Western Standard - September 11, 2023


ELDON Writer feels more academic freedom in Hanoi, than in Ontario

Mentioned
Eldon Brock Nigel Brock Eldon Joe Biden Pol Pot Queen
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Episode Stats


Length

19 minutes

Words per minute

109.88

Word count

2,093

Sentence count

154

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Eldon Brock is a writer and academic living in Vietnam. He went to university in Canada, got a degree, studied overseas, then went to Queen's University, and found a lot of things came unglued. He thought that the same professional standards, the same standards of integrity, and the quality of the scholarship would all still be there, but he found otherwise.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.080 Welcome, Western Standard viewers.
00:00:02.860 I think all of us have rolled our eyes at some time or other in the last few years 1.00
00:00:07.080 over the stupidities of woke. 0.99
00:00:09.600 But woke can be very personal, and it can be very devastating. 0.99
00:00:15.180 I have with me today a young man who has lived it
00:00:19.720 and fled the country to get away from it.
00:00:23.740 And of all the places to go to, he's gone to a communist country
00:00:26.880 because he finds life easier there as an academic than he does in Canada.
00:00:33.020 I'd like to introduce to you Eldon.
00:00:36.380 Eldon Brock.
00:00:38.420 Eldon, good morning.
00:00:40.380 Good morning, Nigel. Thank you.
00:00:42.180 Thank you for having me.
00:00:43.640 How is it in Hanoi today?
00:00:46.200 We have Joe Biden visiting today, so there's a lot of blocked roads in the city.
00:00:51.540 Traffic is especially bad today.
00:00:53.740 Yes. The 100-car motorcade.
00:00:55.680 Okay. Brock, your story, and I'm just going to ask you to tell it,
00:01:01.680 but basically you went to university in Canada, got a degree, studied overseas,
00:01:07.540 then went to Queen's University, and a lot of things came unglued.
00:01:14.460 You thought that the same professional standards, the same standards of integrity
00:01:22.320 and the quality of the professors and the rigor of the scholarship would all still be there,
00:01:26.920 but you found otherwise.
00:01:28.060 Tell us about it.
00:01:28.820 Beginning in Queen's in 2016 to 2017, I had begun a master's degree planning on pursuing a Ph.D.
00:01:43.380 university. I've been a writer my whole life.
00:01:47.100 It's been my, it was my dream as a B.A. student to be able to establish myself in a position
00:01:55.080 in the university.
00:01:56.080 I went as a Shirk scholarship student.
00:02:03.080 I wasn't allowed to write about what I wanted to write about, which was American revolutionary novels.
00:02:11.320 I wasn't encouraged to, in any case.
00:02:18.080 When we're defining this term woke, it's essentially shut down of anything that goes against a post-modern Marxist agenda
00:02:33.420 that is being pushed down children's throats, like forced pills.
00:02:38.680 It's a highly dangerous doctrine that swaps out the economics from Marxism with identity categories like race, like gender, and so on.
00:02:54.700 I found the classroom policies were quite shocking to me after having spent so much time overseas.
00:03:07.920 I'd spent time in South Korea, Beijing, Vietnam.
00:03:13.580 I was quite shocked that it was impossible to question this content and that it resembled so closely
00:03:21.440 what I'd seen 10-year-olds learning in three hours in Beijing.
00:03:29.560 The resemblance was uncanny, so it was immediately alerting.
00:03:34.720 So, with the, what does it actually feel like to be in class?
00:03:41.920 I mean, how do they, you were told you couldn't write about what you wanted to write about.
00:03:45.640 Okay, so what, did they tell you what you must write about, and how did the classroom discussions go?
00:03:54.340 We weren't explicitly told what we had to write about, but we knew what we had to write about.
00:04:01.360 The, I took a very traditional, as traditional as possible, course of study,
00:04:11.760 because I wanted a wide breadth as a student of English language and literature to be able to teach
00:04:19.140 later in my career.
00:04:23.180 But the, it became impossible to avoid with two-thirds of the class, classes consisting of 0.96
00:04:30.400 courses without time periods, without authors, Black Lives Matter, the refugee crisis,
00:04:37.540 indigenous masculinities, these courses overwhelmed the course listing to the point where it bled into
00:04:46.240 everything else.
00:04:47.980 And you asked about the feeling, particularly after my experiences in communist countries,
00:04:56.100 it was incredibly anxiety-inducing.
00:04:59.840 And I don't think that most of the students knew exactly what was going on, but there was a general sense of dread
00:05:08.120 and guilt instilled by the professors again and again.
00:05:13.140 And how you earned a grade was by writing about oppression.
00:05:22.160 Whoever managed to write about oppression covering the most number of groups to the highest extent
