{"id":203198,"date":"2020-03-01T08:35:42","date_gmt":"2020-03-01T08:35:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=203198"},"modified":"2020-03-03T08:34:17","modified_gmt":"2020-03-03T08:34:17","slug":"a-russian-woman-working-as-a-college-professor-in-the-us-writes-about-the-sovietization-of-amerika","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=203198","title":{"rendered":"A Russian Woman Working as a College Professor in the US Writes About the Sovietization of Amerika"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rod Dreher \u2013 American Conservative Feb 21, 2020<\/a><\/strong><\/h1>\n

via Russia Insider<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m in the editing and rewriting stage of\u00a0Live Not By Lies<\/em>\u00a0now, but I couldn\u2019t pass up the opportunity to talk yesterday with a woman I\u2019ll call \u201cClarissa,\u201d whose stories were so good that I\u2019m weaving them into the book\u2019s narrative.<\/span><\/p>\n

Clarissa is a college professor who emigrated to the US from Russia as a young woman, a few years after the fall of the Soviet Union. She is yet another ex-Soviet bloc person who is extremely anxious about the emergence of soft totalitarianism here. Of course she can\u2019t use her real name, because she fears professional retaliation. It should tell us something that not a single academic from a former communist country that I interviewed for this book was willing to speak using their own name \u2014 this, in the Land of the Free. Why not? Because they were afraid of facing professional consequences for speaking out against identity politics and the \u201csocial justice\u201d regime. Below, some quotes from our interview:<\/span><\/p>\n

I have the feeling of extreme frustration. Our stories of people in the former Soviet space are constantly dismissed. I have no idea why. I think it happens because people still think that the ideas that existed in the Soviet Union are basically good \u2013 that it was the execution that was at times excessive. My father says what happened to us was not about the economic system. The economic system was just an excuse. This could happen anywhere \u2013 even under capitalism.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Totalitarianism is something that takes away from people the unbearable burden of freedom. It allows many people to hound and persecute with impunity. That is pleasant in many senses. There was a practice in the Soviet Union where people would be told to get together in groups at work and write letters to the newspaper to denounce famous poets or artists. We see that today in Twitter. People love that because it allows a little person to completely destroy somebody who has done something great.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is very human. Once you have removed any moral or religious obstacles to that behavior, what\u2019s to stop anybody?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

When I was nine years old, I had a teacher of Russian literature. I really admired her. What we didn\u2019t know was that her father was a high ranking KGB officer. He found out that a little girl in our class, Masha, was attending church with her parents, and not only that, but was singing in the choir. The teacher one day pulled that little girl out in the class and for an hour unleashed a torrent of abuse on this child. For what? The feeling of power of persecuting that child in front of the rest of us. This is not happening right now in the US, but it\u2019s conceivable.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

(On American vulnerability to totalitarianism)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s American exceptionalism. You all think you\u2019re such special people that you\u2019re going to do it right. If socialism comes here, don\u2019t worry, we\u2019ll make it happen in the correct way. Not true! Ten years ago if you had told me I would be seeing this in the US, I would have laughed in your face. But now it\u2019s happening. I\u2019m seeing it happening to my friends. It\u2019s like their minds are disintegrating.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Once your religion is taken away, you still have a need for an overarching moral law. You\u2019re going to look for it somewhere else, even outside religion. We\u2019re seeing it now with this identity politics. \u2026 In the Soviet Union when I was young, cynicism was everywhere. Nobody believed in anything. Everybody just went through the motions. I used to think that cynicism was the worst thing in the world. It\u2019s not. The worst thing in the world is the lack of cynicism and critical difference, and accepting everything uncritically. These people today, they really believe all this woke ideology. And that\u2019s what\u2019s really scary<\/span><\/p>\n

I have a friend who is very woke. The woke ideology is the belief is that if somebody departs from the dogma, even by an inch, that person is an evil, hate-filled bigot. When I disagree with her, I can see that she genuinely can\u2019t comprehend that I disagree with her. She knows I\u2019m a good person, but here I am disagreeing with her. She can\u2019t understand it. And she\u2019s an educated person! A college professor.<\/span><\/p>\n

The intellectuals are playing a dangerous game. They think they can control it. They think that once their ideas are imposed on society, they can control it. That\u2019s ludicrous. They\u2019re going to be the first ones the system turns on, because as intellectuals, they can be the first ones to spot the flaws in the system.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nobody is going to be safe. Nobody can pledge enough allegiance to this kind of system to protect themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

