Jimmy Dore hosts Mark Crispin Miller

From the perspective of an easy mark in the Far East

I've been following New York University Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication Mark Crispin Miller's substack for almost exactly a year now, since July 21, 2022. But this is the first podcast interview I've seen of him. From about 1:00 to about 3:45 ... I felt like I was staring into a mirror, or listening to an older brother.

Under other circumstances, but similar social dynamics, I had resigned in protest from a tenured position in the English Communication Department of a Women's College in Japan about 7 years ago. I did have a lawyer, and was told I would probably win a case against the school for academic harassment and breach of Japanese labor law. But following the typical pattern of court cases of individuals against institutions, the institution would draw out the process for years, draining me of time and resources until the payout would be a pyrrhic victory at best ... and a warning to others who would dare challenge the system.

I salute Prof. Miller, not because he is a teacher, or even a professor. I've since come to hold more elementary school teachers in higher regard than most professors. I admire him because within about 2 minutes of his introduction, he had distinguished himself from the majority of careerists in "educational institutes" simply by articulating his obligation as an educator to empower students with the critical thinking skills necessary to solve present day problems. And as reflected in history, those problems are legion — as individuals, families, communities, and societies.

"Educational institutes" I now put in quotes (nod-nod, wink-wink) because I've come to recognize that phrase as an oxymoron. Call me black-pilled, but I’ve come to regard most institutes and schools, by their nature, as corporate-captured. Self-serving, profit-or-power motives supersede educational ideals. Real educational communities are few and far between.

And as for the pedagogic approach? “Educational institutes” tend to gravitate to the lowest hanging fruit. Though they may vary with what carrots or whips are used to drive their donkeys, it boils down to 'chain-of-command'. Not so different from the corporate structure in ‘the real world’. Institutionally mandated academic assembly meetings, and even department meetings, are far too often, not democratic processes.

Connecting the dots above, one can not help but to see educational ideals as necessarily subversive to the institutes that hang a fancy placard over their homepage door and dress up their digital windows with those same ideals. Institutions are a fractal of the naked emperor. Or vice versa. Just put a YouTube mandelbrot set in reverse.

Like most American colleges and universities, Japanese "educational institutes" are not very good at walking the talk either.

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In his short introduction, as a responsible, student-centered educator, Prof. Miller points out the psychologically self-subversive danger of developing critical thinking skills capable of conflict and contradiction to one's own deepest held beliefs.

Japanese-Korean academic and “one of the most outspoken critics of Japanese Nationalism and United States Imperialism.” (Wikipedia) Kang Sang-Jung (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kang_Sang-jung) refers to this as "Naiamu Chikara' (姜尚中. 続・悩む力) … ‘The Power of Profound Confusion’, the title of one of his books which has not, and probably never will be, translated into English. Kang Sang-Jung paid a similar price by resigning from a teaching position in a graduate school of Tokyo University.

At 3:35, Professor Miller points out the most immediate danger of questioning one's own beliefs as the effect on one's identity in social contexts. As with other social primates, our identity is triangulated and defined through groups ... and as a good student-centered educator, he listed groups from the students’ perspective — family, roommates, or friends. Later, he would look at his own situation and imply students, colleagues, and administration.

Regarding personal identity as defined by social context ... If I remember correctly, the Japanese language traditionally defines personal identities through words referring to mostly hierarchical relationships. There is no “sister” or “brother” in Japanese. It is “older or younger sister or brother”. The Japanese language did not even have a word for an independent "self" (koujin) until it had to be coined to translate a work by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and likewise, the word for 'citizen' (shakaijin) emerged only with the modern corporate nation-state of Japan, only a little over 150 years ago.

Following Prof. Miller’s excellent, short self-introduction, he does not simply articulate the moral dimension of the highest ideals of education. He leads by example, embodying those ideals through his exemplary behavior. A+.

