A is for Activist? By David Solway
By the time these children reach university, a staggering number of them are fundamentally dysfunctional, devoid of basic knowledge and convinced they must repudiate and undo the presumed sins of their fathers. They cannot write a coherent English sentence, will agitate for LGBTQ rights, will shout down conservative speakers and denounce "white supremacism," will don masks and battle gear to disrupt public events, and profess a passionate dedication to the most destructive of political philosophies: universal socialism. K-12 is a slough of didactic despond, turning out largely illiterate and innumerate fodder for the universities and foot soldiers for the coming revolution. Its charges consist of not pupils, but recruits.
Aristotle was concerned with raising good citizens, sound of body and mind, willing to defend the polis from its enemies and able to reflect dispassionately on social and political issues. Our pedagogues have a different purpose in mind. The citizens they wish to create are agenda-driven ideologues who believe their own country, to quote New York governor Andrew Cuomo, "was never that great" - indeed, it is the sum of all evil - and that what we may call "identity tribalism" is the road forward to true egalitarianism.