http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/06/2006062904n.htm http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/06/2006062905n.htm Is there any historical precedence for killing off the academics? Sure, I can understand offing a pettifogger or two -- but professors?
It has been done in China during the communist revolution. My former landlord from Poland tells me it was done there too.
Re: Re: Conspiracy to Murder/Exterminate Professors Do you have any idea as to why? Do academics in turmoiled countries carry more political clout than they do here? I am still befuzzeled as to why they would target academics. It seems like a case of self destruction since who is going to raise their countries up? Is it that there is a certain comfort in living in the gutter or is it that they want to maintain the status quo so that every remains living in the gutter? This is so stupid.
Re: Re: Re: Conspiracy to Murder/Exterminate Professors Academics are seen as a threat in that their ideas will be counterproductive to the revolution. In China, under Mao Tse-Tung, many teachers and academics were killed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. During the Cultural Revolution, so many people were deemed as a threat and were killed that it ended up "crippl[ing] China's development, leading to economic hardship, social turmoil and widespread starvation." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
When you are to start something new (a state, a party, a revolution), one needs to eliminate all possible dissidence. You can't build a country having 51% of the population's support. That spells trouble. Among the dissidents, those with higher intellectual ability are the most dangerous ones because they could awake a population (or an important part of it) who is under the effects of general anesthesia. It is not counterproductive to kill them or to force them to exile. It is in fact beneficial from the point of view of the revolutionary. It happened, for instance, in Spain in 1936 when all its intellectuals flew to France from Picasso to Machado or simply anhilated. It happens nowadays when the terrorist organization ETA targets intellectuals, university professors, journalists, etc who usually are in the front line. People who are independent are always in danger.
Hitler eliminated the Polish intelligensia specifically because he wanted to suppress any ideas or ideals that could fire up resistance to the Nazi New World Order. (Yes, they called it that.) Extremely pale and dilute expressions of the same sort show up in the United States every now and then but on the whole, our intelligensia is just as likely to side WITH the ultra right militarists as with the ultra left militants. In the '60s, this was certainly so. The professorate was much more supportive of the Viet Nam War than the students were. Actually, Hitler didn't really need to suppress the German academy, other than to expel all Jews (thank God; they came here and helped us win the war) because most of the German academy became ardent Nazis. (Along with, it sickens me to say, the German bench and bar.)
That's a good point, Hitler had the support of the academies. In fact, he claimed a fair piece of his philosophies and ardent passion for them were cultivated by a few "wise professors" in high school. On a somewhat related note, I think it's chilling how antisemitism is gradually getting a foothold in the U.S. academies again. Twenty or thirty years ago, I thought the stake was in the heart of that ugly thing among academics, but now a vague antisemitism and outright anti-Israel stance seems almost fashionable among elites. Doesn't bode well.
Does Lysencovism count? As to the reasons, they-re pretty obvious: if you're preaching some radical ideology for political gain, you'd like to get rid of anyone smart enough to pose as your competition - or killing part of those to scare the rest.
How about Cambodia? Think there weren't at least tens of thousands of academics and elites scattered among Pol Pot's killing fields?
