Whether Asao Inoue's motives are well-intentioned or not, one thing is clear: the actual wants and needs of his students are of less concern to him than they should be as an educator.
Let's be even more blunt. Inoue is simply a huckster who knows there is money to be made from the liberal left. The money and people telling him how gifted he is, is the driving force. His theroies are about replacing one form of government with another. The difference is the new government would be so much more oppressive of speech and questioning his ignorant and self serving ideas would be cause for a re-education camp.
Appreciate Erec Smith pointing out the shear insanity of Inoue writings and silly thoughts. The truth is that if Inoue truly loved Marxism he would have left already. But he would only love it if he was part of the ruling leadership. He is simply a fool and huckster hustling fools for money.
We often misrepresent Marx because of his followers, but in fact what Marx has to say about alienation under capitalism is actually quite accurate: Primarily the alienation from one's self. This is the reason people are so quick to look for some way to find meaning in the commodities we lust after to replace our loss of the value of our work in our lives. The problem has been the misrepresentation of his idea of the Superstructure (all the institutions that promote the capitalist system from education to social mores to religion). There is not some cabal of capitalists overlords, that is not how the Superstructure operates. We feel loss as workers, we want meaning and we will embrace institutions that give us meaning. The problem with Schools of Education is they have the most simplistic idea of this. So they replace learning with self esteem. That is the downward spiral that only brings about ever lower self esteem. That is Bad Faith in Existentialist terms, self deception. We live in a world of fairy tales and self deception in every corner from gender to race and beyond. Truth is only secondary to good feelings, but good feelings are not equivalent to competence and pride of truly knowing thyself.
OMG, what made you put those Lenin quotes in your article???? You almost gave me a heart attack, it made me think I was back in school, in one of my "political science" classes. Really, I might start thinking that microaggressions are a legit issue :-). Joke aside, that is EXACTLY how indoctrination worked in former communist countries, you are 100% right. Us kids, were were all "soldiers of the revolution", and papa Lenin's words were our Bible. The propaganda completely brainwashed me when I was little, and it took a long and very painful effort from me to get out of that. Looking back, it almost seems like that is another person, whose journey I imagined. Thank you for sounding the alarm, although I am pretty sure many people in academia think it's YOU who are the crazy one.
It is such a recipe for failure, setting these students up to be another generation of victims in a world that won't change for the few. I feel terrible for those students. Those are my "feelings".
Here's how vapid Marxism is. If it is truly, as defined above, the continuing struggle by the exploited against the exploiters, it is a self-destroying system, as the result of that struggle is that the exploited and exploiters switch places and the cycle starts over in a diminished environment (which is a result of the battles between the two groups). Each time the switch occurs, it is in a more entropic environment, until it devolves to randomness, or chaos.
If that switch is not an expected outcome, that can only mean that the exploited are being used. Eventually, the exploited figure that out and rebel. (this is beginning in the US with disaffected Dems - especially minorities)
I think it's time we actually call this movement what it is: cultural Nazism. The race essentialist base of Inoue and others has much more in common with Nazism than it does Marxism. And lest we forget, redistribution of wealth and property along racial lines was one of Nazism's core tenants (and how often do you see calls to redistribute the wealth of, say Kanye West or LaBron James?). There was also a strong worker-based element within the North German Nazi party prior to Hitler's unification of the party in the late 1920s. The NSDAP also made strong inroads in the German university system, especially in programs like the then-new field of sociology and both law and history.
Allowing this race-based tripe to hide behind the cover of Marxism does no-one any favors, and lends them a level of credibility they frankly don't deserve.
This comment is sort of orthogonal to Erec's piece, but I wanted to point out something that I've been concerned about that his piece reminded me of. Erec uses the phrase "cultural Marxism" several times here. If someone wanted to find out more about cultural Marxism, or perhaps didn't know what it is in the first place, where would they likely go? My guess would be Wikipedia.
