Prudence attended graduation at a well-known college in Boston’s Fenway section recently. This particular school graduates no chemists, engineers, lawyers or business majors; no biologists, entomologists or astronomers; no materials scientists or agronomists or hydrologists, and no oceanographers.
Their purview is social work, and a healthy dose of “education.” That is, education B.S. degree-recipients who, I think, they hope will teach the next generation along the lines of ultra-liberals who have been taking over education aggressively for the past 75 years. Fortunately, they sometimes fail and a graduate escapes with her (mostly hers and wannabes, there) internal philosophy intact, her understanding of reality clear, and her intense desire to educate young kids, rather than indoctrinate them, ready to run. One such is Prudence’s only reason for attending.
Prudence’s eyes were opened, however, to the existence of this and other nests of socialist vipers, who churn out radical “change agents,” as were frequently referenced in the interminable speeches and last-second directives that made not a single reference to God, although the very last instructress managed to say, “… let the Divine …” which was amorphous enough to get through. That tiny reference was among the last dozen words of last-second directions to the posse of Bachelors and Masters ready to change America.
The otherwise clear, May, day began with breakfast – free food, so to speak, catered in to the College’s Brookline facility. Being observant was revelationary. The professors are constantly professing, we noticed. Tattoos, for example, profess attachment to the odd fascinations running rampant through society where women, sometimes grossly obese versions, have acres of “body art.” It’s a statement of inclusion… or a test. After all, if our campus is one of welcoming and inclusion and non-discrimination for students, then it must be for their instructors, too. See how it works?
There seemed to be a single statement being uttered by a large fraction of both staff and graduates: There is no weirdness on OUR campus – all are welcome. Prudence has no argument with the “welcom(ing)” part. In other words, if you are as different and as unusual as you can make yourself, come, attend our college – we’re just as unusual as you!
Every speech underscored the same concepts of challenging the status quo; the difficulty is, today, that the status quo, having grown fairly weird itself, requires ever more strangeness from those who wish to challenge it. This might explain, in part, the number of strange appearances of students, but it is unnerving to apply the same measure to staff and professors… at least it was to Prudence.
Sexuality is key to both protest and education, it seems. Prudence needn’t describe sexual appearances and apparent expressions as most are indescribable and likely wide of the target. But, unusual male-female iterations are more commonplace on college campuses than elsewhere in the world. Perhaps it’s simply because these are the age groups where “youthful” experimentation is most likely. Shouldn’t some adults guide these wandering – and wondering – children toward the most appropriate paths of action and belief?
Aren’t we intending to create new adults of our culture and social fabric? Or is it our purpose to indulge every strange, interruptive feeling and treat it as if it were as valid as reality? Reality is so restrictive: two genders… huh. Are we kidding? I mean, honestly!
Are there any lines a culture shouldn’t cross? It’s not a trick question. We used to decry drug use and numerous other forms of debasement. Why? Because it makes for a stronger, more nurturing society.
We used to require people to make their own way, no welfare and all the rest. It inadvertently made for stronger people and children. Problem free? Of course not. Too many fell through the “cracks,” as it were. Some level of social support was required for simple fairness TO CHILDREN, and civil kindness to the helpless.
We used to require universal education that reinforced moral lessons, some Biblical, without damaging ANYONE, reinforcing shame for bad actions and strengthening the consciences of individuals… and their basic honesty. These were good, strengthening-of-society kinds of structures. Phenomenally, we have succumbed not to foreign powers but to our own cleverness, talking ourselves out of our heritage, our very culture, and of shame, itself.
We are so smart.
Murder, for example, now has shades of evil, some not so bad as to require equivalent sanction. Indeed, abortion-at-will, deemed “murder” by half of the nation, has amorphous codified status and taxation support! Suicide by drug overdose is a form of murder by drug-pusher, but we, the wealthiest, most sophisticated culture on earth, with more police forces per hectare than any other, has failed steadily for 60 years to clamp down firmly on drug commerce.
Now we are in a race to legalize ever purer and stronger pot despite its risks (there aren’t any, according to pot users) and to arm first responders with Narcan. We’re smarter than we even realized.
The largest “industry” in the United States is welfare of a thousand titles. Statists have found that the philosophies of the most rock-ribbed, self-made American stalwarts can be purchased with enough dependency, as recent “conservative” outcries against threats to Medicare makes clear.
The higher education “industry” is nothing if not opportunistic. With TRILLIONS of dollars flowing from the Federal and state levels, colleges have justified turning out an army of social workers to soak them up. Here and there people in need are truly helped, but the lion’s share of those dollars goes to the army of concerned, compassionate care-workers and, especially, to the army of administrators who make sure they are not wasting any money.
Somewhere, and here and there, are schools, churches and other institutions that respect and promote the concepts of self-reliance, absolute personal responsibility, honor and sublime integrity. They must struggle against an onslaught of socialist control of budgets and information. Is the ultimate success of the ultimate anti-God philosophy certain to overwhelm what made the U. S. great?
That future depends upon the ignorance of a majority of Americans. How smart did you say we are?