The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense

by Gad Saad

There is NOTHING more important than fighting for freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and a commitment toward science, reason, & logic over quasi-religious dogma.

Postmodernism, radical feminism, cultural relativism, identity politics, and the rest of the academic nonsense were not developed and promulgated by right-wing zealots.

I fight against a particular class of mind viruses. This does not imply that I should address all issues under the sun with equal zeal.

Intellectual consistency does not require that I critique the full universe of idiotic ideas.

I quickly learned that most academic feminists were profoundly hostile to evolutionary psychology.

It makes a lot more sense to fear the mosquito than to obsess about an attack by a great white shark.

“I always felt that a scientist owes the world only one thing, and that is the truth as he sees it. If the truth contradicts deeply held beliefs, that is too bad. Tact and diplomacy are fine in international relations, in politics, perhaps even in business; in science only one thing matters, and that is the facts.” —Hans J. Eysenck2

The desire to divide the world into binary forms is at the root of the thinking versus feeling dichotomy, and this creates a false either-or mindset. We are both thinking and feeling animals. The challenge is to know when to activate the cognitive (thinking) versus the affective (feeling) systems.

For example, choosing which presidential candidate to vote for should be construed as a high-involvement decision, and accordingly a rational voter should first engage his cognitive system rather than his affective system. And yet, many hysterical anti-Trump voters begin with a visceral emotional hatred of the man and then process subsequent information in a manner that supports their a priori affective position.

The problem arises when domains that should be reserved for the intellect are hijacked by feelings. This is precisely what plagues our universities: what were once centers of intellectual development have become retreats for the emotionally fragile. The driving motto of the university is no longer the pursuit of truth but the coddling of hurt feelings.

Any freedom-loving reader should be appalled that criticism of a religion is now considered hate speech in many Western countries.

“It is irrelevant whether Wilders’s witnesses might prove Wilders’s observations to be correct. What’s relevant is that his observations are illegal.”

One problem we face today is that consequentialists make a virtue of having emotions cloud our judgments, not only to avoid hurt feelings but because emotion is seen as a sign of authenticity.

Remember though that one’s heartfelt outrage seldom says anything about the truth or falsehood of one’s position.

He is polished in a way that appeals to those who become drunk by merely smelling the cork of a wine bottle (an Arabic expression).

(in a twist of gargantuan Democratic hypocrisy, the outlandish #BelieveAllWomen tenet apparently does not apply to the more credible accusation recently levied against Joe Biden).

Once it became evident that the FBI could not uncover any corroborative evidence in support of Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation, the Democrats moved the goalposts. The new deal-breaker regarding Kavanaugh’s candidacy was his supposed lack of “judicial temperament.”

This is precisely what psychologists refer to as the fundamental attribution error, namely exaggerating the extent to which an individual’s internal traits (his personality) are responsible for an observed reality while failing to take the circumstances into account.

“Good grief, shouldn’t everything be within the pale of legitimate academic discourse, as long as it is presented with some degree of rigor? That’s the difference between a university and a madrassa.”

Incidentally, that there are fewer female faculty members in STEM fields is hardly due to sexist hiring practices. The exact opposite holds true as evidenced by the 2:1 preference exhibited by both male and female faculty members for prospective female hires (in comparison to equally well qualified male candidates).

If the truth hurts, it must be suppressed for the sake of diversity, inclusion, equity, and of course community cohesion.

Dr. Greenfield was forced to resign based on politics, not evidence. His resignation is more a reflection of the feminist and anti-scientific attitudes of some self-righteous and indignant members of the American College of Surgeons.

The angry feminists who are willing to ruin the career of an accomplished scientist because of his idiotic shirt choice are also the ones likely to argue that the male gaze is a form of “visual rape.”

Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have more global control over us than all other companies combined. It is not hyperbole to say that they have more collective power, in terms of the information they control, than all the rulers, priests, and politicians of history. If knowledge is power, then these social media giants are nearly all-powerful when they decide which information we can have and whether we can be allowed a social media platform.

Just as your electricity or phone line is not shut off if the electric company or phone company doesn’t like what you say, social media platforms should not be in the business of monitoring and punishing speech.

Ideological Stalinism is the daily reality on North American college campuses.

Why should people in a free country be afraid of saying what they believe? Think about that, and you will know the direction that the “progressives” want to take us.

It is now part of the West’s zeitgeist that we should not utter anything that might offend, anger, or insult anyone who is a “minority” or a “progressive.”

“The idea that any kind of free society can be constructed in which people will never be offended or insulted, or in which they have the right to call on the law to defend them against being offended or insulted, is absurd.”

“The moment you say that an idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.”

If you truly understand the meaning of free speech, then you must agree with the following: “There is simply no better alternative than to allow those with unpopular views to express them and to allow those wishing to hear them to do so.”

The “I believe in free speech but” crowd violates the foundational ethos of what it means to have free speech.

Occasionally being offended is the price that one pays for living in a truly free society. Your feelings might get hurt. Grow a pair and move on.

In a free society, people have every right to mock, condemn, criticize, despise, and fear any ideology.

“How much truth is contained in something can be best determined by making it thoroughly laughable and then watching to see how much joking around it can take. For truth is a matter that can stand mockery, that is freshened by any ironic gesture directed at it. Whatever cannot stand satire is false.” —Peter Sloterdijk

“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.” —Thomas Jefferson

Free societies do not recoil at the power of satire. They recognize that all beliefs and ideologies are fair game. Once we delimit what can be satirized, we are no longer living in a free society.

The US government released data across five races and four educational attainment levels (Associate’s degree, Bachelor’s, Master’s, and doctorate). As such, there were 20 cells to analyze. In EVERY single cell, women outnumbered men. Are you going to push for greater gender parity across the cells because it is difficult to imagine a more “biased” reality?

The distribution of prime numbers does not change as a function of whether the mathematician is a white heterosexual Christian man or a transgendered, Muslim, differently sized (obese) individual.

Science does not care about the privileged position of “ancestral wisdom,” “tribal knowledge,” and “the ways of the elders.” There are no revealed truths in science.

The contemporary progressive mantra considers it laudable to argue that different races, cultures, or religions possess distinct ways of knowing. However, not too long ago, the idea that people of different races or classes possessed distinct ways of thinking and reasoning, was reserved for racists and other miscreants.

Similarly, evolutionary psychology, a discipline viscerally despised by many progressives, is expressly anti-racist in that it recognizes that underneath many of our surface differences, human minds were borne of the same evolutionary forces irrespective of our racial or ethnic backgrounds.

Progressives seem to believe that if they say the words “diversity, inclusion, and equity” often enough, all problems will be solved. But of course only certain types of diversity, inclusion, and equity matter.

it is terribly condescending and patronizing to pretend that women need men to serve as their allies. This is a form of infantilism that should not exist in a meritocratic system.

“The next time some academics tell you how important ‘diversity’ is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.”

Of note, a sizeable number of faculty members admitted that they would discriminate against conservative colleagues when reviewing their papers or grant applications, when deciding whether to invite them to a symposium, and when making hiring decisions. The more “liberal” a faculty member was, the more likely he was to endorse this sort of brazen discrimination.

Yes, some conservatives reject evolution for religious reasons, but many progressives reject evolutionary psychology because it contradicts many of their secular ideologies including radical feminism.

We often hear the mainstream media scoffing at the idea that they are in any way politically biased. Well, a 2013 study from Indiana University’s School of Journalism revealed that American journalists were nearly four times more likely to be Democrats than Republicans.

Delusional departures from reality can indeed be confusing.

Life is about navigating a maze of opportunity costs.