Second US Academic Arrested, Accused of Starting California Wild Fires

We must destroy the environment to save it.

These “academics,” and many others, believe their job, as an “academic,” is to correct and improve society. Starting fires is just giving History a helping hand toward Utopia.

Karl Marx said: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.”

Marx, building on the thinking of Hegel, saw two things in history. First, that you could boil everything down to conflicts between oppressors and the oppressed. Second, that “history” is not so much understanding how various infliuences might have led us to where we are now, but that “history” has a Big Picture: as these oppressor/oppressed situations resolve, often in violence, History is moving toward a more peaceful, productive, stable, fair situation.

Like an earthquake relieves the pressure at a fault line, each revolution, whether small or large, relieves the pressure and moves us to a better status quo. [This is the Hegelian Dialectic applied to explain history, including battles, war, and any oppressions.]

Having decided that this is what history has been telling us, Marx imagined a roadmap to a worldly utopia. To overcome the prevailing oppression model in play – capitalism – and move to Communism, and eventually to a post-Communism stage where conflicts and oppression have further resolved to where there is no longer a need for government to enforce fairness and peace.

Marxists thought The Great War would reveal all of the oppressions of Capitalism to the Workers of the World, and the theoretically predicted Workers Revolution would spontaneously occur. It did not. Big Fail.

So, the Marxists went back to the drawing board. They decided that the control that Capitalism had over society was more than economic. That all of us oppressed everyday people were not only economically oppressed, but had been oppressed basically by brain-washing. Religion, belief in “Protestant Work Ethic,” in being chaste, and so on, were social values created by the oppressors and sold to the oppressed in order to have the oppressed believe in, and so sustain, the status quo.

In short, the oppression was not just economic, but was cultural.

In short, the Enemy was redefined to be: Our Prevailing Society.

And, per the Marx quote about “change” the world, the emphasis was to illuminate and change these myriad oppressions.

Thus was formed the “Frankfurt School.” Marxists setting out to not only knock over the prevailing Economic stranglehold, but the cultural stranglehold – the “Cultural Hegemony.”

One of the intellectuals/academics associated with the Frankfurt School was Kurt Lewin. He is identified sometimes as a psychologist, and sometimes as a sociologist. Either way. Among other innovative thoughts was his creation and promotion of “Action Research.”

There are good Wikipedia entries on Marx, on The Frankfurt School, on Kurt Lewin, and on “Action Research.”

Essentially, Action Research follows the Marx quote above. So, a grad student in Environmental Chemistry, or whatever, is not merely determined to learn about the environrment and chemistry, but to Fight Oppression. This is her Job as an Academic.

She and others are starting fires to make the rest of us wake up to our oppression by Big Oil, etc., as they deny Global Warming, and keep us proletariat addicted to our cars. History needs a helping hand, a little nudge from the Enlightened, the Academic Intellectuals.

This post is kind of long, but I hope it helps some see that this fire-setting is part and parcel of being an academic, when you are under the Action Research philosophy.

I myself have been taught this in my scholarly education. This principle is also now BUILT IN to the principles and codes of conduct of many professions. Journalism, Medicine, Social Work, etc. It may nor be built into your profession’s Codes and Principles. Wherever there is the admonition to fight and advocate for change, etc.

Most of us are “progressives,” in the old-fashioned sense of the word. We believe we humans can keep learning, and taking our knowledge and applying it to make a better life for our fellow man. A great example is the Fire Extinguisher. Over the recent 100 years, the chemical combinations used to have these handy fire-fighting tools have advanced to be more effective, less dangerous, and more affordable. But we are missing one concept that Marxist-based progressives have.

The “progressives” nowadays have been brought up under the concept that Our Prevailing Society needs to be changed. To be destroyed. To be superceded. For them, progress is if we are moving along Marx’s progress of history, overthrowing Capitalism to move to Communism, then to move to a day of N- More-Government Utopia.

I encourage WUWT readers to review these Wikipedia entries, and carry this history lesson with you as you encounter Journalists not merely reporting The News but Playing Politics, grad students setting forest fires to push us all to believe in the panic of Global Warming, etc.

If climate change makes forest fires more common, more intense and more deadly, why do the activists need to start fires? If what they believe is true, these fires should be starting naturally.

There is a thin line between fanatical belief and destructive behavior.