If you go to Wikipedia's "cultural Marxism" page you are automatically redirected to a page titled, "cultural Marxism conspiracy theory", which describes a "far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory". There's a note at the beginning of the article in italics that says, "For 'cultural Marxism' in the context of social theory and cultural studies, see 'Marxist cultural analysis'." The "Marxist cultural analysis" page contains what is basically a description of what Marxists think is wrong about capitalism on a cultural level, with no space on the page for any criticism about these ideas.
Therefore, someone who doesn't know much about what Erec is talking about but would like to learn more could easily end up coming away from this believing that Erec is, fundamentally, being conspiratorial about what he believes Inoue's intentions are.
With Wikipedia in particular, it uses secondary sources as its foundation for what is true. Primary sources are allowed but secondary sources are much preferred. Wikipedia calls themselves a "tertiary source", to make this preference clear. The most common type of secondary source is a news article. This in itself isn't that bad but it becomes bad due to a few other factors:
1) The vast majority of journalists lean left. Since Wikipedia relies fundamentally on secondary sources, there will literally be more left-leaning secondary sources than right-leaning ones. This on its own can create a bias.
2) Not all news organizations are considered equally reliable as a source by Wikipedia. In my opinion, left-wing news sources are considered more reliable than right-wing news sources. This may be true, but even if it is true, the extent to which left-wing sources are thought to be completely reliable vs the extent to which right-wing sources are thought to be completely unreliable is troubling.
As a result, if you wanted to make the argument that "cultural Marxism" should not be labeled first and foremost as a conspiracy theory on Wikipedia, you'd have your work cut out for you. First off, there would be a lot more left-leaning articles available that say it's a conspiracy theory. Second, the articles available that say it has a totally legitimate, non-conspiratorial, use, will be both fewer in number and considered either less reliable or not at all reliable.
Even Erec's piece couldn't be used as an example of the non-conspiratorial use of the phrase "cultural Marxism" because FAIR wouldn't be considered as reliable by Wikipedia.
Anyway, I don't know what to about this, but I think it's a problem. So many people blindly believe whatever Wikipedia says nowadays.
If you point out that communism has repeatedly failed catastrophically the typical response from Marxists is that true Marxism has never been tried. If you read a biography of Lenin it is remarkable how committed he was to the goal of following Marxist ideology per se. I guess what is needed in future attempts at Marxism is a better class of dictators of the proletariat.
Eric, you can’t fight what’s happening without also fighting Marxism and communism. They’re not admirable in the slightest. This is partly why they’re dominating the universities. Would you ever say that you’re the arguing against a Fascist political beliefs, ‘just his fascist pedagogy?’ There is no successful fight if we don’t realize that these beliefs, political as well as how they pertain to teaching, are utterly corrupt and evil. Lest anyone misunderstand what I’m saying, I’m not talking about censorship to save democracy - I’ll leave that nonsense to leftists. But I am talking about the obvious link between a belief in Marxism and communism being as evil and destructive as a belief in fascism, regardless of whether they’re trying to use at a bases for teaching.
Let us remember that this Inoue character is not black but half white and half Japanese. I'm sure he is teaching his own 3/4 white and 1/4 Japanese kids how to write in perfectly good standard English because hey, why not try our dangerous theories on other people's children?
My master's thesis was in essence a rebuttal of inoue. The politicization of college classes reflects the vanity of the professor, rather than exploring the views of the students. VanValkenburgh, 2021
Educating kids is the foundation of our democracy. Allowing teachings which don't support this foundation need to be looked at with a critical eye. IF you want to teach the Marxist/Communist agenda their are plenty of Countries who will welcome you, not this one. I want to thank Eric Smith for unpacking this article but as usual I quickly found it to be gobbledygook and could not continue reading it. (Something written in an overly complex, incoherent, or incomprehensible manner.) Not to criticize Mr. Smith but the subject matter. I find those who try to teach CRT have the same agenda. Making it so difficult to understand what they are talking about that nobody can rationalize it. This is the objective of these people, not to make it understandable just to criticize me for not understanding it. What I do is once it falls into the gobbledygook basket I move on and dismiss it.
