‘The Second Time as Farce’: @sandraylk’s Recycled Marcusean Marxism

Posted on | February 20, 2014 | 61 Comments

Sandra Korn: Feminist socialist lesbian — but I repeat myself.

“If our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals simply in the name of ‘academic freedom’?
“Instead, I would like to propose a more rigorous standard: one of ‘academic justice.’ When an academic community observes research promoting or justifying oppression, it should ensure that this research does not continue.”
— Sandra Y.L. Korn, Harvard University senior

“Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left.”
— Herbert Marcuse, “Repressive Tolerance,” 1965

Most of us who lived through the 1960s and ’70s have no desire for a repetition of that carnival of radical errors. Unfortunately, many of those who do remember that era fondly are leftist academics who have turned American university campuses into cauldrons of radicalism, where they inculcate in their young protégés a misplaced nostalgia for an idealized make-believe version of the Sixties. Brainy youth at elite institutions are therefore filled with an obsolete revolutionary zeal to “smash the system,” as if the Establishment today were as oppressive as the administration of Clark Kerr, the hapless liberal whose misfortune it was to be president of the University of California when the Berkeley “Free Speech Movement” erupted.

Because today’s radical youth do not know the actual history of the Sixties, but only what they have been taught about the Sixties by leftist academics, the students are ill-equipped to avoid the typical errors of radicalism, and seem not to realize how stale and predictable their supposedly “innovative” ideas actually are.

And so we come to Harvard senior Sandra Korn’s celebration of the hippie student mau-maus who protested psychology professor Richard Herrnstein’s research about heredity influence on IQ:

When he returned to campus for fall semester 1971, Herrnstein was met by angry student activists. Harvard-Radcliffe Students for a Democratic Society protested his introductory psychology class with a bullhorn and leaflets. They tied up Herrnstein’s lectures with pointed questions about scientific racism. SDS even called for Harvard to fire Herrnstein, along with another of his colleagues, sociologist Christopher Jencks.

This SDS protest at Harvard was after national SDS had already imploded under the pressure of increasing extremism among its leadership clique, an implosion that resulted in the formation of the Weather Underground terrorism cult. The grievances cited by Korn — “a joint history of science and studies of women, gender and sexuality concentrator” — include the predictable feminist recitation of disagreement as victimhood:

Does Government Professor Harvey Mansfield have the legal right to publish a book in which he claims that “to resist rape a woman needs … a certain ladylike modesty?” Probably. Do I think he should do that? No, and I would happily organize with other feminists on campus to stop him from publishing further sexist commentary under the authority of a Harvard faculty position. “Academic freedom” might permit such an offensive view of rape to be published; academic justice would not.

Is “ladylike modesty” an effective means of averting rape? One expects Professor Mansfield would find many who disagree with that view, but what Korn is saying is that “academic justice” would prohibit anyone at the university from disagreeing with feminist ideology about rape, so that in fact “justice” becomes an Orwellian synonym for the silencing of dissent. (Has she read Animal Farm? Nineteen Eighty-Four?)

Korn’s call for neo-Stalinism on campus — one imagines Harvey Mansfield being airbrushed out of old photos and dying with a feminist assassin’s ice-ax buried in his skull — is only shocking to those who have not followed recent trends in academia.

During the early years of the Cold War, as William F. Buckley Jr. documented in God and Man at Yale (1951), elite universities used the “superstition” of academic freedom to protect faculty who, if not objectively pro-Soviet, at least were decidedly biased against Christianity, economic freedom and American patriotism.

Mid-20th-century liberals were willing to defend anti-American faculty, but the anti-American student Left of the 1960s was unwilling to accept liberal toleration and instead staged a series of sit-in protests to impose radical demands on university administrations. Within a couple of decades — by the early 1990s — “political correctness” had become an intimidating force on many American campuses, and another two decades later, the Left now demands even sterner measures to suppress criticism and dissent. Those who witnessed the feminist jihad against Larry Summers at Harvard saw the omens of this totalitarian turn.

