Academia is now a Wasteland more wasted than any backwoods distillery and turnip patch, and that is not hyperbole
Tue 7:58 am +00:00, 22 Sep 2026
Source: https://mileswmathis.com/resist.pdf
September 20, 2026
No, this isn’t about the political resistance—the fist in the air. It is about the human resistance to all
things new. And the inability to listen.
Just as people have no appetite any more for anything but sugar-coated fatballs, they have no ability to
listen to anything but themselves or to some sexed-up propaganda, delivered at top volume from a
flashy 60” screen by spooky trolls. Nothing else registers. Yes, they pretend to listen to eachother day
to day, because you have to get by, but it is all rote and nothing sinks in. They are just passing time
until the CIA ice-cream truck arrives with sticky treats.
I have never had much interest in psychology, or what passes for psychology, since—like economics—
it tends to be bloviating misdirection. Pages and pages of nothing. A real understanding of human
psychology doesn’t come from theories, it comes from studying human action and interaction. Humans
tell you who they are and how they think by what they do.
In my personal experience, what they generally do is yak endlessly about nothing, while immediately
shutting down anyone who says anything the least bit different or interesting. That’s why their ability
to learn is almost zero.
People seem to be bored with their boring existences, which—you might think—is why they like to go
to movies. They want to be told an interesting story. However, I can tell you that is not the case, since
I have an interesting story to tell and no one wants to hear it. My story over the past two decades is far
more interesting than any Hollywood movie, and true, but I can’t get the first words out of my mouth in
person before someone talks over me or shuts me down. My story conflicts with the running tape in
their heads, installed long ago, and it has to be stopped or the pain starts.
So much so that I have pretty much given up trying. It has been like that my whole life. But
occasionally I get high-spirited enough, like today. My nuclear architecture cards coming out is a big
deal, and I guess I just wanted to tell a real person, face to face. So I chose someone at the local pub
with beaming eyes and open face and tried to tell him who I am. Down deep I knew it wouldn’t work,
but once every few years I have to try.
It didn’t work. The little G-men in his head wouldn’t allow it. What I was saying just couldn’t be true,
so he assumed it wasn’t. No way some guy in the hinterlands at some small pub, also giving away
kittens, could have such a story to tell. And if he did, it all couldn’t be allowed to proceed, not even for
a moment, not even for fun, since it might jeopardize the script. Teacher might find out and cancel
cookie hour.
You will say his doubt was understandable, and I see that, but if I had been him, I would have listened
to the story anyway, whether I believed it or not. Not everyday you hear a story like this, true or not, so
just shut up and listen and see where it goes. You can jettison it on the way home if you don’t want it.
I have listened to many longwinded boring stories at pubs, including this pub, since that is part of the
human experience. What I wouldn’t give for an interesting story. Can’t say I have ever heard one, to be
honest, but I listen politely. So you would think people would be starved for a story like mine. Nope.
They have an endless fascination for the trivial and inane, as long it is releasing from their own lips,
but no interest in the substantial, when coming from someone else’s. People are far more polite to the
mentally challenged than they are to me. The Down’s Syndrome boy tells his story while I have to
keep quiet.
That is why I tell my stories here: it is the only place that is quiet enough. Everywhere else I am
drowned out by chatter.
People wonder why I don’t have comments at the ends of my papers. Are you kidding? Do you think I
want to be drowned out by chatter on my own websites? Besides, that is just rolling out the red carpet
for Langley trolls to arrive and pollute the site. I deal with enough of that in email.
Anyway, my experience in this strange life is singular enough I thought it was worth putting to paper.
I think it tells us a lot not only about human psychology (and mine, of course), but about the times we
are living in. I am providing fodder not only for future scientists, artists, and poets, I am providing it
for future psychologists, sociologists, and historians who may (or may not) learn something from it
about human interaction in a semi non-functioning democracy.
Some will say that is the problem: I make the mistake of trying to converse with bar patrons on serious
subjects, instead of intellectuals in an academic setting. Seems valid at first, except for one thing: these
“intellectuals” have shown no more interest in the new and interesting than the least educated drunk.
Their only interest over the past century has been in protecting their funding, which has required a new
Medievalism of stasis and protection. The only group that has shut down all serious conversation more
viciously than the bar crowd is the ivory tower crowd, so you can see why I would be trying to talk to
Joe Sixpack. Joe may be a big dope, but at least he isn’t a slimy creep, shutting down all of history to
benefit his portfolio and that of his slimy cousins.
As depressing and futile as it is for me at the local pub, it is even more depressing and futile for me at
the university, the think tank, or the online meeting of the minds. My readers are constantly sending
me to Youtube videos or Substack articles or peer-reviewed papers, where I spend ten seconds and run
screaming. The air is so bad there I literally can’t breathe. At least at the pub (which is mostly
outdoors) I can run to the pingpong table or my kittens for some fresh air and a bit of reality.
Academia is now a Wasteland more wasted than any backwoods distillery and turnip patch, and that is
not hyperbole.
That may not be news to you regarding fields like gender studies, since thousands of online talking
heads “on the right” have been hammering that home for years. You may know that has infected all the
humanities, including history and English, but without my work few would know that Science and Art
have also fallen. And the deeper story is that they are the original Wasteland, having nothing to
do with gender studies, feminism, DEI, or any other kind of woke. Art was killed before the First
World War, and Science soon after, so long before the current cycles, but no one on either side wants
you to know that. You won’t hear it in the current culture wars, since it doesn’t drive the present
propaganda and factionalizing. This older and bigger truth would jeopardize current science funding
and the money laundering of Modern Art, so you won’t find any Youtube channels or Substack writers
hitting it.
Which is precisely why I find a warmer welcome at the pub than at Harvard or Princeton or CalTech or
Sothebys or Art in America. I am just ignored at the pub, while I am actively slandered and censored
everywhere else. So it’s good I have you, my precious readers, to keep me company. The smartest
audience in the world, a hundred times smarter and more worthy than any TEDtalk audience
