The New Ignorance is Far Worse than the Old

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There is another thread lamenting the numbers of young people who are abandoning the Faith, in many cases because they were never taught the Faith, and think it is something other than what it is. Here is an article from a college professor who notes that before beginning to teach his new crop of students, he will first have to un-teach and unravel all the nonsense which they have been taught in their first 12 years of schooling.

“I will soon be meeting my college freshmen for the first time, in our program in the development of western civilization, and I know that I will have to un-teach them a great deal of nonsense that they have been taught. Much of it is sheer blinkered stupidity, . . . But much of it is this new kind of ignorance, the shallow bigotry of people who have been malformed in their schooling and in their reading of bad books or sloppy journalism, over the course of many years, so that they “know” all kinds of things that are not true, and “know” them as ingrained prejudices.”

–The New Ignorance is Far Worse than the Old
 
JimG said:
There is another thread lamenting the numbers of young people who are abandoning the Faith, in many cases because they were never taught the Faith, and think it is something other than what it is. Here is an article from a college professor who notes that before beginning to teach his new crop of students, he will first have to un-teach and unravel all the nonsense which they have been taught in their first 12 years of schooling.

“I will soon be meeting my college freshmen for the first time, in our program in the development of western civilization, and I know that I will have to un-teach them a great deal of nonsense that they have been taught. Much of it is sheer blinkered stupidity, . . . But much of it is this new kind of ignorance, the shallow bigotry of people who have been malformed in their schooling and in their reading of bad books or sloppy journalism, over the course of many years, so that they “know” all kinds of things that are not true, and “know” them as ingrained prejudices.”

–The New Ignorance is Far Worse than the Old
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Of course, some of us have the misfortune of having that ignorance supported and even increased during our college years (with a few notable exceptions of “old school” professors).

I hope to do better by my children, and I’m doing some work in course correcting for myself now, but man, what a lot of years and potential wasted.
 
Despite the fact for instance that there are a slew of administrative people with advanced degrees making less than a decent plumber, we are being told no college means you are nothing.

The states all around seek to have maximum hands in such

It is inevitable.

Hence the “Narrow Gate”

You will be a very serious minority if you stick with the church eventually 😦

Though like being rich is a minority number, don’t fret, tis a good thing 🙂
 
Not ignorance … arrogance.

It’s what you know that just isn’t so.
 
Good luck to you and I’m saying prayers for you and your students. Dear Lord, what they have been through. It has not been an easy road and they really need your help!

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be world without end. Amen.

:signofcross:
 
Thank you for that article.

I just finished a book by Glenn Reynolds called “The New School” with the subtitle:How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself. Repeatedly throughout that book Reynolds asserts that “Something that can’t go on forever, won’t”.
 
There is a strong undercurrent of placing everything into today’s political boxes, which allows certain ideologies and thoughts to be discarded much easier. Everything and everyone from history is judged as to whether it can be considered racism, bigotry, or misogyny. This makes sense since the left makes everything today about those issues whether relevant or not, and whether true or not. This is done mainly because it grants them a false moral high ground from which to bludgeon those they feel superior to, or want to feel superior to, and enables the convenient dismissal of opposing viewpoints as simply the irrational blabberings of miserable, bitter dinosaurs, not worthy of intellectual engagement even for argument’s sake because of their irrationality.

The consequence of reading Virgil, Augustine, Aquinas, etc is that ideas such as morality have consequence. They must be engaged, even if in order to disagree. That’s hard. They don’t fit into boxes. They introduce a new sound into the carefully manufactured echo chamber of the modern leftist university. If you attend a typical university today, you will find that all religious texts are interpreted according to the political boxes mentioned above. How does St Paul view women? What does the Quran say about women? Do Islam and Judaism differ in their views of sexual freedom? These are the questions being asked. Real philosophy, real theology, and real discussion about real questions are missing.

They are missing because they are threatening. They are threatening because they place Something else as more important than ourselves. The various world religions may differ about Who or What it is, or its attributes, but they are similar because they place that Something as greater than ourselves. Mikhail Bulgakov’s masterpiece *The Master and Margarita * contains a great scene in the beginning where a writer of atheist propaganda in the Soviet Union is being chastised by a senior writer for portraying Jesus as a bad man. The senior writer insists that he should write instead that Jesus did not exist at all. The same is true of morality in universities. They do not insist that Christian morality is bad. They deny that morality even exists or is worth studying or thinking about (until you steal their car, presumably).

The classics, if taken as they are and not neatly packaged into an easily discardable political category, raise that question of morality and make it unavoidable. Religious writings too make one wonder about the Something that is ahead of ourselves. That Something is a false god according to the religion of self-worship, and is attacked with religious fervor.
 
Bill_Martin said:
There is a strong undercurrent of placing everything into today’s political boxes, which allows certain ideologies and thoughts to be discarded much easier. Everything and everyone from history is judged as to whether it can be considered racism, bigotry, or misogyny. This makes sense since the left makes everything today about those issues whether relevant or not, and whether true or not. This is done mainly because it grants them a false moral high ground from which to bludgeon those they feel superior to, or want to feel superior to, and enables the convenient dismissal of opposing viewpoints as simply the irrational blabberings of miserable, bitter dinosaurs, not worthy of intellectual engagement even for argument’s sake because of their irrationality.

The consequence of reading Virgil, Augustine, Aquinas, etc is that ideas such as morality have consequence. They must be engaged, even if in order to disagree. That’s hard. They don’t fit into boxes. They introduce a new sound into the carefully manufactured echo chamber of the modern leftist university. If you attend a typical university today, you will find that all religious texts are interpreted according to the political boxes mentioned above. How does St Paul view women? What does the Quran say about women? Do Islam and Judaism differ in their views of sexual freedom? These are the questions being asked. Real philosophy, real theology, and real discussion about real questions are missing.

They are missing because they are threatening. They are threatening because they place Something else as more important than ourselves. The various world religions may differ about Who or What it is, or its attributes, but they are similar because they place that Something as greater than ourselves. Mikhail Bulgakov’s masterpiece *The Master and Margarita * contains a great scene in the beginning where a writer of atheist propaganda in the Soviet Union is being chastised by a senior writer for portraying Jesus as a bad man. The senior writer insists that he should write instead that Jesus did not exist at all. The same is true of morality in universities. They do not insist that Christian morality is bad. They deny that morality even exists or is worth studying or thinking about (until you steal their car, presumably).

The classics, if taken as they are and not neatly packaged into an easily discardable political category, raise that question of morality and make it unavoidable. Religious writings too make one wonder about the Something that is ahead of ourselves. That Something is a false god according to the religion of self-worship, and is attacked with religious fervor.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the deep insight! Never looked at it like that before… putting things in boxes and discarding them… makes sense to me now.
 
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