The American University Is Rotting from Within
The modern academy is a threat to reason, liberty and Western civilisation.
The Western world has many enemies – China, Russia, Iran, North Korea – but none is more potentially lethal than its own education system. From the very institutions once renowned for spreading literacy, the Enlightenment and the means of mastering nature, we now see a deep-seated denial of our common past, pervasive illiteracy and enforced orthodoxy.
The decay of higher education threatens both the civic health and long-term economic prospects of Western liberal civilisation. Once a font of dispassionate research and reasoned discussion, the academy in recent years has more resembled that of the medieval University of Paris, where witch trials were once conducted, except there is now less exposure to the canon.
American universities face an unprecedented challenge with the return of Donald Trump. His administration seems likely to attack such things as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, while pushing to defund programmes favourable to terrorists, expel unruly students and deport those who are in the US illegally. Loss of federal support to universities, the educrats fear, could cause major financial setbacks, even among the Ivies. Like medieval clerics, the rapidly growing ranks of university administrators, deans and tenured faculty have grown used to living in what one writer describes as a ‘modern form of manorialism’, where luxury and leisure come as of right.
Politics
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Liberal Democracy Reexamined: Leo Strauss on Alexis de Tocqueville
This article explores Leo Strauss’s thoughts on Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1954 “Natural Right” course transcript.
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Long Distance Migration as a Two-Step Sorting Process: The Resettlement of Californians in Texas
Here we press the question of whether the well-documented stream of migrants relocating from California to Texas has been sufficient to alter the political complexion of the destination state.
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Who's That Knocking? A Study of the Strategic Choices Facing Large-Scale Grassroots Canvassing Efforts
Although there is a consensus that personalized forms of campaign outreach are more likely to be effective at either mobilizing or even persuading voters, there remains uncertainty about how campaigns should implement get-out-the-vote (GOTV) programs, especially at a truly expansive scale.
Mahmoud Khalil Invites America to Judgment
A free and good society cannot be ‘open’ to everything, no matter how ugly or pernicious.
Are the Democrats Drifting Further Left?
Now is a good time to examine what the Democratic party believes in, who its main protagonists are, and what their agenda is.
Repudiating Genesis
Instead of “The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism,” a more apt, if less catchy, subtitle would have been “The Uses of Communist Rhetoric in Power Politics.”
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Pierre Manent Investigates Europe's Democracy Crisis
Manent saw a hegemonic understanding of “Democracy” in Europe that bid fair to rule over and rework every element of social, national, and European life.
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