4 results for "Science"

The parasitic mind: how infectious ideas are killing common sense

Saad, Gad
"There's a war against truth... and if we don't win it, intellectual freedom will be a casualty. The West's commitment to freedom, reason, and true liberalism has never been more seriously threatened than it is today by the stifling forces of political correctness. Dr. Gad Saad, the host of the enormously popular YouTube show THE SAAD TRUTH, exposes the bad ideas--what he calls "idea pathogens"--that are killing common sense and rational debate. Incubated in our universities and spread through the tyranny of political correctness, these ideas are endangering our most basic freedoms--including freedom of thought and speech. The danger is grave, but as Dr. Saad shows, politically correct dogma is riddled with logical fallacies. We have powerful weapons to fight back with--if we have the courage to use them.Includes bibliographical references and index"--Jacket flap.
Regnery Publishing 2021-10-05 240 pages

I'll burn that bridge when I get to it! heretical thoughts on identity politics, cancel culture, and academic freedom

Finkelstein, Norman G.
"Norman Finkelstein first made his name while still in graduate school when he exposed an acclaimed national bestseller as a hoax. He went on in subsequent decades to subject Israel's apologists as well as Holocaust hucksters to withering scrutiny. In his new book, Finkelstein focuses his keen forensic eye on the canonical texts of identity politics. After methodically parsing them, Finkelstein concludes that they're lacking in intellectual substance. Instead, the real purpose of identity politics is to derail a class-based movement bent on radical change. In a long, scathing chapter, Finkelstein analyzes the cult surrounding Barack Obama, which he reveals as the ultimate product of identity politics. The first Black president rose to power by having, in Obama's own cynical words, "pulled off a neat trick" by standing for nothing except his skin color. If "woke" liberals embraced him, it was because, beneath his hip veneer, Obama was a sure bet to prop up the corrupt status quo. Along the way, Finkelstein recalls his own life in radical politics and his close encounters with cancel culture, which left him unemployed and unemployable. He situates his personal story within broader debates on academic freedom and poignantly concludes that, although occasionally bitter, he harbors no regrets about the choices he made. "If I can't laugh, I don't want your revolution," Finkelstein declares. Laced with his signature wit, readers of this book will get to laugh along with him."--provided by publisher.
Sublation Press 2023-01-27 522 pages

The case of the Nazi professor

Oshinsky, David M.
Presents the report of an investigation in 1985 into the case of Lienhard Bergel, a German instructor dismissed from the New Jersey College for Women (later Douglass College) in 1935. Bergel claimed that he was dismissed by the pro-Nazi chairman of the department, Friedrich J. Hauptmann, on a trumped-up charge of incompetence because of his anti-Nazi views. The local Jewish community tended to view Bergel as a "surrogate Jew, " victimized for his opposition to Nazis. Examines the controversy against the background of the antisemitism of this period, pro-Nazi demonstrations by German-American groups (causing anxiety in the New Jersey legislature which passed a law against Nazi propaganda), and student unrest led by left-wing and communist groups. An investigation in the 1930s found that there was little evidence that Hauptmann, despite his praise for Nazi racism, had treated Jews unfairly. Bergel's dismissal was upheld. The 1985 committee found that Bergel's non-reappointment was valid, but that the actions of Rutgers authorities were questionable. They had supported Hauptmann in order to protect the university, which was in a precarious financial state, from unfavorable publicity.
Rutgers University Press 1989-03-01 157 pages

Out of the Frame: The Struggle for Academic Freedom in Israel

Pappé, Ilan
Even before he wrote his bestselling book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine , historian Ilan Pappe was a controversial figure in Israel. In Out of the Frame , he gives a full account of his break with conventional Israeli scholarship and its consequences. Growing up in a conventional Israeli community influenced by the utopian visions of Theodor Herzl, Pappe was barely aware of the Nakbah in his high school years. Here, he traces his journey of discovery from the whispers of Palestinian classmates to his realization that the "enemy's" narrative of the events of 1948 was correct. After producing his Ph.D at Oxford University based on recently declassified documents in the early 1980s, he returned to Palestine determined to protect the memory of the Nakbah and struggle for the rectification of its evils. For the first time, he gives the details of the formidable opposition he faced in Israel, including death threats fed by the media, denunciations by the Knesset, and calls for him to be sacked from his post at Haifa University. This revealing work, written with dignity and humor, highlights Israel's difficulty in facing up to its past and forging a peaceful, inclusive future in Palestine.
Pluto Press 2010-11-15 246 pages