The New Neo

You wouldn’t think it would be controversial to praise Western Civilization. Even among liberals.

After all, liberalism itself, and the principles of liberty, protection of the underdog, celebration of diversity, the scientific method, and a host of other things that liberals profess to celebrate, are products of Western Civilization. But when President Trump spoke in glowing terms about Western Civilization and the need to defend and preserve it, he was roundly criticized by liberals and the left as having dog-whistled to the white supremacist fringe of what has come to be known as the alt-right.

Of course, if Trump said the sky was blue he would be criticized for that, too. But his speech was not only a good one, it contained talk about Western Civilization that not so very long ago would have been considered completely mainstream and non-controversial.

What happened in the interim? Well, one thing that happened was President Obama, who was famous for not defending Western Civilization but for seeing its faults (and there are certainly many). But what has really happened is two things that are related. One of the strengths of modern Western Civilization is its propensity for soul-searching and ability to find fault with itself. But that has been taken to an extreme by another product of Western Civilization, a political left that celebrates the third world and considers the West the root of all evil, and thinks that to speak of its achievements is to be a terrible racist.

The second thing is that those ideas have become the catechism taught on college campuses. And it’s been taught for quite some time. Although I don’t know the exact date that the practice began, it was in full flower by the 80s, when Allan Bloom was writing The Closing of the American Mind.

Here’s a summary of Bloom’s observations of the way American education had gone by the end of the 80s:

As Bloom recognized, the fruits of egalitarianism are ignorance, the habit of intellectual conformity, and the systematic subjection of cultural achievement to political criteria. In the university, this means classes devoted to pop novels, rock videos, and third-rate works chosen simply because their authors are members of the requisite sex, ethnic group, or social minority. It means students who graduate not having read Milton or Dante or Shakespeare””or, what is in some ways even worse, who have been taught to regard the works of such authors chiefly as hunting grounds for examples of patriarchy, homophobia, imperialism, etc. It means faculty and students who regard education as an exercise in disillusionment and who look to the past only to corroborate their sense of superiority and self-satisfaction.

Academia has only gotten more so since then. What we see now are some of the fruits of that academic labor, resulting in an MSM that is almost wholly populated with people who believe just that, and a former president who also believed just that and was their champion. What a deep disappointment and outrage it must be for them to hear Trump say just the opposite.

The fact that the actual white supremacist wing of the alt-right have celebrated Trump’s Warsaw speech is also unsurprising. But it does not mean that Trump was speaking to them or is of them, although the left would have you believe that. People can celebrate a speech and see things in it that are not there, and they can also use that speech in ways it wasn’t intended.

“Western Civilization” used to be a required course for a liberal education. Around the time I went to school, the 60s (ah, the 60s), the situation was in transition. Western Civ (as it was not-so-affectionately called) had recently stopped being required in many colleges, and very few require it today, all these years later. It’s not just my imagination, either:

Survey courses in “Western Civilization,” once a common component of undergraduate curriculums, have almost disappeared as a requirement at many large private research universities and public flagships, according to a study released Wednesday [in May of 2011, but the link seems to be dead] by the National Association of Scholars.

The report finds that, since 1968, the number of the selected colleges that require Western Civilization courses as a component of general education curriculums and U.S. history as a component of history majors has dropped. This decrease has coincided with more focus on world history courses.

The association argues that Western Civilization courses are uniquely capable of introducing students to key themes of a liberal education. “In the absence of such an organizing principle the curriculum spins out into an all-things-to-all-people cornucopia of offerings, many of them exceptionally narrow in scope and many of them trivial in character,” the report states.

Historians and curriculum researchers attribute the de-emphasis on Western Civilization courses to significant changes in higher education curriculums, student diversity, university educational goals, and how history researchers study the world and receive training.

