The famously ugly ex-sculptor who haunted the Athenian agora asking uncomfortable questions of so-called ‘experts’ some two millennia ago is supposed to have noted that the wisest among us are those who have a sense of how much they don’t know.
I recall one of those marvelous late-night college dorm discussions in which I participated upon my return to college just after I’d gotten out of the army in 1971. As expected, it ran quite a gamut. At one point it touched somewhat briefly on education. A guy who’d been quiet up until then spoke up. He said he thought that a good education should allow its recipients to ask serious questions in a number of essential areas, and then at least be able to have a good idea if the answers he/she was getting back were BS or not.
These two thoughts have guided my own thinking for that last 60 or so years of an 80 year old life, mostly spent teaching American history. I have no idea if I would be thought of as a liberal or a conservative, but I do know that I want to be thought of as an American; that is a citizen of the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex ongoing experiment in human society and government ever attempted, and to be worthy of that citizenship.
I have several degrees, and a focus on political theory during my PhD studies. I have never attended a university that didn’t include viewpoints from conservative intellectuals. This assertion that conservative viewpoints are not included in university curricula is just bogus. Yes, university professors are more liberal than the general public. It’s almost like advancing knowledge means you are willing to embrace change, which is—-gasp!— a liberal perspective.
LGB United can be sketchy sometimes, but read The Scrupulosity of the Woke on this very platform. A young gay man escaping a fundamentalist cult found a cult AS BAD at Columbia. Postmodernist sophistry and full throated victimhood olympics and destruction of society dominated that august temple of new Thought
Young conservatives would really benefit from this. They are like children who know they believe in something but it’s not rooted in good values. They believe the man child is some kind of moral and ethical leader because there is no one else to follow but him and his political henchmen.
The US does not have a conservative tradition. It has a liberal tradition of different colorations for the obvious reason that the country never experienced feudalism. If you want to teach conservative thought then teach conservative thought. But this is not going to be an American tradition. You need De Maistre, De Tocqueville, Burke, Schmitt, Gentile, Maurras and so on. And by the way, these thinkers are already widely taught.
I think that Bill O'Reilly had it right when he said something to the effect that "conservatism" or "progressivism" are confining ideologies that circumscribe our thought. I find conservatives these days more guilty of that narrow-mindedness, but the progressives out there aren't much better.
What happens if someone rejects the very idea of "human rights?" Muslims do. By definition they cannot believe in "rights", or they will insult the prophet and Allah. This is why the Americans failed in their attempts to "modernize" Afghanistan – like trying to teach Dada (emptiness and irony) to the elites. LOL. It creates cultural/spiritual contradictions that eventually lead to revolt, or madness. Probably the same thing is arising in white men at a more primordial level.
Conservatives are generally libertarians supporting individual rights, freedoms and liberties within a traditional base moral framework. Liberals want to change the moral framework and control and constrain individual rights, freedoms and liberties, and shove their values and ideas down the throats of everyone else. Teaching only the liberal views is that attempt to shove it down everyone else's throats.
A good faith reply would be to write "I see your point, but here is where I differ in opinion." I recognize that is difficult with Trump living rent free in liberal heads.
Given how crazy “critical theory” progressives are at places like Columbia…this is something a “no longer sure how lefty I am” liberal can embrace. kudos
I'm sorry, but with the US's conservative party leader (Trump) calling Somalis in Minnesota "garbage" or a journalist "Piggy." ...etc..., conservatives don't have a decent leg to stand on. There's a fly in the soup, and it has to be removed before a proper argument can resume.
Is Trumps movement really “conservatism”. To claim thus would be like equating European social democrats to Maoism. It’s reactionary…destructive…not really “conserving” anything.
Over the years I've tried to understand conservative thought without mixing it up with right wing Republicans, Libertarians, and other assorted types whose statements I find repugnant. I was astounded to read recently in Clinton Rossiter's Conservatism in America, Rossiter being one of the pillars of American conservatism along with Russell Kirk and other pre-Buckleys, a flat out warning to conservatives: get right with Black rights, although "one is bound to look with foreboding on the course of the ordeal." He calls it doing the right thing in terms of history, morality, justice, and national pride! And look what we've come to: Stuart Stevens saying he and other GOP stalwarts though the racists were the fringe and they have turned out to be the heart of the party.
Rossiter puts "the tyranny of campus collectivism" (writing in 1962!) in quotes along with Goldwater, Thrurmond, McCarthy, Gen. Edwin Walker (remember his?) indicating some disdain for such people and concepts.
So if we are to teach "conservatism", which I am obviously all in for, we really need to decide who and what to bring in under that umbrella, as the article makes clear. Do we include Charles Murray whose Bell Curve is straight out racist - I think we have to. What do you all think? And what other flash points might some of you comment on e.g. unions, taxation, libertarianism as it stands today, sexual/gender identities, a Christian basis of/for the nation, and so on?
The famously ugly ex-sculptor who haunted the Athenian agora asking uncomfortable questions of so-called ‘experts’ some two millennia ago is supposed to have noted that the wisest among us are those who have a sense of how much they don’t know.