No one will be surprised that Sandra Korn is a Marxist lesbian whose activities include the “Student Labor Action Movement,” who names among her interests “socialism, the labor movement … being angry about gender … occupying things,” and who describes the topic of her thesis as “how biologists have tried over and over again to explain gender difference by invoking ‘science.'” She is a cartoon, a stereotype, a cliché of 21st-century student radicalism. Of course, she’s a member of BAGELS (“Harvard’s Queer Jewish Organization“) and, of course, she is an extreme anti-Zionist who is all about “Palestinian solidarity.”

If you accept the premises of the Left’s argument, the syllogism inevitably concludes this way. The triumph of the Left in academia was assured from the moment radicals realized that education could be transformed from a process of teaching facts and skills into a process of indoctrinating the young with certain attitudes. This transformation has been the project of the academic Left for at least the past hundred years, and the beliefs of Sandra Korn — that the “university community” exists primarily for the purpose of opposing “racism, sexism, and heterosexism” — are now so pervasive in the intelligentsia that almost no one at Harvard even questions such an attitude. Never mind teaching history, language, science, or any other actual knowledge. We shall not measure Harvard’s success by how much Latin or Greek their students learn. Rather, Harvard’s success is to be measured by how avidly its students embrace the desired progressive attitudinal orientation.

So thoroughgoing has been this transformation of elite education that there is likely not a single Harvard undergraduate who possesses the necessary knowledge — much less the inclination — to interrogate and critique Sandra Korn’s worldview.

An entire generation of America’s brightest youth have been deliberately and systematically miseducated, so that if there were any Harvard students who disagreed with Sandra Korn — one gets the impression that homosexuality and socialism are now more or less compulsory in Cambridge — none of those dissenters have the intellectual wherewithal to articulate their disagreement.

Sandra Korn’s ignorant emulation of Sixties radicalism is only possible because none of her equally ignorant peers are able to inform her why she is wrong. Is there no one at Harvard who could hand her a copy of Peter Collier and David Horowitz’s Destructive Generation, Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed or Daniel Flynn’s A Conservative History of the American Left?

What Sandra Korn proposes as “academic justice,” echoing the totalitarian ethos of Marcuse, is really just advocating as official policy what has long been unofficial practice at Harvard, where veritas has not been welcome for many, many years.

ADDENDUM: The caption under Ms. Korn’s photo — “Feminist socialist lesbian — but I repeat myself” — is perhaps in some sense humorous, but is not actually a joke, and should not be misunderstood by any naive Harvardians. As I have explained elsewhere (e.g., “Taking Feminism Seriously”), I’ve read more feminist literature than has the average Gender Studies major, and I agree with the pioneering leaders of the Women’s Liberation Movement: To be a feminist, one must be a lesbian socialist. Of course, there are socialists who are heterosexuals, and lesbians who are not socialists, but any woman who presumes to call herself a “feminist” must denounce capitalism and renounce the penis.

“Heterosexual feminist” is a mythical paradox and “moderate feminist” is an oxymoron. All real feminists are radical feminists, and all radical feminists are socialist lesbians. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Category: Education, Feminism, Intellectuals

Comments

61 Responses to “‘The Second Time as Farce’: @sandraylk’s Recycled Marcusean Marxism”

Socialism: Organized Evil
February 20th, 2014 @ 6:49 pm

Liberalism is ☠
Mm
February 20th, 2014 @ 7:13 pm

“Sandra Y.L. Korn ’14, a Crimson editorial writer, is a joint
history of science and studies of women, gender and sexuality
concentrator in Eliot House.”

