Thank you for your bravery in speaking up for freedom of thought and expression.
I am someone who went to college to study Literature but was met instead with a dreary beast named Theory, whose practitioners believe that the purpose of books isn't to read for joy and enlightenment, but to be interrogated so the ideological crimes of the author are revealed and denounced.
These so-called "Theorists" were able to conquer the Humanities through promiscuous use of bigotry accusations, while at the same time identifying themselves as the official protectors and spokespeople for the Oppressed, thus allowing them to paint any of their opponents as retrograde, possibly evil, bigots. And it worked perfectly! Within 2 generations they managed to capture just about our entire culture. (It was only many years later that I learned how much of these Theorists had borrowed, both in content and tactics, from Lenin and Mao).
As for American Arts & Letters, I have little hope and believe the best work of the next generation will be done samizdat style (outside of official channels), but hopefully you can inspire people in STEM to fight back and maintain the integrity of their specialties. Otherwise we will all be in for a long, dark and grim Soviet winter.
Thanks for this essay! Just one update: In the end, Thomas Henry Huxley, aka "Darwin's Bulldog", was not dropped by Imperial College London. In early 2022, the effort to remove his name and statue collapsed after a large amount of opposition in the public, media, and amongst scientists.
(Huxley was, though, dropped by Western Washington University in late 2021; but the WWU administration was left hanging when the same poorly-researched arguments failed at Imperial. WWU also lost a large donation, $1 million I think, from an outraged alumnus.)
I know this talk was written in 2021, but I figured an update would be useful! Links on the Huxley thing:
Creationists and advocates of social justice unite to take down T.H. Huxley, a leader in educational inclusion
Nov 29, 2022·edited Nov 29, 2022Liked by Anna Krylov
This is an amazing article; I especially like this quote: "What can be done? Here are some ideas. First, speak up. Do not submit to bullies. Refuse to speak Newspeak. If you see that the king is naked—say the king is naked. Second, organize. There is safety in numbers. Organizations such as the Academic Freedom Alliance, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, and the Heterodox Academy, can provide a platform for action and protection against repercussions."
Brilliant essay. Exactly as I feel. You have done very deep dive in our past and our present. I left USSR in middle of 90x after graduating from Chemistry Department of Moscow State University. I stopped believing a communist narrative in middle school, after I learned about Chernobyl from "enemy voices". I never was in Mavzolei and never went to red parades (including May Day parade right after Chernobyl disaster). I am Jewish and have my own jeans story in soviet school. My parents read prohibited books and hoped that the evil empire will fall one day and we will go to America With a start of covid narrative I went to a familiar life of underground parallel structures. Homeschooling, friend's round tables in our kitchen, reading prohibited articles and books and spreading them as much as I could among acquaintances - all came naturally to me. A big plan of building a new great dystopia became apparent and I stood up as I could. Thank you for leading the fight. I hope the fact that America accepted us will serve the country well.
Thanks for this and for your substack. I am a law professor at the University of San Diego whom a group of students and the administration attempted to cancel a couple of years ago. My crime was referring to the Chinese government's supposed investigation of the origins of the Covid-19 virus as "Chinese cockswaddle." A rude term, I admit, but the claim was that I was being racist rather than political -- criticizing the PRC and the CCP. Luckily for me, FIRE came to my aid and then the newly founded AFA, which paid for my attorney. I resisted my cancellation, and held firm to the position that my comment, made on my personal blog, was protected by the First Amendment, and my job was protected by the terms of my tenured employment contract. Seeing that I would not budge, the university gave up on its efforts to discipline me.
I've decided to go on phased retirement now, as have four of my conservative and (classical) liberal colleagues, and we'll all soon be gone. The atmosphere in the law school has become too toxic to make the job fun anymore, which is too bad. I could not agree more with you that speaking up and holding firm is the sine qua non of winning this war against woke. Hannah Arendt says as much as well.
Dec 6, 2022·edited Dec 6, 2022Liked by Anna Krylov
This is an important piece, and it is imperative that people keep speaking out about intolerance on college campuses and in the west. However, you must acknowledge one key difference between America and Russia, you would never have been able to speak your piece in Russia, much less at a comparably distinguished institution like Duke. As long as we have free speech there is hope that this will pass. The social justice warriors will not win. American democracy has often had paroxysms of intolerance, like the Red Scare after WWI and McCarthyism in the 1950s. Now it looks like the Reds are having a go. But as long as people like you can speak out, people will become fed up, and everyone will come to their senses and stop this nonsense. It is already beginning to happen.
