The Social Justice Killing Fields

The American University Worldview and the Khmer Rouge

I’m writing something that lays out the ‘American University Worldview’ (AUW) that is endemic on social media and in our cultural institutions these days. Expect to see it soon. For now, I will summarize this point of view as I see it. This is also called ‘wokeness’ or ‘social justice ideology’ and it is a direct descendant of applied critical theories, which have tried to defenestrate all standards of objectivity and evidence and ‘meta-narratives’. This last doesn’t apply to their meta-narratives, of course. One is expected to believe both that there is no objective morality or even truth, and also that trans rights (for example) are an objectively worthy goal (transphobes aren’t described as immoral but they’re regarded as such nevertheless). One is expected to disregard all grand narratives, as symptoms of group power dynamics rather than testable claims about reality, and also believe that the meta-narrative about all such systems being power dynamics is objectively true and useful for social analysis. One is expected to believe that race is a socially constructed concept created in the service of white supremacy, and also that all those who want to deprioritize race and treat everyone equally, as individuals, are covert white supremacists. It’s a mess. Here are some of their values:

1.)    Group Identity is Paramount – a person’s immutable characteristics affect everything that person thinks and experiences and should guide us in how we react to the person or weight their input. More or less any point made by a white male (especially a straight one) can be dismissed as indicative of their privilege… unless what they’re saying tracks with the AUW narrative, in which case it shouldn’t be dismissed but it still would have been more valid coming from someone not in this group.

2.)    ‘The Inverted Pyramid of the Marginalized’ – those whose groups have historically been most privileged in the West (men, able-bodied people, heterosexuals, white people) are marred by the benefit which accrued to their ancestors and the goal of equity demands promoting the marginalized groups (literally, in many cases) and giving them special consideration and weight (not a fatphobic joke – don’t worry) and permissions. The old group hierarchies are effectively reversed and there’s a vague sense that that will somehow right itself once equity is achieved. Obviously, it will just instantiate a new hierarchy and racial quotas and set-asides will end up rewarding the less merited and punishing some of the brilliant. It’s equally obvious that this would go on forever, essentially. No group is going to give up their perks voluntarily en masse… but fighting for true equality is seen as symptomatic of the worst reactionaries (which would have surprised Dr. King, I think) and so must be opposed. The resentment that always accompanies such unearned privileges, even when imposed in response to historical injustice? You guessed it: they’re ignored.

3.)    History Reflects Our Values… Whether it not it Does – history is repainted as a grand morality tale in which all of the bad things (capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, violence, oppression) are intimately linked and all of the good thin

gs (feminism, queerness, socialism, cooperation) are also linked. How does that explain the Mongol invasions or the Aztec habit of sacrificing victims by the thousand to bloodthirsty gods? Well, it doesn’t. Why was every state-level BROWN society also patriarchal? Why did no society ever value ‘queerness’ as it exists now yet that’s supposed to be an enduring and beloved human value through history, rather than a modern invention of the most comfortable? Why is capitalism actually linked in historical analysis to the growth of feminism and the ENDING of slavery (by the British Empire for the first time on a civilizational basis in human history) and the growth of gay rights? Stop asking questions. THIS is a meta-narrative that is fundamentally true, unlike all the others; trust us!

4.)    Objectivity is Oppression – less tied to political activism or specific causes but probably most pernicious to the development of science and conceptual fairness there’s a very explicit message written by the creators of AUW (Judith Butler, Kimberle Crenshaw, et. al.) that values like evidentiary standards and mathematical accuracy and even punctuality and personal responsibility aren’t socially useful metrics. They’re instruments of oppression. How does one build a bridge without some understanding of objective mathematical accuracy? AUW people don’t really build bridges and, presumably, if they do they switch this dominant part of their brain off long enough to complete their calculations. This seems like a satire or an unfair criticism to those that haven’t read the works of the AUW giants but it’s in there in black and white and the longer this ideology grows and takes power the more you’ll hear about it. It’s closely tied to ‘equity’ which holds that equal standards of reward and recognition and promotion are ‘problematic’ and so the scales should be weighted in favor of those marginalized groups. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Native American transwomen (for example) of even minimal skill can find themselves in EXTREMELY high demand in Hollywood or universities or corporate boardrooms these days. This kind of tokenism is one of the ugly and awkward facets of this worldview (there are many more) but I’ve laid out the perspective as I’ve understood it from spending hundreds and hundreds of hours reading Foucault and Marcuse and Crenshaw and Butler. Before dismissing my representation of this ideology perhaps you might do the same.

