Two essays really struck me over the past week. One was by Daniel Schwammenthal, director of the AJC Transatlantic Institute, writing from Brussels as “a worried European friend”. His concern is that America’s future leaders in our universities have been spoon-fed two theories born of Marxism, postmodernism and critical theory, which in combination divide society into hierarchies of oppressor and oppressed, a division that threatens America’s role as “the indispensable nation” in world affairs. To be the leader of the free world requires military and economic power but also “a sense of mission”. And right now, he says, “Americans are committing mass character suicide. If the country goes beyond acknowledging that racism and inequality persist and must be fought, and instead convinces itself that it’s inherently and irredeemably racist, it can’t possibly continue to believe that it has any right to lead.”
The other essay is from Andrew Michta, Dean of the College of International and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, who writes from Germany to say that what he believes is taking place is the resegregation of America, the endpoint of which will be the rejection of everything the civil rights movement stood for. And he goes further: “Democracy cannot survive in a society in which winners and losers are adjudicated arbitrarily according to criteria beyond individual control. Any society built around the principle of skin color will become a caste system in which accident, not merit, will allocate value benefit. Civil society will be buried once and for all.” And later, “America is faced with a stark binary choice–either we push back against the unrelenting assault of the neo-Marxist narrative, or we yield to the totalitarian impulse now in view in our politics”.
Who among our intellectual leaders are heeding and properly responding to these concerns? It’s a short list.
Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, would be placed near the top of that short list. Anthony Esolen is another in acedemia who must be included. Yes, the list is short but it ought be spread widely among those who have not been taught better in order to spark their thinking toward something far better than the message of the BLM, Antifa or By Any Means Necessary armies whose intimidations have stuttered serious discourse.
And we should also buy our grandkids a subscription to Prager U.
Right on, Right on!
I think Andrew Michta is correct. However, this is re-segregation did not just start, rather has been building for some years on maybe well intended, but ill advised policies regarding education, social welfare and employment.
You’re right, Danny, it’s been building since the Great Society legislation, particularly affirmative action, a major failure.
Segregation is (unfortunately?) a normal human response. We do not like being with those who are not like ourselves. This is as true of blacks as it is whites or browns. the lamb does not lie down with the lion!
As a young Duke faculty member who went to the Duke dining hall on many occasions, I was always struck by how the then-few blacks sat together at two tables out of the maybe 50 total tables. They declined to integrate.
It has always been thus, and not just for exclusionary reasons. See the Chinatowns, the Little Italys. Look at race by ZIP code. There are wealthy black Atlanta suburbs where residents want to keep it all-black, seeking to exclude whites. And I would not seek to live in an otherwise black neighborhood either.
None of this is to say that I am in any way uncomfortable being with blacks who are by education and station in life my peers, my equals.
Equal civil rights is a no-brainer, absolutely necessary. But forced integration by busing schoolkids to and fro, destroying neighborhood schools, has been proven deleterious to all. Affirmative Action, being pro-black, is necessarily anti-white. Why should Asian-Americans have to sue Harvard for anti-Asian (pro-black) admissions standards? A seriously lower GPA will get a black admitted to medical school now compared to whites or Asians. What do you want when you’re seriously ill? The “correct” race or an MD of high ability and merit, who will most often be white?
Forced homogenization simply does not work.
Good comments, Dr. Tom. It is human nature to be tribal, but tribalism is not racism. Affirmative action is racist and defeats the purpose of the civil rights movement of the 60s, which destroyed the right to freedom of association among other (unintended?) consequences.
I am a Cold War Veteran and I call upon veterans of all eras to stand against this attack on America from within. See https://coldwarveteran.us/
Jim,
I am not convinced there is a useful difference between tribalism and racism in the USA here and now. Perhaps you could expand and expound?
It is human nature to gather by tribe and to have a special affinity and loyalty to fellow tribe members. But insofar that this does not extend to violations of human rights and denial of equality under the law of members of other tribes, to me it doesn’t qualify as racist. But you’re right on the “useful difference” point–in current political usage, particularly on the left, tribalism is considered a form of racism, and for them there is no useful difference.