In his essay Less Than One, Joseph Brodsky—an exiled Soviet poet who settled in the United States and went on to win a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987—wrote that he began to despise Lenin in the first grade “because of his omnipresent images which plagued almost every textbook, every class wall, postage stamps, money, and what not…”. I thought I was done—with Lenin, whose works Soviet students were forced to study judiciously in history classes, as well as with communism and its bloody legacy, having left the USSR behind. Yet here I am, 30 years later, reminded of it all by none other than my colleagues, affluent Western academics, whose narratives range from being eerie reminiscent of the Soviet propaganda of my childhood and adolescent years to its verbatim English translation. Below, I provide several examples of this. Not only is this ignorant obsession with the genocidal dictatorship and its leader painful to watch, but it will have tragic consequences for Western academia, just as it did for the Russian one.
This is a brilliant analysis. It brought tears to my eyes, as it reminded me of my schooling in the USSR. I was a diligent student, so I do remember these foundational works by Lenin very well! Seeing them side-by-side with statements of the adherents of Critical Social Justice ideologues should be a wake-up call for our colleges and fellow citizens. Indeed, the philosophical roots of today's ideology (based on postmodernism and a slew of Critical Theories) and Marxism-Leninism are the same. And the implementation of these ideologies will yield similar results. Yes, communism kills! Identity-based ideologies have been tried before, with devastating results. Equity leads to economic downfall, universal misery and suffering. As Vladimir Bukovsky said: "Is it really surprising that whenever you get striving for equality and fraternity, the guillotine appears on the scene?" We must root these ideologies out, before it is too late.
Apr 3, 2023·edited Apr 3, 2023Liked by Dorian Abbot
Bravo, Ilya! To date, none of the “other-than-merit” proponents have answered two simple questions:
1) What is it exactly that I need to do now as a scientist that I was not doing 3 years ago before DEI overtook college priorities (at the expense of merit and campus safety, I believe)?
2) On a surgery table, how would they fill in the blank in this request?: “I know you have the best surgeon coming to operate on me, but I would rather have a … surgeon”.
This is a brilliant analysis. It brought tears to my eyes, as it reminded me of my schooling in the USSR. I was a diligent student, so I do remember these foundational works by Lenin very well! Seeing them side-by-side with statements of the adherents of Critical Social Justice ideologues should be a wake-up call for our colleges and fellow citizens. Indeed, the philosophical roots of today's ideology (based on postmodernism and a slew of Critical Theories) and Marxism-Leninism are the same. And the implementation of these ideologies will yield similar results. Yes, communism kills! Identity-based ideologies have been tried before, with devastating results. Equity leads to economic downfall, universal misery and suffering. As Vladimir Bukovsky said: "Is it really surprising that whenever you get striving for equality and fraternity, the guillotine appears on the scene?" We must root these ideologies out, before it is too late.
Bravo, Ilya! To date, none of the “other-than-merit” proponents have answered two simple questions:
1) What is it exactly that I need to do now as a scientist that I was not doing 3 years ago before DEI overtook college priorities (at the expense of merit and campus safety, I believe)?
2) On a surgery table, how would they fill in the blank in this request?: “I know you have the best surgeon coming to operate on me, but I would rather have a … surgeon”.
it is all so obvious, yet all so depressing. Great article.
Well written and persuasive, but too late I’m afraid. Much too late.
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