This system of thought tends to prioritize emotional thinking (really all that’s left once logical analysis is made disreputable) and personal experience, especially experiences of marginalization. They’re given a kind of holy gravity. It introduces extremely perverse incentives. It creates a mentality that doesn’t include victimization – it revolves around it like the moons around Jupiter. It is eternally careful to avoid being categorized or named or analyzed as a discrete worldview (which it is). That last item should make social scientists particularly suspicious. Even the colloquial descriptions of these values and their application (‘SJW’, ‘woke’) are derided as to be so vague and pejorative that they’re basically meaningless. Something can’t be so vague as to be meaningless AND pejorative at the same time, though. For evidence that ‘woke’ (though certainly a bit fuzzy, and not ringing praise in its contemporary usages) means something coherent you just have to imagine a comedian called ‘woke’, or a YouTube content creator. Would you understand what this might and might not include? I would. I do and when I find the label applied I nearly always agree with it. That fact that the people saying that ‘woke’ is meaningless ALSO defend those belittled as woke says a lot. When rejecting these labels the real goal of the AUW set is to refuse any ideological identification at all. They’re simply good people with a critical (!!!) view of history and society who want to improve things. This is the attitude of every ideologue ever, of course. Their lack of self-awareness or epistemic humility make them dangerous, even if it’s an inadvertent and unitended danger. Such is the danger of moralistic and utopian worldviews which try to simplify and perfect human affairs and so it has ever been.

So what are some historical corollaries? The group identification and the prioritization of the marginalized can be found in Soviet Socialism, but their desire for electrification and five year plans meant that they never would have thrown out objectivity or science. They described themselves as scientific, specifically. They lay claim to science rather than scorning it.

The black and white historical view and rejection of objectivity can be seen in primitivism (or anarcho-primitivism, or green anarchism), which attributes all of humanity’s problems to the growth of technology and scientism. The group-based metrics and obsession with the marginalized/marginalizers isn’t a feature of that particular school of thought though. Ted Kaczynski (not their greatest thinker but a noted, um, activist) was explicitly dismissive of modern liberalism’s self-flagellating tendency to excuse and praise struggling groups. If one wanted to get a better sense of what primitivists believe I recommend John Zerzan. In any case, they don’t really fit together.

There is ONE historical political movement which shares basically all of these values. It even found itself in control of a country. Let’s see how they did and check in on the status of their no-doubt budding utopia today. This movement was the radical (kind of) Maoist Khmer Rouge, which considered modernity to be irredeemably corrupted and held long sessions to redeem themselves from its influence. It gained power in Cambodia in the 1970’s. It would be fair to say that their record was mixed, at best. It’s important to note one small historical detail: about one third of the country’s people perished through executions and brutality and starvation in less than five years. Ironically the leaders (who hated Western thought and influence) were mostly educated in 1960’s Paris. It would be as if a bunch of very-privileged young people these days based an entire worldview around unseating privilege, while enjoying their own elite privileges. That’s a purely notional hypothetical analogy, of course. They were very concerned with language and held that group identification was a defining feature that should either save or condemn a person, although the groups were economic and professional rather than racial or sexual. Cambodia was a pretty homogenous and traditional country. Do those features sound familiar? It tended to view all relationships and ideas as power dynamics and moved toward a more and more radical and purist view of society, unchecked by social science or appeals to fairness. Does THAT sound familiar? Here are some other beliefs which you may find alive on American universities: the view of academics that power would be better used to implement THEIR ideals; the fuzzy belief that such implementation would somehow result in the abolition of hierarchy; the view that all of history was leading inexorably away from the bad (capitalism, sexist, et. al.) and towards a shining future of the ‘good’.

From Wikpedia:

Wikipedia: Khmer Rouge

The Khmer Rouge carried out a radical program that included isolating the country from all foreign influences, closing schools, hospitals and some factories, abolishing banking, finance and currency, and collectivising agriculture. Khmer Rouge theorists, who developed the ideas of Hou Yuon and Khieu Samphan, believed that an initial period of self-imposed economic isolation and national self-sufficiency would stimulate the rebirth of the crafts as well as the rebirth of the country's latent industrial capability.^[26]: 47

Evacuation of the cities[edit]

In Phnom Penh and other cities, the Khmer Rouge told residents that they would be moved only about "two or three kilometers" away from the city and would return in "two or three days". Some witnesses said they were told that the evacuation was because of the "threat of American bombing" and they were also told that they did not have to lock their houses since the Khmer Rouge would "take care of everything" until they returned. If people refused to evacuate, they would immediately be killed and their homes would be burned to the ground. The evacuees were sent on long marches to the countryside, which killed thousands of children, elderly people and sick people.^{[1]: 251–310} These were not the first evacuations of civilian populations by the Khmer Rouge because similar evacuations of populations without possessions had been occurring on a smaller scale since the early 1970s.^{[1]: 251–310}

