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Should Academic History Survive?

State of the Union: True and good historical research will survive outside the corrupt ivory towers—as has been the historic norm

Can Academic History survive, at least in its current form? Or should it?

 

BY Sumantra Maitra

 

If you ask Joel Kotkin, the answer is a cautious maybe. Kotkin writes in an interesting essay, that:

History has moved to the front line of social conflict, but rarely has it been so poorly understood and sketchily taught. After decades of declining interest, only 13 percent of eighth graders achieve proficiency in the subject today. The New York Times reports that “about 40 percent of eighth graders scored ‘below basic’ in U.S. history last year, compared with 34 percent in 2018 and 29 percent in 2014.” This phenomenon can be seen across the West. 

He adds that history is so neglected in the UK, that it has almost disappeared. 

Study of the 19th century, meanwhile, seems to be vanishing from European classrooms. “We are in danger of mass amnesia, being cut off from knowledge of our own cultural history,” noted the late Jane Jacobs in her 2004 book, Dark Age Ahead. When I show my students a picture of Lenin, barely one-in-ten of them recognize it.

Kotkin isn’t the only one. My friend, David Randall of the National Association of Scholars, wrote something similar recently for the Martin Center. 

“A continuing flow of conservatives into law and the judiciary has preserved a remnant body of tradition-minded law professors to make the case for originalism, natural law, and precedent. Tradition-minded political theorists also survive, as do tradition-minded economists. History departments, by contrast, have become almost entirely a left-wing preserve,” Randall observed, citing the 2016 study showing that the ratio of “Democrats to Republicans was 4.5:1 in economics, 8.6:1 in law, and 33.5:1 in history.” 

Readers know that one of my pet peeves is the decline of academic history. I have written about that again and again in these pages, as well as in academic papers. I’d be a lot more sympathetic to the arguments that academic history departments 1) are actually producing good research, and 2) are providing everyone with decent jobs. Currently, they are doing neither. As a historian myself, I often tell starry-eyed young students that one shouldn’t go to study history as a profession unless one is independently wealthy and is interested in doing research out of a love for the subject, or is smart enough to have acquired a full doctoral scholarship, or already has a secured job offer in a related field—or preferably a combination of all three. There simply aren’t enough jobs for historians doing good history, and the academy doesn’t do good history anymore. 

On the second point, consider the latest example: a “historian,” from a prestigious Russell Group university in Britain (the British version of the American Ivy+), essentially argued without evidence that the British scientist and engineer Henry Cort, widely credited for inventing the groundbreaking iron-making that quadrupled Great Britain’s iron production and fueled its ascent to a globe-spanning empire, stole his idea from Jamaican slaves. This argument was published in a prestigious journal—of course, given the academy’s lax review standards and given the ideological priors of academic journals to prefer diversity over merit, rigor, and quality. It was, of course, proven wrong. The UK Telegraph reports,

Last week, this newspaper disclosed how rival scholars had trawled through the primary sources Dr. Bulstrode based her theory upon and claimed there was no evidence of grooved rollers or a new iron-making method ever existing at Reeder’s Pen, the foundry at Morant Bay in Jamaica established in 1772 by an Englishman, John Reeder, which forms the focal point of her thesis.

Yet Jenny Bulstrode, the historian slash activist in question, is still arguing for “monetary reparations” for the “simultaneous theft and denial of black innovation.” She also blocked everyone on Twitter for pointing out that she is an utter imbecile who shouldn’t teach or be anywhere near a history department at a Russell Group university. 

To argue that History departments at universities should or must survive after this is intellectually indefensible. In fact, one should start from the scratch. The academy is corrupted beyond reform. No good scholar will pass the ideological gatekeeping in academia. One cannot imagine a lowly uncredentialed historian simply observing and chronicling events or societies without any ideological color passing peer-review. It is therefore time to defund and destroy the ideological edifices and echo chambers before building new institutions. True and good historical research will survive meanwhile, outside the corrupt ivory towers—as has been the historic norm. 

 

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/should-academic-history-survive/

 

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journalist of history....

 

Russell Bentley: Why I Am Not An 'Independent Journalist'

 

When I came to Donbass in December, 2014, I came here on a one way ticket with a 30 day visa and no intention of going back.

