My Thoughts
Rare are the great ideas; the most common are trivial, harmless, rather banal; not every idea a good one. There are, as we must surely recognize through common sense and exposure, an overabundance of bad ideas generated by the overwhelming mass of humanity[1] every day. Among those bad ideas far too many can be classified as highly infectious idea pathogens, according to Gad Saad, evolutionary psychologist. These bad ideas—cancel culture, erasing biology, and safe spaces, to name three, there are many more—can be likened to brain parasites, which take hold and often lead hosts to bizarre, self-damaging, and fatal behavior.
Bad ideas, when accepted without question, are unquestionably “not good for us, they lead to bizarre and detrimental behavior, and erode our sense of reality.” Many of these parasitic bad ideas come out of Postmodernism, the school of thought that there is no objective truth. “Truth can change in science—what we thought true 300 years ago may have to be updated today, truth is provisional in science—but we do think there are truths. Postmodernism rejects that; that’s why I call it the granddaddy of idea pathogens.”
Though these ideas originate in the university, Saad said the majority of students are not social justice warriors. In fact, most are likely oblivious, maybe timidly refraining from voicing common sense before persuasive progressive professors, and just trying to do their best in classes while holding part-time jobs. But we don’t need a majority of people infected with bad ideas to cause serious damage.
On 9/11 it didn’t take 19,000 terrorists, it didn’t take 19 million terrorists, it took 19 committed terrorists who were ideological zealots to do some real damage. We don’t need 10,000 social justice warriors on campus to cause damage, you just need a sufficient number of ideological activists to keep the rest of us quiet.
When Saad brings up truths that go against the leftist ideal of society, and the evidence from multiple angles to support it, the responses tend to be overwhelmingly positive. But perhaps that’s part of the problem, he said. Most of us have common sense but aren’t willing to voice it.
“Many of the people who write to me—I receive thousands of thousands of messages—they will say, ‘Dear Dr. Saad, I am professor so-and-so at such university, and let me tell you, I love what you do and thank you for speaking out against such lunacy—but please don’t mention my name,” Saad said. He thanks them in reply, but then asks whether they can’t see that their not wanting to voice this publicly is part of the problem.
“What is it that you’re afraid of?” he asked. “I escaped Lebanon, at the imminent threat of execution because we are Lebanese Jews, so I really had something to be fearful of. What is it that you’re afraid of in the West that you’re unwilling to speak against the idea that boys too can menstruate?” Preventing bigotry should not come at the expense of rejecting reality, he added.
“Partly it’s my personal experiences, having seen in my life the attacks on truth, and the lack of freedom in the Middle East,” he said. “It’s also part of my unique personhood: At the end of the day … for me to put my head on the pillow and be able to sleep well, I need to know that I did all that I could, however big, however small, to fight for freedom and truth. If I’ve done that, if I’ve never shied away from an opportunity to defend truth and freedom, then I’ll sleep well. If I don’t do that, then I will feel as though I am a fraud. So I live my life that way. Most people are on board, the silent majority hates this, but they are cowed into silence,” he said. “But don’t leave these bad ideas unchallenged.”[2]
There is so much of what Dr. Saad says to consider. He is right, of course, but I cannot help but wonder if there is more to it than the fear of being cancelled by the Postmodern progressive mob. There are those, to be sure, who are easily intimidated, the oblivious, timid souls who are afraid of their own shadows; they are, I believe, far less in number than what Dr. Saad suggests. Most are silent, not out of fear, but out of boredom and ennui, tired of the loud, empty voices demanding insanely bad ideas. Most no longer listen for it has become background noise told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. That is all the more dangerous, for such silence encourages; silence in the face of evil implies tacit acceptance, thus implicitly validating their Postmodern, progressive, pathogenic ideologies. Wake up America.
Just my thoughts for a Friday, for what it is worth.
[1] As of March 2020, the world population was estimated to have reached 7,800,000,000 people. Assuming each person is limited to one idea per day, that is still a whole lot of ideas.
[2] Catherine Yang, “How Postmodern Bad Ideas Have Become Parasitic,” The Epoch Times, October 14-20, 2020, B1, B3.
