Thiel: Higher Ed Is Broken

Peter Thiel, the only high tech billionaire who is openly conservative, famously spoke at the 2016 Republican convention which nominated Donald Trump. The College Fix reports on a speech he made to conservative student journalists at a recent meeting, his subject was what is wrong with higher education.

“Universities today are as corrupt as the Catholic Church of 500 years ago,” Thiel said.

During his speech, he spoke of an academia that has shut down debate, excommunicated conservative scholars, and insisted a college degree is the only way to “salvation,” that being a good job and solid future.

“The reformation is going to happen,” Thiel added, noting it won’t come from within, but from the “outside.”

In his speech, Thiel told the college journalists that the greatest political problem today is the “narrowing of debate.” As it relates to college campuses, he pointed out that the vast majority of scholars only think “one way.”

“At some point, if it’s 100 to zero, you start to suspect you’re in North Korea,” he said. He pushed back against that “madness of the crowd.”

“Does the unanimity mean you’ve gotten to the truth, or does it mean you’re in a totalitarian state,” Thiel said.

“We have this illusion that all sorts of important decisions have been decided,” he said, encouraging the students not to accept that narrative.

Theil is correct, ideologically our campuses now resemble Red Guard reeducation camps. They have become as narrow in focus as was formerly true only of bible colleges and trade schools. A very sad case of self-mutilation.

Campus panic over microaggressions and hate speech is fear of wrongthink. George Orwell would be saddened at the failure of his cautionary tale 1984.