Last week, the leftist culture of death claimed another prize victim. A modern-day Socrates, Charlie Kirk bearded the lion in its den by going onto college campuses to challenge the ideas of students, professors, and anyone else who happened to be there through respectful dialogue. And like Socrates, Charlie was so successful in changing the hearts and minds of young people that the left had to kill him to shut him up.
On cue, Democratic leaders offered tepid denunciations of the political violence they inspire before deflecting to President Trump, Jan. 6, and, of course, gutting the Second Amendment. The Democrats’ radical base, on the other hand, was far more honest; they gleefully praised the murder of one of Western civilization’s greatest defenders.
At the forefront of these demonic celebrations were members of the educational establishment. While both school districts and state governments are taking action against these ghouls, the damage has already been done. Teachers do not just impart knowledge; they also shape our children’s characters. A system that has granted such power to murder-loving ideologues cannot be redeemed; it must be destroyed and remade.
The True Purpose of Education
Up until the modern era, the purpose of education went beyond mere economics. The early Renaissance writer Petrus Paulus Vergerius explained the moral nature of the liberal arts:
We call those studies liberal which are worthy of a free man; those studies by which we attain and practice virtue and wisdom; that education which calls forth, trains and develops those highest gifts of body and of mind which ennoble men, and which are rightly judged to rank next in dignity to virtue only. For to a vulgar temper gain and pleasure are the one aim of existence, to a lofty nature, moral worth and fame.
With the advent of mass public education in the industrial era, this ancient focus on “moral worth and fame” was supplanted by more practical concerns. Workers in the local factories needed to be more concerned about doing their jobs in the most efficient way possible rather than grappling with the great ideas of Western civilization.
The pragmatism of John Dewey, the godfather of modern American education, made his approach to moral education vague at best. For him and his pedagogical heirs, character is not established on timeless principles inculcated from youth but must be subject to constant re-interpretation to fit ever-changing modern contexts. This paradigm shift enshrined the poison of moral relativism at the center of American schooling, where it festers to this day.
In the 20th century, families, religion, and social associations were still strong enough to keep the “vulgar tempers” produced by these schools in check. As the left has chipped away at these institutions over the decades, the educational establishment has seized more and more responsibility over shaping the character of its charges, to the point where it actively hides its efforts from parents and seeks to punish those who dare to complain.
Hellbound and Down 