One of the enduring myths about the woke movement is that it is nothing more than a movement to be kinder to people who have been oppressed.

It is upon this basis that countless millions who don’t agree with the woke, the antiracists, the alphabet ideology, and the so-called “anticolonial” movement stand by them nonetheless.

Back when the Cold War was raging we saw the same thing–the so-called anti-anti-Communist movement, that so disdained the American conservative movement that they allied with and defended the Soviets and other communists despite knowing that they were wrong about everything.

Sure, communism was bad but better than those icky conservatives who fought it.

The truth is that the umbrella of ideologies we call “woke” is dedicated to the eradication of Western Civilization just as much as the Soviets and their allies are just as and often more brutal than the Communists were.

America pours trillions of dollars into academia today, and Americans quite unwisely clamor to send their children to the “best” schools despite their being dominated by the woke enemies of our civilization.

Just how radical–and evil–academia has become has been clear for decades. But the response from our “educated” betters to the horrors of the attack on Israel provides a stark example of just how perverse and anti-Western elite universities have become.

Gross.

— Jason Bedrick 🇮🇱 (@JasonBedrick) October 9, 2023

The irony is rich. Universities have been, in the past, the crown jewel of our civilization. In some ways the defining institutions within which the reform movements that created our liberal society, advanced our science and technology, and where the norm of free speech first took hold.

Universities were the creation of Christianity, and even in some of the most repressive times in Christian and Western history over the past thousand years free speech and free inquiry were nurtured and protected within the confines of academic debate. Not always perfectly, of course, but even ideas considered heresy were often openly discussed within academic circles, and even Popes took note of what seemed heretical.

Okay @harvard – you need to comment on this. Your name is being used to glorify and promote the murder, rape & torture of Jews. Do you agree with these Harvard affiliated groups? https://t.co/g9NCcIjIdw

— Fusilli Spock (@awstar11) October 9, 2023

Today’s prestige universities are more often than not places where repression of anti-woke heresies are suppressed or even violently opposed, terrorism and war crimes committed by the “right” people are celebrated, and students encouraged to wage ideological and occasionally open warfare against the very Western Culture upon which academia is based.

The silence from Harvard’s leadership, so far, coupled with a vocal and widely reported student groups' statement blaming Israel solely, has allowed Harvard to appear at best neutral towards acts of terror against the Jewish state of Israel.

— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) October 9, 2023

Instead, Harvard is being defined by the morally unconscionable statement apparently coming from two dozen student groups blaming all the violence on Israel. I am sickened. I cannot fathom the Administration’s failure to disassociate the University and condemn this statement.

— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) October 9, 2023

There is nothing wrong and much right about universities encouraging discussion about the history of the Middle East, the fraught politics of the region, the rights and wrongs of Israeli and Arab policies, and dissent from US policies. Academic halls and the streets of America are supposed to be realms of free speech and vigorous disagreement. As long as the vigorous debate remains peaceful and rational it should be encouraged. It’s not like anyone is above criticism.

But that is not what we are witnessing. Instead, we see the constant celebration of brutality. The murder and rape of countless civilians. The kidnapping of innocents, and the justification of evil in the name of “anti-colonialism.” If this is what anticolonialism looks like–gang rapes and kidnappings–I guess I prefer colonialism and you should too.

OUTRAGEOUS! Yale University Professor Zareena Grewal validates the murder, rape, and kidnapping of Israeli children, women, and elderly.

Meanwhile, student group 'Yalies$Palestine' refer to Hamas' murder & pillage spree a "success".

Is it any wonder Yale was graded an "F" last… pic.twitter.com/ZkKtPvnZmS

— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) October 9, 2023

Our major universities, though, have become breeding grounds for an ideology that celebrates this brutality, both here and abroad. Hatred of the West has become their “brand.” Wokism is yet another, even more ideologically radical version of Marxism that exceeds the evils promoted by Marx and Engels themselves. It aims to eradicate and not in any way build upon what has been built in the West over the centuries. Marx thought he could supplant it through revolution; today’s woke just want to completely destroy it.

Students for Justice in Palestine (@SJPNU) at @NorthwesternU: Hamas barbarism is justified, and Israel is not “the aggrieved party.” pic.twitter.com/aAE1rFoN01

— Zach Kessel (@zach_kessel) October 9, 2023

I would hope that the fact that so many academics have laid bare their hatred and contempt for all things Western would lead to a divorce between the liberals and the Left, but I won’t hold my breath. The Democrats need the radical Left and will mostly cave to their demands, begging for their indulgence. Few Democrats will condemn the celebration of murder, although most will make anodyne statements deploring violence and weak-sauce statements supporting Israel while calling for them to restrain themselves.

As Hamas breaks all the rules of war and uses human shields, liberals will soon condemn Israel for the civilian deaths Hamas so desperately needs to justify their atrocities. These human shields will die in order to provide an ideological shield for the continued condemnation of Israel. Liberals will remain allied with the woke, telling themselves that Israel is as bad as Hamas.

It falls to us to defend civilization, and that will eventually require defunding the universities. Not their elimination, but the stripping out of the Administrations, the grievance studies programs, the DEI bureaucracies, and the racist policies they have embraced.

It is a shame that this must be done, but elite institutions are no longer places where free inquiry is even allowed, and where civilization is defended.

This doesn’t mean eliminating the study of evil ideas or even taking them seriously. I once taught a class where I convinced the students that Mussolini had a good argument, because he did, while also exploring why his good argument led to very bad things. The West’s critics can help us make the West better, and we must take them seriously in order to become better.

But the woke–the Left–is an enemy of civilization. They aren’t reformers. They aren’t advocates of a freer social welfare state. They are self-declared enemies of our society.

And they are embedded in the highest rungs of power and prestige. We have an obligation to remove them, and the right to do so because they have that power at our sufferance and use our money and resources.

Critics of Israel have a place in our society and have every right to have their say. Defenders of rape, murder, and savagery should be driven out of society as the evildoers that they are. Unfortunately, they have a home on University campuses, and within the Democrat coalition.