On Academia's Decline

Submitted by David Romero (United States), Dec 27, 2002 at 19:33

There is no question that Academia has taken a decisive swing to the radical left since the 1950s, and it is simply a reflection of the decay afflicting Western civilization. Politics, culture, morals, and philosophy are encased in a profound cultural lag, suffering a severe contraction from reality, owing to a common core of shared assumptions gleaned from the Enlightenment , which make possible ethical relativism, modern natural right, and eventually cultural nihilism.

The reigning orthodoxy of what currently passes for academic wisdom nowadays is humane liberal tolerance and respect for all views save the one view expressive of an intolerant position. A preferability for asserting moral distinctions as deserving of praise or blame, right or wrong, is simply written off under the rubric of untutored minds, or reactionary parochialists. This explains why some of us traditionalists teaching history or philosophy find it increasingly difficult to find positions, much less granted an interview with modern egalitarian multiculturalists. In any case, the entire world, now "Western," is affected by the derailment that it is no longer possible to know truth, or what is right or wrong, or base or excellent, since truth is reduced to a "value judgment." Who's to say who's right? Hence, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. It thus becomes insanity when the liberal West, preeminently America, apologizes to its enemies who seek our destruction.

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