00:05:30.000 got the highest grade, but no one got a grade lower than 80% or an A-.
00:05:37.540 So it was impossible to distinguish between quality work, attempting to pursue a PhD when
00:05:47.380 the feedback equalized everything.
00:05:52.800 And that's part of this Marxist equity agenda.
00:05:55.960 You're saying everybody got an A-?
00:05:58.740 Everybody got an A- at least.
00:06:01.000 Can you repeat your question?
00:06:08.640 I said, what about the people who couldn't write or came up with a different point of view?
00:06:13.740 The people who couldn't write.
00:06:15.240 I listened to a lot of papers.
00:06:19.000 They're listed in my piece.
00:06:23.400 Topics, mandatory presentations by academics as well, which we were told to.
00:06:31.000 model, model from.
00:06:34.700 Queerness and ice hockey, the niqab and the geopolitics of the face. 1.00
00:06:41.760 As long as you addressed those moral points, it didn't matter if you could write.
00:06:46.740 This is very surprising stuff.
00:06:51.200 Now, I know that you're going to be writing a lengthy piece for our friends at C2C on this.
00:06:56.640 That's how I first came to hear about it and was intrigued by your story.
00:07:00.580 But I know in the preview of what I saw that you talked about a talking stick.
00:07:06.100 Who knows that?
00:07:06.860 A talking stick.
00:07:07.900 So this was one of these classroom policies that became mandated.
00:07:15.240 If all of these things were mandatory, they were not in school documents, but the professors
00:07:23.320 were enforcing rules like in this indigenous gender studies class, the professor requiring 0.82
00:07:33.580 us to introduce ourselves by our preferred pronouns.
00:07:36.740 The stick went around.
00:07:39.440 We had to talk about our background connection to feminism, and we were not permitted to speak
00:07:50.200 in class after that unless we had asked for the stick.
00:07:56.280 So in a classroom of MA and PhD students, you could not interject.
00:08:03.040 You had to politely ask for a stick, and that made it softened the environment so much that
00:08:11.660 you couldn't disagree.
00:08:16.140 It was a very, very strange environment.
00:08:21.360 So free discussion was out.
00:08:23.900 Free discussion was absolutely out.
00:08:26.220 Is there anything particular that made you, I'm getting out of here.
00:08:29.460 I'm going somewhere else.
00:08:30.520 I'm going to start looking, what happened?
00:08:35.740 I think I knew I had to finish the degree.
00:08:41.320 As I said, it had been my dream since I was a high school student and wanted to become a
00:08:49.280 writer.
00:08:49.820 That's one of the few ways I could afford a living as a writer was to be institutionalized
00:08:56.020 in a university.
00:09:04.320 Why did I come to Vietnam was why I came to Vietnam, I'd been in Vietnam for a year before
00:09:15.320 starting the degree.
00:09:16.820 I'd been to, I'd been in Korea prior to that, and I was constantly, it was like I was physically
00:09:26.000 in one place, mentally in the other, realizing that I was much more free as a writer in Vietnam
00:09:33.980 as opposed to Canada.
00:09:36.380 Well, how can that be?
00:09:37.640 It's a communist country.
00:09:40.760 How can that be?
00:09:42.220 Because they have...
00:09:43.640 People who fled from Vietnam came to Canada, they're boat people. 1.00
00:09:46.380 I mean, this is turning the world upside down.
00:09:49.120 Can you explain that?
00:09:50.000 Yes, they have a strong foundation in science, and they believe in biological reality.
00:09:58.880 They're not terrifying their children with environmental doomsday propaganda on a daily basis.
00:10:11.660 And the city, Hanoi, it changes every day.
00:10:18.360 It's getting better and better every day.
00:10:20.940 And the restrictions on speech are there, but they're very clear, and it is for the purpose
00:10:33.000 of national union that speech is restricted.
00:10:37.460 Most of the censorship involves keeping the North and South intact and not continually on
00:10:51.000 the attack with one another.
00:10:52.560 So I think there are politicians in this country who might also argue for limitations on free
00:10:58.540 speech in the interests of national unity.
00:11:00.760 How is it that you find it congenial in Vietnam, when in Canada, I think you would probably...
00:11:11.180 Well, in fact, you fled it.
00:11:13.520 Yeah, I would certainly disagree in Canada.
00:11:16.320 Vietnam is a generation away now from a horrific war on all sides.
00:11:28.060 But I think that in the Vietnamese case, it's too raw. 0.77
00:11:35.700 You don't want constant civil war.
00:11:39.520 And as long as people are thriving and they're happy and you're giving them freedom to live
00:11:50.660 out their lives in a common sense way, in that sense, I think it brings me to tears.
00:12:00.760 It brought me to tears thinking about living in a country where common sense, science, logic,
00:12:09.420 reason, reason, skill, were tossed out the window and needlessly replaced by this Marxist ideology.
