B'nai B'rith dares to question hatemongering in the universities?

Via email, a press release from B'nai Brith on the arrest of Ottawa professor Hassan Diab for a 1980 Paris Synagogue bombing (HT Catfur for the links):

“The relentless pursuit of justice by French authorities in this terrorist bombing spanned decades and crossed continents,” said Frank Dimant, B’nai Brith Canada’s Executive Vice President. “It is precisely this kind of determined resolve to fight terrorism, backed by international partners, which should be emulated by all jurisdictions.

“This case raises wider concerns regarding the potential for professors who harbour ideologies of hate to import their extremist views into a classroom setting and to influence young susceptible students.”

But do you have to let off bombs at synagogues to be considered an extremist? Surely Frank Dimant has some idea of the never-ending (anti-American, anti-Western, and Judephobic) conspiracy theories that pass for historical interpretation in our universities. Maybe it's time for B'nai B'rith to help set up a serious organization for professor watching in Canada?

Freak out your prof?

Well, aside from being seemingly oblivious to the fact that much of the professoriate is permanently freaked out (postmodern thought is the belief that any and all signs of the normal betray violence towards the Other and, since the normal, or myths defending it, will inevitably always come to the fore, it/they must be forever opposed in an institutionalized, never-ending, freak out) you've got to get a chuckle over the latest ad from the Young Tories.

But as I say, many academics can't take a politically-incorrect (if any) joke, especially not one that cuts close to the truth: they consider it their sacred duty to be permanently freaked out, reading every myth of the normal as a demonization of some victim, a process of victimization put beyond doubt for all time by the unmistakable model of the unquestionable vicimization, the Nazi and the Jew. Nothing the Jews ever did could justify their massacre.... (But the professoriate, that has been preaching one conspiratorial/Gnostic view of history after another for several generations now?) A good prof. can't miss up a chance to feed on this theme, least of all when he doesn't simply get to play the role of the victim advocate but can be, oh it's so glorious, the victim himself:

A 2004 study by Stanley Rothman of Smith College in Northampton, Mass., found that academics are five times more likely to identify as liberals than as conservatives. The study polled over 1,600 undergraduate faculty members from 183 schools.

But academic administrators say most professors encourage a diversity of viewpoints.

Bruce Feldthusen, vice-president of university relations at the University of Ottawa, said he hasn't seen any evidence of political bias among faculty members. He called the Conservative ad campaign an attempt to "demonize" academia.

"This demonizing of institutions is all too common in American politics, and not very helpful here. We've seen the demonizing of the courts here in the last few years. Are we going to do the universities next?"

Oh the poor man, the next thing we'll be asking him to do is to think through his very dependence on the theme of "demonization" and victimization and to question whether continually invoking the mad mob that wants to turn Stephen Harper into the neocon fuhrer (or is it Bush's Goebbels?) in the name of the normal, oil, and the American lie of freedom, is actually not an intellectually or professionally respectable way to make a constructive contribution to the debate on maintaining a free society. The victimary elites fear, most of all, being pressured to seriously study the conservative truth claim: that the academic victim mongers are parasitic on a free society and are working to erode our capacity to renew our freedom, as they use emotional blackmail (see above) and demand appeasement from defenders of the sacred bases of freedom, all in the name of the victim, a figure they put beyond debate whatever minor nods they make to entertaining various points of view.

But the good news is:

Once considered redoubts for political pariahs, Conservative campus clubs are enjoying a resurgence at Canadian universities and colleges, emboldened by a cheeky ad campaign that encourages students to "freak out their profs" and join the federal party.

Campus-club presidents say membership has increased since Prime Minister Stephen Harper took office nearly two years ago. The Conservatives' ascent to power in Ottawa, they say, has had a multiplier effect on campus, enabling clubs to attract centre-leaning students.

The surge is evident at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont. Despite the university's strong Tory roots, membership in the campus club sank to the low double digits at the start of the decade, when the country's two main conservative parties were still divided.

But more than 200 members now subscribe to the club's e-mail list, said Alex Bednar, president of the Queen's Campus Conservatives.

"People are now seeing us as a more viable option. The more politically ambitious kids are joining, because they see what's happening in Ottawa," said Bednar, a 21-year-old history major.

American academia in retreat on military history

Military history was one of the first subjects I can consciously remember studying, even before I ever went to school.

My interest began from the afternoon that a favorite uncle had handed down to me his old, old collection of Civil War News bubble gum cards, with gory images on one side and an accompanying newspaper-style account of the illustrated battle on the back.

These graphic cards taught this youngster about valor and ingenuity and perseverance, as well as the horror of war. From there it was a natural progression to reading about World War I and II, Napoleonic and American Revolutionary history, Roman and Greek history and so much else. (Sadly, the military historian is not lacking for subject matter...)

There's been much to learn, offering many inspiring stories of courage and duty that have dramatically improved my adult life, especially due to having read so much American military history.

Rich Lowry offers an article today at Town Hall, suggesting that such knowledge and the life lessons one can learn therefrom, may be becoming a thing of the past. Read his sad assessment on the current state of military history as a subject in today's college and university curriculums, here:

Battles are so important to history that their names alone -- Vienna, Waterloo, Stalingrad -- can evoke the beginning or end of epochs and empires. Violent conflict is one of the most persistent characteristics of human history, and warfare features the interplay of strategy, weaponry, chance, logistics, emotion and leadership. It is the occasion for folly and brutality, and -- as we remember on Memorial Day -- heroism and sacrifice.
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Nonetheless, military history has been all but banished from college campuses. In an article on this strange deficit in National Review, John J. Miller chalks it up to "an ossified tenure system, scholarly navel-gazing and ideological hostility to all things military."

History departments are dominated by a post-Vietnam generation of professors for whom bottom-up "social history" is paramount, and the only areas of interest are race, sex and class. History focusing on great events and the "great men" central to them is retrograde -- let alone military history that ipso facto smacks of militarism. Hence, the rout of military history from the academy that Miller catalogs.

Edward Coffman, a former military historian at the University of Wisconsin, studied the 25 best history departments according to U.S. News & World Report rankings and found that a mere 21 professors out of more than 1,000 listed war as their specialty. A Notre Dame student complained recently: "We have more than 30 full-time history faculty members, but not one is a military historian. Even in their self-described interests, not a single professor lists 'war' of any era, although half list religious, gender and race relations."

Even professors who supposedly specialize in military history do it through the prism of trendy academic obsessions. Miller notes a professor at West Virginia University who lists World War I as one of his "teaching fields," but his latest work is on "the French hairdressing professions" and the "evolving practices and sensibilities of cleanliness in 20th century France."
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That military history has been chased from the academic field is especially perverse given that, when the classes are offered, they are popular with students.
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Brave men always will be necessary to defend freedom, and what they have done deserves to be remembered, and studied.