One Thought to Rule Them All: How Academia Became a Monoculture

We continue to hear that our universities are busy propagandizing students, pushing exponentially radical progressivism onto young minds. The claim is that certain critical theories within the social sciences and humanities have not stopped tightening their grip on academia as a whole. Many argue that we can be certain that only one way of thinking, knowing, teaching, and conducting research is now acceptable, and that ideological investment in this framework is necessary for academic success.

This unitary way of thinking, now crystalized in our universities, insists that the only means to truly understand society is to view it strictly as an oppressive structure — one that elevates certain immutable phenotypic characteristics and unjustly assigns privilege. Operating within this lens is eulogized; suggesting a more nuanced view of society, however, is to be vilified.

This analysis of our universities is certainly not novel, but our once fervent efforts from pundits, social commentators, students, former and current professors, and journalists, who increasingly point to academia as the driving force behind the hyper-woke, social justice-obsessed culture that has become our moral compass and cultural arbiter, seem to be fewer and fewer. Nevertheless, our universities continue to plug along quietly inculcating our next generation of adults.

A seemingly impenetrable meta-narrative, once the province of obscure theorists, has now grown to officially govern academia wholesale. It is stated in broad daylight via mission statements, commitments, and teaching or research statements across the country. But how did this happen in the university, the one place on earth meant for the free exchange of ideas, the pursuit of truth, ideological liberty, and critical thinking? How did academia — the supposed home of discussion — become dogmatic, enthralled by a single worldview? How has one conceptual framework risen to dominate the intelligentsia, leaving critical thinkers to either genuflect or be pilloried?

What Did Academia Used to Look Like?

To understand our present intellectual condition, we must first examine what a healthier academic system once looked like. As I’ve written elsewhere, Murray Davis, in his 1971 paper That’s Interesting!, explores why some social theories are considered exciting while others are deemed boring. Davis concluded that a compelling social theory must negate the assumptions of an accepted one. His formula: “What seems to be X is in reality non-X,” or, “What is accepted as X is actually non-X.”

The idea is to challenge common assumptions while avoiding theories easily dismissed as “obvious,” “irrelevant,” or “absurd.” Thus, the theorist must present a perfect blend of exceptionality and believability that meaningfully diverges from prevailing thought.

Davis also warns that to be a mediocre social theorist, or scientist, one need only take existing rules, frameworks, and procedures too literally and exclusively. By cultivating an intellectual environment that values unique perspectives, academia forces scholars to think beyond their often-siloed disciplines. Davis reminds us that intellectual success once required challenging the academic status quo.

Think of Durkheim on suicide as a social phenomenon, Marx on the instability of bourgeois society, or Merton’s claim that political machines can serve community goals. These thinkers dismantled dominant paradigms by proving the exact opposite. Such an intellectual ecosystem fosters an academic environment that is healthy, constantly refreshed, and intellectually vibrant. Think of the university as a body of water; it requires fresh inflows to stay clean, without that, it stagnates into a toxic swamp. If one theory, like the view that North America is merely a despotic structure of oppressors and oppressed, is crowned the eternal champion, then academia is doomed.

Where Are We Now?

Having identified what a productive intellectual ecosystem looks like, we can turn to the current state of affairs. The irony today is striking. For example, postmodernism, once a tool for dismantling dominant narratives, has now been co-opted to sustain one. This intellectual plot twist casts a poor reflection on the disciplines that once used postmodernism to facilitate radical critique and reinterpretation.

Postmodernism’s rise in the late 20th century ushered in the dismantling of rationalism, essentialism, and any belief in human nature. These were replaced by anti-innatism, skepticism toward meta-narratives, social constructivism, rejection of biological “reductionism,” and an obsession with power as the primary force limiting human freedom.

By discrediting truth claims wholesale, postmodernism hollowed out much of cultural studies, anthropology, and sociology. Yet, instead of ushering in a culture of ideological plurality, debate, and critical inquiry, contemporary thinkers used postmodernism as scaffolding to build up their own ideological frameworks. They didn’t just deconstruct the old; they substituted new truths, defended them with zeal, and enforced them with even greater rigidity.

This is not postmodernism at all. A true postmodernist would challenge today’s neoteric dominant meta-narrative. What we have now is a collection of critical social justice disciplines that cloak themselves in postmodernism while simultaneously constructing their own totalizing worldview. In order to free ourselves from this strange bind, we must shatter the academic paradigm we currently exist in.

A helpful parallel here is Thomas Kuhn’s theory of paradigm shifts in science. According to Kuhn, science is often confined by a dominant framework or episteme. Most research happens within this framework — what he calls “normal science.” This work rarely challenges the framework itself. Paradigm shifts only occur when enough anomalies accumulate, forcing the collapse of the reigning model and the rise of a new one.

Consider the shift from geocentrism to heliocentrism, or the revolution wrought by Einstein’s theory of relativity. These were not small tweaks operating as “normal science” — they shattered paradigms.

Today, very few thinkers within the intelligentsia are working to disrupt our current social justice framework. Most scholars are doing what Kuhn would describe as “normal science” — producing results within a dominant framework, applying the same methodologies, and accepting the governing theories without ever questioning any of it. Consequently, there is no paradigm shift because entire disciplines have insulated themselves from criticism, presenting conformity as progress and dissent as danger.

We are stuck in this intellectual paradigm, unable to break the grip of the social justice paradigm that continues to dominate the social sciences, humanities, and beyond. Poor old Foucault would be squirming in his grave!

Implications For Today

Thus, it is more than fair to suggest that in today’s universities, especially within the liberal arts, students and academics alike are discouraged from challenging the discipline’s ideologically doctrinal tenets. Research shows that many students are still uncomfortable speaking freely or even thinking critically. To succeed, young scholars are essentially strong-armed into adopting the prevailing narrative and pushing it even further, more radical, more detached from reality, and at times, outright incoherent.

To gain intellectual acclaim, grants, funding, tenure, speaking engagements, respect, and book sales, scholars must offer trendy ideas that flatter the dominant framework. Most operate in a linear, escalating fashion, offering more extreme interpretations of the same worldview, rather than breaking with it altogether. Those who present alternative views are branded heretics or polemicists, unworthy of serious engagement. Yes, this is still occurring today. A single way of knowing the world has consumed the university and established itself as the modern episteme. Scholars, students, and researchers are coerced into intellectual conformity.

As we saw in the case of Canadian professor Dr. Pat Kambhampati, those who don’t conform risk professional exile. The rest, by staying silent, allow the episteme to govern their intellectual practice through self-censorship.

This is a problem, though, for the current system. Because each time a scholar does challenge this imperious way of thinking, a crack appears in its surface. Thus, this dominant narrative must be confronted vigorously and tirelessly if we want our universities to return to their proper role as havens of debate, inquiry, and truth-seeking. Otherwise, we will continue to produce only more normal research that is increasingly radical, ideologically doctrinaire, and divorced from the mission of academia itself. It’s time to shatter the paradigm.

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