00:12:20.520 Okay.
00:12:21.320 Let me stop you there for a second.
00:12:23.780 Marxist ideology, yes, that's what wokeism is.
00:12:27.340 And we've got it in Canada in spades.
00:12:30.060 No one, Vietnam, communist country, Marxist, communist.
00:12:35.280 Are they woke?
00:12:36.380 Absolutely not.
00:12:39.740 And my students, I've worked at a number of international companies which are peddling this
00:12:48.280 stuff to developing countries like Vietnam, developing one-party state countries like Vietnam.
00:12:55.220 And it's not working because the people have this, again, this scientific, rational foundation.
00:13:09.880 The arts aren't particularly thriving, at least in a culturally dominant sense, but they aren't in Canada either.
00:13:18.820 However, I think that when I've presented materials that I would classify as woke,
00:13:31.340 the general response from students has been disbelief.
00:13:38.720 Really?
00:13:39.760 Shock.
00:13:40.040 Yes, absolutely.
00:13:43.000 Well, I believe you've found personal happiness in Vietnam.
00:13:48.520 You're married.
00:13:49.740 You have children.
00:13:51.480 Yes, I have a daughter, nine months old.
00:13:54.500 Okay, well, one day she's going to be, you know, God willing, she's going to be looking at what she's going to do with her life.
00:14:02.220 And she's going to ask you what you think she should do.
00:14:08.320 Will you recommend a university education to her? 0.59
00:14:11.880 And if so, where?
00:14:14.360 Not in the current state of the universities in Canada.
00:14:19.120 Absolutely not.
00:14:21.420 I think, and that goes for most of the West.
00:14:25.500 I think it's infecting STEM now.
00:14:30.080 It's so pervasive that it's not nourishing thought.
00:14:37.300 It suffocates thought.
00:14:38.420 Would I encourage her to go to a university in Canada?
00:14:42.540 Absolutely not.
00:14:44.160 I would encourage her to read and learn how to do things with her hands.
00:14:53.760 Not a Canadian university.
00:14:56.860 Last question, Heldon.
00:15:00.360 You said just now that Western companies were peddling woke materials.
00:15:07.000 I think it is only Western companies that peddle woke materials, and primarily to the United States, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, maybe in the European countries too.
00:15:20.320 I'm not sure.
00:15:20.800 Why do you think that this particular philosophy is being directed to those countries and not to naturally what one would think would be a naturally warm, welcoming reception as a communist country?
00:15:38.800 Why are we picked out to get all the nonsense?
00:15:43.040 I think it's a lack of historical awareness, first off.
00:15:52.040 I know from my experience at Queen's that as a high school student, I learned nothing about the Cultural Revolution in China.
00:16:06.240 I learned nothing about the Russian Revolution or Pol Pot's Cambodia.
00:16:11.880 I think it's historical ignorance, and why is Canada being singled out?
00:16:21.500 I think that's a challenging question, but I wouldn't say – I just don't think Canada can withstand it because of its reliance on group identities from the start.
00:16:43.540 English, French, indigenous, it is founded on group identities, so it's particularly bad in Canada because we have this sensitivity already about the collective.
00:16:58.420 We are not one collective in our political discourse.
00:17:03.540 It is a fractured struggle for power, which is the perfect – it's the perfect place for an ideology like this to take root because it's all about taking down other – taking down merit, history,
00:17:29.540 and it's not a compassionate ideology.
00:17:34.540 It is about revenge, and if you look at the history of communism, it does not equalize things in any other sense than that it brings people to the bottom.
00:17:47.540 I think that we're at risk in Canada because we have that immediately, this idea of group rights and groups in conflict as being so predominant in our political narrative in my lifetime, at least.
00:18:09.880 That's a – I think that's tremendously insightful, Brock.
00:18:13.880 Ladies and gentlemen, Brock Eldon, a man from a small town near Owen Sound who has tried the education system in Canada, found it oppressive, and took himself to what we all thought was an oppressive country, Vietnam, and found more academic freedom there.
00:18:32.880 Fascinating tale.
00:18:33.880 Fascinating tale.
00:18:34.880 Can't wait to read the full.
00:18:35.880 We'll have an extract from your C2C article in the Western Standard.
00:18:39.880 And really appreciate you taking the time this morning, Brock.
00:18:43.880 Thank you.
00:18:44.880 Thank you very much, Nigel.
00:18:46.880 Take care.
00:18:47.880 You can become a Western Standard member for just $10 a month or $99 a year for unlimited access.
00:18:52.880 That's awesome.
00:18:53.880 Thank you.
00:18:54.880 We'll be right back.
00:18:55.880 Take care.
00:18:56.880 I'll be right back.
00:18:57.880 Take care.
00:18:58.880 Bye.
00:18:59.880 Bye.
00:19:00.880 Bye.
00:19:01.880 Bye.