Anna, Thank you for writing and publishing an interesting essay. You discussed discrimination against Jews in the USSR when you were in college there in the 1980s.
Johns Hopkins' President Ron Daniels discussed a similar discrimination at JHU's commencement speech of 2016 about Isaiah Bowman, the fifth president of Johns Hopkins University, who served from 1935 to 1948. There's a Bowman drive on campus and a bronze bust of Bowman on the portico of Shriver Hall. (Shriver was not a paragon of virtue either).
This is very compelling. The perspective of an immigrant from a totalitarian regime is invaluable in detecting the totalitarianism encroaching upon us here.
Thank you for courageously speaking up. I grew up in Hungary and I also feel and experience what you are writing about. I myself also came here in 1990; and what a different time that was!! It is also helpful if women write these articles and women talk up. One step removed from white male supremacy and one can follow the argument that women are also discriminated against so there is a stand point to argue from too.
Kudos Anna Krylov! Since the day I learned about the concept of quotas— the % targets for college acceptance, recruiting, elections, promotions, etc.- I somehow knew (or maybe it was just hope..) that one day we will start challenging the DEI ideology and its impact.
What is truly shocking is how quickly our society adapted to a box & % culture and how little it was challenged. Once it was established, double standards were embraced in the free world…
Anna - you nailed it! Except not sure how to stop this nonsense. It took collapse of USSR to stop this problem there. Hopefully collapse of USA academic system does not have to happen to fix it. Right now this new "ideology" basically giving China huge leg up in scientific and technological competition with USA.
Some would argue the ongoing war in eastern Europe is a legacy of Soviet times… One thing is for sure - we are all human and even in systems with diametrically opposing ideologies (as we experienced while students in the USSR) merit remains the best (and easiest!) way to move science and society forward.
Today's piece on Persuasion describes modern-day discrimination of Asians, in the name of equity:
https://www.persuasion.community/p/how-liberals-lost-their-way-on-affirmative
The author makes explicit comparison with Jewish quotas.
Bravo, brave lady!
Thank you for your bravery in speaking up for freedom of thought and expression.
I am someone who went to college to study Literature but was met instead with a dreary beast named Theory, whose practitioners believe that the purpose of books isn't to read for joy and enlightenment, but to be interrogated so the ideological crimes of the author are revealed and denounced.
These so-called "Theorists" were able to conquer the Humanities through promiscuous use of bigotry accusations, while at the same time identifying themselves as the official protectors and spokespeople for the Oppressed, thus allowing them to paint any of their opponents as retrograde, possibly evil, bigots. And it worked perfectly! Within 2 generations they managed to capture just about our entire culture. (It was only many years later that I learned how much of these Theorists had borrowed, both in content and tactics, from Lenin and Mao).
As for American Arts & Letters, I have little hope and believe the best work of the next generation will be done samizdat style (outside of official channels), but hopefully you can inspire people in STEM to fight back and maintain the integrity of their specialties. Otherwise we will all be in for a long, dark and grim Soviet winter.
Thanks for this essay! Just one update: In the end, Thomas Henry Huxley, aka "Darwin's Bulldog", was not dropped by Imperial College London. In early 2022, the effort to remove his name and statue collapsed after a large amount of opposition in the public, media, and amongst scientists.
(Huxley was, though, dropped by Western Washington University in late 2021; but the WWU administration was left hanging when the same poorly-researched arguments failed at Imperial. WWU also lost a large donation, $1 million I think, from an outraged alumnus.)
I know this talk was written in 2021, but I figured an update would be useful! Links on the Huxley thing:
Creationists and advocates of social justice unite to take down T.H. Huxley, a leader in educational inclusion
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2021/11/updated-creationists-social-justice-advocates-unite-take-down-huxley.html
De-naming the Huxley College of the Environment: Comments to the WWU Board
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2021/12/Matzke-Huxley-comments.html
T H Huxley and Alfred Beit reprieved by Imperial College
https://historyreclaimed.co.uk/t-h-huxley-and-alfred-beit-reprieved-by-imperial-college/
This is an amazing article; I especially like this quote: "What can be done? Here are some ideas. First, speak up. Do not submit to bullies. Refuse to speak Newspeak. If you see that the king is naked—say the king is naked. Second, organize. There is safety in numbers. Organizations such as the Academic Freedom Alliance, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, and the Heterodox Academy, can provide a platform for action and protection against repercussions."