Let's be even more blunt. Inoue is simply a huckster who knows there is money to be made from the liberal left. The money and people telling him how gifted he is, is the driving force. His theroies are about replacing one form of government with another. The difference is the new government would be so much more oppressive of speech and questioning his ignorant and self serving ideas would be cause for a re-education camp.
Appreciate Erec Smith pointing out the shear insanity of Inoue writings and silly thoughts. The truth is that if Inoue truly loved Marxism he would have left already. But he would only love it if he was part of the ruling leadership. He is simply a fool and huckster hustling fools for money.
We often misrepresent Marx because of his followers, but in fact what Marx has to say about alienation under capitalism is actually quite accurate: Primarily the alienation from one's self. This is the reason people are so quick to look for some way to find meaning in the commodities we lust after to replace our loss of the value of our work in our lives. The problem has been the misrepresentation of his idea of the Superstructure (all the institutions that promote the capitalist system from education to social mores to religion). There is not some cabal of capitalists overlords, that is not how the Superstructure operates. We feel loss as workers, we want meaning and we will embrace institutions that give us meaning. The problem with Schools of Education is they have the most simplistic idea of this. So they replace learning with self esteem. That is the downward spiral that only brings about ever lower self esteem. That is Bad Faith in Existentialist terms, self deception. We live in a world of fairy tales and self deception in every corner from gender to race and beyond. Truth is only secondary to good feelings, but good feelings are not equivalent to competence and pride of truly knowing thyself.
OMG, what made you put those Lenin quotes in your article???? You almost gave me a heart attack, it made me think I was back in school, in one of my "political science" classes. Really, I might start thinking that microaggressions are a legit issue :-). Joke aside, that is EXACTLY how indoctrination worked in former communist countries, you are 100% right. Us kids, were were all "soldiers of the revolution", and papa Lenin's words were our Bible. The propaganda completely brainwashed me when I was little, and it took a long and very painful effort from me to get out of that. Looking back, it almost seems like that is another person, whose journey I imagined. Thank you for sounding the alarm, although I am pretty sure many people in academia think it's YOU who are the crazy one.
It is such a recipe for failure, setting these students up to be another generation of victims in a world that won't change for the few. I feel terrible for those students. Those are my "feelings".
Here's how vapid Marxism is. If it is truly, as defined above, the continuing struggle by the exploited against the exploiters, it is a self-destroying system, as the result of that struggle is that the exploited and exploiters switch places and the cycle starts over in a diminished environment (which is a result of the battles between the two groups). Each time the switch occurs, it is in a more entropic environment, until it devolves to randomness, or chaos.
If that switch is not an expected outcome, that can only mean that the exploited are being used. Eventually, the exploited figure that out and rebel. (this is beginning in the US with disaffected Dems - especially minorities)
I think it's time we actually call this movement what it is: cultural Nazism. The race essentialist base of Inoue and others has much more in common with Nazism than it does Marxism. And lest we forget, redistribution of wealth and property along racial lines was one of Nazism's core tenants (and how often do you see calls to redistribute the wealth of, say Kanye West or LaBron James?). There was also a strong worker-based element within the North German Nazi party prior to Hitler's unification of the party in the late 1920s. The NSDAP also made strong inroads in the German university system, especially in programs like the then-new field of sociology and both law and history.
Allowing this race-based tripe to hide behind the cover of Marxism does no-one any favors, and lends them a level of credibility they frankly don't deserve.
This comment is sort of orthogonal to Erec's piece, but I wanted to point out something that I've been concerned about that his piece reminded me of. Erec uses the phrase "cultural Marxism" several times here. If someone wanted to find out more about cultural Marxism, or perhaps didn't know what it is in the first place, where would they likely go? My guess would be Wikipedia.