I remember my reaction in the 60s: joy. The reasons were many. As a typical teenaged student (although I was somewhat younger than average when I arrived at college) I resented required courses in general. But I had always disliked history courses in particular (go figure; I love history now) because I saw them as a dull recitation of irrelevant dates. That may have been a correct description of the history courses I had taken up to that point; I don’t know, because that part of my education is somewhat of a blur. I do know that somewhere along the line I had read a great many of the books that constitute the canon of Western Civilization, and liked them, but it was mostly in English classes that this had happened.

I think I was ignorant of what a “Western Civilization” course would have actually covered. It wouldn’t have been dates and battles; it would have been something like this, and I think I would have loved it:

Bloom regarded liberal education in its highest form as a conversation across the centuries that revolved around the perennially fresh question “What is the good life?” He championed what he called “the good old great books” because they are the prime repositories of thoughtful alternative answers to that question. A liberal arts education for Bloom centrally involved a meditation on those books and the “permanent questions” they posed in themselves and, above all, in relation to one another. As such a liberal arts education was “a resource against the ephemeral” and prophylactic against nihilism and spuriousness.

But these days my guess is that in many places (not all, of course) where Western Civilization is still taught it is presented as a toxic stain on humanity, a poisonous brew of intolerance and exploitation of suffering non-Western peoples, to be studied only to be condemned. That Trump doesn’t agree is one of his many crimes, according to the left.

I’m pretty sure that at this point the left doesn’t like Churchill, either. Or maybe he gets some sort of special pass, because he was fighting the Nazis?:

What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”

And not so very long ago it was possible to publish an article like this one in The New Republic:

Churchill’s worldview also cannot be easily categorized. It blended Victorianism and Edwardism, Liberalism and Conservatism. He saw the world in grand, often romantic, terms and himself in the tradition of great leaders like Napoleon, Castlereagh, Marlborough, Disraeli, and Gladstone. The ultimate issue for Churchill was the advance of “civilization,” by which he meant the British and Western way of life””its liberal values, laws, culture, industry, and science. He saw Britain and its empire as propagators of civilization, imbuing his nationalism and imperialism with a moral imperative. He came to see the United States, also, as a guarantor of civilization, and his support for Zionism was ultimately rooted in the belief that the Jews in Palestine/Israel were collaborators in this grand cause. Everyone, no matter his or her race””and Churchill conceived a hierarchy of races””had an obligation to contribute to the world’s progress. As he wrote in a 1908 travelogue about Africa, “No man has a right to be idle, whoever he be or wherever he lives. He is bound to go forward and take an honest share in the general work of the world.”…

Churchill considered Nazism vile and barbaric, a rejection of civilization in every way, despite his respect for the German race. He was particularly offended by its anti-Semitism, which made Nazism, in some ways, worse than communism…

Churchill was clearly the indispensable man of the moment in 1940, whom destiny summoned to change the course of history. His overwhelming love of country and civilization, grave sense of obligation to protect and improve on all the good the ages had produced, romantic view of the world, and keen understanding of how history had reached a vital point, made him realize why he and Britain had to battle relentlessly, regardless of the odds. His firm conviction that individuals can overcome great adversity, his belief that great leaders can redirect global forces, and his uplifting oratorical abilities, allowed Churchill to shape the thoughts and feelings of his countrymen and save his country and civilization.

Note that the author mentions Churchill’s racism (which was a symptom of his time; Churchill was born in 1874), but does not emphasize it or let it detract from his mammoth accomplishments. The word “civilization” is used without irony, too; it is considered a non-controversial fact that it was worth saving. And by “civilization” it’s clear that Churchill meant Western civilization. To repeat:

…“civilization,” by which [Churchill] meant the British and Western way of life””its liberal values, laws, culture, industry, and science. He saw Britain and its empire as propagators of civilization, imbuing his nationalism and imperialism with a moral imperative. He came to see the United States, also, as a guarantor of civilization, and his support for Zionism was ultimately rooted in the belief that the Jews in Palestine/Israel were collaborators in this grand cause.

Contemplate that, and then read or listen to Trump’s Warsaw speech again.