So Harvard Has Decided Not To Give In Without A Fight

Sources: Gut, My. Something is Terribly Wrong, vol 136, 2025.

Glitter

This is the Farbschnitt of a Killer, Bella

(un)related

[...] most German conservatives (with some honorable exceptions) swallowed their doubts about the Nazis in favor of their overriding common interests.

Why did this quote come to my mind today?

Each generation of scholars of fascism has noted that the regimes rested upon some kind of pact or alliance between the fascist party and powerful conservative forces.

Paxton, R. O. (2004). The Anatomy of Fascism. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

(un)related to these quotes

Have you heard about that?

[Conservative party] ends longstanding boycott on cooperating with far-right party

The so-called Brandmauer fell today and that was no surprise.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/29/german-immigration-motion-passes-breaking-taboo-on-cooperation-with-afd

Update

They changed the title and the subtitle. The subtitle now reads:

[The leader of the conservative party] accused of breaking longstanding political firewall against far-right populists

Mimicry of Marginality in Soft Authoritarian Identity Politics

In the past few decades, far-right parties have successfully implemented their authoritarian and nativist ideologies in the center of public discourse (...) In this process of normalization, the lines between far-right and mainstream discourse have been blurred (...) to the point that »ideas and viewpoints once considered deviant and morally repugnant« are »confidently asserted as the new common sense« (...).

Everything has shifted. With every word, with every tweet, with every provocation, the things that can be said and considered moderate shift further to the far-right.

Steinhauer, H. (2023). Mimicry of Marginality in Soft Authoritarian Identity Politics. Zeitschrift für Diskursforschung, 2. https://doi.org/10.3262/ZFD2302143

Injustice

The problem is that people have no problem with injustice as long as it's to their benefit or has no expected direct effect on them personally, and that's the problem.

The Librarian of Congress

Trump fires Librarian of Congress Hayden, the first woman and first African-American to hold the post

"And when you have a free public library in particular," she said, it was an "opportunity center for people all walks of life, and you are giving them the opportunity to make choices on which information, entertainment and inspiration means the most to them".

Choosing what to read in a library that offers the full range of human experience, writing and expression opens up the world to everyone and opens the way to empathy and to each other. Of course, that's not what the current administration in the United States wants.

The group, American Accountability Foundation, accused Hayden and other library leaders of promoting children’s books with "radical" content and literary material authored by Trump opponents.

We know what the political systems are called that ban democratic opponents and what they have to say.

Associated Press. (2025, Mai 9). Trump abruptly fires librarian of Congress in latest purge of government. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/09/trump-congress-librarian-fired

Good Research Practice and Academic Freedom

There's a lot to discuss about what's going on in the United States, but we all have limited time and capacity, so it's important to focus on some aspects that you feel you can address or help mitigate. It's also important not to judge others on which aspects they choose. Anyway.

Scholarly and Science Communication

I'm an expert in scholarly and science communication, so I was particularly alert to the news that not only future, but also already submitted and even accepted manuscripts by CDC researchers would have to be reviewed and cleaned of certain terms.

"CDC Researchers Ordered to Retract Papers Submitted to All Journals — Banned terms must be scrubbed from CDC-authored manuscripts" https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/faustfiles/114043

The Terms

Unfortunately, the terms in question did not surprise me. They are all related to trans and gender diverse people. There are so many layers to unpack and be outraged about. I want to focus on two and end with a third.

The Aspects

The first is good research practice. Censorship aside, it can be argued that, at the very least, it is not good research practice to replace accurate and medically correct scientific language with language that is very likely to be inaccurate or at least ambiguous, leaving room for misunderstanding. This is highly dangerous and damaging to the global scientific knowledge base. I must therefore question whether these articles can be accepted for publication or published at all.

Without ignoring censorship, the second aspect is that this is the beginning of the end of academic freedom, not just for the CDC, but for the whole country. They're restricting language and science.

The third is just to make it very clear that this is harmful to so many people. They're erasing people.

Touch Grass

Lesson 13 got me thinking. It has a lot to do with physicality. Snyder summarises it as follows:

13. Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.

I'd summarise it more like this: Touch Grass.

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons

Which lesson would you like to know more about?

Do not obey in advance.

Defend institutions.

Beware the one-party state.

Take responsibility for the face of the world.

Remember professional ethics.

Be wary of paramilitaries.

Be reflective if you must be armed.

Stand out.

Be kind to our language.

Believe in truth.

Investigate.

Make eye contact and small talk.

Practice corporeal politics.

Establish a private life.

Contribute to good causes.

Learn from peers in other countries.

Listen for dangerous words.

Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.

Be a patriot.

Be as courageous as you can.

Snyder, T. (2017). On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Crown.

Consensus and Privilege

Consensus is produced by privileging particular perspectives.

Haslam, S. A., Alvesson, M., & Reicher, S. D. (2024). Zombie leadership: Dead ideas that still walk among us. The Leadership Quarterly, 35(3), 101770. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2023.101770

visit your local library!

they need your support <3