At Stanford University in 1980 Jesse Jackson introduced the chant “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western culture’s got to go.” Over the last 60 years, based on the assumption that it has violated and oppressed both many of its own citizens as well as much of the “third world,” Western Civilization as a core requirement has all but disappeared from the curricula of most North American universities. Today only 32% of the top U.S. colleges offer it as an elective for undergraduates. It is possible to get a law degree in the United States without ever having studied the evolution of the principles of Western jurisprudence which ultimately led to the Constitution of that very country. Indeed only 7% of American universities demand that their history majors be familiarized with the particulars of their own culture of origin. In a study entitled “The Vanishing West,” the National Association of Scholars reports that whereas in 1964 forty of the top fifty U.S. universities mandated the study of Western Civilization as a core requirement, that requirement has all but disappeared in those same institutions. Such developments, rather than being the product of an honest quest for academic integrity, are in fact the result of an abject ideological bias. Again, no one is exonerating the often vile behavior of Western Europeans over the centuries, but the narrative of the contemporary Left simply refuses to acknowledge that genocide, slavery, misogyny and other such abominations have been practiced by every ethnic group on the planet throughout the millennia and that the ultimate ascendancy of post-Enlightenment European Civilization was not the result of its incomparable villainy but rather of the inarguable superiority of its culture, that culture responsible for what are clearly the safest, most humane, most civilized Nations on the face of the Earth. Yet the Myth of White Racial Arrogance persists, informed by the imbecilic assumption that no one way of confronting the world is superior to any other.
In a posting of Feb. 2, 2016, Patrick Deneen of the University of Notre Dame declared that his students were “know-nothings” devoid of “substantial knowledge,” ignorant of the basic ideas and values which gave shape to the world in which they live. His essay, entitled “How a Generation lost its Common Culture,” suggests that their ignorance is not a failing of the contemporary educational system but its consciously pursued crowning achievement. Camille Paglia, a long time professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, absolutely agrees. Denying the superiority of one set of concepts and values to another is a key aspect of Egalitarian fanaticism, a key aspect of the “inclusive” agenda of the Left. It is an agenda literally rooted in the perpetuation of ignorance. In the Myth of The Fall implied by the ethos of contemporary “progressivism,” Man’s capacity for Reason, as it was for the Romantics, is the serpent which has slithered into its sentimentalized vision of Eden.
Jesse Jackson has his wish. America is inclining towards the status of a Third World country. One wonders who the next innocent child will be, killed by a stray bullet. I have watched a video of an all Black mob rampaging through what I believe was a Walmart like a pack of animals. This is NOT a racist statement. It is a FACT. [Many of my favorite “conservatives” are Black.] I have watched an innocent White couple set upon by a pack of Black females, the man in question lying atop his companion to shield her from the fists of their assailants. It goes on and on. And idiots like Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo see it all as a matter of “social justice!” Perhaps the only beneficiary of this descent into barbarism is Sarah Chayes. She won’t have to leave the continent to write her next book!