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 storytellingThis 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 Intro00:56 A Scene from 1990 That Explains 202602:13 This Is the First Shift03:19 From Scholarship to Performance04:04 This Is Where Relativism Enters04:43 Enter Marxism, Without the Factory05:26 CRT Was the Formalization, Not the Beginning05:59 So Where Does Islamism Come In?06:45 Why Byatt Matters Here07:21 Why October 7 Was “Explained”07:57 Final Thought#Marxism #Relativism #CRT #Postcolonialism #Islamism #October7 #AntiZionism #AntisemitismExplained #MediaBias #MiddleEast #MiddleEastHistory #JewishPodcast