Western Civ in the Crosshairs—and A Glimmer of Hope

Posted on April 28, 2016 by Dr. Paul Kengor

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Students at Indiana University-Bloomington recently went into panic mode at the sight of a Dominican friar, who they mistook for a Ku Klux Klan member. Funny? Yes, but also sad. It is a further sign of the state of our universities, and what is and isn’t being taught.For starters, let’s get this on the blackboard: For a really long time, there have been religious guys in robes, flatly unmistakable in their appearance. This year, 2016 A.D. (Anno Domini, Latin for “In the Year of Our Lord”), just happens to mark the 800th anniversary of the Dominicans. The Dominicans, named for their founder, Dominic de Guzman, a Spanish priest and contemporary of another giant of the faith, Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscans, long pre-date the KKK. These “orders” preceded Luther’s Reformation by three centuries, and themselves were a vital reform in rekindling and sustaining the faith against some significant heresy.

(A related funny-but-sad story on the Franciscans: A Franciscan friar told me about an encounter he had on the New York subway. A young woman looked at him in his garb and smiled and said: “Okay, I get it—you’re a Jedi Knight, right?”)

Read: A Renewed Vision of the College

The Dominicans far pre-date the American university. Not unrelated, our universities once taught what we commonly call “Western Civ,” or “Western Civilization,” where students learned the elemental facts of their Western world, and where contemporary campus oddities like religious figures were not alien to their mind’s eye. But such is not the zeitgeist of the modern university, where today’s typical student is enmeshed with a thoroughly secular worldview where a trinity of race, gender, and sexual orientation account for what is held sacred. They are carefully trained to be ever-vigilant for the slightest whiff of racism, sexism, and “homophobia” or (the latest rage) “transphobia.” Their “education” is such that an ancient religious order is utterly unrecognizable.

That brings me back to what happened at Indiana University-Bloomington.

The mysterious robed intruder shuffled his way on to campus in the dark of night. “iu students be careful,” Tweeted one vigilant student, “there’s someone walking around in kkk gear with a whip.”

The “kkk gear” was the friar’s robe. The “whip” was presumably either his belt or his rosary, the latter an 800-year practice likewise started by Dominic.

Residential hall advisor Ethan Gill zapped an email to his peers, warning them of the ominous “threat” marching across the quad: “There has been a person reported walking around campus in a KKK outfit holding a whip…. Please PLEASE PLEASE be careful out there tonight.” Later in the evening, a relieved Gill retracted his warning, but not before recounting the sense of horror unleashed by the unsuspecting friar: “Then my residents, terrified, come running to me, saying yeah the report must be true, they saw him and couldn’t believe there was a klansmember with a whip,” he explained. “And I see this picture. It’s a priest. With a rosary.”

In short, it’s no surprise that today’s college students would be dumbstruck at the image of a religious figure in a robe. Such is completely symptomatic of the life and learning of the cultural asylum we call the modern American university, where—in the name of secular liberalism, multiculturalism, diversity, and “tolerance”—a relentless battle has been waged upon Western civilization for decades. In fact, consider this irony: fittingly, mere days after this incident in Bloomington, students at Stanford University resoundingly rejected—by a margin of six to one—an effort to add a required course on Western Civ to the curriculum. The campus secularists can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that a dangerous Western Civ requirement will not cut into enrollment for courses like “Narrating Queer Drama” at Stanford’s department of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

And here’s the height of the irony: If students at Stanford, and at Indiana University-Bloomington and elsewhere, would dare explore Western civilization, they might discover that their entire educational tradition owes quite a debt to these arcane men with robes and beads. The reality is that it was the monks, starting with the Benedictines (founded in the 5th century), that preserved crucial ancient texts and were the educators who established the model and laid the foundation for the universities. We arguably would not have the modern university without monks, certainly not how and when we did. The founder of the Benedictines was Benedict of Nursia (480-547 A.D.). He arrived in the world only a century after the birth of Augustine (354-430 A.D.) and the Council of Nicaea (325 A.D.), which, among other things, affirmed the literal belief in the Trinity (no small thing).

Picking up with the Dominicans and their influence: Dominic died in 1221, only to be followed by Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) and the Scholastics. Aquinas himself was a Dominican. Also seizing the torch at the time were the likes of Bonaventure (1221-74) and the great writer Dante (1265-1321). They all not only fought the heresies of their day, from Gnosticism to Albigensianism, but they were the teachers of their day, holding forth in historic universities from Oxford to Paris.