I mentor early career academics. I used to enjoy it, but not anymore. These graduate students are not producing scholarship. They\u2019re just turning in collections of woke slogans. I don\u2019t even know what to do with that. When we start talking to the younger academics, they don\u2019t understand what we want for them. They were taught this way, and they\u2019re reproducing it. I see this from students who come to college. It seems like all they get in the schools is dogma. They are blank slates. They have no real knowledge of anything \u2013 they just repeat slogans, and when you ask them to explain it, they turn blank.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Soviet Union, when you were a student and assigned to write a paper, you knew that the thing to do was to go straight to the correct books in the library and copy the relevant articles, word for word, with no deviations. That was your paper. When my family left, we arrived in Canada, and I entered the university there. When I was assigned my first paper, I found it impossible to believe that the teacher really did want me to think for myself. It was an incredible feeling! To think about something, and to say what I really thought about it! It was so weird, but so liberating.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m seeing young people who are just like we were in the Soviet Union. They are afraid to think for themselves. They only want to know what the \u201cright\u201d answer is, and repeat it. It\u2019s depressing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem is that many people still associate totalitarianism with an all-powerful state, and if it doesn\u2019t come from the state, it\u2019s not totalitarianism. What we\u2019re dealing with now is not coming from the state. None of us are afraid that the government is going to send secret police and take us to the dungeon. That\u2019s not going to happen. No. We\u2019re afraid of being humiliated and deprived of a living. Of being a pariah, of being marginalized, unpersonned, cancelled. You don\u2019t need the government for that, especially in the age of social media. It wasn\u2019t the government hounding those Covington Catholic boys, or J.K. Rowling.<\/span><\/p>\n

Voting for someone [as a protest against political correctness] is wonderful, but the government cannot solve this problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Since I started going to church a couple of years ago, I began to understand what was taken from us. I feel incredibly angry that we were deprived of something that\u2019s such a huge part of our culture and civilization, that it taken from us. I take my little girl to church and Sunday school. I want my child to know this so she doesn\u2019t have to discover it in her forties, and feel clumsy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

I wish we had some form of a secret handshake [on my campus]. I know a couple of other professors on campus who I suspect are one of us. But everybody is so closeted, it\u2019s impossible to talk about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have this bias response team that prowls the campus looking for signs of non-compliance, and to justify their existence. We had the same thing in the Soviet Union. Right now they\u2019re on campus, but eventually, they\u2019re going to be in every workplace. If you have everybody in your workplace trained in diversity, then you can treat your workers however you like, and nobody will care.<\/span><\/p>\n

(On the culture created by diversity and sensitivity training in the workplace)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

All your co-workers are enemies. Either they can get you in trouble, or they are out to destroy you with an accusation. It destroys all sorts of uncontrollable communities \u2013 friendship, families, church communities. When you set people against each other, they are much easier to control. This is what it was like under totalitarianism.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

I hope in this book you can convey a sense of urgency. If you think you can hide from this, and not have to confront it, you\u2019re dreaming. This is coming for everybody. This is coming soon, and people have to think about it now. If you know how you\u2019re going to respond when the persecution comes, you will be in a better position to react to it.<\/span><\/p>\n

There will be more in\u00a0Live Not By Lies<\/em>, out in early September. By the way, I\u2019m going to be traveling today to a weekend wedding, so comments approval is going to be delayed.<\/span><\/p>\n

By the way, here is\u00a0a link to Clarissa\u2019s blog<\/a>, if you\u2019re interested. Here\u2019s\u00a0a post from a previous blog of hers<\/a>, about her father\u2019s life as a closeted Christian in the USSR.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a Clarissa post on teaching a class on totalitarianism<\/strong><\/span>.<\/a>\u00a0Excerpt:<\/span><\/p>\n

The wall-to-wall propaganda that characterizes this new totalitarianism isn\u2019t state-sponsored either. It\u2019s disseminated solely through corporate channels. Traditional politicians are squeezed out by TV and social media stars who represent this new form of power. The complete dependence of their popularity on Twitter and Instagram means they will do absolutely anything to avoid being deplatformed. It\u2019s no longer about courting rich donors to donate to your campaign. Now it\u2019s all about being a funny enough clown that attracts hits and likes to enrich the owners of these platforms.<\/span><\/p>\n

