When we think of infections, we almost always think of physical infections that harm the body—things like colds, flus, and the chickenpox. What we less often consider are infections of the mind—bad ideas. In his book, Dr. Gad Saad asks us readers to contemplate an important question: which is more harmful?
Dr. Saad has been a university professor for thirty years at Concordia University of Montreal in addition to having held visiting professorships at a variety of universities in the United States. He has seen first hand the changes happening on the university campus over the three decades of his career and this book is his warning to us all: bad ideas are infecting our young people and spreading themselves throughout society. Some of the parasitic viruses of the human mind that he tackles in his writing include postmodernism, radical feminism, and social constructivism, “all of which largely flourish within one infected ecosystem: the university.”
Postmodernism posits that all knowledge is relative and that there are no objective truths. This makes discussion of pretty much anything one might wish to discuss quite difficult. How might it be possible to discuss the environment if we cannot agree that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west? How can we discuss reproductive rights if we cannot agree on whether or not women are the only gender that can give birth? Beliefs that society used to hold, like the belief that the sun rises in the east and that only women can give birth, are now being challenged, and Saad posits that as these idea pathogens have spread, society has become sicker.
Another pair of infectious ideas exposed by our author are radical feminism, which “scoffs at the idea of innate biologically-based sex differences” and social constructivism, which “posits that the human mind starts off as an empty slate largely void of biological blueprints.” Both are dangerous because they ask us to disbelief our very eyes. On average, across every country and culture, men are physically larger than women and produce more testosterone, whereas women produce more estrogen. Men are more inclined towards aggression and women more-so towards empathy. These are not one hundred percent true for everybody, as there are always outliers, but they do ring true for a majority of Homo sapiens on this planet. If we as a society choose to no longer believe these scientifically-backed ideas, what might the long-term down-stream effects be?
Saad himself is a Lebanese Jew who grew up in a very anti-Semitic culture and at a young age fled the Middle East for his life. He knows first hand how bad ideas can turn a society into a dangerous and hateful place, and can even lead to violence. With his own past in mind, he takes issue with the rising culture of perpetual offense and victimhood he seeing blossoming on university campuses. This is most evident in the way students shout down and cancel conservative speakers invited to give guest lectures due to the ‘violence of their words.’
This phenomenon goes hand in hand with the mass creation of echo chambers void of intellectual diversity. “Just as immunotherapy against food allergies exposes young children to minute traces of the allergens so that, with an incremental increase in the exposure dosage, the body will build immunity against that particular allergen,” he writes, “so too do people need to be exposed to the full repertoire of human interactions so that they can develop as intellectually and emotionally healthy individuals.” If we are only exposed to anti-Semitic ideas, we will become anti-Semitic. Likewise, if we are only exposed to one side of an issue, regardless what that issue is, we will disbelieve the competing idea. This difference of ideas, Saad argues, is something we must embrace and not stifle. University campuses are now littered with safe spaces for students threatened by what they consider ‘offensive speech.’ Freedom of speech, however, is precisely meant to protect the most obnoxious, offensive, and disgusting speech. “Occasionally being offended is the price that one pays for living in a truly free society.” Saad argues for less safe spaces and thicker skin.
So, what is the antidote to these idea pathogens? Reason, science, and the courage to be offended. We must embrace science as the best way to ask questions and search for greater truth. Science and biology is how we know that the sun rises in the east, that women give birth, and that men are physically stronger than women (on average). We must stop banning speech we dislike and instead pose our ideas in contest with them, letting the best ideas win. Not allowing speech we dislike doesn’t make us courageous, it makes us stupid and weak-minded. Strong minds require us to have more mental fortitude.