Secularists need not approve of these things, but they ought not be embarrassingly (and even deliberately) ignorant of them.

Needless to say, college students will not learn any of this in their courses on “Transgender Studies” or “Gay Autobiography.” The progressive professors running these courses are championing the thoughts of Harry Hay (the Marxist gay-rights pioneer) rather than Francesco Bernardone. And I assure you that to the legion of contemporary American progressives, “progress” is indeed a vigilant sophomore more attuned to suspecting a klansman than recognizing a friar.

In the ashes of the Judeo-Christian values and timeless absolutes they have set ablaze, our modern progressives in the academy have instead fashioned a molten calf of politically and culturally correct nostrums. They peddle false faiths full of contradiction and selective application, such as their “tolerance” and “diversity” heresies—carefully applied only to things they want to tolerate. It is tolerance and diversity for me but not for thee. They denounce the “bigots” who oppose transgender bathrooms while they resist the Christian teachings that have beautifully transformed and redeemed the lives of billions. And thus, when these late-adolescent products of contemporary academia look at a Dominican brother with confused fear, we shouldn’t be surprised. This is a direct extension of their “higher” education. This is what they and their parents have paid for at great financial and moral cost.

Read: A Rarity in Higher Education

May I point to what has been a light in the darkness? Here at my college, Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania, we not only respect Western civilization but teach it. It is the root of our five-course Humanities curriculum, which every student is required to fulfill—covering art, music, literature, history, and sacred ideas and texts—and one of the courses is even unashamedly titled, “Western Civilization.”

We are striving to maintain Western Civ, not kill it. How counter-culture is that these days? It is indeed. As our college president, Paul J. McNulty, observes, “We are the counter-culture at Grove City College.”

Yes, we are. In the 1960s, the campus “counter-culture” had decidedly different overtones than it does now, 50 years later. To be counter-culture in the 21st century means to fight to retain the best of the timeless Western Judeo-Christian values that got us here. And it certainly means knowing the difference between a priest and a klansman.

Dr. Paul Kengor

Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. His latest book is 11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative. His other books include The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor and Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.

20 responses to “Western Civ in the Crosshairs—and A Glimmer of Hope”

  1. RealitySeeker says:

    The following exerpt is from an open letter. The content speaks for itself.

    "Oxford, let us remind you, is the world’s second oldest
    extant university. Scholars have been studying here since at
    least the 11th century. We’ve played a major part in the
    invention of Western civilisation, from the 12th century
    intellectual renaissance through the Enlightenment and
    beyond. Our alumni include William of Ockham, Roger Bacon,
    William Tyndale, John Donne, Sir Walter Raleigh, Erasmus,
    Sir Christopher Wren, William Penn, Samuel Johnson,
    Robert Hooke, William Morris, Oscar Wilde,
    Emily Davison, and Cardinal Newman. We’re a big
    deal. And most of the people privileged to come and study
    here are conscious of what a big deal we are. Oxford is
    their alma mater – their dear mother – and they respect
    and revere her accordingly.

    And what were your ancestors doing in that period? Living in
    mud huts, mainly. Sure we’ll concede you the short-lived
    Southern African civilisation of Great Zimbabwe. But let’s
    be brutally honest here. The contribution of the Bantu
    tribes to modern civilisation has been as near as damn it to
    zilch.

    You’ll probably say that’s ‘racist.’ But it’s what
    we here at Oxford prefer to call ‘true.’ Perhaps the
    rules are different at other universities. In fact, we know
    things are different at other universities. We’ve watched
    with horror at what has been happening across the pond from
    the University of Missouri to the University of Virginia and
    even to revered institutions like Harvard and Yale: the
    ‘safe spaces;’ the blacklivesmatter; the creeping
    cultural relativism; the stifling political correctness;
    what Allan Bloom rightly called ‘the closing of the
    American mind.’ At Oxford however, we will always prefer
    facts and free, open debate to petty grievance-mongering,
    identity politics and empty sloganeering. The day we cease
    to do so is the day we lose the right to call ourselves the
    world’s greatest university".

