Our language controls our political thought

"Modern English . . . is full of bad habits which spread by imitation . . . If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration."–George Orwell, 1946 Had George Orwell, author of those dystopian classics 1984 and Animal Farm, lived long enough to notice the gradual academic takeover of the English language I do not doubt that he would be highly critical. The questionable academic terms now used by practically everyone, whatever their politics, are Culture, Values and Ideology. These terms not only mischaracterize those basic American principles and institutions which are most near and dear to us but actually undermine them.

Let us begin with culture. Today this term, the contribution of 19^th century German philosophy, is used as a synonym for society (or any group of people), which makes little sense. Originally culture meant deliberate cultivation of plants, as in agriculture. But if agriculture were understood in the same way as, say, gang culture, then agriculture could be the growing of weeds with perhaps a few whiskey bottles strewn about. Political philosopher Leo Strauss had this insight many years ago.

Not long ago culture referred to the realm of good taste, especially the fine arts. A cultured person could appreciate the best products of human art--e.g., music, painting, sculpture, plays, operas-- whereas an uncultured person did not. Of course, this is inconsistent with the popular idea that all tastes are equally legitimate, one man’s art somehow being another man’s vulgarity. This cheapens what is truly excellent.

This leads us to values. The term cannot be understood without reference to its supposed opposite, namely facts. The German social scientist, Max Weber, taught what he called the "fact-value distinction," which holds that facts are irreducible realities, while values are merely subjective tastes.

Only a boorish person would insist that what he likes is what everyone else should like, but value is a very broad term that includes not only taste but moral and political principles. We may prefer republican forms of government over despotic ones, but other peoples may feel otherwise. "Who are we," it is so often said, "to impose our values on others?"

If this is so, then not only do we not have a right to impose our political system on others; our preference for rule by the people is intrinsically no better than any other. Thus, it is unsurprising that many Americans' attachment to our Constitution is now lukewarm at best.

Finally, we come to ideology. This too is a contribution of German thought, particularly Karl Marx, who understood ideology as the rationalization of the ruling class for its dominance. He is famous for describing politics as nothing more than the organized oppression of one class by another. The real force in human life, he argued, was control of the means of production. With the Communist revolution, supposedly no one would control production and the state could be reduced to mere administration with no more politics.

What a cruel joke that turned out to be! The fact that Marx was wrong in his analysis did not stop his followers from imposing tyrannical regimes in Russia, China and elsewhere which never led to a "withering away of the state." Nor did it stop a lot of non-Communists from adopting his understanding of ideology for their own purposes.

Whenever someone influenced by the alleged insights of Marxism seeks to discredit an opposing viewpoint, he will call it an ideology. The object may be similar to Marx’s, viz., that the opposing view rationalizes a class interest, or that the viewpoint is unrealistic or at variance with the facts.

Ideology is surely not with difficulties, but it is often applied unfairly to political philosophies which are not only not rationalizations, unrealistic or at variance with the facts, but which are grounded in human nature. The best known to us is found in the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men by the consent of the governed . . . "

The terms, Culture, Values and Ideology, are inconsistent with and subversive of free republican government. Free society is not any old culture but one which is in accordance with human nature. Liberty is not merely a value but the right of every human being. And the political philosophy of the Declaration is not an ideology but based on "the laws of nature and of nature’s God."

If we would perpetuate our precious heritage, we need to watch our language. Academic weasel words won’t cut it.

“Born Yesterday” years out of date

TCM, the Turner Classic Movie channel, offers a steady stream of yesterday’s movies. Sometimes it offers a classic that provides more than nostalgia, with a window into the past that contrasts sharply with the present. "Born Yesterday (1950)," a popular comedy about both the virtues and the dangers of a little learning, ran this week, and made me lament the passing of the sort of education that can no longer be taken from granted. All I knew as a seven-year-old, besides the fact that bright theatre marquees displayed the movie’s title and stars in vivid letters, was that a beautiful but dumb woman, Emma "Billie" Dawn (played by Judy Holliday) was getting a lot of laughs for the ignorant, if not stupid things she consistently said. I heard something about the story being somewhat more complicated than that, but that’s about as far as my comprehension went. Now I know–and know of–many people who have been formally educated far beyond what Billie learned but possess far less understanding than she acquired.

Emma is the seven-year girl friend of Harry Brock (played by Broderick Crawford), a millionaire tycoon who thinks and acts more like a hoodlum than a businessman. (Unfortunately, this is the perennial Hollywood caricature of people in other businesses, or is it a self portrait?) He wants to get some results for his congressional bribes, so he must make the Washington D.C. scene. Unfortunately, he is burdened by a woman lacking in the social graces and incredibly ignorant, or so he thinks. In due course, he comes into contact with a polished journalist named Paul Verrall (played by William Holden) who, it occurs to Brock, can educate his "dumb broad" and not embarrass him around all the important people he must meet and/or win over. His scheme is to get a bill passed that, in ways that are not particularly clear, give him the edge over his domestic and foreign competitors in the junk business.

