Ep 101 - This Was Already Happening in 1990: How Academia Lost Curiosity Before It Lost Truth

In this episode of Middle East In Less Than Five Minutes, we return to themes from episodes 59, 60, and 61 — Marxism, relativism, Critical Race Theory, postcolonialism, and Islamism — and ask whether those connections were already visible decades before October 7. Using A. S. Byatt’s 1990 novel Possession as a starting point, this episode looks at how academia began losing curiosity before it lost truth. Long before TikTok, campus encampments, and modern anti-Israel activism, the intellectual shift was already underway. Topics include: • Episodes 59, 60, and 61 on Marxism, relativism, CRT, and Islamism • A. S. Byatt’s Possession • Academia and the loss of curiosity • Relativism and the collapse of stable truth • Marxism after class politics • Postcolonialism and power narratives • Critical Race Theory as a framework • Islamism and the language of oppression • October 7 and the urge to “contextualize” atrocities • Anti-Zionism and antisemitism explained • Media bias Middle East narratives • Why facts are replaced by moral storytelling This episode argues that there was no single conspiracy linking Marxism, relativism, CRT, and Islamism. There was something slower: the replacement of truth-seeking with narrative-building. Once academia trained people to ask “who has power?” instead of “what happened?”, the door was open. Follow Middle East In Less Than Five Minutes for short, fact-based episodes on middle east history, antisemitism explained, media bias Middle East, zionism history, Jewish history, antisemitism facts, and antisemitism myths. 00:00 Intro 00:56 A Scene from 1990 That Explains 2026 02:13 This Is the First Shift 03:19 From Scholarship to Performance 04:04 This Is Where Relativism Enters 04:43 Enter Marxism, Without the Factory 05:26 CRT Was the Formalization, Not the Beginning 05:59 So Where Does Islamism Come In? 06:45 Why Byatt Matters Here 07:21 Why October 7 Was “Explained” 07:57 Final Thought #Marxism #Relativism #CRT #Postcolonialism #Islamism #October7 #AntiZionism #AntisemitismExplained #MediaBias #MiddleEast #MiddleEastHistory #JewishPodcast