If pressed to articulate those ideals, I guess it would go something like — "nurture students so that by their choice, they would choose to use those problem solving skills to empower the marginalized and hold authority accountable." Occasionally, I come across educators, parents, artists, and other professionals … who as individuals, follow those ideals. While institutions often market themselves along those lines, I have found no such rule-driven collective, capable or willing, to pursue those ideals.

In short, the irony of the highest ideals of education, is that those ideals are fundamentally subversive to the same institutions and authorities that put on a cos-play / kabuki show of the stolen valour of those ideals.

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But that A+ might have to be dropped more than a bit. The good professor did not indicate a more nuanced suspicion about something in his narrative … that “student who had joined the class late”. And in the midst of a world-wide suppression of science or free speech? Doctors and health care professionals, professors, researchers suddenly losing their jobs?

Just ‘a student’?

I wonder.

Without a doubt, I know there were students planted in my classes during my tenure with a Japanese school. Eyes and ears for the administration. And my crime? Being a trouble-making educational idealist and tenured token foreigner. Guilty until proven innocent.

I recognize Prof. Miller as a fellow educator and an idealist. But if we mirror each other as closely as I suspect, we have a huge achilles heel in being ‘student-centered’ educators. Or it may be just the black-pill in me, or my observation of the all-too-clever micro-managing techniques of Japan Inc. that have me wondering. Still wondering about that ‘uncomfortable student’.

As I observed the gaslighting, micro-to-macro aggressions, and tricks playing out in my case, I began to question human nature from a different angle … particularly a subset of any population estimated to be anywhere from 3% to 15%. Those cluster B personality disorders, (antisocial personality, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic) sometimes overlapping and/or referred to as ‘dark-triads / tetrads’ … the pathological narcissists, machiavellian opportunists, morphologically defined psychopaths, and out-and-out sadists among us.

Cluster B — https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/cluster-b

Dark Tetrad — https://psychology.org.au/for-members/publications/inpsych/2021/november-issue-4/analyse-this/the-dark-tretrad

But a dead skunk by any other name would smell as sweet. Thanks to a chat with substack writer Mathew Crawford, I learned that the above is so universal, even the Inuit of the far North have a word for these personality types … the Kulangeta.

Who The Kunlangeta Are And Why They Matter

Since that chat, I extrapolated and found evidence for sociopathic behavior among chimpanzees and dolphins. I suspect all social animals will have their outliers.

While we all exhibit small amounts of this behavior (competing for mates, resources, or social status), most of us are not willing to cross a moral line into sociopathic levels capable of collapsing our particular ‘Tower of Babel’ social context. The cleverness of the predatory class is in their increasing capacity to move that moral line closer to the ego-self … further isolating us from family and community with lock-step plandemic policies. Think of the moral trolley car problem, but more of them and all happening at the same time, and with agents who are increasingly separated from our families and communities by distance, number, and culture.

Though it took a while for me to get through the book, and I don’t agree with all of the assumptions, or think it goes back far enough in history, I’ve recently been deeply influenced by A. Lobaczewski’s “Political Ponerology: The Science of Evil, Psychopathy, and the Origins of the Totalitarian State”. My main take away … the skeletons in the family closet are a fractal of what is happening on the world stage. Apologies to Pat Metheny, but As falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls. I should have been a lineman for the county.

As hinted by the Jeffrey Epstein case, long before the James Bond thrillers, long before a term was even coined, a passing glance at history shows the ‘honey trap’ to be a well known manipulative technique among a portion of humanity’s never ending game-of-thrones.

But honey traps, and games of thrones, seemed to apply only to those in the prime of their life. I could kick myself for not remembering how almost universally, kids play “king of the mountain” … universally because it is called “oyama no taisho” in Japanese, “almost” because some writers such Jared Diamond suggest that children tied more closely to nature such as the San people (bushmen of the Kalahari) may be more inclined to collaborative rather than competitive play.

