At Stanford U. 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, according to a study entitled “The Vanishing West” published by The National Association of Scholars.
In a posting of Feb. 2, 2016, Patrick Deneen of the University of Notre Dame declared that his students were “know nothings” 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. 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 a recent Viewpoint discussion between Camille Paglia and Christina Hoff Sommers on the state of education in America, the former, a longtime teacher at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, states that the students that came to her over the last few decades had no knowledge whatsoever of history. Fed a steady diet of what Sommers refers to as the recycled Marxism of a bunch of “third rate French theorists” [the Post Moderns], apparently unaware of the relentless barbarity of our species’ past, they have been programmed to accept the narrative that America, and by implication Western Civilization in general, has been the most inhumane, destructive force in all of history. It is a lie which anyone with a passing knowledge of history, both past and present, would reject without hesitation.
But Millennials aren’t much into reading according to Mark Bauerlein, Professor of English at Emory University, whose 2008 book “The Dumbest Generation” suggests that those most active in shaping contemporary politics have been rendered utterly stupid by their addiction to social media. A video of a similar title [“Millennials:The Dumbest Generation in History”] posted in 2019 by one Mark Dice, would seem to confirm his point. Accosting passing Millennials on a public street, Dice simply asks them who won the Civil War. I’m sure most were able to answer his question and that the video has been duly edited. But a considerable number of those interviewed, seemingly between the ages of 20 and 40, were absolutely baffled by his query; indeed had no idea of what that war was about! How is this possible? Are these not the people threatening to cancel our culture, defacing and toppling monuments to major Western icons like Winston Churchill in England, Sir John A. MacDonald here in Canada and Columbus and Thomas Jefferson in the States.
It is literally insane to let the ignorant define our history for us. And it is absurd that people who lived hundreds of years ago should be taken to task for failing to meet the grossly simplistic standards of “woke” 21st Century “Progressives.”
Ought Columbus to have known 500 years ago that “colonialism” would one day be a dirty word? Ought Sir John A., who was actually quite progressive for his time, to have known 150 years ago that referring to Indians as “savages” would upset Canada’s postmodern language police?
Yes, Jefferson inherited hundreds of slaves. But he was committed throughout his life to ending the Atlantic Slave Trade, indeed banished slavery in Virginia in 1778 and, as President, throughout the country in 1807, a few years before the Brits also banned it.
Yet the consensus media would have you think those marauding through the streets of the Western world today, those committed to defecating on every aspect of our history, are enlightened social-justice warriors, insisting their “protests” are predominantly peaceful even as videos emerge day after day of behavior that is violent, savage and absolutely disgusting.
At the recently completed DNC, former president Barack Obama stated of the young protesters cramming America’s streets: “You are this country’s dreams fulfilled.”
Please tell me I’m asleep and this is all a horrible nightmare!