Brilliant essay. Exactly as I feel. You have done very deep dive in our past and our present. I left USSR in middle of 90x after graduating from Chemistry Department of Moscow State University. I stopped believing a communist narrative in middle school, after I learned about Chernobyl from "enemy voices". I never was in Mavzolei and never went to red parades (including May Day parade right after Chernobyl disaster). I am Jewish and have my own jeans story in soviet school. My parents read prohibited books and hoped that the evil empire will fall one day and we will go to America With a start of covid narrative I went to a familiar life of underground parallel structures. Homeschooling, friend's round tables in our kitchen, reading prohibited articles and books and spreading them as much as I could among acquaintances - all came naturally to me. A big plan of building a new great dystopia became apparent and I stood up as I could. Thank you for leading the fight. I hope the fact that America accepted us will serve the country well.
Thanks for this and for your substack. I am a law professor at the University of San Diego whom a group of students and the administration attempted to cancel a couple of years ago. My crime was referring to the Chinese government's supposed investigation of the origins of the Covid-19 virus as "Chinese cockswaddle." A rude term, I admit, but the claim was that I was being racist rather than political -- criticizing the PRC and the CCP. Luckily for me, FIRE came to my aid and then the newly founded AFA, which paid for my attorney. I resisted my cancellation, and held firm to the position that my comment, made on my personal blog, was protected by the First Amendment, and my job was protected by the terms of my tenured employment contract. Seeing that I would not budge, the university gave up on its efforts to discipline me.
I've decided to go on phased retirement now, as have four of my conservative and (classical) liberal colleagues, and we'll all soon be gone. The atmosphere in the law school has become too toxic to make the job fun anymore, which is too bad. I could not agree more with you that speaking up and holding firm is the sine qua non of winning this war against woke. Hannah Arendt says as much as well.
Terrific and important article.
This is an important piece, and it is imperative that people keep speaking out about intolerance on college campuses and in the west. However, you must acknowledge one key difference between America and Russia, you would never have been able to speak your piece in Russia, much less at a comparably distinguished institution like Duke. As long as we have free speech there is hope that this will pass. The social justice warriors will not win. American democracy has often had paroxysms of intolerance, like the Red Scare after WWI and McCarthyism in the 1950s. Now it looks like the Reds are having a go. But as long as people like you can speak out, people will become fed up, and everyone will come to their senses and stop this nonsense. It is already beginning to happen.
Anna, Thank you for writing and publishing an interesting essay. You discussed discrimination against Jews in the USSR when you were in college there in the 1980s.
Johns Hopkins' President Ron Daniels discussed a similar discrimination at JHU's commencement speech of 2016 about Isaiah Bowman, the fifth president of Johns Hopkins University, who served from 1935 to 1948. There's a Bowman drive on campus and a bronze bust of Bowman on the portico of Shriver Hall. (Shriver was not a paragon of virtue either).
https://hub.jhu.edu/2016/05/18/commencement-2016-daniels/ has a transcript, or on YouTube, the same video, from 3:00 to 7:00 is the meat of the matter:
https://youtu.be/6YDKb_hYR78?t=180
This is very compelling. The perspective of an immigrant from a totalitarian regime is invaluable in detecting the totalitarianism encroaching upon us here.
Thank you for courageously speaking up. I grew up in Hungary and I also feel and experience what you are writing about. I myself also came here in 1990; and what a different time that was!! It is also helpful if women write these articles and women talk up. One step removed from white male supremacy and one can follow the argument that women are also discriminated against so there is a stand point to argue from too.
Kudos Anna Krylov! Since the day I learned about the concept of quotas— the % targets for college acceptance, recruiting, elections, promotions, etc.- I somehow knew (or maybe it was just hope..) that one day we will start challenging the DEI ideology and its impact.
What is truly shocking is how quickly our society adapted to a box & % culture and how little it was challenged. Once it was established, double standards were embraced in the free world…
Anna - you nailed it! Except not sure how to stop this nonsense. It took collapse of USSR to stop this problem there. Hopefully collapse of USA academic system does not have to happen to fix it. Right now this new "ideology" basically giving China huge leg up in scientific and technological competition with USA.
Very well researched and presented, Anna!
Some would argue the ongoing war in eastern Europe is a legacy of Soviet times… One thing is for sure - we are all human and even in systems with diametrically opposing ideologies (as we experienced while students in the USSR) merit remains the best (and easiest!) way to move science and society forward.
This article in Tablet documents by examples how Jewish quotas were implemented in the USSR:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/coffin-problems-soviet-anti-semitism-scientists