How Western Civilization Was Erased

August 15, 2022 | Categories: Articles & Columns | Tags:

How Western Civilization Was Erased

Paul Craig Roberts

When I was a student, school principles and university administrations were very supportive of teachers.  It was understood that once teachers could be accused by students, learning discipline would break down, and  control would be lost over grading, standards, and course content.  

This is what has happened. A teacher’s life has changed from imparting information and challenging ideas  to students into dodging accusations from leftists, feminists, blacks, homosexuals, and transgendered.  Today even use of a gender pronoun can be cause for termination.

The slippery slope began with the sexual revolution. Female students began seducing professors for

better grades.  Feminists turned this into sexual harassment by teachers and soon the presence of novels such as  Flaubert’s Madame Bovary on reading lists became sexual harassment.  Next blacks found that they could be offended by almost everything and “I am offended” became a way to control the teacher and the course content.  Facts had to be made to fit with black suppositions.  Homosexuals found that they could find evidence of homophobia in some assignments.  Today gender pronouns are taboo and males have to be permitted to use female facilities and to compete in female sports.  This process has gone so far that mathematics departments in universities are faced with the charge that mathematics is racist and a tool of white oppression.  Areas of science, such as the genetic basis of intelligence, have been closed down. Histories  of the Age of Exploration, of the US “Civil War,” and slavery have been rewritten to fit the desired narratives. Schools and universities teach white students that they are racists.  It has become impossible to acquire a university degree and emerge with a positive attitude toward Western civilization. Indeed, students cannot emerge with a positive attitude toward white people or the founders of the United States. Even the historic homes of the founders are used to denigrate them.  See for example: https://www.unz.com/jtaylor/dragging-the-founders-through-the-mud/ 

Universities have become dysfunctional. The majority of the budget is eaten up by administrators. There is the president whose job is fundraising, vice presidents, provosts, assistant provosts, deans, associate deans, assistant deans, and compliance officers who monitor course content, offenses, grievances, sexual abuse, racism, and counselors who attend to the feelings of those trained to be highly sensitive.  A few years ago a university was a bordello experience. Today it is Kafkaesque.

Universities no longer fulfill the role of passing on the culture and values of a country and a civilization.  The positive affirmations that maintained the bonds that held a country together have been destroyed by inimical influences that have taken over education.  Today education is a form of brainwashing and amounts to indoctrination against one’s history and culture.  It is now possible to graduate with a degree in English literature and never have read Shakespeare.  John Donne is an unknown figure.  One consequence is that recent graduates cannot read the classic literature, because they are unfamiliar with the values, metaphors, and morality of prior times.

One consequence is that the character of people has changed. I have a friend who loves to travel and finds that testing athletes for drug use is a gateway to endless excursions.  Once big money entered sports, it brought performance enhancements with it.  He explained to me that there might only be a couple hundreds of a second difference between a gold and silver medal in the hundred meter dash, but the financial difference was in the millions. A gold medalist gets endorsement opportunities that build his fortune.  The monetary rewards overwhelm integrity as many use drugs to gain an advantage.  Thus, testing for all becomes mandatory.

In other words, all athletic contenders are suspected as cheaters and have to prove their innocence by passing a drug test.  In an earlier age, such as the time of the first Olympics following the First World War as portrayed in the film, Chariots of Fire, athletes would have considered such a requirement an insult, an impertinence, and would have walked away from the event. Today an impertinence is not recognized, and no one sees the insult.  Being insulted is just a condition for participating.  

The film portrays an actual event.  The British star runner, who keeps the Sabbath,  refuses to participate when he finds out that his qualifying heat is on a Sunday.  His rival, a Jew, outrages his Cambridge college’s warden by seeking the advantage by employing a coach.  In those days, using a coach to gain an advantage was seen as equivalent to using drugs today.

In the 20th century when the Olympics were still amateur competitions, the Soviet Union caused outrage by keeping its best athletes in full time training, thus professionalizing them, with the result that the Soviets carried off a large percentage of the medals.  Over time improvements in training and in shoes created momentary advantages.  

This leads to the question, why stop the progression of enhancements at performance drugs?  If all can use them, the playing field remains level.  

I am not an advocate of drugs.  What concerns me is that in an age of equality, natural advantage will be deemed unfair, and the best athletes will be penalized. They will have to wear weighted belts, or have a time or distance penalty added to their performance.  Perhaps something like this is already occurring in Formula One racing.  The advantage of a lighter car is not permitted, and engines are so alike that drama is produced by allowing the car behind, but not the leader, extra thrust in order to pass.  Small driver differences still exist, but race outcomes are often determined by tire strategy and the quickness of pit stops.  

Just as today teachers cannot teach without danger of career-ending accusations and athletes must accept implied insults in order to participate, telling the truth brings censure from those who control the narratives.  In such a world Western civilization has been erased.