The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense

by Gad Saad

If you are going to spend years studying in university, spending your parents’ hard-earned money on exorbitant tuition fees, perhaps you should refrain from studying critical race theory, intersectional feminism, queer theory, and postmodernism. Avoid topics that are firmly rooted in a desire to liberate students from the shackles of reality.

In the land of progressive Unicornia, science is only valuable if it is consistent with ideological dogma. Otherwise it is nothing more than bigoted hate facts.

That the U.S. women’s team scored thirteen goals in a game is as relevant to the gender pay gap issue as the fact that some youth league team in Denver just defeated another team 15 to 0.

“The tyranny of the minority is infinitely more odious and intolerable and more to be feared than that of the majority.”2 —President William McKinley

Universal Trigger Warning: “Using your brain to navigate the real world should not entail a trigger warning. This course will assume that you possess the cognitive and emotional acuity of an adult. Life is your trigger warning.”

Surely, universities exist to create and disseminate new knowledge. But this is no longer true. Today the minimization of hurt feelings among preferred groups is fundamentally more important (at least in some disciplines) than the pursuit of truth.

The Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau was unwilling to concede that ISIS had committed genocide but was willing to accept the word “genocide” in a report documenting that indigenous women were murdered at a higher rate than the Canadian national average.

If there aren’t enough rabid racists around, just make them up to maintain the homeostasis of victimology.

Incidentally, if you are a non-racist white person who does not appreciate being accused of supporting white supremacy, you undoubtedly suffer from white fragility (according to author Robin DiAngelo, that is).

I Am a Victim Therefore I Am

Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance.

If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.

If you are a climate activist, all calamities are due to man-made climate change. If you are a radical feminist, the patriarchy along with toxic masculinity are to blame. (Perhaps not surprisingly climate change has been blamed on toxic masculinity.23)

There are many forms of cultural enrichment, including restaurants of varied cuisines, that come from living in a heterogeneous and pluralistic society, but the cultural and religious values that some immigrants bring with them to the West manifestly do not add to our strength. They only sow hatred, intolerance, and divisiveness.

But we know through our studies and observation that the illiberal mix of cultures poses one of the greatest dilemmas and an unprecedented challenge to liberal societies such as ours, when there is no demand placed on immigrants any longer to assimilate into the founding liberal values of the country to which they have immigrated.

That your friend Ahmed eats pork and drinks whiskey says nothing about whether Islam permits these behaviors or not.

As for the Bible, you can count on one hand the number of individuals who have used violent passages from Deuteronomy to justify acts of terrorism in the twenty-first century. On the other hand, innumerable Jihadis around the world use Islamic doctrines to justify their violent actions. Scale matters.

Fortunately, a great majority of Muslims ignore the unpalatable parts of their religion. This does not mean that they are practicing some Unicorn Gentle True Islam.

If Mordechai Rubinstein chooses to eat pork and shrimps, he is not practicing a more liberal form of Judaism. He is simply ignoring those elements of Kosher laws that he finds too culinarily difficult to adhere to.

Still, progressive equality is a very special kind of equality. It was best captured in the immortal words of George Orwell in his novel Animal Farm: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Personal anecdotes do not invalidate the statistical realities.

Practitioners only care that my scientific work is applicable and relevant, whereas academics judge my contributions by how well these fit into their established paradigms.

Though Muslims make up roughly 25 percent of the world’s population, they comprise 92.9 percent of terrorists on the FBI list.

For example, 51 percent of the trilogy of texts is devoted to uncomplimentary and unloving portrayals of the Kafir, and there is more Jew-hatred in the trilogy (9.3 percent) than in Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf (7 percent).

To be a truly wise person requires that we recognize those domains best served by our intellect versus those best guided by our emotions.

Do not fear the possible loss of friendship. Anyone who is willing to end a relationship because of a reasoned difference of opinion is not worthy of your friendship.

Mieux vaut être seul que mal accompagné [Best to be alone than poorly accompanied];

Dis-moi qui sont tes amis et je te dirai qui tu es [Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are].

To judge is to be human. It is perfectly natural to judge others. It is an integral part of being a well-functioning adult.

To never judge is to be an intellectual coward for it serves as an insurance policy against the possibility of being a polarizing figure.

Millions of individuals have sacrificed their lives so that your children and mine could live in free societies. And yet, most people today are unwilling to speak their minds lest they be unfriended by an acquaintance on Facebook.

When dealing with miscreants, appeasement is seldom a winning strategy.

Under the Constitution, the entire United States is a free speech zone.

No one should have to apologize for being white, male, Christian, or heterosexual—or feel “pride” in their sexual orientation. Immutable characteristics should not be the subject of either pride or shame, and we should neither inculcate or placate an ethos of perpetual victimhood and indignant offence.

M.B.A. requirements are being watered down not because students are much smarter and better prepared than they were thirty years ago, but because of competitive pressures for schools to find new ways to attract students.

E. O. Wilson, the Harvard entomologist and evolutionary biologist, is reputed to have said of socialism: “Great idea. Wrong species.” Any system that is built on a false understanding of human nature is doomed to fail.