American Professors of History Want to “Free Palestine" From 'Scholasticide'

…as they ignore the suicide of their own profession

AI professor shredding a history book

The Israel-Hamas War serves several important purposes to a western audience. They are as follows:

• Creating a giant market for items like kaffiyehs and flags that have “made in Palestine” labels on them, but were most likely made by Uyghur slaves in China.

• Expanding the podcast audiences of terror apologists.

• Providing virtue signaling opportunities for elites in dying professions, like the history professoriate.

We have a wonderful example of the latter from this week’s NYTimes, which in general has provided endless takedown opportunities for their pathetic reporting on this war. This particular article combines two topics that I actually understand well: ignorance of Israel and higher education.

Original text in italics, my responses in bold:

The history profession has plenty of questions to grapple with right now. Between those on the right who want it to accentuate America’s uniqueness and “greatness” and those on the left who want it to emphasize America’s failings and blind spots, how should historians tell the nation’s story? What is history’s role in a society with a seriously short attention span? And what can the field do — if anything — to stem the decline in history majors, which, at most recent count, was an abysmal 1.2 percent of American college students? The author just identified the entire problem with the field in the final sentence of this paragraph. Will this article propose any solutions? Let us find out (SPOILER ALERT: it doesn’t!).

But the most pressing question at the annual conference of the American Historical Association, which I just attended in New York, had nothing to do with any of this. It wasn’t even about the study or practice of history. Instead, it was about what was called Israel’s “scholasticide” — defined as the intentional destruction of an education system — in Gaza, and how the A.H.A., which represents historians in academia, K-12 schools, public institutions and museums in the United States, should respond. “Scholasticide” is these historians’ “most pressing question,” eh? It’s the first I’m hearing of that term, and I’ve been following this conflict obsessively since October 8th, 2023. Did a group of brilliant academics invent it?

Good news: you actually don’t need a PhD to make up words ending in “-cide.” ChatGPT can help us generate an entire list of them:

1. Snackcide - The tragic demise of the last cookie in the jar

2. Napkincide - The ruthless crumpling of innocent paper napkins

3. Sockscide - The mysterious disappearance of single socks in the laundry

4. Bubblecide - The deliberate popping of soap bubbles

5. Sandwichcide - Accidentally sitting on your lunchbox and squishing the sandwich inside

6. Pillowcide - The violent fluffing of pillows

7. Yawncide - The contagious spreading of yawns in a meeting

8. Noodlecide - Breaking spaghetti in half before cooking¹

9. Jokecide - When someone ruins the punchline

10. Icecreamcide - The rapid melting of a dropped ice cream cone

Is Gaza the only territory on Earth experiencing “scholasticide”? If they are, could Hamas’s use of schools as terrorist shortage centers be a contributor to that problem, maybe?

On Sunday evening, members voted in their annual business meeting on a resolution put forth by Historians for Peace and Democracy, an affiliate group founded in 2003 to oppose the war in Iraq. It included three measures. First, a condemnation of Israeli violence that the group says undermines Gazans’ right to education. Second, the demand for an immediate cease-fire. Finally, and perhaps most unusually for an academic organization, a commitment to “form a committee to assist in rebuilding Gaza’s educational infrastructure.” You would think that this group of American historians at a national meeting would have better things to discuss than an overseas war that they don’t know the actual history of, but I guess not. Academics are also very good at forming committees. Speaking from experience, I can basically guarantee that them forming a committee to “rebuild Gaza” is a way to ensure that Gaza is never rebuilt.

“We consider this to be a manifold violation of academic freedom,” Van Gosse, a professor emeritus of history at Franklin & Marshall College and a founding co-chair of Historians for Peace and Democracy, told me, speaking of Israel’s actions in Gaza. The A.H.A. has taken public positions before, he pointed out, including condemning the war in Iraq and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We felt like we had no choice — if we were to lose this resolution, it would send a message that historians did not actually care about scholasticide.” This guy is emeritus, meaning RETIRED. Hold onto that thought, we will return to it shortly. Here’s the important thing to note: these historians cause “Scholasticide” — of their own profession. They can virtue signal about Gaza, Russia, or Iraq all they want; it doesn’t change what they’re actively doing to destroy American education by 1) not actually teaching history properly to anyone younger than they are, thus giving rise to the ahistorical nonsense we see daily about conflicts all over the world; and 2) destroying American higher education by making teaching a part-time, no benefits business while the Boomer emeriti quoted in this article reap all of the benefits.

Even those who agree with the message of the A.H.A. resolution might find reason not to support its passage. Certainly it distracts the group from challenges to its core mission, which is to promote the critical role of historical thinking and research in public life. Enrollment in history classes is in decline and departments are shrinking. The job market for history Ph.D.s is abysmal. I give the author of this article props for correctly and accurately identifying the core problems with this profession. Yes, history departments are hurting at most American universities, and the job market for PhDs is “abysmal.” Do these geniuses have any ideas on how to address those issues, or is that all the fault of the Zionists too?

“If this vote succeeds, it will destroy the A.H.A.,” Jeffrey Herf, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Maryland and one of five historians who spoke against the resolution on Sunday, told me. “At that point, public opinion and political actors outside the academy will say that the A.H.A. has become a political organization and they’ll completely lose trust in us. Why should we believe anything they have to say about slavery or the New Deal or anything else?” This quote captures every dysfunctional aspect of American higher education without the speaker realizing it. Let’s start with this: why are there multiple quotes in this article from emeriti, RETIRED professors, who care so much about what the AHA does now? Why are retirees still bothering to attend their meetings, to weigh in on organizational decisions, and to make comments to NYTimes reporters about them? Shouldn’t they be doing whatever it is that crusty Boomers do when they retire from academia? Or would letting go of the reins mean handing them off to the generation they have declared incompetent—the one experiencing the aforementioned abysmal job market—aka the generation it was THEIR responsibility to educate, which they failed miserably at?

“They will lose trust in us.” Dude, that ship already sailed, and it sailed with you at the helm of it. The fact that Dr. Herf cannot see his own role in this current state of affairs in the history professoriate is troubling but not surprising. We already don’t believe anything he or his historian colleagues say “about slavery or the New Deal or anything else.” Adding the Israel-Hamas War to that list doesn’t change our overall opinion of him or his organization, but rather reinforces it.

The only “scholasticide” that these dunces at the AHA have committed is that of their own profession. The system is broken, and they broke it. No one cares what these people have to say, no one views them as experts on anything, and certainly no one sees them as authorities on how to end a century-long global conflict 6000 miles away. Until they address the issues in their own history house, they have no business projecting their own failures onto the TikTok version of “Palestine.”

As the great Marcus Aurelius said circa 160 CE, “futue te ipsum, filus canis.”

1. I may be guilty of this crime when I use my InstaPot. I try to adhere to international pasta law as much as possible, but the directions specifically say “break the pasta in half.”