    • ◄Dave► says:

      It is much worse on this side of the pond than the author could imagine. It is as if 10,000 years of human experience went for naught, now that this latest generation of spoiled, over-schooled, and undereducated children have arrived on the scene, to tell us independent thinkers how we should be living our lives. ◄Dave►

      • Jim Hallett says:

        Dave, you hit the nail on the head – OVER-schooled and UNDER-educated and suffocating in p.c. bulls**t! Stanford is famous for this kind of thing, but I guess it even pervades IU and probably most other major schools. I went to U of Michigan and I am always appalled by what I read in various alumnus "spout" pieces. And when you challenge the established order at Academia U, you are ridiculed.

    • Carl-Edward says:

      Dear Sir,

      Oxford is no longer the bastion of civilisation it once was.

      On the sixth of March last, there was a demonstration at Oriel Square, where a pack of morons demanded that a statue of Cecil Rhodes be removed.

      'Versa' is a student paper, founded to oppose suppression of free speech at Oxford.

      An Oxford magazine: 'No Offence' has been banned for being offensive.

      Finally, I would refer you to an article in: 'Spiked', for the thirtieth of September 2015, entitled: 'Oxford: Where Free Speech Goes To Die'.

      Yours faithfully,

      Carl-Edward Endicott

      • Reality Seeker says:

        Dear Carl-Edward,

        I have a family member who graduated from Oxford. I understand your valid point about Oxford, but actually Oxford is under attack. There is also an eternal war being waged between the old school and the new school, if you know what I mean. This, of course, is just my opinion. I'm not an Oxford graduate, and I've not been there in over 30 years. The following exerpt is from the old-school supporters . It is a continuation of the above letter:

        “Dear Scrotty Students,

        “Cecil Rhodes’s generous bequest has contributed greatly to
        the comfort and well being of many generations of Oxford
        students – a good many of them, dare we say it, better,
        brighter and more deserving than you.

        “This does not necessarily mean we approve of everything
        Rhodes did in his lifetime – but then we don’t have to.
        Cecil Rhodes died over a century ago. Autres temps, autres
        moeurs. If you don’t understand what this means – and it
        would not remotely surprise us if that were the case –
        then we really think you should ask yourself the question:
        ‘Why am I at Oxford?’

        “Of course, you are perfectly within your rights to squander
        your time at Oxford on silly, vexatious, single-issue
        political campaigns. (Though it does make us wonder how
        stringent the vetting procedure is these days for Rhodes
        scholarships and even more so, for Mandela Rhodes
        scholarships.) We are well used to seeing undergraduates –
        or, in your case – postgraduates, making idiots of
        themselves. Just don’t expect us to indulge your idiocy,
        let alone genuflect before it. You may be black –
        “BME” as the grisly modern terminology has it – but we
        are colour blind. We have been educating gifted
        undergraduates from our former colonies, our Empire, our
        Commonwealth and beyond for many generations. We do not
        discriminate over sex, race, colour or creed. We do,
        however, discriminate according to intellect.

        “That means, inter alia, that when our undergrads or post
        grads come up with fatuous ideas, we don’t pat them on the
        back, give them a red rosette and say: “Ooh, you’re
        black and you come from South Africa. What a clever chap you
        are!” No. We prefer to see the quality of those
        ideas tested in the crucible of public debate. That’s
        another key part of the Oxford intellectual tradition you
        see: you can argue any damn thing you like but you need to
        be able to justify it with facts and logic – otherwise
        your idea is worthless.

        “This ludicrous notion you have that a bronze statue of Cecil
        Rhodes should be removed from Oriel College, because it’s
        symbolic of ‘institutional racism’ and ‘white
        slavery’ — well even if it is – which we dispute – so
        bloody what? Any undergraduate so feeble-minded that they
        can’t pass a bronze statue without having their ‘safe
        space’ violated really does not deserve to be here. And
        besides, if we were to remove Rhodes’s statue on the
        premise that his life wasn’t blemish-free, where would we
        stop? As one of our alumni, Dan Hannan, has pointed out,
        Oriel’s other benefactors include two kings so awful –
        Edward II and Charles I – that their subjects had them
        killed. The college opposite – Christ Church – was built
        by a murderous, thieving bully who bumped off two of his
        wives. Thomas Jefferson kept slaves: does that invalidate
        the US Constitution? Winston Churchill had unenlightened
        views about Muslims and India: was he then the wrong man to
        lead Britain in the war?