If you go to Wikipedia's "cultural Marxism" page you are automatically redirected to a page titled, "cultural Marxism conspiracy theory", which describes a "far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory". There's a note at the beginning of the article in italics that says, "For 'cultural Marxism' in the context of social theory and cultural studies, see 'Marxist cultural analysis'." The "Marxist cultural analysis" page contains what is basically a description of what Marxists think is wrong about capitalism on a cultural level, with no space on the page for any criticism about these ideas.
Therefore, someone who doesn't know much about what Erec is talking about but would like to learn more could easily end up coming away from this believing that Erec is, fundamentally, being conspiratorial about what he believes Inoue's intentions are.
With Wikipedia in particular, it uses secondary sources as its foundation for what is true. Primary sources are allowed but secondary sources are much preferred. Wikipedia calls themselves a "tertiary source", to make this preference clear. The most common type of secondary source is a news article. This in itself isn't that bad but it becomes bad due to a few other factors:
1) The vast majority of journalists lean left. Since Wikipedia relies fundamentally on secondary sources, there will literally be more left-leaning secondary sources than right-leaning ones. This on its own can create a bias.
2) Not all news organizations are considered equally reliable as a source by Wikipedia. In my opinion, left-wing news sources are considered more reliable than right-wing news sources. This may be true, but even if it is true, the extent to which left-wing sources are thought to be completely reliable vs the extent to which right-wing sources are thought to be completely unreliable is troubling.
As a result, if you wanted to make the argument that "cultural Marxism" should not be labeled first and foremost as a conspiracy theory on Wikipedia, you'd have your work cut out for you. First off, there would be a lot more left-leaning articles available that say it's a conspiracy theory. Second, the articles available that say it has a totally legitimate, non-conspiratorial, use, will be both fewer in number and considered either less reliable or not at all reliable.
Even Erec's piece couldn't be used as an example of the non-conspiratorial use of the phrase "cultural Marxism" because FAIR wouldn't be considered as reliable by Wikipedia.
Anyway, I don't know what to about this, but I think it's a problem. So many people blindly believe whatever Wikipedia says nowadays.
If you point out that communism has repeatedly failed catastrophically the typical response from Marxists is that true Marxism has never been tried. If you read a biography of Lenin it is remarkable how committed he was to the goal of following Marxist ideology per se. I guess what is needed in future attempts at Marxism is a better class of dictators of the proletariat.
Eric, you can’t fight what’s happening without also fighting Marxism and communism. They’re not admirable in the slightest. This is partly why they’re dominating the universities. Would you ever say that you’re the arguing against a Fascist political beliefs, ‘just his fascist pedagogy?’ There is no successful fight if we don’t realize that these beliefs, political as well as how they pertain to teaching, are utterly corrupt and evil. Lest anyone misunderstand what I’m saying, I’m not talking about censorship to save democracy - I’ll leave that nonsense to leftists. But I am talking about the obvious link between a belief in Marxism and communism being as evil and destructive as a belief in fascism, regardless of whether they’re trying to use at a bases for teaching.
Let us remember that this Inoue character is not black but half white and half Japanese. I'm sure he is teaching his own 3/4 white and 1/4 Japanese kids how to write in perfectly good standard English because hey, why not try our dangerous theories on other people's children?
Marxism - the opium of intellectuals.
- Raymond Aron
My master's thesis was in essence a rebuttal of inoue. The politicization of college classes reflects the vanity of the professor, rather than exploring the views of the students. VanValkenburgh, 2021
Educating kids is the foundation of our democracy. Allowing teachings which don't support this foundation need to be looked at with a critical eye. IF you want to teach the Marxist/Communist agenda their are plenty of Countries who will welcome you, not this one. I want to thank Eric Smith for unpacking this article but as usual I quickly found it to be gobbledygook and could not continue reading it. (Something written in an overly complex, incoherent, or incomprehensible manner.) Not to criticize Mr. Smith but the subject matter. I find those who try to teach CRT have the same agenda. Making it so difficult to understand what they are talking about that nobody can rationalize it. This is the objective of these people, not to make it understandable just to criticize me for not understanding it. What I do is once it falls into the gobbledygook basket I move on and dismiss it.