Our universities have become a problem. My entire adult life has been dedicated to education, so it pains me to say this, but we need to deal with them. It is critical for the survival of Canada and the entire free world. Let me be clear. I love school. I was a Canadian high school teacher for 28 years and a college instructor in Japan for eight more, bringing my total time in education to 36 years. I love to learn, and believe that education is important, that the dream of a highly literate informed populace is an exalted one. But something has happened to our universities, and it is not good. To put it in question form, “Why are so many highly educated people such fools?”

The University Problem

Most public universities are now indoctrination centers. Until recently this wasn’t so. Universities were places for the free exchange of ideas, the development of the mind, the promotion of critical thinking and a place where young people could learn about the wider world and the ideas in it. Not anymore. Now, as many of you already know, they are places where left leaning ideology is forced into the heads of the young and free speech is discouraged. Those who want to debate ideas from anything other than a Neo Marxist perspective are silenced, “cancelled” suspended, or otherwise eliminated, and that is the exact opposite of what a university should be.  

Degrees Don’t Mean Wisdom

Getting an advanced degree doesn’t guarantee wisdom. As a professor I once had said: “I know PhDs who can barely tie their shoes.” In fact, getting a degree these days might guarantee that you will be indoctrinated and never again be able to relate to common sense. This is especially true at the graduate level where indoctrination is strongest.  When I did my master’s degree the first thing, we were exposed to was radical postmodernism, followed by extremist left wing ideology. There was no sense that this was just another point of view. It was presented as truth. If you wanted to do well, you had to accept that. Some of the people I met were intelligent and nice, but they had already bought into “woke” indoctrination, and that was twenty years ago!

What Happened?

So, what happened? The corruption of our universities took place over a long period of time. You must give the radical left credit for their patience, determination, and cleverness. If their motives weren’t fascistic and downright evil, I might even admire them, but there is nothing good about watching their dysfunctional vision of society come to pass. The story begins long ago but takes off in the 1930s with a group of scholars called the “Frankfurt School.” Any conservative who has delved into this knows the story of how a group of radical German Marxist scholars fled Nazi Germany, came to America, got jobs at universities like Columbia and corrupted America’s youth. The movement spread from the United States to virtually every country in the developed world. Chris Rufo, the foremost opponent of Critical Race Theory in the United States, explains it well in the following link, so I won’t go into it in detail. Watch video … It eventually became known as the “Great March Through the Institutions.” By the second decade of the 21^st century, much of it had been accomplished, and wokeism was everywhere. 

Common Sense Not Common

One of my teachers in Asia said to me: “Common Sense Not Common!” He was right. It isn’t. In fact, it is rare. One of the places you are least likely to find it is a university. If you are a student these days you will be drenched in white guilt, Critical Race Theory (whites are evil from birth and racists) Wokeism and Marxism. If you teach at a Canadian university, you had better toe the line or your life will be miserable. You can be fired for no other reason than that you disagree with the mob. You will be targeted, as Rema Azar, Jordan Peterson, Ricardo Duchesne, Lindsay Shepherd and countless others have found out. It worked out for Jordan Peterson, but for many other scholars…well…None of it has anything to do with common sense, logic, or fairness. It’s bigotry and bullying pure and simple. 

University Ideas Spread Outward

Ideas spread outward from universities to the public. At first, they appear outlandish, (as they often are) to regular citizens, but as university graduates take up positions of power in government, schools, corporations, and human resource departments they spread. I once thought that philosophy was an esoteric field that had no effect on real life, but I was wrong. It was mid twentieth century political and social philosophers, and their leftist predecessors, who spread extremist and repressive progressive ideology into all our lives. Philosophy matters… and so do universities.

And Now for Some Good News…

There is some good news. People are beginning to figure it out. They are now aware that universities are a problem, and they are acting. It works one of two ways. Either they don’t go to university at all because of the debt load and brainwashing they will incur while there. I don’t recommend this option, though, since we need to challenge the existing academic establishment, but I can understand why people often choose that road. The other option is to form new universities based on the classical curriculum, free of left-wing progressive bias. That process has already begun. Ralston College in North Carolina, Hillsdale College in Michigan, St. John’s College in Maryland and Santa Fe, the New College of Florida and other independent schools are either being created, recreated, or re-establishing their mandate. All of them are basing their teaching on a solid classical curriculum. There is also the Classical Christian school movement and home schooling both of which are growing in North America. 

Technology 

Another encouraging trend concerns technology.  Many conservative authorities, from Douglas Murray to Jordan Peterson, are using it to spread their message. Their aim is to get the message out that Wokeism and extreme progressivism are dangerous, and to serve as a counter to Cancel Culture. Douglas Murray has a YouTube series called “Uncancelled History.” where he reteaches the truth about our history and great cultural heroes. Here is one of his videos about Churchill Watch video … Jordan Peterson has started his own online university, Peterson Academy in which he offers university degrees for an affordable fee. Watch video … All of this is part of the resistance, and it is wonderful to see it. There is hope, and we should not despair. But we have a lot of work to do to restore our culture. We should never make the mistake of thinking it will be easy. It won’t be, but it is the most important fight we will ever join and  worthy of our complete and total dedication.