false god of equity. IDE or EDI call it what you will, it is the hill many will DIE on.
Appealing to a potential slippery slope is weak in general and is unnecessary in this case in which there are actual, specific instances of actual trouble already manifest. This article didn't clearly describe such much. I got the general advice that we should not conflate equity with equality of results, but beyond that, try as I might, I don't understand. I gather you are upset, but about what specifically? To try to understand, I Googled your name and found some additional essays in which I did find some specifics.
That Canada awarded $163k in a single grant that is a poster child for something you consider ideological nonsense, then so what? Give 'em a Golden Fleece Award and move along.
In introducing the following, the editor's note claims that the attack on free speech is much more dangerous than the subversion of the scientific method. I tend to agree with that claim. I would say that free speech is more foundational than and essential to the scientific method, although in reading the essay below, I am forced to think about the counter example in which nations (e.g. China) that do not practice free speech nevertheless practice the scientific method.
https://www.canadiancitizens.org/single-post/2020/09/09/should-reasonable-people-fear-for-free-speech
TLDR version of the following is "there are no substitutes for the Western Scientific Method. None. No theory from Canada's indigenous Elders can compete with Quantum Electro-Dynamics and above all no scientific method can be found from the « wisdom » of the Elders ..."
https://www.canadiancitizens.org/single-post/2020/08/16/open-letter-to-premier-legault-and-ford-on-the-decolonization-of-light
The guidelines for data collection on reviewers' demographics specify a choice "Prefer not to disclose." Many also offer the option to "self describe" in text.
https://www.elsevier.com/authors/policies-and-guidelines/edi
https://www.rsc.org/new-perspectives/talent/diversity-data-collection-in-scholarly-publishing/
As Carl Sagan said in 1996, "this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces." His full interview is linked below. It's perhaps worth copying one salient paragraph here. I have added some asterisks to emphasis his point about one value of free speech.
SAGAN: There's two kinds of dangers. One is what I just talked about. That we've arranged a society based on science and technology in which nobody understands anything about science and technology, and this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. I mean, who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don't know anything about it? And the second reason that I'm worried about this is that science is more than a body of knowledge. It's a way of thinking. A way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. *If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan political or religious who comes ambling along.* It's a thing that Jefferson laid great stress on. It wasn't enough, he said, to enshrine some rights in a Constitution or a Bill of Rights. The people had to be educated, and they had to practice their skepticism and their education. Otherwise we don't run the government—the government runs us. https://speakola.com/ideas/carl-sagan-science-last-interview-1996
"nations (e.g. China) that do not practice free speech nevertheless practice the scientific method" supports a claim that "free speech is more foundational than...the scientific method" when the "and essential to" part is left out and the resulting technologies are in service to oppressive regimes.
"No theory from Canada's indigenous Elders can compete with Quantum Electro-Dynamics and above all no scientific method can be found from the « wisdom » of the Elders ..."
It is in the essential nature of Western science that nothing in science is settled. The single thread of its magnificent and fragile tapestry must constantly be pulled upon or, counterintuitively, it fails. (QED, like Newtonian physics, only works 'perfectly' at scale.) The evolution of human culture has (so far) achieved survival, by means of technologies derived from observation since the dawn of consciousness, in every possible niche, though at the always increasing and devastating expense of other species, of 'Nature', whose genetics evolve too slowly to adapt. Western science as a platonic ideal is both advanced and subverted by its technological derivatives and that peril is recognized by 'non-western' thought, while the fruits of its application are willingly embraced, though in many cases with feigned reluctance. The 'wisdom of Elders' comes from observation over millennia that has evolved in all 'advanced' cultures into various epistemologies, only one of which is what the author calls 'Western Scientific Method' and is the only one which canonizes the concepts of hypothesis and rigorously questioned theory. 'Elders' do not indulge in theory, contrary to the statement above, only in what has worked in the past for survival, some of which remains invaluable to social cohesion but is being co-opted by social science misapplied with DEI.
With you 100%. Why not 101%, since according to IDE proponents (now DEI, maybe one day DIE to reflect its effect on academic freedom) 100 is just a subjective value that does not reflect all the complexity of feelings and emotions. Maybe we just go back to Roman numerals (C%) and then we can make another acronym with a digital subtext. That will justify at least a small new bureaucracy, of which there is such a need these days to accommodate all the “ …. studies” graduates.
Since Dr Forest is in Japan: I have an extensive experience with the Japanese academia, and I can't help wondering why the American academia (or in the Anglosphere at large?) is so homogeneous because the Japanese counterpart is so ideologically diverse. Obviously, the Japanese academia is left-leaning (especially its humanity departments), but you can find many disagreements within the leftist professoriat as well. What is going on in the US is the coercion of one particular strand of leftism (e.g., transgenderism over gender criticism) onto everybody, which seems rather odd to me. After all, if you have affinity to unquestioning adherence to a dogma, there are better sections of the society where you belong better (church, politics proper, etc.) than academia.
Good piece. Cheers!
Wow! Thank you!
Get you some of that!
Good luck, we have your back.