Odd as it seems, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has decided to give up long-held worship of socialism. How did he come to such a decision? Well, he visited more than 110 countries to conduct research, mainly as a cultural anthropologist, and kept his eyes open. The College Fix website quotes Dr. Jack Stauder:
“I gradually became disenchanted with Marxism by visiting many of the countries that had tried to shape their societies to conform to its doctrines. I was disillusioned by the realities I saw in … socialist countries – the USSR, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, etc. I came to recognize that socialism doesn’t work, and that its ‘revolutionary’ imposition inevitably leads to cruelty, injustice and the loss of freedom. I could see the same pattern in the many failed left-wing revolutions of Latin America and elsewhere. By combining actual travel with the historical study of socialism and revolution, I succeeded in disabusing myself of the utopian notions that fatally attract people to leftist ideas.”
That last sentence probably explains this orange cat. I’ve never had a single utopian notion, ever. Have you?
Dr. Stauder grew up in Colorado and New Mexico before getting his undergrad degree at Harvard and his doctorate at Cambridge University in England. Visits home later in life also helped change his perspective:
"Returning to my roots also helped my transition away from the leftist ideology that exists in the intellectual atmosphere of university life. By spending my summers in the Southwest in the company of rural working people, farmers and ranchers, I developed perspectives on the real world very different from those that prevail in the academic world.”
He noted that leftist ideology seems to have replaced traditional religion. “People seem to feel the need to believe in something, and when intellectuals abandon traditional religion, as most have done, they tend to seek substitutes.”
His advice to professors is to “be individuals … seek the truth and stand by it.” Of course, most won’t because that would mean being thrown out of the Good Liberals Club, a career-ender for those without tenure.
Be sure to bookmark The College Fix, home of original reporting by students who somehow have inoculated themselves from the claptrap going around campuses. They write rather well.
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