I did not come here to make money or to make a name for myself or to become an "internet star". I came here to fight, to kill the neo-Nazis who were murdering innocent and unarmed Donbass civilians, to defend those civilians, and to stand beside the true Heroes who put their lives on the line to defend Donbass, Russia and the future of humanity. And that is what I have done.

I arrived at my first combat position near the Donetsk airport at dawn on the morning of December 31, 2014. My visa ran out at midnight that night. There was no turning back, no way out, nor was I looking for one. When I came here, I did not really expect to live to see the spring, but I did, and almost ten years later, I'm still here, and I'm still fighting, but now in the information war, which is every bit as crucial as the military and economic wars are. These days, a camera and computer are my weapons, and facts and words are my bullets. As a soldier, I could reach 400 meters with my AK, and 900 meters with an RPG. As an information warrior, my words have gone around the world.

I served in combat in the DPR Army through most of 2015 in the VOSTOK and XAH Spetsnaz Battalion, and for four months in the summer of 2017 with the DPR MVD. For the rest of the last nine, almost ten years now, I have worked as an information warrior and human aid volunteer, supporting the citizens and defenders of the Donbass Republics. That's been my self-chosen job, and for all these years, other than being paid for my time as a soldier, I have never been paid by the DPR or Russian Federation. I have supported myself and my wife through contributions from supporters around the world, but mostly from the West. Since the SMO began in 2022, it has been almost impossible to transfer funds from the West into Russia. The last year and a half or so have been very hard times for us financially, so thank God (and whoever else was involved) that Sputnik International News has offered me a job, to be their eyes and ears on the ground in Donbass. And I am very glad to do it.

Some of my friends and colleagues have warned me that by taking a job with Russian media, I will jeopardize my "impartiality", my "objectivity", and my ability to offer a "balanced view" of the war in Ukraine. I will no longer be an "independent journalist". I could not care less about any of that. What kind of "balanced view" is needed between good and evil, between mass murdering war criminals and innocent civilians? What obligation do I (or anyone else) have to give equal time to an openly Nazi perspective, as if it weren't already mass-produced by Western governments and media, flooding the world on a daily basis for the last decade or more already? I do not do this job for the money. I have been independent since I got here, and remain so, whether I get paid or not. I say what I think and write what I want, I speak the truth, regardless of who likes it or not. That I speak my mind is a well-known fact, as many have attested, and not always in the most complimentary terms. So be it.

Unlike almost all of the foreign war correspondents reporting from Donbass, I am not foreign. I am a citizen of Russia and the DPR, I live here, I am defending my own home and my family here, I'm not going anywhere, I will live and die here. And when it comes to defending my home, I have done more than just talk. I am not a "war correspondent", I am a warrior correspondent. And proud of it. Being a war correspondent is an honorable vocation. To tell the truth from a war zone, especially when that truth goes against the dominant paradigm and the popular fiction, takes courage, determination and integrity. And most of the war correspondents in Donbass on our side of this war have these qualities. I have the greatest respect for those who do.

 

I have been called a "Russian propagandist" and "Putin's troll" since I first started speaking out against the Maidan coup and the neo-Nazis who instigated it, and whether I get paid or not, my enemies and detractors will not stop now. But to those who trust and support me, I make a solemn vow - the truth is our most powerful weapon, and I will defend it with my honor and with my life if need be. Respect for the truth is the basis of all morality, there is no amount of money that anyone could pay me to betray it. Deception is a powerful weapon. The only weapon that can defeat it is the truth, so that is the weapon that I will use, that we will use, together, to bring down the Empire of Lies.

 

 

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231010/why-i-am-not-an-independent-journalist-1114065354.html

 

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on the cusp....