In any case, Brock thinks he is pretty smart to hit upon this idea, but events, to put it mildly, take a different turn. Billie, who goes blank when her tutor makes a reference to the Supreme Court, soon gets a pretty thorough tour of the nation’s capital and picks up a dizzying vocabulary along with a lot of pertinent information. Her life is transformed, not only by the accumulation of books, most notably a huge dictionary, but by her attraction to the polished, polite and attentive Paul, with whom she quickly falls in love. But as inevitable and even just as their pairing is, it is overshadowed by the education she receives in the nation’s founding (with a qualification to be explained below).

Billie visits the capitol building and becomes acquainted with the immortals commemorated there. She also goes to art museums, attends concerts and browses through multiple historic sites, but the most impressive turns out to be the Jefferson Memorial. There she finds written the third President’s powerful words: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." Billie’s first gaze is mostly blank, but after she comes to know, through her education, that the man she’s been living with (and living comfortably) for so long is not merely annoying or difficult to deal with or understand, but is in fact a tyrant, Jefferson’s words take on considerably more meaning.

Of course, that is a lesson for us all, for tyrants are not merely ghastly men who rule countries outside our borders, but rise up among us, but restrained, for the most part, by laws, institutions and public opinion, and especially by the United States Constitution. Harry reasons with or otherwise deals politely with other people so long as they tell him or give him what he wants but flies into a rage at the slightest sign of disagreement or difficulty. Because Billie has (supposedly) read the works of Thomas Paine (but not of Abraham Lincoln), she has a pretty good idea of what a tyrant is, and her man fills the bill.

After years of complaisantly signing documents as if she were his wife, Billie decides she wants to read what they say. Harry’s shrewd advisor, Jim Devery (played by Howard St. John), pleads with Billie to sign but is unable to prevent the explosion that occurs when his boss finds out that the complaisance might be over. True to form, Harry beats Billie until she signs, although it is no surprise that she forms the intention then and there to leave him and never to sign onto any more of his opaque dealings.

When Billie finally resolves to bail out altogether, Harry can’t make up his mind whether he likes the idea or not, although it seems clear enough that he loves her, albeit in his own way, and would rather she stayed. But she is too educated for him now, for we learn as the movie progresses that Harry’s smarts are more often not pure bluster, which fools only those who are as ignorant as he is. The wise Paul hits upon a plan to thwart Harry once and for all.

"Born Yesterday," based on a Broadway play of the same name which opened in 1945, oversimplifies education, to be sure, in its own version of the Pygmalion story. (Compare "Never on Sunday" and "My Fair Lady.") But at least it is wholesome in holding out the prospect that an educated person can appreciate the virtues of our democratic form of government and the men who designed and implemented it. Yet not long after this, our university professors began to teach the opposite lesson, namely, that democracy is a sham and a delusion that enables the Harry Brocks of this world to rule in their own interest at the expense of a multitude of oppressed classes that run from the poor, to racial minorities, to women, to children, to homosexuals and lesbians, foreigners, and all of the "other" ad infinitum.

Education is no longer a source of hope and renewal but of cynicism and despair. Imagine if "Born Yesterday" had been produced with the assumptions of the professorial elite in our time. Billie would have learned that the problem is not Harry Brock so much as the United States of America. Rather than celebrating our form of government, the "educated" person concludes that it is rotten to the core and ought to be "transformed" into something entirely different.

There is a link, only somewhat tenuous, between Hollywood’s political thinking of 1945 and 2009. The enemy is fascism, then and now. There is no "enemy to the Left." Harry is labeled a fascist, not a communist, at least partly justified since the United States and its allies recently prevailed over the fascist dictators in Germany, Italy and Japan with the aid of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (never mind its complicity in starting the war). The evil of Josef Stalin and his totalitarian regime was not apparent to many, even if it should have been. In the glow of victory, this is an excusable error.

Too, liberals had convinced themselves, by virtue of their devotion to democracy, that they were the progeny of the founding fathers, also democrats. A clue to the film’s partisanship is in the very reliance on Thomas Jefferson who, unlike Lincoln, is remembered at the Democratic Party’s annual dinners. The Republicans completed the Lincoln Memorial in the 1920s and the Democrats countered with the Jefferson Memorial in the 1930s. Surely both will do for educating about tyrants, but the film’s choice of Jefferson puts it firmly in the Democratic camp.

Our problem today is that it is not so clear that liberals are as firmly in the democratic camp as they were at the close of the Second World War. Between leftist professors teaching students to scorn their country, their civilization and their religion, and Democrat politicians scoffing at any distinction between democratic and undemocratic regimes abroad, public opinion is being dumbed down at least as much as Billie was, if not more so. For if Billie did not appreciate her country’s virtues, at least she did not despise them. On the other hand, those "educated" people who openly malign the freest country on earth might just as well have been born yesterday.

Teacher's Desk: Degree in Three?

The soon-to-be graduates marched into the World Arena in Colorado Springs while the organist played "Pomp and Circumstance" and we parents watched proudly. It was amazing that so many degrees were conferred by the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. As usual, the most undergraduate degrees were conferred in the colleges of nursing, education, and arts and sciences. The fewest? College of Engineering, of course, and I was glad to watch my son walk across the stage with honors as one of those engineering graduates.

