The rise of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)—a boom in their boom-and-bust cycle, as my colleague Robert Stilson calls it—has many political observers on the Right and Left analyzing the conditions that led to an embrace of that group’s radicalism.
And they are radical. As Stilson points out, “n its newly updated platform, the DSA calls for (among many other things) the wholesale abolition of capitalism — to be replaced by a centrally planned ‘classless society’ wherein government monopolizes socioeconomic life. It seeks to abolish police, prisons, and immigration enforcement, defund the U.S. military, eliminate the Senate, and remove federal checks-and-balances by making the executive and judicial branches explicitly subordinate to the legislative.”
As for how a constitutional republic like the United States got here, there’s evidence that training in radicalism begins in earnest with a captured system of education, specifically higher education. As the NY Post reports, “More than 80% [of DSA members] are college educated, with 35% holding at least a master’s or professional degree — which is more than twice the national average.”
Which makes the recent publication of a book entitled “Higher Education in America: It’s Worse Than You Think,” edited by Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, with a forward and conclusion penned by Manhattan Institute’s Chris Rufo, a timely and crucial effort. It serves as something of a guidebook on where things stand, where they might be headed, and how to reverse the trend before the desire to tear down the American experiment becomes endemic.
It might be tempting to expect a book with that title to wallow in defeatism, and it’s true that Rufo’s introduction wastes no time laying out the seriousness of the problem.
“Beneath the façade of storied institutions—with the same Latin mottos, caps and gowns, and legions of experts at the helm—was a profound rot. It’s no longer just conservatives who can see that America’s universities are actively engaged in a massive racket, at best, and an attempt to subvert the working order of the United States, at worst,” he writes.
Whoa.
However, while the essays—penned by prominent and thoughtful conservative scholars on education such as Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn, political scientist and legal scholar Carol Swain, and University of Notre Dame political science professor Patrick Deneen, among many others—are no less than dire warnings, the book still is, at its core, a practical and useful handbook rather than merely an academic work.
The final third provides the proof. Featuring sections on the economics, bureaucracy, and dominance of leftism in higher education over the last 40-plus years, the final section serves as a beacon after a very dark night of the soul as it nearly shouts into the wilderness, “Where do we go from here?”
And after learning by reading the previous sections just how much universities have embraced antisemitism, activism, economic malfeasance, violence, outrage, indifference to student achievement, wokeism, misandry, and general decline, that final part is a welcome reminder that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Fixing the problems in higher education, however, will not be an easy path. Roberts notes in the final essay that nothing short of a cultural correction will do. And that correction will almost certainly hit universities where they live: in their funding streams. But it will also require a re-embrace of the curricula and values that made higher education in America a force behind her unparalleled growth since her founding.
In short, this book is a call to arms for all stakeholders who desire a brighter future for America.
“This responsibility falls on university leadership—trustees, presidents, and administrators—who must use every tool available to cultivate the conditions in which students can learn, debate, and grow in virtue. When they fail, policymakers have the rightful authority, and an obligation, to step in. The next generation deserves institutions that work; rebuilding them starts now,” Roberts writes.
Perhaps there will again come a day when university students will ponder the work of the great philosopher Edmund Burke and give brain space to the idea that the true statesman seeking change for the betterment of society will find it necessary to strike a balance between preserving the values worth saving and reforming the ones that fall short.
“The superior statesman is one who combines with a disposition to preserve an ability to reform,” as social critic and moralist Russell Kirk, summarizing Burke, wrote in 1982.
But before that can happen, universities must clear away the dross and noise of activism, critical theory, victimhood, and financial mismanagement long enough for students to quietly encounter these profound ideas and allow themselves to be inspired.
This book gives them the allowance—and indeed the justification—to begin.
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[ H/T The Daily Signal ]