 

“Russian roulette” with a third world war

USA and NATO focus on escalation in the Ukraine war

by Karl-Jürgen Müller

 

More than 100 years ago, in the year after the end of the First World War, the Viennese individual psychologist Alfred Adler wrote an article on the causes of the people’s enthusiasm for war, that is still worth reading today, but where he at the same time defended the common people against blanket accusations of guilt1:

“Daily, these people were subjected in their schools to lectures on their obligation to honour the ruling house […] Distorted history boasts of bellicose glory of the fatherland […]. Boredom yawned in the peace societies; no head, no popular breath fanned a contrary movement. Newspapers and magazines, politicians and parties courted the rulers’ favour. […] it took decades for the nation to be trained in weakness and obedience to authority and for the people to forfeit their self-respect.
  Then war came, and no one knew from where. According to tried military tactics, the authorities kept the people in the dark [by, as it were, throwing an opaque cloth over their heads; this term is added from original German text, ed.]. Again the sound of horns was heard and hired bands roamed through the streets, idiotic desk-bound warriors came forward with stinging orations in which they flaunted their own nobility and the insignificance of others. They also promised a short war that would end in a glorious victory.
  In this thick fog the people thought they could see a faint light, but mainly felt their own impotence. Then came the general staff with their lies. Poisoned wells were uncovered, dynamited bridges discovered far inland, and tales were told of the martyrdom of citizens living along the borders. As told, there was no end to crimes committed by the enemy: rape, arson, crucifixions, shameless indignities, and the use of illegal weapons. […]
  Censorship threw an iron curtain over cities and the countryside. […] Every critical remark, even when spoken with the best of intentions, seemed threatened by unexpected consequences.”
  Finally: “Lacking all ties of mutual trust and a strong, developed sense of community, these people, who were kept in the dark, were incapable of any open resistance.”
 

 Would it not be worthwhile to reflect on these considerations in our present day?
  It is not only since 24 February 2022 that we have been blitzed with anti-Russian propaganda rubbish. Have we been kept in the dark – in a “thick fog” [with an opaque cloth thrown over our heads] – once again? Are our human weaknesses once again preventing us from putting up the “open resistance” which the situation requires?

 

The USA has been seeking to weaken Russia for more than 30 years [SINCE 1917 ACCORDING TO GUS LEONISKY]

The efforts of the US government, of the NATO states and of their allies to push post-Soviet Russia into compliance or else to destroy it, date back to the beginning of the 1990s. officially, they spoke of an end of the Cold War, but in fact they have been working towards the establishment of the “world’s sole superpower”, the USA, and its global dominance. The Western course against Russia was tightened when that country’s political leadership was no longer willing to accept the further decline and plundering of its country. Instead, it set its sights on reconstruction, self-reliance and on what the United Nations Charter had proclaimed for all member states after the end of the Second World War: equal rights.

 

The role envisaged for Ukraine

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine – as in the years after 1945 – has been assigned a central role in weakening Russia, and Zbigniew Brzezinskiconfirmed this quite openly in his classic “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives”, which was published in the original English version in 1997.
  Since 2014 at the latest, the USA, NATO and the EU have deliberately provoked a proxy war between Ukraine and Russia.2 The propaganda formula of a “brutal war of aggression in violation of international law” and an “unprovoked attack” on the “victim” Ukraine was intended to pillory and isolate Russia internationally and drive it to economic ruin with sanctions. All this is not Russian propaganda, as it can be proven.
  However, the plan has failed and the actors are faced with a shambles.
  But instead of admitting its own failure and correcting its political course, the West is now obviously opting for escalation. On an escalation of propaganda ... and on an escalation on the battlefield.

 

History knows the path of political madness

This path of political madness is not unknown in history. At the end of 1941, National Socialist Germany’s war plans against the Soviet Union had resulted in a shambles. The German “blitzkrieg” against the Soviet Union had failed at the gates of Moscow, and the Anglo-Saxon powers long courted by Hitler, and which had in return also long sponsored Hitler, had now turned against National Socialist Germany, with superior strength, as the USA had entered into the war at the end of 1941. And these Anglo-Saxon powers now wanted to put into practice their sinister plan that Germany and the Soviet Union bleed each other white in a long war fought with extreme brutality. The war, which was declared a “total war” by the German side lasted three and a half more bitter years with millions more dead and endless destruction after the further defeat in Stalingrad at the beginning of 1943, and there remained only one goal: murder and destruction wherever possible.

 

Glenn Diesen and Douglas Macgregor

On 15 September 2023, a 42-minute conversation between the Norwegian political scientist Glenn Diesen and the former US Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor was put online as a video3 and a few days later, on 21 September, thankfully also as a text in German translation by seniora.org4. This detailed text is compulsive reading.

