Event: Oikophobia and the Sciences

National Association of Scholars

Science is commonly portrayed as an avatar of knowledge, truth, and progress. Lately, science is more held up as an exemplar of oppression: colonialist, too suffused with patriarchy, too white, too male, too western, its heroes not worthy of admiration. Self-loathing and abnegation seems to have permeated the entire establishment of science: its funding agencies, its journals, its professional associations. What is the meaning of this remarkable cultural transformation? Is it merely political, or something deeper?

According to Benedict Beckeld, this is a reflection of oikophobia, a “cultural malaise that befalls civilizations during their declining days.” He argues that oikophobia is the terminal state in the comings and goings of great civilizations. The self-hatred that presently permeates the sciences thus reflects the broader decline of western civilization.

Join the National Association of Scholars on Friday, October 13, at 3 pm ET for the next edition of our Restoring the Sciences webinar series to hear more about this intriguing idea.

This event will feature Benedict Beckeld, a philosopher whose focus is aesthetics, political philosophy, and culture. He is the author of “Western Self-Contempt: Oikophobia in the Declines of Civilizations” which traces the “historical apparition” of oikophobia as a “type of social decadence” to which civilizations are prone.

This event will be moderated by J. Scott Turner of the National Association of Scholars.

RSVP on Eventbrite


Photo: Adobe Stock

  • Share

Most Commented

June 6, 2024

1.

Backlash: Sometimes It Hurts So Good

We have undermined the leftist status quo in higher education for decades with the persistence of Morlocks. You really should be more alarmed about us than you are. Not that I’m going......

July 30, 2024

2.

Don’t Cry for Them, Academia

The dark secret of anti-Semitism is that ignorance alone cannot explain it away or absolve those who adhere to it. If anything, the most vivid episodes of history’s anti-Semitism have......

August 6, 2024

3.

An Elephant Walks into Class

An assessment of the Republican higher education platform....

Most Read

May 15, 2015

1.

Where Did We Get the Idea That Only White People Can Be Racist?

A look at the double standard that has arisen regarding racism, illustrated recently by the reaction to a black professor's biased comments on Twitter....

September 6, 2024

2.

Professor Alleges "Widespread" Discriminatory Hiring Coverup at University of Washington

Audio acquired by the National Association of Scholars describes allegations of coverup race-based hiring coverup at the University of Washington...

October 12, 2010

3.

Ask a Scholar: What is the True Definition of Latino?

What does it mean to be Latino? Are only Latin American people Latino, or does the term apply to anyone whose language derived from Latin?...