My mistaken belief about collective human nature is that those not in their prime … children, the handicapped, the working poor, the sick, the elderly, and so on … are, by definition, all ‘marginalized’ from concentrations of power. Therefore I am morally obliged to help them become equally collaborative members of a community. It took me a while to find a gaping hole in my assumption.

A literary reference to the first in that list (children) should be a sufficient hint regarding my mistaken assumption … William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies

And though it may no longer be ‘politically correct’ to say so, I have met physically handicapped people, the homeless, and elderly who could be every bit the ass that is found in many a corporate boardroom.

That percentage of the population making up Cluster B / Dark Tetrads referred to earlier? Whether by genetic predisposition or trauma, they are not confined to ‘those in their prime’. Take Greta Thunberg for instance.

During the course of my 40 years here in Japan, I’ve taught, coached, and judged All Japan English speech contests, including three for top ranked Tokyo University. (Note my comment to the following speech ...

There is no way in hell a 16 year old Greta could have accumulated the authoritative certainty of climate science, enough experience to justify her moral outrage, and the public speaking chops to address a forum of world leaders … without a lot of carefully choreographed grooming, and participation by an audience loaded with shills. Hooray to Hollywood. Or this the Swedish entry to America’s Got Talent?

She is clearly a plant, most likely by the WEF-Davos crowd. And though the powers-that-be are desperately trying their best to undermine the family by ‘sexually empowering children’ (another damned oxymoron), Greta’s role was something other than the honey trap. I have yet to think of a good term for the staged authenticity of child actors who, with full knowledge and intent, play their part in a scam.

The music industry has its corporate constructed counterparts (‘industry plants’ or ‘nepo babies’), Japan’s “Baby Metal” being an unapologetic example, America’s Taylor Swift or Billie Eilish being more familiar examples to most fellow Americans. That doesn’t mean their music is not good. But it does indicate more than a bit of deception in order to corner their share of the market. For a darker example, the cross between the Hollywood casting couch and corporate construct can be found in Japan’s latest scandal of Johnny and Associates. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/07/12/national/johnnys-un-investigation/

Speaking of Hollywood, I like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, particularly with their break-out hit, “Good Will Hunting”. But even a shallow dive into their family background reveals some deep-state roots, without which, they may have never made the big time.

While a brief Google search only reinforces my mistaken belief that kids can only be a marginalized victim of scams, my personal experience of being an easy mark for a child-con artist in Cambodia reminds me of old Charlie Chaplin-era movies where kids were a willing part of the plot of made-for-movie scams, as if The Disney Channel ‘sit-coms’ were not enough. Ahh … GPT4 to the rescue.

”The term you might be looking for is "shill." Although it doesn't specifically refer to children, a shill is a person who pretends to be a satisfied customer or an enthusiastic gambler to dupe bystanders into participating in a scam.

In the case of a child being used as part of a scam, they are often referred to simply as a "child con artist" or a "child scammer," although these terms aren't particularly formal or standardized. It's also important to note that any situation where a child is involved in illegal activity like scams is typically a case of child exploitation, which is a serious criminal and ethical issue.”

The Japanese term for shill would be “sakura” … literally, cherry blossoms planted in the audience, now showing up in droves as bought-and-paid-for Amazon product ‘reviews’. Or potentially the opposite, panning a competing product.

And that brings me back to Prof. Miller’s ‘student’.

She looked unhappy.

Didn’t say anything.

And then took to Twitter, demanding he be fired, enraged enough to call the bias hot-line, and just ‘flipped out’ … but not before jumping through those Twitter and hot line hoops?

And to top it off, ‘NYU basically took her side’?

Now why, pray tell, would they do that?

Maybe, just maybe, ‘a student that joined the class late’ joined late … for a well planned reason.

Maybe, just maybe, she did not air her grievance in class … for a well planned reason.

Maybe, just maybe she had just enough smarts to go to Twitter and the hotline before flipping out (you guessed it) … for a well planned reason.

