American universities are being massacred and researchers are fleeing to Europe
https://www.dn.se/kultur/lars-strannegard-det-pagar-en-motorsagsmassaker-pa-amerikanska-universitet/
Lars Strannegård, the author of this article is Professor and Vice-Chancellor at Stockholm School of Economics
Lars Strannegård: There is a chainsaw massacre going on at American universities
Updated yesterday 19:27 Published yesterday 18:02
Trump wants to destroy the "maniacally Marxist" institutions and replace them with a digital, guaranteed woke-free university. Photo: Jessica Hill
Funding is being cut, research grants are being withheld, and academic fundamentals are being betrayed. The damage already done to American universities is likely irreparable, and Karl Marx was right, writes Lars Strannegård, president of the Stockholm School of Economics.
This is an opinion piece in Dagens Nyheter. The writer is responsible for the opinions in the article.
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A really good social analysis identifies, through interpretation of history, patterns that are so universal that they can help us understand what is to come.
Marshall Berman wrote in 1982 that change is at the heart of every society. In market economies, it is not only production and consumption that are constantly changing, but also values, traditions, and norms. The title of Berman's book—"All That Is Solid Is Transient"—is taken from Karl Marx. The quote continues: "everything sacred is profaned, and people are finally forced to look at their life situation and their mutual relationships with sober eyes." Marx argued that everything can change, nothing is certain, nothing is sacred, and not even the most respected parts of society are immune to the advance of the market economy. Ultimately, he argued, people are also forced to realize that their position, ideals, and relationships are shaped by economic forces.
Lars Strannegård. Photo: Johannes Äng
Developments in the US are completely in line with Marx's analysis and prophecy. What we are now seeing are pure attacks on what we thought was stable and fundamental, such as the democratic values that the US, according to its own statement, wanted to protect and preserve through military interventions around the world. But on the American home front, blatant attacks on the fundamental pillars of democracy are now underway.
The measures taken are undoubtedly fascistic. Election results have not been accepted. The justice system is being destabilized through reprisals against individual lawyers. Trump says bluntly that he will not accept a measly four years in power. Journalists are threatened, discredited and mocked. Freedom of expression is not respected, words like "diversity" and "inclusion" are banned in places that receive government funding. The idea of arm's length distance within culture is a complete shambles as Trump himself has taken a seat as chairman of the board of the US national stage, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Libraries are being ordered to clear out books and the Smithsonian museums have been ordered to get rid of "inappropriate ideology" – the echoes of the so-called degenerate art of the German 1930s are deafening.
There is now no place for nuance, distinctions or linguistic precision regarding the actions of universities.
Universities are under massive attack. They are explicitly portrayed as enemies of the desired social order. Funding is being cut, research funding is being withheld, and threats of aggressive taxation are looming.
The Trump administration cites wakeism as the reason for the reprisals. The institutions that bear culture have allowed themselves to be politicized, they have not kept anti-Semitism in check and have disregarded meritocratic principles in favor of things like class, gender, skin color, sexuality and ethnicity. Freedom of expression has not prevailed, academic fundamentals have been betrayed. The punishment is chainsaw massacres and demolition bullets. There is now no room for nuance, distinctions or linguistic precision regarding the actions of universities. The attack is full-scale and the goal is clear. The "manic Marxist" institutions must be shot down and replaced by a digital, guaranteed wake-free university .
The damage already done to universities is likely irreparable. Prestigious universities are halting hiring, students at top schools for political science and international relations are facing total unemployment as a result of the dismantling of the state apparatus. Just under a quarter of the world's countries are on Trump's blacklist, students from them dare not go home for the holidays and no new students can be recruited from there. Highly questionable university programs that also cost millions in tuition fees are likely to appear less attractive to prospective students, thereby further reducing universities' revenues.
In a survey in Nature, 75 percent of American scientists say they are considering emigrating.
Academic superstars like Timothy Snyder, Jason Stanley and Marci Shore have already moved from Yale to Toronto. Science is international and the phones are now ringing in Europe. In a survey of post-docs, 78 percent said their research is threatened or will be delayed. In a survey in Nature, 75 percent of American researchers said they are considering emigrating. Almost every department at Cambridge and Oxford is receiving inquiries from American colleagues about opportunities to come there. The Vrije Universiteit in Brussels is now welcoming American academics who feel threatened, and Aix Marseille in France has set aside 150 million kronor for the same purpose. So far, no program has been launched in Sweden. Salary levels in Sweden are different from those in the US, but newly-graduated academics in a country with eroded academic freedom, decimated research funding and hiring freezes now have Sweden on their retinas.
Sweden could act opportunistically and attract talent at a level we could not attract just a few months ago. One could also argue that we have a moral obligation to resist the American fascist winds and offer an academic sanctuary.
It is a perspective that, in order to be credible, requires that we clearly cement academic freedom in Sweden. That is, the right to independently choose research questions, methods and publication channels, free from political, ideological or commercial influence. Today, this freedom does not have strong enough protection, and we have seen political decisions in the gray area, such as sudden terminations of funding for development research and rapid changes in board of directors. Individual researchers have been subjected to threats, hatred and ostracism. A broad and cross-party confirmation that academic freedom should be protected is now needed. The government should urgently adopt the proposals from the Academies' Committee on Human Rights .
The developments of recent months have been the death knell for Francis Fukuyama's influential thesis that liberal democracy, with free markets and the rule of law, would be the ultimate form of society's organization.
Instead, Marx seems to have been right: everything solid is ephemeral and everything sacred is profaned. One thing is certain: nothing lasts forever. In the demolition of the foundations of the Western world that is now underway, we must keep the spillover effect at bay. History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes, as Mark Twain put it. Therefore, the right time to strengthen academic freedom is precisely right now.
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