So, in other words, a fake major that will qualify her to wait tables and thereafter complain that the heteronormative cis patriarchy does not understand her brilliance, and PIV is rape. Gotcha.
WaltPimbley
February 20th, 2014 @ 8:35 pm

RT @smitty_one_each: TOM ‘The Second Time as Farce’: @sandraylk’s Recycled Marcusean Marxism http://t.co/fRlEniS1cZ #TCOT
smitty
February 20th, 2014 @ 7:53 pm

You should not be so dismissive of a future SCOTUS justice.
G Joubert
February 20th, 2014 @ 8:02 pm

At any point in their educational experience are “gender studies” students required to take Biology 101? The fundamentals of species survival is missing from their world view.

Or, maybe fat, ugly lesbian wild dogs out there hate the males in their packs, especially the alpha males, but it’s not something I’ve seen. Just sayin’…
M. Thompson
February 20th, 2014 @ 8:06 pm

How foolish are some of the educated!
robertstacymccain
February 20th, 2014 @ 8:08 pm

Didn’t you see that her thesis is about “how biologists have tried over and over again to explain gender difference by invoking ‘science’”? That is to say, biological findings about gender differences are not actually scientific, but rather “science” in scare-quotes, if those findings contradict feminist egalitarian ideology. Facts can never disprove feminism, because any facts that contradict the ideology are explained away as “hate.”
Quartermaster
February 20th, 2014 @ 8:12 pm

What she is referring to as justice isn’t justice, but “justice.” She wouldn’t know justice if it hit her upside the head with a 2×4.
Quartermaster
February 20th, 2014 @ 8:13 pm

Yeah. She’s a parasite, so law school is where she’s headed.
La Pucelle
February 20th, 2014 @ 8:16 pm

To wit, her own “science” is actually a cargo cult.

You can mimic all the rituals you want, but the planes are still not going to land on your make-believe runway and give you food.
La Pucelle
February 20th, 2014 @ 8:18 pm

Not unless she somehow “discovers” she’s 1/6th mighty Chocktow. She’s too white for that job.
La Pucelle
February 20th, 2014 @ 8:29 pm

That’s only if she’s insanely lucky.

As Stacy reported a while back, Victims’ Studies degrees are actually worse than dropping out or even skipping college entirely, because potential employers see the holders of these degrees as lawsuits waiting to happen. A Victims’ Studies degree is in actuality a black mark on your record, like a felony conviction.

These useless degrees really only exist to keep the scam going. Harvard doesn’t give a rat’s fourth point of contact that they’ve made her unemployable off-campus; they already scored a payout from her parents. And she’s much too white to score that eventual faculty position; she’ll only manage that if there aren’t enough non-whites competing for the spot.
DonaldDouglas
February 20th, 2014 @ 8:39 pm

Heh. I knew you’d have fun with this one, lol.
pabarge
February 20th, 2014 @ 8:42 pm

The only metric that matters: “would you boink that?”
McGehee
February 20th, 2014 @ 8:47 pm

The leaders of 20th-century fascism would never recognize its 21st-century face.
Arnold Townsend
February 20th, 2014 @ 8:55 pm

I’m glad you cleared up the meaning of “Feminist socialist lesbian” for me. One thing I do love about your writings is that you do good research. You know your stuff. I wish that was descriptive of modern journalism as a whole but it is not.

That said, I apologize for having to come to my same old conclusion — “feminism” is a big load of crap.
DaveO
February 20th, 2014 @ 8:58 pm

ELF, ALF and those whale ecoterrorists can hire her. And in 30 years we’ll read about her quiet life in suburban Fargo, complete with second husband and 2.4 kids, none of whom ever knew of her previous life.
robertstacymccain
February 20th, 2014 @ 9:06 pm

A. I’m a happily married middle-aged grandfather, so the question is hypothetical, however
B. Sure, hell yes, in a hypothetical heartbeat.

From the perspective of a middle-aged married man, basically all college girls are attractive and boink-worthy. They’re college girls, for crying out loud!

Unfortunately for college girls, they are surrounded by college boys, who take it for granted that the world is populated by boink-worthy young females, and who therefore don’t appreciate the attractiveness of less-attractive young females. About 90% of college boys spend their collegiate careers complaining that they can’t get busy with the 10% of college girls so hot that everybody wants to boink them. Meanwhile 90% of college girls are left feeling unloved and unworthy.

