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Can you answer the following questions?Who fought in the Peloponnesian War?Who taught Plato, and whom did Plato teach?Who was Saul of Tarsus?Why does the Magna Carta matter?What are one or two of the arguments made in Federalist 10?Hard questions, right? Maybe not. Maybe you learned some or all of the answers in school, or you knew them at one time, but have now forgotten the details. Or perhaps you are devoted to a few events that you have internalized and helped form you into the person you are today.But knowing the answers in great detail may be less important than recognizing the importance of the questions. Today's students don't know what liberty costs. They can't identify between good and right. They have no sense of what "exceptionalism" means. They don't know how history got us to where we are today, and why its bloody path was worth it.Unfortunately, Stanford University students may never realize how significant and meaningful these questions are because the student government earlier this week voted overwhelmingly against requiring students to complete a two-quarter course on Western civilization.That's right. Instead, the student leadership, validated by its Pravda-esque mouthpiece, The Stanford Daily, concluded that supporting Western civilization basically equated to "upholding white supremacy, capitalism and colonialism, and all other oppressive systems that flow from Western civilizations."Apparently no one taught this up-and-coming generation that Western civilization is full of the theoretical underpinnings for things like democracy, equality, freedom, liberty, is the source of many of those sticky philosophical foundations for arguments in support of ending human oppression and slavery, and developed the economic principles responsible for pulling billions out of poverty.For students who are interested in upholding those old-school priniciples, perhaps they should attend the University of Notre Dame, or at least the classes taught there by Professor of Political Theory Patrick J. Deneen.In a recent essay, Deneen laid out the questions above — and others — and issued a clarion call that will no doubt land with a compelling thud on the heads of today's Stanford students as well as the educational leadership that failed to teach the answers to these questions, much less acknowledge their importance.His article, Res Idiotica, is worth reading both for its inspiration and lamentation. In it, he notes that most of today's youth are just what generations of parents taught their children to be: polite, respectful, well-behaved, and tolerant.Just one problem with them: They don't know what liberty costs. They can't identify between good and right. They have no sense of what "exceptionalism" means. They don't know how history got us to where we are today, and why its bloody path was worth it.........."Our students' ignorance is not a failing of the educational system – it is its crowning achievement. Efforts by several generations of philosophers and reformers and public policy experts whom our students (and most of us) know nothing about have combined to produce a generation of know-nothings....http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/04/16/our-ignorant-kids-don-t-how-history-got-us-to-where-are-today-here-s-remedy.html?cmpid=NL_morninghl
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Topic: Our ignorant kids don’t know how history got us to where we are today. Here’s a remedy (Read 513 times)