I recall one of those marvelous late-night college dorm discussions in which I participated upon my return to college just after I’d gotten out of the army in 1971. As expected, it ran quite a gamut. At one point it touched somewhat briefly on education. A guy who’d been quiet up until then spoke up. He said he thought that a good education should allow its recipients to ask serious questions in a number of essential areas, and then at least be able to have a good idea if the answers he/she was getting back were BS or not.
These two thoughts have guided my own thinking for that last 60 or so years of an 80 year old life, mostly spent teaching American history. I have no idea if I would be thought of as a liberal or a conservative, but I do know that I want to be thought of as an American; that is a citizen of the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex ongoing experiment in human society and government ever attempted, and to be worthy of that citizenship.
I have several degrees, and a focus on political theory during my PhD studies. I have never attended a university that didn’t include viewpoints from conservative intellectuals. This assertion that conservative viewpoints are not included in university curricula is just bogus. Yes, university professors are more liberal than the general public. It’s almost like advancing knowledge means you are willing to embrace change, which is—-gasp!— a liberal perspective.
LGB United can be sketchy sometimes, but read The Scrupulosity of the Woke on this very platform. A young gay man escaping a fundamentalist cult found a cult AS BAD at Columbia. Postmodernist sophistry and full throated victimhood olympics and destruction of society dominated that august temple of new Thought
Young conservatives would really benefit from this. They are like children who know they believe in something but it’s not rooted in good values. They believe the man child is some kind of moral and ethical leader because there is no one else to follow but him and his political henchmen.
The US does not have a conservative tradition. It has a liberal tradition of different colorations for the obvious reason that the country never experienced feudalism. If you want to teach conservative thought then teach conservative thought. But this is not going to be an American tradition. You need De Maistre, De Tocqueville, Burke, Schmitt, Gentile, Maurras and so on. And by the way, these thinkers are already widely taught.
Thanks for your comment. My question is, what happens when people in the west stop believing in something called human rights?
I think that Bill O'Reilly had it right when he said something to the effect that "conservatism" or "progressivism" are confining ideologies that circumscribe our thought. I find conservatives these days more guilty of that narrow-mindedness, but the progressives out there aren't much better.
What happens if someone rejects the very idea of "human rights?" Muslims do. By definition they cannot believe in "rights", or they will insult the prophet and Allah. This is why the Americans failed in their attempts to "modernize" Afghanistan – like trying to teach Dada (emptiness and irony) to the elites. LOL. It creates cultural/spiritual contradictions that eventually lead to revolt, or madness. Probably the same thing is arising in white men at a more primordial level.
Conservatives are generally libertarians supporting individual rights, freedoms and liberties within a traditional base moral framework. Liberals want to change the moral framework and control and constrain individual rights, freedoms and liberties, and shove their values and ideas down the throats of everyone else. Teaching only the liberal views is that attempt to shove it down everyone else's throats.
Congratulations, Mr. Lee,
You find a way to troll the libs regardless of the Persuasion topic and never in a way that invites good faith replies.
A good faith reply would be to write "I see your point, but here is where I differ in opinion." I recognize that is difficult with Trump living rent free in liberal heads.
Given how crazy “critical theory” progressives are at places like Columbia…this is something a “no longer sure how lefty I am” liberal can embrace. kudos
I'm sorry, but with the US's conservative party leader (Trump) calling Somalis in Minnesota "garbage" or a journalist "Piggy." ...etc..., conservatives don't have a decent leg to stand on. There's a fly in the soup, and it has to be removed before a proper argument can resume.
Is Trumps movement really “conservatism”. To claim thus would be like equating European social democrats to Maoism. It’s reactionary…destructive…not really “conserving” anything.
Over the years I've tried to understand conservative thought without mixing it up with right wing Republicans, Libertarians, and other assorted types whose statements I find repugnant. I was astounded to read recently in Clinton Rossiter's Conservatism in America, Rossiter being one of the pillars of American conservatism along with Russell Kirk and other pre-Buckleys, a flat out warning to conservatives: get right with Black rights, although "one is bound to look with foreboding on the course of the ordeal." He calls it doing the right thing in terms of history, morality, justice, and national pride! And look what we've come to: Stuart Stevens saying he and other GOP stalwarts though the racists were the fringe and they have turned out to be the heart of the party.
Rossiter puts "the tyranny of campus collectivism" (writing in 1962!) in quotes along with Goldwater, Thrurmond, McCarthy, Gen. Edwin Walker (remember his?) indicating some disdain for such people and concepts.
So if we are to teach "conservatism", which I am obviously all in for, we really need to decide who and what to bring in under that umbrella, as the article makes clear. Do we include Charles Murray whose Bell Curve is straight out racist - I think we have to. What do you all think? And what other flash points might some of you comment on e.g. unions, taxation, libertarianism as it stands today, sexual/gender identities, a Christian basis of/for the nation, and so on?
Buckley looks like he has a tiny Hitler stache in that photo