Cognitive warfare: How the West is losing its youth

Cognitive Warfare: Beyond PSYOPS to misinformation and disinformation [CC0]

Pro-Palestinian student protests across the US have led to allegations of anti-Israel hate crimes and damage to property and occupations of university buildings that have created an environment in US academia which is – rightly – perceived as hostile to Jewish students and staff. Following the lead of elite campuses in the US, students at Australian universities began their own protest action, protest camps, and even occupation of university buildings.

The current situation indicates that the West is losing its youth to anti-Enlightenment ideas about liberty and security perpetuated through cognitive warfare.

Unfiltered had this to say about our article:

Is the West losing its mind? Allow me to rephrase that, are the university-educated class losing their collective sanity? Michael de Percy and Sacha Dov Bachmann are leaning toward the ‘yes’ category, although the more I read, see, and hear about the pro-Palestine protests on campus, the more convinced I am that the bulk of these kids simply don’t want to go to class. Learning is hard. Learning requires merit. Learning is a drag compared to camping on the lawn with your mates. Remember, this isn’t their only protest ideology, they’re quite happy to skip classes for feminism, Net Zero, Black Lives Matter, Sorry Day, and rainbow activism. Why doesn’t the university simply offer the ‘Useful Idiot’ qualification?

And Morning Double Shot had this to say:

The West is losing the battle for the hearts, and especially the minds, of its youth to the evil troglodyte likes of Hamas. But instead of redoubling resistance to this ideological cancer on our civilisation, defenders of pro-Western values are passively giving in. The directive of LaTrobe University yesterday, that pro-Palestinian agitators who want to address classes should be allowed to do so, is just the latest capitulation to hatred and bigotry. Michael de Percy and his collaborator Sascha Dov Bachmann address this problem and conclude thus: ‘Rather it is by protecting freedom of speech at any cost, unless of course it is antisemitic, we are losing our youth to cognitive warfare that is designed to use our way of life against us’. Patrick West has a related piece in World.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, with Professor Sascha Dov Bachmann, Cognitive warfare: how the West is losing its youth.