The June issue of the New Republic is dedicated to “American Fascism,” the phrase on the cover written in red Fraktur on a foreboding black background beneath a portrait image that melds the faces of Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler. The editor of the series, Michael Tomasky, insists that it is not hysterical, that the contributors are “our leading intellectual historians of fascism.” I’ll take him at his word that he believes it. The series exemplifies the smug sanctimony of modern progressivism, which is so focused on the slivers in the eyes of conservatives that it cannot recognize the beams in its own eyes.
That sanctimony is on full display in the article by Jason Stanley, a professor of philosophy at Yale University. Tomasky describes him as “one of our most incisive cultural critics.” Stanley’s article “Education: The End of Civic Compassion” is thick with the ironic double standards that always accompany sanctimony, beginning with his title.
According to Stanley, “education in a liberal democracy introduces students to the diverse perspectives through a nation’s history, in order for people to foster a kind of empathy and understanding for one another; what my father in his work called civic compassion.” Democracy, he sententiously writes, “is a system where we let ourselves be affected by our fellow citizens’ perspectives.”
A worthy goal. One wishes Stanley had followed it. Apparently civic compassion extends to everyone except conservatives, whom Stanley accuses of “trying to frighten parents about supposed ‘Marxist indoctrination’ in schools and universities (a common tactic in today’s fascist international).” What about progressives trying to frighten parents about supposed fascist indoctrination?
In fact, Stanley’s article should have been named “Progressive Education: The End of Reason.” It reveals the depth of the rot in elite higher education. READ MORE HERE.
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MORE PERILS OF RAISING SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS HERE
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Fantastic article.
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