        “Actually, we’ll go further than that. Your Rhodes Must
        Fall campaign is not merely fatuous but ugly, vandalistic
        and dangerous. We agree with Oxford historian R.W. Johnson
        that what you are trying to do here is no different from
        what ISIS and the Al-Qaeda have been doing to artefacts in
        places like Mali and Syria. You are murdering history…….

        • Reality Seeker says:

          ……………….“And who are you, anyway, to be lecturing Oxford University
          on how it should order its affairs? Your rhodesmustfall
          campaign, we understand, originates in South Africa and was
          initiated by a black activist who said in one of his lecturers
          ‘whites have to be killed.’ One of you – Sizwe
          Mpofu-Walsh – is the privileged son of a rich politician
          and a member of a party whose slogan is ‘Kill the Boer,
          Kill the Farmer.’ Another of you, Ntokozo Qwabe, who is
          only in Oxford as a beneficiary of a Rhodes scholarship, has
          boasted about the need for ‘socially conscious black
          students’ to ‘dominate white universities, and do so
          ruthlessly and decisively.’

          “Great. That’s just what Oxford University needs. Some
          cultural enrichment from the land of Winnie Mandela, burning
          tyre necklaces, an AIDS epidemic almost entirely the result
          of government indifference and ignorance, one of the
          world’s highest per capita murder rates, institutionalised
          corruption, tribal politics, anti-white racism and a
          collapsing economy. Please name which of the above items you
          think will enhance the lives of the 22,000 students studying
          here at Oxford.

          “And then please explain what it is that makes your attention
          grabbing campaign to remove a listed statue from an Oxford
          college more urgent, more deserving than the desire of
          probably at least 20,000 of those 22,000 students to enjoy
          their time here unencumbered by the irritation of spoilt,
          ungrateful little tossers on scholarships they clearly
          don’t merit using racial politics and cheap guilt-tripping
          to ruin the life and fabric of our beloved university.

          “Understand us and understand this clearly: you have
          everything to learn from us; we have nothing to learn from
          you.”

          Yours,
          Oriel College, Oxford

    • Bob M. says:

      Here's a cheery thought. Given the rate at which the Islamists are invading Europe, including Merry Olde England, it won't be long before Oxford, and others like it, will cease to exist. If they insist on saying what's 'true,' it won't be tolerated. Unless, of course, they regain their sanity and put a stop to the invasion. Maybe Brexiting the EU would be a good start.

      To those of you on the eastern side of the 'pond,' I wish you well and much success on preserving your cultures. We're not doing so well with that on this side.

      I am somewhat surprised there hasn't been a flood of lawsuits against the universities in the U.S. Imagine paying so much money, only to come out at the end of it so incredibly ignorant. A genuine tragedy. If Shakespeare were still alive, he'd probably write a play about it.

    • Betty Peters says:

      You forgot my favorite Oxford scholar, C. S. Lewis. Here is what I copied from his bio:

      "After receiving a scholarship to University College, Oxford University, England in 1916, Lewis soon suspended his studies in 1917 to enlist in the British Infantry during World War I. Wounded during the Battle of Arras, he was discharged at the end of 1919.

      Education

      Soon after, Lewis resumed his studies in Oxford, later to become a Fellow and Tutor of English Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford. He served there from 1925 until 1954, when he was appointed Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Magdalene College, Cambridge.

      Please add him to your list. I enjoyed this article and the varied comments which ensued. At this point in time, I highly recommend Lews' "Abolition of Man."

      Betty Peters, AL State School Board Member

  2. Paul Herring says:

    Interesting topic. Free speech it seems is now being constrained by political correctness. For instance, if a person passes a remark about homosexuality which might even slightly be viewed as negative there is a hue and cry from supporters of it and immediately is labelled as homophobic. So free speech is drowned out by those who are the most active and vocal on this or any other subject which attracts aggressive support.

    But even free speech surely has its limits. Racism is one of the no-go zones in my view. To believe and write hate-filled sentiments for others to red is an abuse of free speech. Those in the firing line because of skin colour, nationality or circumstances rarely if ever have a choice in that.

    By contrast, if people choose to support aberrant sexual and/or other anti-social behaviours which differ from the "Judeo-Christian" ethos, they're up against a culture which has lasted as long as man has on this planet. God the Creator introduced the first laws and principles for people to live by and if applied they work. Just as a manufacturer of fine cars provides a manual with it outlining the best operating practice for the vehicle, God has likewise provided that for us. It's the Bible.