Maybe, just maybe, the reason NYU took her side over that of Prof. Miller, is because she was already on their side. A plant. A tool. An extension of the will of NYU and its corporate Board of Directors.

Or maybe, just maybe, that Twitter rant was already written and ready to post, and by somebody other than that ‘uncomfortable student’.

It might not be a character fault of a young, naive student after all. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I’ve experienced such tactics here in Japan, and was conned, slick as a whistle, by a kid no more than 12 years old in Cambodia.

Maybe, just maybe, that ‘student’ was a counterpart to Greta ‘Doom Potato’ Thunberg, purposely raining havoc on Prof. Miller’s career, at the behest of NYU. It will not have been the first time such a scenario has played out.

Maybe, just maybe, that ‘student’ was a Mata Hari - Sakura, a willing shill for a long-since corporate-captured institution who was looking for a way to snip off any chance for other students to develop real critical thinking skills.

Maybe building critical thinking skills, or arming students against manipulation by propaganda was never the purpose of ‘public’ education to begin with.

At about the same time I was being pushed out of tenure (or employment anywhere) at my college, I enrolled into courses at a higher ranked college (Sagami Women’s College), courses open to the public as well as regular students. Among those classes was “The History of Public Education In Japan”, taught by a Japanese professor roughly my age, and like myself, having served on one of the Ministry of Education’s committees.

After class, we would sometimes walk back to his office together and exchange observations about education. One bit of information surprised me, and didn’t.

As he explained in detail during the lecture, the Japanese public education system was basically a copy-paste of the heuristics and structure of education for the working class in Victorian England.

In another later chat with substack writer Mathew Crawford, I learned that the British system was, in turn, a copy-paste of the Prussian model used to nurture compliant patriotism, an army to ward off the threat of a Napoleonic invasion.

What the Japanese professor did not share with our class during his lecture, but confided with me during one of those walks, was that the public education system shared the same structure and heuristics with two other British institutions: the military, and the penal system, subtly implying that this was still the case in Japan.

Badda bing, badda boom.

Now the rigid standardization and competition for brute memory common to Japanese Jr. Highs and High Schools made perfect sense. The purpose of education in Japan is pretty much as stand up philosopher George Carlin called it in the states …

Likewise the purpose of education in Japan is to nurture technically literate but compliant-to-authority drones. And as the numbers of voluntarily masked people over here, even in the high-humidity of a near 40°C summer heat seem to indicate, the Japanese education system, along with the mass media propaganda arm, has pretty much achieved its goals.

One thing we idealists often fail to realize until its too late … those Cluster B / Dark Tetrads do not play by the rules. Or rather, they play by their own rules. And they play the long game. And with due respect to Professor Miller, I am talking family dynasties, not semesters.

By definition, these personality disorders have one thing in common. They have a diminished capacity or willingness to empathize with others. Rather than behaving in a morality which is grounded in empathy, they emerge from the womb (or from trauma) without empathy.

In order to flourish or even survive, they must depend on keen observational skills and mimicry of more neuro-typical people who are grounded in empathy . They depend on predatory planning skills that have a higher correlation with intelligence than more empathy-driven people.

I urge the reader to forget George Orwell for a moment and consider an earlier dystopic literary example … H.G. Wells’ 1895 novel, The Time Machine, with humanity devolving into two species, the cunning, predatory Morlocks feeding off the peaceful but sheepish Eloi — ‘1984’ plus another couple of hundred thousand years, but much sooner than H.G. Wells expected.

Will end this mandelbrot-of-an-essay for now. Not because I am finished. It never ends. Catching the typos, alliterating the anecdotes, a-rhythming the data … it never ends. I am just hungry. And I could use a cold beer.

Kudos and prayers to both Mark Crispin Miller and Jimmy Dore.

May they both live long and prosper. We sure as hell need ‘em.