Although I have not been in academia for nearly 15 years — I’d surely have committed harikari by now if still forced to exist in such a stultifying environment — I can identify with this short statement:
One of the best things about Substack is the large group of independent thinkers who have gathered here and the resulting sense of community that has been fostered. I can spend too much time reading the comments to such posts, finding new Substack newsletters, more interesting people to follow, and so on.
Over the last 9 months or so, since returning to the US, I became more confident that humanity would win when I could feel us getting stronger through connection. I believe that I would be experiencing this feeling in New Zealand if I had chosen to stay there, too, given the incredible communities that have popped up in the midst of an absurd level of oppression since I left.
The sheer flood of enraging and heart-wrenching stories that one sees on these larger Substacks produce an outpouring of emotion similar to the one I felt when I wrote my first article here, when it was picked up by my friend Mathew Crawford. Suddenly hundreds of people were expressing sympathy and solidarity.
I felt heard for the first time in years. I felt grateful. And then I felt hopeful.
This was my comment on eugyppius’ post.
P.S. I have updated the Musk Meme thread with over a half dozen more memes. Check back for more fun laughs!
That's a beautiful comment. I couldn't agree more. I've kept my mouth firmly shut for years now, not just on covid but on all of it - the gender bender gnosticism, the racial divisions, mass migration, the demonization of men, Trump, just all of it - even going so far as to deactivate my Facebook account to avoid tempting myself to get into the arguments I knew I'd start. Even on pseudonymous social media I kept a low profile, knowing just how cunning Antifa's doxxers could be. All out of a misguided idea that if I just kept my head down and did good work, I'd be able to climb the academic hierarchy and eventually get into a position where I had enough power and influence to make some kind of difference.
The last two years has disabused me of that notion. On the one hand, it's been made pretty clear that there's not much space at the top for individuals with my innate biological characteristics. But on the other hand, I'm so deeply disgusted by what academia has become that the thought of continuing to associate myself with it fills me nausea. I have to force myself to complete my professional duties; the joy has been sucked out of all of it. Which for me at least is a massive change, because previously I always approached research and education as a kind of play.
So, that's why I've been writing about this over at my substack ... sort of an extended post-mortem trying to determine from structural, cultural, psychological, and fiscal perspectives how it all went so wrong. The latest installment in the series, a meditation on how academic prestige is related to managerial power and how this represents a crucial and exploitable weakness of the latter, is here:
https://barsoom.substack.com/p/the-dieing-prestige-of-the-academy
Monica, knowing that there's life on the other side of all this, and that it promises to be better, is one of the things that keeps me going. Not just 'life outside the academy', but 'life outside this decaying garbage pile of a society'. As you say - better to die than to live in the world they have planned for us. But I don't think it will come to that.
Hi Monica,
as a NZder, I am dismayed that our country has lost a voice such as yours.
My husband is Australian and as you may know, for many years we didn't need a pp to travel back and forth between our two countries. Having lived here for over forty years, we are in the ridiculous situation whereby if we go to visit his family and our grandchildren in Australia he may not return with me, under the current mandates. Everything he/we own is in NZ, including our home. My husband has contributed enormously to NZ, and should not be treated like a second class citizen.The stupidity of the current rules enacted by the NZ government beggars belief. We are working with a group to try and address this situation but how long it will take to resolve the idiocy is an open question.
I regret your departure and wish you well for the future. Our loss, Mexico's gain.