 

The “Biden Phase of the War”

Both interlocutors agree that the previous plan of the USA and NATO to inflict a military defeat on Russia by means of a ground war against Ukrainian troops with Western weapons has failed. For Ukraine, the Ukrainian “major offensive” against the Russian positions has resulted in tens of thousands of victims and enormous destruction of its war material, but no military success. Now Ukraine lacks troops to continue a massive ground war.
  Glenn Diesen and Douglas Macgregor therefore conclude that the war is changing from a “Ukraine war” to what Macgregor calls a “Biden phase of the war”: primarily through the delivery and use of longer-range missiles and cruise missiles that can reach far into Russia with pinpoint accuracy and great destructive potential; weapons that, however, cannot be used without direct US or NATO involvement.
  The USA and NATO, according to both interlocutors, are now quite obviously “warring parties”.
  Russia will not be able to accept this acute threat to its own country and possibly even to Russian nuclear facilities passively or purely defensively. It will be forced to go on a military counter-offensive. The country has the military capacities for this: for action within Ukraine, but possibly also with the aim of hitting strategically important US and NATO bases in the USA, Great Britain, France or Germany – although Russian President Putin has so far done everything to avoid a direct war against NATO despite all provocations. So far, he has probably counted on the economic decline of the NATO states and their presumed willingness to back down in that case.
  It is also conceivable, however, that states friendly to and allied with Russia (Macgregor names North Korea, allies in the Middle East and five Latin American states) could launch attacks on the USA.

 

Western delusion

So far, Diesen and Macgregor have ruled out a deliberate nuclear exchange. It is still known even in Washington that a nuclear war would mean the destruction of the entire world. And Russia will not use nuclear weapons as long as it is not attacked with them. Because of their limited military capacities and the high level of Russian armament, neither the USA nor NATO as a whole are in a position to wage an open conventional war against Russia. Glenn Diesen and Douglas Macgregor therefore speak of a lack of rationality on the part of the US political leadership. This leadership is driven by the craze of wanting to harm Russia in every possible way – without thinking of the consequences. So far, it does not help that the US people, with good arguments, do not want a war against Russia. Washington is in the hands of the warring party.
  It is not yet clear how Russia will react and what considerations are being made in the Russian political and military leadership. What is clear, however, is this: The change from a proxy war to the “Biden phase of the war” is a “Russian roulette” with a third world war – and the defeat of the West, with all the catastrophic consequences for the people, especially in our Western countries, would be foreseeable. Already, the people in the European countries are paying a high price for this war, for which their governments are partly responsible.

 

Let us not wait until it has come to that

Alfred Adler wrote in the article quoted above: “Just as this nation is about to be given a voice [one year after the war], when only a mighty stream of an awakened social feeling can bring salvation, and when a newly aroused feeling of human dignity cries out for punishment of the guilty so that the world‘s confidence can be regained, the governments of the Alliance [the “Entente”] threaten these, so recently tortured people, with a new form of slavery.” Adler had in mind the unjust provisions of the armistice agreements and the Versailles treaties, and discerned precisely their consequences with reference to peace.
  How, after all the humiliations and great sacrifices suffered, a victorious Russia will deal with the defeated, we do not know. Hopefully, it will be more humane than Western states used to be after their “victories”.
  But does it have to come to that? Cannot more people fight their way out of the “thick fog” [withdraw the opaque cloth from their heads] even now and do their utmost for peace? This might start with an honest conversation with a friend, a colleague or a neighbour – with prudent objectivity and humanity instead of propaganda and incitement of the people. It is not sensible and it is even against human nature to simply wait and pretend that the danger is not imminent.  •

https://www.zeit-fragen.ch/en/archives/2023/nr-20/21-3-oktober-2023/russisch-roulette-mit-einem-dritten-weltkrieg

 

 

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WITH ISRAEL BOMBING DAMASCUS YESTERDAY, bombing Damascus?..., WE CAN WONDER ABOUT THE SANITY OF THE WESTERN LEADERS UNDER THE SPELL OF THE JEWISH AMERICAN LOBBY....