Here are a couple of insights from a superb and ominous commentary by Victor Davis Hanson about the underlying illness within higher education:
Is the Iraq war, as we are often told, the “greatest mistake” in our nation’s history?
Because Israel and the United States have a bomb, is it then O.K. for theocratic Iran to have one too?
Americans increasingly cannot seem to answer questions like these adequately because they have not acquired a broad knowledge of language, literature, philosophy, and history.
The student is expected to arrive at the instructor’s own preconceived conclusions. The courses are also captives of the present-hostages of the contemporary media and popular culture from which they draw their information and earn their relevance.
The theme of all such therapeutic curricula is relativism. There are no eternal truths, only passing assertions that gain credence through power and authority.
By contrast, the aim of traditional classes offered information drawn from the ages-the significance of Gettysburg, the characters in a Shakespeare play, or the nature of the subjunctive mood. Integral to this acquisition were key dates, facts, names, and terms by which students, in a focused manner in conversation and speech, could refer to the broad knowledge that they had gathered.