Earlier this week the Babbling Beaver posted a snarky take on a crash program to develop a vaccine that promised protection against infection by the Woke Mind Virus.

Today, the Beaver uncharacteristically wipes the sneer off his snout and gets serious. Why? He was bowled over by a Heterodox Academy interview of a history professor named Mark Carnes, who developed a Live-Action Role-Playing (LARP) teaching methodology that has blossomed into a movement.

The essence of Carnes’ pedagogy is to eschew the lecture format and instead immerse students in semester long multi-user simulations based on what is known about the people, forces, and trends that turned the tides of history.

These simulations task students with taking on and vigorously representing an assigned historical character’s ideologies and objectives. This obliges them to study, think through, then passionately maneuver for and against each other within the format of the game to advance ideas and achieve goals that may well be inimical to the “identity” and orthodox beliefs into which contemporary culture has herded them.

Imagine feminists playing the role of a late nineteenth century politician fighting against women’s suffrage. Or a dedicated Islamist playing David Ben-Gurion. Or a Zionist arguing against the Balfour Declaration and creation of the State of Israel.

Eureka!

It’s more than a history lesson. And it’s not just a game that quickly captures the imaginations of college students, who play to win. It’s a fantastic way to smuggle strenuous exercises in critical thinking past an institutional immune system that categorically rejects ideas that challenge woke orthodoxy, often threatening holders of heterodox views with cancellation.

Making one of the many Reacting Consortium role-playing history classes mandatory for all incoming college freshmen would make it harder for DEI trainers, propagandizing professors, and woke brownshirts to suppress students’ healthy proclivity for independent thinking and vigorous argument. Helping more of them reject identitarian essentialism while retaining the humility to understand that no one has a monopoly on the right-side-of-history could turn into a miracle cure.

Three hearty Aarghs! for Professor Carnes and his LARP pirate crew.