Every day, the power of these giant corporations to unearth a tweet or a like on a tweet that can sink absolutely anybody grows. There is no need for a state to keep a dossier of\u00a0kompromat<\/em>\u00a0(compromising material) on each citizen. This process has been completely corporatized. And the worst part is that people who are wielding this sort of coercive power honestly see themselves as powerless victims who have to defend themselves from coercion.<\/span><\/p>\n

You know, since I started writing this post, I went to look up the blog entry I posted from my first interview with Clarissa, a year or so ago. I couldn\u2019t find it, except in my notes for the book. I wonder if I ever posted it. Sorry if you\u2019ve already seen it, but I suspect I forgot to put it on the site. Here\u2019s the text:<\/span><\/p>\n

Just got off the phone with a Soviet-born academic who teaches in a small state university in the American heartland. She blogs under the name \u201cClarissa,\u201d but I got her real name, and checked her out. She\u2019s REALLY excited about this book, and told me she would be a source, and introduce me to the emigre community. She\u2019s teaching a class on totalitarianism this semester, and is unnerved to have discovered that every single one of her students thinks that socialism is a good thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI teach in the heart of America, in what a lot of people think of as the Bible Belt, and this is how they think,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

She got her PhD at a top American university (I checked this out), and said that it was a constant struggle there to be heard. Whenever Marxist topics would come up, she would talk about her experience in the USSR, and people would shout her down. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t believe the rage in their faces,\u201d she said. \u201cThey did not want to hear it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She said that when she talks to her parents and tells her about things she\u2019s seeing as an American academic, within academia, they\u2019re shocked. They keep saying, \u201cIt\u2019s like we had it back in the Soviet Union!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She has learned to be very, very careful about what she says among her colleagues. She knows that nobody wants to hear it, and now she\u2019s afraid of being identified and punished. She said, \u201cI have to live my intellectual and spiritual life underground. I stay silent about so many things with my colleagues\u00a0because I know that they would honestly and sincerely see me as some kind of monster because of the things I believe, which are in no way radical.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Yesterday a tenured academic she knows in California wrote to her to say that he withdrew from publication a paper he had written that very mildly criticizes woke dogma (she didn\u2019t say what it was) within the academy, because he lost his nerve. He\u2019s tenured, so he wasn\u2019t afraid of losing his job. He was afraid of becoming a pariah \u2014 of his friends turning their backs on him because of his views, and others being afraid to take his side out of fear that they would be seen as tainted.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest, I wouldn\u2019t want anybody at work to know I read your blog,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

She also said that she can\u2019t stand Trump, but has come to see him as the only obstacle between herself and total progressive madness. \u201cIt\u2019s the most frustrating thing!\u201d she said, her voice rising. I told her I agreed with her, and we laughed about that.<\/span><\/p>\n

The diversity commissars have everybody terrified at her university, she said. Recently the chief diversity officer publicly identified her as \u201ctransphobic.\u201d Why? Because a student asked her about use of the term \u201cLatinx.\u201d It came up in class, and as a Spanish speaker, she mentioned that many Spanish speakers hate the term. For this, she was identified as \u201ctransphobic\u201d by the diversity office. She said that she didn\u2019t even express an opinion about the term, only noted that it\u2019s not popular among Spanish speakers. So now she\u2019s on the watch list.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s something really interesting: she said that one of her research interests is how multinational corporations undermine the nation-state. She said that wokeness in corporate America is a weapon used by white-collar professionals to weed out competitors for increasingly scarce jobs. She said, \u201cPeople find ideological purity tests useful to weed out people who compete for jobs you cover. Progressive forces are completely allied with globalist capitalism.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She also said that people have no idea how vulnerable they are to this mindset, because of social media. \u201cYou will not be able to predict what will be held against you tomorrow. You have no idea what completely normal thing you do today, or say today, will be used against you to destroy you. This is what people in the Soviet Union saw. We know how this works. This is why people like me are so upset today. I\u2019m so glad you\u2019re writing this book. Thank you for calling me and letting me vent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Remember to check out\u00a0Clarissa\u2019s blog<\/strong><\/span>.<\/a>\u00a0I hope she\u2019ll tell more Soviet stories, and talk about how they relate to what\u2019s going on in contemporary American academic culture, and beyond.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested, here\u2019s the speech on the topic that I gave in Rome earlier this month:<\/span><\/p>\n