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This credulous coverage fails completely at recognizing this as a right-wing attack on education, thus doing the job of the right-wing:
The Next Battle in Higher Ed May Strike at Its Soul: Scholarship nytimes.com/2024/01/14/us/plag

The New York Times · The Next Battle in Higher Ed May Strike at Its Soul: ScholarshipBy Anemona Hartocollis
Bob Wyman

@jeffjarvis
It is much more than merely a "right-wing attack on education." It is part of a much broader attack on all of our society's institutions and traditions. The goal is not to improve institutions but rather to weaken them and thus leave the people without resort to any trusted sources of information or truth.

The strategy is what Lincoln would have called "Ruin to Rule:" Ruining the current system in order to make it easier to take over and rule.

@bobwyman
Completely agree. I argue that the so-called right is engaged in a thorough-going institutional insurrection, preferring to burn the fields than share teh harvest with those who follow.

@jeffjarvis
The peculiar thing is that the "Right" is assumed to be "conservative." But, conservatives got their name because they were focused on the preservation or conservation of existing institutions.

Today's Right, which appears focused on tearing down or rejecting institutions, would appear to be anything but "conservative."

@bobwyman
Yes, I address just this in The Gutenberg Parenthesis:

@bobwyman @jeffjarvis There is another word for what the right-wingers are. It starts with an F.

@bobwyman @jeffjarvis
That's a fair description of conservative, but the term Right (& Left for that matter) is near meaningless, and is used just to reduce down a complex web of political ideals into what is basically just us & them.
Continuity of what it means to be on "the Right" now, and "the Right" 50 years ago is fractured at best, & illusionary at worst.
The most consistent feature of the right is not conservatism but the demand that others respect authority.

@bobwyman @jeffjarvis Yes, a more accurate label would be 'radical reactionaries.'

@Loukas @bobwyman @jeffjarvis But also the word 'radical' is out of place here. It comes from 'radix', root. Going back to roots - which could be a good thing. I don't see these reactionary nihilists doing that.

@martinvermeer @bobwyman @jeffjarvis it's a neutral word, it simply means wanting deep change, positive or negative.