Defining
Dumbness Down
By Daniel H. Fernald
AmricanThinker.com
Having no substance of its own, the left is inherently parasitic;
like a cancer cell or virus, it survives by posing as a healthy member
of the same host it then attacks and ultimately destroys. This pattern
of "mimic-attack-conquer" has given us liberty-hating "liberals,"
leftist mainline churches that publicly embrace what their own teachings
explicitly prohibit, and educators whose goal is to ensure that
all children get left behind.
This last item is exemplified by the
distressing transformation of the backbone of the Western Canon, the
liberal arts, into something decidedly "illiberal." Under the direction
of leftist educators, the very institutions, charged with the liberation
of young minds from the chains of ignorance and groupthink, have become
increasingly effective indoctrination centers and breeding grounds for
rigid, unreflective political orthodoxy.
This transformation has been long in coming.
A look at where the liberal arts began puts in clearer relief the full
extent to which our educational system has been hijacked in the service
of the left's political agenda.
The seven liberal arts
have deep roots in the ancient world, and are divided into two groups.
The artes triviales, or Trivium, consist of
grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic. They correspond roughly to what today
are called "the humanities." These early studies focused on the proper
use and mastery of language and verbal reasoning. Today's grammar
schools are the direct pedagogical descendents -- through numerous
intermediaries -- of the private academies in fourth century B.C.
Athens.
Having mastered the
elementary lessons of the Trivium, the pupil was prepared for the study
of the more advanced Quadrivium, or artes
quadriviales, of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music.
Taken together, the
Trivium and Quadrivium constitute what came to be called
artes liberales, the liberal arts. These were
considered the proper pursuit for free minds pursuing knowledge and
wisdom, and were contrasted with the illiberal arts,
artes illiberales, which aimed only at mastery of a particular
subject or skill set.
The spirit of the
artes liberales is manifest in Pythagoras' (c.
570 - c. 490 B.C.)
classification of
the attendees at the Olympic games: the vendors, athletes, and
spectators.
The vendors attended
the Games for material gain, and were consequently the lowest group.
Just above the vendors were the athletes, who exemplified excellence and
virtue (arête) in sport, but did so for the
merely instrumental purpose of achieving victory. Their real goal was
honor, not excellence.
The third and highest group was the
spectators. The spectators observed and studied the excellence and
virtue on display before them, but they had no stake in the results.
Their study of virtue for its own sake made them superior to the
athletes.
This same elevation of wisdom over honor and
utility is at the heart of the liberal arts. The knowledge and skills
gained in the course of a genuine liberal education are among the least
of its blessings. The liberally educated person's most cherished
possession is the love of learning itself, for its own sake. No person
who regards learning as merely instrumental is liberally educated, no
matter how encyclopedic his knowledge. Wisdom is not a means; it is the
ultimate end.
Tragically, for most of even the best,
brightest, and most privileged of today's youth, the liberal arts are no
longer an option, as they have been redefined virtually out of
existence. The professionalized, leftist professoriate places politics
above all.
I will never forget the open sneer from a
former colleague -- an intelligent and multi-talented feminist history
professor -- that greeted my advocacy of "free and unfettered
discourse." The very idea struck her as absurd, and she acted as though
I was running some kind of intellectual con. She averred that "free and
unfettered discourse" was code for permitting the expression of bigoted,
racist, and otherwise "illegitimate" points of view. For such
closed-minded, anti-intellectual academics, the liberal arts' commitment
to free inquiry is itself a serious threat, and is treated accordingly.
Like a virus, the academic left has
"reprogrammed" the host to do its bidding by replacing the content, and
even the method, of the liberal arts without changing the name.
In other words, the liberal arts and the
Western Canon itself have been zombified.
The corruption of the Quadrivium is clearly to
be seen in the ClimateGate scandal and other examples of
pseudo-scientific quackery, but the real damage has been to the Trivium.
Like so many other cherished traditions and institutions, the "trivial"
arts of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic (which includes logic and
critical thinking) have been co-opted and subordinated to an explicitly
political agenda.
Grammar, even broadly conceived, has yielded
to multiculti gibberish in the freshman English classroom. Rhetoric, if
taught at all, consists principally of learning to denounce politically
incorrect opinions, not to evaluate, refute, or engage constructively
with them. The only "dialectic" a college student is likely to
encounter is the dialectical materialism of Marx and his Merrily
Murderous Marauders, in the guise of the latest academic fad.
How and why has this happened?
The "how" is easy. As with its successful
conquest of mainline Protestantism, the left has taken over the
educational establishment via the long march through the institutions.
Admitted Pentagon bomber and alleged Obama ghostwriter Bill Ayers is
well regarded by many in academe, as is radical leftist Professor Angela
Davis, among many others.
These are not
marginalized, fringe characters. They represent the academic
mainstream. They run the joint. The barbarians are not merely inside
the gates; they control them, and like
Plato's philosopher-dogs
they are quite good at distinguishing friend from foe. Does one really
expect such people to give a hoot and a holler about some racist,
sexist, bigoted system of education founded by dead white guys over
2,000 years ago?
The "why" is only
slightly harder to grasp. As rooted in the classical Greek conception
of excellence and virtue (arête), the Trivium
and Quadrivium continually incline the diligent student's gaze both
inward and upward. Self-reflection and correction lead to the
development of a character that loves the True, the Good, and the
Beautiful. Such a character is strong enough to repel attacks and
sufficiently principled to give assent only to such propositions as can
withstand logical and critical scrutiny.
In addition, study of the seven liberal arts
tends to persuade the open-minded and inquisitive that there is
something beyond the here and the now. A belief in a transcendent order
that predates us and has some manner of authority over us is anathema to
today's radical, arrogant, solipsistic, illiberal, and anti-intellectual
left. They do not inquire, because they see no need to do so. After
all, why study what you already "know"?
Leftist pseudo-educators care greatly about
ensuring that the peasants have the correct opinions, but not a whit
about the integrity of the process by which such opinions may be
intelligently formulated -- and challenged.
In contrast, the liberal arts create
independent-minded, freethinking citizens who follow no light except
that of Truth itself. By defining dumbness down, leftist intellectual
patricians churn out generation after generation of malleable plebeians
who are under-informed, intellectually incurious, and easily led. A
critical, intelligent, well-informed citizenry is political kryptonite
to the left's ongoing transformational agenda.