My son was one of the 57.3% of students who earn their degrees in four years. Valerie Strauss, writing for Washingtonpost.com, describes the trend toward three-year bachelor degrees now offered by many universities and colleges.

Rhode Island recently passed a bill in their state legislature requiring state colleges and universities to offer three-year undergraduate programs, but colleges already offering three-year degrees find that many students continue to need four or more years to graduate. Only 4.2% of college graduates do so in three years, but 38.5% of students need more than four years to complete bachelor degree programs.

In order to continue quality programming, many of the new three-year programs are requiring summer classes, preventing many students from earning income to pay for tuition and books or wonderful hands-on internship opportunities in their area of interest.

Senator Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, former leader of the United States Department of Education, is a proponent of three-year programs. He understands the difficulties families are having paying tuition, books, and dormitory costs for four years. Saving $10,000 or more and graduates getting busy in their careers a year earlier can certainly save financial stress on these families.

Purdue has done one better with a two-year bachelor’s program in their college of technology. This degree is designed for the older student needing “re-tooling” and a career change.

Three-year programs have the potential to be useful here. Governor Ritter just signed a bill that will allow motivated high school students to earn a two-year associates degree while earning a high school diploma. The two programs could fit together like a hand in a glove, allowing student to earn a graduate degree in the time span it takes many to earn their undergraduate degree.

Congratulations to all the new grads and their proud parents! Kathleen Kullback is a licensed special educator with an M.A. in educational leadership and is a former candidate for the Colorado Board of Education.

UCCS vs. Privilege & Oppression!

We all know America's campuses are loaded with Ward Churchill clones, lefty individuals and whole departments. But have you stopped to think that's even true in conservative Colorado Springs? Here's an example of your tax dollars at work at UCCS. The Knapsack Institute will run again this summer as it has for the past decade. It was inspired, the website says, by a 1988 paper on "White Privilege and Male Privilege," authored by Peggy McIntosh of Wellesley College, where she confesses:

"I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was 'meant' to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, assurances, tools, maps, guides, codebooks, passports, visas, clothes, compass, emergency gear, and blank checks."

The UCCS web page continues as follows. You'll be glad to learn that having built their beachhead of soft-Marxist guilt and reeducation in higher ed, the Knapsackers now intend to clear down through the school grades to kindergarten, with forays into the oppression-ridden world of nonprofit organizations as well. But hear it in their own words:

The Knapsack Institute is offered every summer at UCCS, and can also be brought to your campus or institution. While K-12 teachers and non-profit staff members have participated in the UCCS KI, and are welcome to continue to do so, we are in the process of developing a KI specifically for each of these populations, to be offered during 2009. These institutes will address the same issues detailed below, but focus specifically on the K-12 and non-profit contexts. If you or your organization is interested in participating in one of these new programs, or in bringing a KI to your organization, please contact Dena Samuels (dsamuels@uccs.edu)

In this Institute we will discuss the concept of unpacking our "invisible weightless knapsacks" of privilege, and in so doing, we hope to provide you with a knapsack full of useful tools to use as you begin (or continue) to teach the concepts of privilege and oppression in your classrooms. The Knapsack Institute welcomes ALL faculty committed to improving their teaching around issues of privilege and oppression.

Teacher's Desk: Tuition Break Nada

There’s a personal angle when I read a story like the one today about 20 colleges and universities asking the federal government to allow illegal immigrants in-state tuition rates. I know three high school seniors where I teach whom this would help. Two of the students are special education students who will probably limit their post-secondary experiences to a certificate program at Emily Griffith Opportunity School, and the third has decided to attend college in Mexico. Even though I enjoy these students and know the parents of the young ladies well, I cannot condone illegal trafficking of human beings, nor the additional pressure placed on our infrastructure and natural resources by those who immigrate illegally.

Because I try to be kind while still holding this opinion, I gave the three families the business card of the immigration attorney upstairs, and one of the parents made an appointment. It was the same mother who had asked me to adopt her 21-year-old daughter, but she was going to pay for her needs. Fortunately, I had an easy out; we don’t legally adopt 21-year-olds! But that got me wondering what other illegal activities these folks who I felt were generally good people willing to do?

Obviously, they drive without licenses, do not buy car insurance, and many don’t have health insurance, so they use the emergency rooms at hospitals. Those same hospitals are required to have Spanish interpreters.

Per Texas case law, our schools are required to educate the legal and illegal alike, and unless the parents of these children are homeowners, we’re the ones who pay for it. We teach the children English, but until they grasp the language, it will be awhile before they are reading and writing at grade level. We hire staff to teach in Spanish. We hire teachers to test in Spanish. We provide interpreters for Spanish speaking parents. All this costs thousands of dollars to every school. Thousands of dollars that is no longer available for the general student population.

If we allow illegal students to attend our state colleges and universities at in-state tuition rates, the influx of Spanish speaking only college students will rise and costly services will likely be provided to them. We do not do the same for students with other native languages. We will become the destination for those who trespass our borders.

Kathleen Kullback is a licensed special educator with an M. A. in educational leadership and is a former candidate for the Colorado State Board of Education.