[OfSanguineFire]

I provide language revision for academics who are non-native speakers of English, so I read a hell of a lot of papers, theses, and grant applications, while also continuing to publish and peer-review in my own field. My impression is that peer review in the social sciences and history isn’t necessarily the major force for conformance to whatever contemporary social narratives. Papers often deal with minutiae, and both author and peer reviewers alike are nerds who like delving into those minutiae. They don’t necessarily want to be drawn into any wider topic like in the case of the paper discussed in this article.

Rather, the force for ideological conformity may instead be funding bodies. I have seen so many grant applications where the author(s) clearly want to explore minutiae, but are forced to appeal to some grand social-justice cause in order to secure funding. I’ve participated through series of revisions of grant applications where 2–3 paragraphs claiming the research would benefit some minority or another, are inserted at a late stage after someone mentions that the application would stand no chance without them.

[paganel]

> claiming the research would benefit some minority or another, are inserted at a late stage after someone mentions that the application would stand no chance without them.

Funny, it's similar to "forced" mentions of Marxism inserted apparently at will in social science books/papers written in Romanian back when the Wall was still up. Towards the later years of the communist government being in power those Marx insertions had been replaced by quotes to what Ceausescu had said.

[beebeepka]

Was Marx anything like Ceausescu?

[dsign]

I guess the OP is referring to how communist countries are/were big in personality cult and general brainwashing. Marx and his ideology when they were happy with the soviets, Ceausescu later when the political winds changed.

Generally though, people have a tendency to seek flags to rally behind, be it personalities, ideologies or religions. There is nothing surprising on that, given that the success of our species relies on coordinating large numbers of people. The problem is that, sometimes, it is very difficult or impossible for the individual to choose the "right" flag, whatever the definition of right may be. In communist and totalitarian countries, the problem is solved for the individual by allowing only one flag. In countries with good democracy, e.g. USA[^1], it sometimes happens that the population divides evenly between the flags available to them (i.e. Republicans and Democrats).

[^1]: The US' democracy has many faults, but it's a shining thing compared with a lot of countries in the world.

[paganel]

> Marx and his ideology when they were happy with the soviets, Ceausescu later when the political winds changed.

Exactly that.

If it matters, and while we're talking history of ideology, towards the latter years of the Ceausescu government real and genuine "local" Marxists had been sidelined almost completely, meanwhile there was a push for inter-war nationalism veering into what today would be called far-right.

The 6th volume of the "Military history of the Romanian people", published in 1989 under the editorship of one of Ceausescu's brothers, had details of the Romanian Army's involvement on the Eastern Front during WW2, meaning while we were on the Germans' side and fighting against the Soviets, on Soviet land. That had been considered more than taboo until then.

[denton-scratch]

> Marx and his ideology when they were happy with the soviets

Marx died 30 years before "soviets" had been invented. The ideology followed by the bolsheviks was marxist in name only.

[davidktr]

Interesting perspective, thanks for sharing.