It’s a lose-lose situation, except for the winners, and explains why so many people graduate college with feelings of resentment. Of course, not many of them become feminist lesbian socialists — an extreme reaction — but these are the gaudy tip of an iceberg of disappointment.
rmnixondeceased
February 20th, 2014 @ 9:17 pm

Or she “marries” a black lesbian and adopts three Hmong girl orphans …
Bob Belvedere
February 20th, 2014 @ 9:45 pm

‘Some’?!?
M. Thompson
February 20th, 2014 @ 10:10 pm

The capability of redemption.
Matt_SE
February 20th, 2014 @ 10:23 pm

Hmmm. She’s kinda cute. I think I’d do her.
Then make her fix me a sammich.
Matt_SE
February 20th, 2014 @ 10:25 pm

Ironically, hitting her upside the head with a 2×4 would be justice.
Kirby McCain
February 20th, 2014 @ 11:13 pm

Meet the new boss…
Kirby McCain
February 20th, 2014 @ 11:19 pm

I hope that witless dildo holster doesn’t read that. She’ll spend way too much time trying to figure that out.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
February 21st, 2014 @ 12:08 am

“I’ve read more feminist literature than has the average Gender Studies major, and I agree with the pioneering leaders of the Women’s Liberation Movement: To be a feminist, one must be a lesbian socialist. ”

RSM suffers the pain of reading feminist literature so you don’t have to.
Adjoran
February 21st, 2014 @ 12:36 am

I’m not sure whether Mansfield’s quoted opinion is only that or the result of analyzing some data, but Herrnstein’s research followed scientific form and was published and peer reviewed. That doesn’ make it accurate, necessarily, but he was not expressing an opinion, just publishing genetic research results.

SDS and the others who tried to silence and intimidate Herrnstein weren’t able (or willing to make the effort) to challenge his work on its merits, they simply wanted him silenced, period. The Left never bothers with Truth anyway, when it gets in their way. Korn similarly offers only her own opinion against Mansfield’s. She disagrees with him so he must be silenced.

BUT do you believe it was REALLY “her” opinion? I would almost bet one of her gender/victim/studies professors has used the phrase “academic justice” and possibly in reference to this very case.
robertstacymccain
February 21st, 2014 @ 5:34 am

I saw Witless Dildo Holster open for Flock of Seagulls in ’82.
Mm
February 21st, 2014 @ 7:55 am

In my opinion, I would view a degree like that in the CV of a prospective employee as a sign of bad judgment.
johncunningham
February 21st, 2014 @ 8:15 am

judging from her pic, hardly boink-worthy. I class her as a triple bagger–one over her head, one over mine, one over the dog’s to prevent a possible panic.
Dana
February 21st, 2014 @ 9:31 am

There is an obvious academic problem that the lovely Miss Korn has missed. In her use of the example of Richard Herrnstein’s research about heredity influence on IQ, she was protesting the results of his research, but is using an “academic justice” standard, which she defined as “When an academic community observes research promoting or justifying oppression, it should ensure that this research does not continue,” she is saying that the questions cannot even be asked. In theory, when an objective researcher forms an hypothesis and then proceeds to test it, it is possible that his research will prove the hypothesis invalid; the left would have had no complaint had Dr Herrnstein’s research reached the opposite conclusion.

