- Thread starter
- #21
Academia’s “New Civics” vs. Traditional American Civics
Political ideology replaces civics education.
January 27, 2017
Jack Kerwick
The election of Donald J. Trump to the office of the Presidency of the United States came as a body blow to leftists. Actually, such was their arrogance—their certitude that their candidate couldn’t lose—that President Trump’s victory hit them more like a sucker punch.
Students and their professors at colleges and universities from around the country participated in “cry-ins,” entered “safe spaces,” cancelled classes and examinations, and organized demonstrations.
While the rest of the country looked incredulously upon this spectacle of presumably educated adults protesting the legitimate election of America’s 45th President, those of us who know a thing or two about the contemporary academic world were not in the least surprised by it.
And those academics who belong to the National Association of Scholars (NAS) know more than most.
The NAS recently released a report on the latest wave of anti-intellectualism to sweep the world of “higher education.” In “Making Citizens: How American Universities Teach Civics,” the NAS explains what it refers to as “the New Civics.” The latter “redefines civics as progressive political activism.”
While the New Civics styles itself “as an up-to-date version of volunteerism and good works,” the reality is that it stems from “the radical program of the 1960’s New Left [.]” Its “soft rhetoric” is designed to conceal its architects’ ultimate goals. First, they want to “repurpose higher education.” Secondly, adherents of the New Left want nothing more than to make students into joint enterprisers in “‘fundamentally transforming’ America.”
This dream of fundamental transformation that the left wants for students to make into a reality is fairly comprehensive. For starters, it involves “de-carbonizing the economy [.]” Yet it also involves “massively redistributing wealth, intensifying identity group grievance, curtailing the free market, expanding government bureaucracy, elevating international ‘norms’ over American Constitutional law, and disparaging our common history and ideals.”
Although leftist academics disagree amongst themselves as to how to prioritize the items on this agenda, they are of one mind that “America must be transformed by ‘systemic change’ from an unjust, oppressive society to a society that embodies social justice.”
The NAS report discloses how the New Civics plans to achieve its goals. It “hopes to accomplish” all of “this by teaching students that a good citizen is a radical activist….”
The New Civics “puts political activism at the center of everything that students do in college, including academic study, extra-curricular pursuits, and off-campus ventures.”
A current feature of college life is what is called “service-learning.” The NAS report finds that this all too often proves to be an “effort to divert students from the classroom to vocational training as community activists.”
One major problem with “service-learning” is that it has “succeeded in capturing nearly all the funding that formerly supported the old civics.” What “this means [is] that instead of teaching college students the foundations of law, liberty, and self-government, colleges teach students how to organize protests, occupy buildings, and stage demonstrations.”
...
This report on the “New Civics,” or “anti-civics,” is just its latest clarion call.
Academia’s “New Civics” vs. Traditional American Civics
Political ideology replaces civics education.
January 27, 2017
Jack Kerwick
The election of Donald J. Trump to the office of the Presidency of the United States came as a body blow to leftists. Actually, such was their arrogance—their certitude that their candidate couldn’t lose—that President Trump’s victory hit them more like a sucker punch.
Students and their professors at colleges and universities from around the country participated in “cry-ins,” entered “safe spaces,” cancelled classes and examinations, and organized demonstrations.
While the rest of the country looked incredulously upon this spectacle of presumably educated adults protesting the legitimate election of America’s 45th President, those of us who know a thing or two about the contemporary academic world were not in the least surprised by it.
And those academics who belong to the National Association of Scholars (NAS) know more than most.
The NAS recently released a report on the latest wave of anti-intellectualism to sweep the world of “higher education.” In “Making Citizens: How American Universities Teach Civics,” the NAS explains what it refers to as “the New Civics.” The latter “redefines civics as progressive political activism.”
While the New Civics styles itself “as an up-to-date version of volunteerism and good works,” the reality is that it stems from “the radical program of the 1960’s New Left [.]” Its “soft rhetoric” is designed to conceal its architects’ ultimate goals. First, they want to “repurpose higher education.” Secondly, adherents of the New Left want nothing more than to make students into joint enterprisers in “‘fundamentally transforming’ America.”
This dream of fundamental transformation that the left wants for students to make into a reality is fairly comprehensive. For starters, it involves “de-carbonizing the economy [.]” Yet it also involves “massively redistributing wealth, intensifying identity group grievance, curtailing the free market, expanding government bureaucracy, elevating international ‘norms’ over American Constitutional law, and disparaging our common history and ideals.”
Although leftist academics disagree amongst themselves as to how to prioritize the items on this agenda, they are of one mind that “America must be transformed by ‘systemic change’ from an unjust, oppressive society to a society that embodies social justice.”
The NAS report discloses how the New Civics plans to achieve its goals. It “hopes to accomplish” all of “this by teaching students that a good citizen is a radical activist….”
The New Civics “puts political activism at the center of everything that students do in college, including academic study, extra-curricular pursuits, and off-campus ventures.”
A current feature of college life is what is called “service-learning.” The NAS report finds that this all too often proves to be an “effort to divert students from the classroom to vocational training as community activists.”
One major problem with “service-learning” is that it has “succeeded in capturing nearly all the funding that formerly supported the old civics.” What “this means [is] that instead of teaching college students the foundations of law, liberty, and self-government, colleges teach students how to organize protests, occupy buildings, and stage demonstrations.”
...
This report on the “New Civics,” or “anti-civics,” is just its latest clarion call.
Academia’s “New Civics” vs. Traditional American Civics