…

The lack of agricultural knowledge on the part of the former city dwellers made famine inevitable. The rural peasantry were often unsympathetic, or they were too frightened to assist them. Such acts as picking wild fruit or berries were seen as "private enterprise" and punished with death. Labourers were forced to work long shifts without adequate rest or food, resulting in many deaths through exhaustion, illness and starvation. Workers were executed for attempting to escape from the communes, for breaching minor rules, or after being denounced by colleagues. If caught, offenders were taken off to a distant forest or field after sunset and killed.^[77] Unwilling to import Western medicines, the regime turned to traditional medicine instead and placed medical care in the hands of cadres who were only given rudimentary training. The famine, forced labour and lack of access to appropriate services led to a high number of deaths.^{[1]: 251–310}

Economic policies[edit]

Khmer Rouge economic policies took a similarly extreme course. Officially, trade was restricted to bartering between communes, a policy which the regime developed in order to enforce self-reliance.^[26]: 62 Banks were raided, and all currency and records were destroyed by fire, thus eliminating any claim to funds.^[78] After 1976, the regime reinstated discussion of export in the period after the disastrous effects of its planning began to become apparent.^[26]: 58 Commercial fishing was banned in 1976.^[79]

…

Education[edit]

Further information: Anti-intellectualism § Democratic Kampuchea

The Khmer Rouge wanted to "eliminate all traces of Cambodia's imperialist past", and its previous culture was one of them. The Khmer Rouge did not want the Cambodian people to be completely ignorant, and primary education was provided to them. Nevertheless, the Khmer Rouge's policies dramatically reduced the Cambodian population's cultural inflow as well as its knowledge and creativity. The Khmer Rouge's goal was to gain full control of all of the information that the Cambodian people received, and spread revolutionary culture among the masses.^[81]

Education came to a "virtual standstill" in Democratic Kampuchea.^[34]: 185 Irrespective of central policies, most local cadres considered higher education useless and as a result, they were suspicious of those who had received it.^[34]: 185 The regime abolished all literary schooling above primary grades, ostensibly focusing on basic literacy instead.^[34]: 183 In practice, primary schools were not set up in many areas because of the extreme disruptions which had been caused by the regime's takeover, and most ordinary people, especially "new people", felt that their children were taught nothing worthwhile in those schools which still existed.

Language reforms[edit]

The Khmer language has a complex system of usages to define speakers' rank and social status. During the rule of the Khmer Rouge, these usages were abolished. People were encouraged to call each other "friend" (មិត្ត; mitt) and to avoid traditional signs of deference such as bowing or folding the hands in salutation, known as sampeah. Language was also transformed in other ways. The Khmer Rouge invented new terms. In keeping with the regime's theories on Khmer identity, the majority of new words were coined with reference to Pali or Sanskrit terms,^[82] while Chinese and Vietnamese-language borrowings were discouraged. People were told to "forge" (លត់ដំ; lot dam) a new revolutionary character, that they were the "instruments" (ឧបករណ៍; opokar) of the ruling body known as Angkar (អង្គការ, The Organisation) and that nostalgia for pre-revolutionary times (ឈឺសតិអារម្មណ៍; chheu satek arom, or "memory sickness") could result in execution.^{[citation needed]}

Crimes against humanity[edit]

Acting through the Santebal, the Khmer Rouge arrested, tortured and eventually executed anyone who was suspected of belonging to several categories of supposed enemies:^[51]

·         People with connections to former Cambodian governments, either those of the Khmer Republic or the Sangkum, to the Khmer Republic military, or to foreign governments.

·         Professionals and intellectuals, including almost everyone with an education and people who understood a foreign language. Many artists, including musicians, writers, and filmmakers were executed including Ros Serey Sothea, Pan Ron and Sinn Sisamouth.

·         Ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Chinese, ethnic Thai and other minorities in the Eastern Highlands, Cambodian Christians (most of whom were Catholic), Muslims and senior Buddhist monks. The Roman Catholic cathedral of Phnom Penh was razed. The Khmer Rouge forced Muslims to eat pork, which they regard as forbidden (ḥarām). Many of those who refused were killed. Christian clergy and Muslim imams were executed.

·         "Economic saboteurs" as many former urban dwellers were deemed guilty of sabotage because of their lack of agricultural ability.

