The destructive moral rot begins in academia!-----Niall Ferguson: The Treason of the Intellectuals | The Free Press

Niall Ferguson: The Treason of the Intellectuals | The Free Press

• Anyone who has a naive belief in the power of higher education to instill morality has not studied the history of German universities in the Third Reich.

"In 1927 the French philosopher Julien Benda published La trahison des clercs—“The Treason of the Intellectuals”—which condemned the descent of European intellectuals into extreme nationalism and racism. 

By that point, although Benito Mussolini had been in power in Italy for five years, Adolf Hitler was still six years away from power in Germany and 13 years away from victory over France. 

But already Benda could see the pernicious role that many European academics were playing in politics...with results that would be catastrophic for all of Europe.

• A century later, American academia has gone in the opposite political direction—leftward instead of rightward—but has ended up in much the same place. 
• The question is whether we—unlike the Germans—can do something about it.

For nearly ten years, rather like Benda, I have marveled at the treason of my fellow intellectuals.

I have also witnessed the willingness of trustees, donors, and alumni to tolerate the politicization of American universities by an illiberal coalition of “woke” progressives, adherents of “critical race theory,” and apologists for Islamist extremism.
Throughout that period, friends assured me that I was exaggerating...