    By contrast

  3. Paul Herring says:

    (Sorry, this is Take 2 – too many typos in the first message)

    Interesting topic. Free speech it seems is now being constrained by political correctness. For instance, if a person passes a remark about homosexuality which might even slightly be viewed as negative there is a hue and cry from supporters of it and immediately is labelled homophobic. So free speech is drowned out by those who are the most active and vocal on this or any other subject which attracts aggressive support.

    But even free speech surely has its limits. Racism is one of the no-go zones in my view. To believe and write hate-filled sentiments for others to read is an abuse of free speech. Those in the firing line because of skin colour, nationality or circumstances rarely if ever have a choice in those things.

    By contrast, if people choose to support aberrant sexual and/or other anti-social behaviours which differ from the "Judeo-Christian" ethos, they're up against a culture which has lasted as long as man has on this planet. God the Creator introduced the first laws and principles for people to live by and if applied they work. Just as a manufacturer of fine cars provides a manual with it outlining the best operating practice for the vehicle, God has likewise provided that for us. It's the Bible.

  4. John Abbott says:

    Oh Crap! I hurriedly opened this email that was sent FROM Robert Ringer, I did NOT take the time to find and put on my reading glasses. I just ENLARGED the type on my computer.
    As I kept reading, with growing excitement, I kept asking myself "What happened to Robert? He has changed."

    Finally, at the END I see the byline and see it is NOT Robert Ringer that wrote it, GREAT article, but I was HOPING Robert had become a Christian. Well, I'm still hoping, but great article Dr Kengor!

  5. xping49 says:

    "…mere days after this incident in Bloomington, students at Stanford University resoundingly rejected—by a margin of six to one—an effort to add a required course on Western Civ to the curriculum."
    Since when do students get a say in what courses are offered at a University? I was told what classes I had to take for a certain major, (plus some electives) and that was it, period, amen. Interesting.

    • Jean says:

      Students get to have a say in curriculum because they are the fools willing to take out enormous loans in order to "purchase" this kind of claptrap and say they are educated. IU Bloomington is a very expensive and highly overrated government university, and it's more of a popularity contest than it is an academic achievement to be admitted. I'm sure that the administration takes into consideration what pablum would be acceptable and marketable, rather than considering what substance would actually educate students. After all, those classes are hard, require the ability to think critically, and might possibly send students running into one of their "safe spaces" if they fail at either.

  6. jurgy says:

    even with no western civ classes in their curriculum, surely these students have had enough life experience to have seen people wearing religious clothing … the Pope, for example … one would think that at least common sense would prevail, that the students would realize that this is a person wearing religious robes, and that it is a ridiculous notion that a member of the KKK would be traipsing about campus in KKK garb …

  7. Michael Michael says:

    The KKK travel in packs as they don't have the courage to stand alone, unveiled.

  8. Kevan Rowlee says:

    Sharing to my Facebook wall.

  9. jimbo965 says:

    The problem lies with the liberal atmosphere that pervades modern institutions of higher learning. It is at once infectious and debilitating. Liberalism is a mental disease corrupting and transforming Western Civilization.

  10. I'm reminded once again of concepts I learned while an undergrad student of Western Philosophy. First, CHANGE is constant. Second, CHANGE is CYCLIC. And that reminds me of the Hegelian Dialectic: Thesis, Antithisis, Synthesis. The Synthesis, then, becomes the new Thesis. And on and on PROCESS goes. Cyclically.
    Ancient Philosophy of India states, similarly but different, there is a condition. It is perpetuated. Then it is destroyed. And that is metamorphosed into a new X that is posited, perpetuated, and then destroyed. Round and round we go! Cyclically. Consequently, likely, our Age of dumbing down, Dumb and Dumber, will also go out of fashion down the road or up the way, and humans will LOVE LEARNING and AUTHENTICITY once again. See? Philosophy is Phun to play with!

  11. Barbara says:

    This article is absolutely right! It is so sad that what we are witnessing right now is the end of our once great county.

  12. TNRay says:

    What a great article ! I have witnessed the brainwashing of the American university firsthand, and, sadly paid the bill. So sad, indeed.