·         Party cadres who had fallen under political suspicion: the regime tortured and executed thousands of party members during its purges.^[26]: 3

The Santebal established over 150 prisons for political opponents; Tuol Sleng is a former high school that was turned into the Santebal headquarters and interrogation center for the highest value political prisoners. Tuol Sleng was operated by the Santebal commander Khang Khek Ieu, more commonly known as Comrade Duch, together with his subordinates Mam Nai and Tang Sin Hean.^{[26]: 3 [83]} According to Ben Kiernan, "all but seven of the twenty thousand Tuol Sleng prisoners" were executed.^[20]: 464 The buildings of Tuol Sleng have been preserved as they were left when the Khmer Rouge were driven out in 1979. Several of the rooms are now lined with thousands of black-and-white photographs of prisoners that were taken by the Khmer Rouge.^[84]: 74

On 7 August 2014, when sentencing two former Khmer Rouge leaders to life imprisonment, Cambodian judge Nil Nonn said there were evidences of "a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Cambodia". He said the leaders, Nuon Chea, the regime's chief ideologue and former deputy to late leader Pol Pot and Khieu Samphan, the former head of state, together in a "joint criminal enterprise" were involved in murder, extermination, political persecution and other inhumane acts related to the mass eviction of city-dwellers, and executions of enemy soldiers.^[85] In November 2018, the trial convicted Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan of crimes against humanity and genocide against the Vietnamese, while Nuon Chea was also found guilty of genocide relating to the Chams.^[86]

Number of deaths[edit]

According to a 2001 academic source, the most widely accepted estimates of excess deaths under the Khmer Rouge range from 1.5 million to 2 million, although figures as low as 1 million and as high as 3 million have been cited; conventionally accepted estimates of executions range from 500,000 to 1 million, "a third to one half of excess mortality during the period".^[87]: 105 A 2013 academic source (citing research from 2009) indicates that execution may have accounted for as much as 60% of the total, with 23,745 mass graves containing approximately 1.3 million suspected victims of execution.^[88]

Historian Ben Kiernan estimates that 1.671 million to 1.871 million Cambodians died as a result of Khmer Rouge policy, or between 21% and 24% of Cambodia's 1975 population.^[89] A study by French demographer Marek Sliwinski calculated nearly 2 million unnatural deaths under the Khmer Rouge out of a 1975 Cambodian population of 7.8 million; 33.5% of Cambodian men died under the Khmer Rouge compared to 15.7% of Cambodian women.^[90] Researcher Craig Etcheson of the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) suggests that the death toll was between 2 million and 2.5 million, with a "most likely" figure of 2.2 million. After five years of researching mass grave sites, he estimated that they contained 1.38 million suspected victims of execution.^[91] Although considerably higher than earlier and more widely accepted estimates of Khmer Rouge executions, Etcheson argues that these numbers are plausible, given the nature of the mass grave and DC-Cam's methods, which are more likely to produce an under-count of bodies rather than an over-estimate.^[72] Demographer Patrick Heuveline estimated that between 1.17 million and 3.42 million Cambodians died unnatural deaths between 1970 and 1979, with between 150,000 and 300,000 of those deaths occurring during the civil war. Heuveline's central estimate is 2.52 million excess deaths, of which 1.4 million were the direct result of violence.^{[72][87]: 102–4}

Despite being based on a house-to-house survey of Cambodians, the estimate of 3.3 million deaths promulgated by the Khmer Rouge's successor regime, the People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK), is generally considered to be an exaggeration; among other methodological errors, the PRK authorities added the estimated number of victims that had been found in the partially-exhumed mass graves to the raw survey results, meaning that some victims would have been double-counted.^[72] An additional 300,000 Cambodians starved to death between 1979 and 1980, largely as a result of the after-effects of Khmer Rouge policy.^[87]: 124

Genocide[edit]

While the period from 1975 to 1979 is commonly associated with the phrase "the Cambodian genocide", scholars debate whether the legal definition of the crime can be applied generally.^[16]: 260 While two former leaders were convicted of genocide, this was for treatment of ethnic and religious minorities, the Vietnamese and Cham. The death toll of these two groups, approximately 100,000 people, is roughly 5% of the generally accepted total of two million. The treatment of these groups can be seen to fall under the legal definition of genocide, as they were targeted on the basis of their religion or ethnicity. The vast majority of deaths were of the Khmer ethnic group, which was not a target of the Khmer Rouge. The deaths occurring as a result of targeting these Khmer, whether it was the "new people" or enemies of the regime, was based on political distinctions rather than ethnic or religious. In an interview conducted in 2018, historian David P. Chandler states that crimes against humanity was the term that best fit the atrocities of the regime and that some attempts to characterise the majority of the killings as genocide was flawed and at times politicised.^[92]

Footnotes here: Wikipedia: Khmer Rouge

UTOPIAN IDEOLOGIES LEAD TO GENOCIDE. WE SHOULD RESIST THEIR LURE.