Donald Kagan, one of the finest historians of the 20th century and a prolific writer on Ancient Greece, made his final farewell to the "hallowed halls of academia" recently. Dr. Kagan, who apparently pulls no punches and does not bend over to political correctness, probably could see that it was time to go.
Universities, he proposed, are failing students and hurting American democracy. Curricula are "individualized, unfocused and scattered." On campus, he said, "I find a kind of cultural void, an ignorance of the past, a sense of rootlessness and aimlessness." Rare are "faculty with atypical views," he charged. "Still rarer is an informed understanding of the traditions and institutions of our Western civilization and of our country and an appreciation of their special qualities and values." He counseled schools to adopt "a common core of studies" in the history, literature and philosophy "of our culture." By "our" he means Western. [emphasis mine]WOW, WOW, WOW...I couldn't have said it better myself. The intellectual void being pushed on the American people...and most importantly on thousands of American parents sending their kids of to the Marxist, eco-secular, morally corrupt institutions known as the "modern" American university should read this essay. Dr. Kagan has stated what has been obvious to this Grouchy Historian for a long time...I mean look at any "college" humanities or history department and you'll find courses of African-American history, Asian-American history, one-legged Puerto Rican lesbian history....but NO core classes to teach about WESTERN FREAKIN' civilization. No matter what the "revisionist" historians want to convince everyone (and are sadly succeeding as America continues to dumb down to American Idol, Jersey Shore, and the Bachelor) America was shaped by the Ancient Greeks. AND, those same Founding Fathers (ooops, there's that dirty group of gun tottin', slave holdin' white men) were responsible for creating the Republic that is under attack today.
But...let's hear Dr. Kagan some more...
As he looks at his Yale colleagues today, he says, "you can't find members of the faculty who have different opinions." I point at him. "Not anymore!" he says and laughs. The allure of "freedom" and "irresponsibility" were too strong to resist, he says.The end result of that, and the reason American graduates are considered WOEFULLY unprepared for the real life of work after college is they can't THINK, can't WRITE, and can't think CRITICALLY, because then WAIT A MINUTE, they might questions the "settled science" of global warming (how's that May snowfall working for Denver?) or they might question the difference between "Crony Capitalism" and "Free Enterprise" which are not the same as Socialism...OR my goodness they might actually consider America a force for good in the world and not Satan incarnate. College students are indoctrinated...and are taught not to question or they get smacked by pinko commie America hating professors who worship at the altar of Ward Churchill and Howard Zinn.
A final thought from Dr. Kagan:
"The essence of liberty, which is at the root of a liberal education, is that meaningful freedom means that you have choices to make," Mr. Kagan says. "At the university, there must be intellectual variety. If you don't have [that], it's not only that you are deprived of knowing some of the things you might know. It's that you are deprived of testing the things that you do know or do think you know or believe in, so that your knowledge is superficial."YUP, superficial...that would describe most of the talking heads on the left...who quickly devolve into name calling and race baiting when their arguments begin to crumble under reality.
This is a fantastic article and well worth the read.
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