Let’s suppose that a researcher formed the hypothesis, “Upon correcting for cultural biases in testing, black Americans had IQs which are indistinguishable from the IQs of white Americans.” By stating the hypothesis that way, Miss Korn would (probably) approve of the research, given that it would promote “academic justice,” but the possibility exists that the research, once done, would disprove the hypothesis.
Dana
February 21st, 2014 @ 9:34 am

As for our esteemed host, the “honorific” Ms is an abomination unto the Lord. Sandra Korn is an unmarried woman, and is thus properly addressed as “Miss Korn.” Not only is such correct, it has the advantage of annoying the crap out of her if she sees it. 🙂
Dana
February 21st, 2014 @ 9:35 am

Is DIV sex as much rape as PIV sex?
La Pucelle
February 21st, 2014 @ 10:22 am

There’s that, but what it says even more to potential employers is that you’re dealing with a person who has been specifically trained to see their cisheteronormative white patriarcy conspiracy theory everywhere. So when a straight/white/male supervisor issues some corrections, a trained grievancemonger is going to, at best, blow off the corrections because the supervisor is “privileged” or, at worst, bring down a discrimination suit. They’re incapable of thinking any other way.
Finrod Felagund
February 21st, 2014 @ 10:48 am

“being angry about gender” pretty much sums up the total of feminism.
Cube
February 21st, 2014 @ 11:13 am

Has anybody else noticed that anything with “Justice” appended to it has nothing to to with actual justice and everything to do with left-wing victimology?
Zohydro
February 21st, 2014 @ 11:27 am

I harshly criticise you! DIV (and TIV) are not rape! You cis-normative heterarchial oppressor, you…
richard mcenroe
February 21st, 2014 @ 11:32 am

What have you got against the Rhade?
richard mcenroe
February 21st, 2014 @ 11:35 am

Hit that? Look at those eyes again. There’s more baggage back there than at the Denver International lost and found.
rmnixondeceased
February 21st, 2014 @ 11:39 am

Ich habe keinen Hass oder Feindseligkeit für die Menschen in Rhade. Tatsächlich liebe ich die ganze Volk der Landkreis Rotenburg und ganz Niedersachsen.
Dana
February 21st, 2014 @ 12:39 pm

Does “being angry about gender” mean that, deep down, she wishes she had been born male?
The Daley Gator | RS McCain: You don’t have to be crazy to be a Leftist Feminist, but it helps
February 21st, 2014 @ 12:59 pm

[…] If you get into reading the screed spewed by radical Feminists, you quickly grasp how perverse and twisted they are. They are bitter, angry, and helpful, and that is their sunny side. More on the sickness that is radical Feminism and Marxism at The Other McCain […]
Adjoran
February 21st, 2014 @ 4:58 pm

It seems to me there is room in that 90% to avoid the near-certain morning-after recriminations and charges in the school’s kangaroo court system that Miss Korn would guarantee.
Adjoran
February 21st, 2014 @ 4:59 pm

Be sure to open the door and pull out her chair for her, too.

She’ll like that.
Adjoran
February 21st, 2014 @ 5:01 pm

They say we always want what we can’t have.
Dana
February 22nd, 2014 @ 3:04 pm

I fell so ashamed.

But #FreeKate wants to know, what about FIV sex?
Dana
February 22nd, 2014 @ 3:04 pm

I fell so ashamed.

But #FreeKate wants to know, what about FIV sex?
Dana
February 22nd, 2014 @ 3:12 pm

Depends on what she puts in her résumé. She’s a joint History of Science and Quack Studies major. In a bow to the cisheteronormative business world, she’ll list only the first major.

Trouble is, Google is the employer’s friend, and the smarter HR departments use it to find such things as Miss Korn’s writing. Given that the Crimson states that “Her column usually appears on alternate Mondays,” I’d guess that there will be plenty for the Human Resources managers to find.
Zohydro
February 22nd, 2014 @ 3:53 pm

I had hoped worried my “TIV” remark would provoke a descent into ribaldry impropriety…

You must realise, of course, the possible iterations on this theme are numerous! The most bizarre , to my knowledge, is PIP sex, which is necessarily a province unto the poofters alone…
Dana
February 22nd, 2014 @ 4:30 pm

Well, if we are going to go into all of the various combinations, whilst I’m sure that Witchwind approves of TIV sex, she neglected to tell us if PIM sex constituted rape.

As for impropriety, from me, you must realize that I actually use the word “Fornicate!” in spoken language, where others use another word which begins with “F.”