Anthony Esolen, a professor
at Thomas More College of the Liberal Arts in Merrimack, New Hampshire and
recently of Providence College, Rhode Island, has written a stinging critique
of modern education and American society in general titled Out Of The
Ashes: Rebuilding American Culturepublished by Regnery Publishers, 2017.
It's a short book - 203 pages
– but contains much wise social commentary and observations on everything wrong
with American education, if there's any such thing. Esolen is not one to beat
around the bush. If you don't agree with him it isn't because he is opaque. For
instance, chapter one is titled, Giving Things Their Proper Names: The
Restoration Of Truth Telling. It is divided into several sections with
their own headings, one of which is Are We a World of Liars?
“In a word, yes.
It is almost impossible in
the modern world not to accept lies as a matter of course. We
are told that a woman can make as good a soldier as a man. Except for the rare
amazon, that is a lie”
In the same vein a few pages
later: “Here is a quick and generally reliable rule to follow. If people have
always said it, it is probably true; it is the distilled wisdom of the ages. If
people have not always said it, but everybody is saying it now, it is probably
a lie; it is the concentrated madness of the moment.”
Most of what he says in the
book is glaringly obvious, but it is so seldom spoken or written that it
becomes heroic when written or spoken audibly. When referring to teachers who
have acquiesced to imparting depravity, he writes:
“It will not do merely to
restrain them in this or that regard. They are not fit to teach your children
the multiplication table. They are not fit to be near them at all. Every moment
that your children are in their presence, they will be breathing the putrescent
air from the diseased heart and spirit of the instructors, in an institution
whose walls stink of it, it has lingered there so long.”
Just a few years ago, in the
memory of almost everybody, a statement like, “First let us establish that
there are such things as the sexes.” would have met with everybody's assent.
Most people reading it would be wondering why such a thing would need to be
established at all. Now such a proposition is not just questionable, it might
even be “controversial” or hate speech or some kind of micro aggression.
Esolen is such a hater (maybe
even a Neanderthal) that he writes:
“We are taught from the time
we enter the indoctrination centers that the only differences between
men and women are trivial matters of plumbing. It is not true.
When the European
missionaries came to the new world to evangelize the natives, they did not find
creatures of a different species. They found human beings, male and female.
They did not find any tribes in which the women met in council, hunted the
large animals, smoked the peace pipe, trained up their daughters in savage
displays of physical courage and endurance (the “sun dance” of the Plains
Indians, for example) and established elaborate hierarchies of honor. They did
not find any tribes in which the men took care of small children, gathered
roots and berries, made themselves up with pretty decorations to delight their
women … and made “nests,” as it were, as clean and neat as possible, for the
sake of the little ones, and because that is the way they liked things best.
They found men and women.
That is what you will find wherever you go in the world.”
I can't disagree with any of
his assessments about the shipwreck of the schools or his suggested remedies.
The one thing I think is absolutely essential that isn't mentioned and is never
mentioned by anybody in the reformist camp is the necessity of prohibiting
government involvement of any kind in schooling or anything else having to do
with forming thoughts, opinions or beliefs. No matter who is in charge, be it
Aristotle, Pythagoras, Isaac Newton or Erasmus, they won't always be in charge,
and the forces of coercion will always seek control. All compulsion should be
eliminated. Certainly there will be parents that don't send their children to
school or teach them themselves, but there always have been and always will be
unfit parents. Compulsory schooling has always been about teaching children the
“right” things, not about education.
This is a book that will be appreciated by anybody
interested in the social, cultural, educational and intellectual collapse of
society and its possible remedy.
