“The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.”
— Winston Churchill
As never before we are a nation divided. Perhaps less dramatic than the kinetic warfare being waged on foreign soil, today's battlefield has propelled conservative and liberal batallions into daily and intense confrontations. In times of monumental change there is a pressing need for a critical assessment of the ever evolving landscape of contemporary social, cultural, and political issues, and a realistic evaluation of the ideas we cling to. In order to better assess the prospects for the nation and the world in the decades ahead it may be helpful to take a few steps backward and reexamine our choices and beliefs. The focus of these pages, along with comments from the individuals and works featured here, will speak to the educational, philosophical, and spiritual challenges confronting America and the West today. History and tradition play an essential role in these deliberations, but while our politicians and public figures wrestle with the controversy, a restless world is waiting and watching for a new understanding and a better perspective on the road ahead. That remains the never-ending challenge of serious thought and the provocation for the forthcoming collection of ideas.
Contemporary Analysis
What Are the Prospects
In his most famous work, A Study of History, the distinguished British historian Arnold Tornbee examined the rise and fall of eighteen ancient cultures and warned that our own society is on a collision course with destiny. He warned that only a profound intellectual and moral renewal could save us from a tragic collapse. The prospects for our own generation may not seem quite so dangerous or demanding, but the message of my own research into more than a dozen fallen civilizations is that the threat is undeniable, but there is hope for renewal and revival if we heed the lessons of history and react in time. But there will be consequences if we fail. My own widely circulated study, When Nations Die, first released in 1994, outlined "Ten Warning Signs" of impending crisis along with a number of salutary responses and remedies. References to this work will occcasionally appear in subsequent commentary.
The Learning Curve
Social & Political Issues
What is the purpose of the university? Since at least the 13th century, the idea has been to take promising young men and women in their prime learning years—roughly ages 16 to 24—to send them to a place apart, a place of study, free of the ordinary duties and demands of daily life, and to fill their minds with knowledge—truth, beauty, great ideas, history, rhetoric, and science. By exposure to the greatest moments of the Western intellectual tradition, these young people would one day emerge intellectually formed, fully prepared to assume roles as leaders and contributors to the life of the nation. For 700 years, this was the ideal, and, generally speaking, it worked that way. What changed? "It is not impossible for a student in today’s university to wend his or her way through all of the requirements, ending in a blaze of glory and relief in the graduation ceremonies, without having received an education. This happens even in the best universities. Somehow they manage to graduate students who have no mental connections with the past, little knowledge of its literature, less of its great thinkers, scant ability to think for themselves, and for whom the prospect of writing a research paper is a matter for great consternation." (David Wells in No Place for Truth). Is there anyone who doesn’t recognize this situation? But If this is a fair assessment, we ought to be asking ourselves: What Happened? Has human nature changed so much, or did the academy one day decide that truth doesn’t matter? Or have we convinced ourselves that all truths are the same?
What is the purpose of the university? Since at least the 13th century, the idea has been to take promising young men and women in their prime learning years—roughly ages 16 to 24—to send them to a place apart, a place of study, free of the ordinary duties and demands of daily life, and to fill their minds with knowledge—truth, beauty, great ideas, history, rhetoric, and science. By exposure to the greatest moments of the Western intellectual tradition, these young people would one day emerge intellectually formed, fully prepared to assume roles as leaders and contributors to the life of the nation. For 700 years, this was the ideal, and, generally speaking, it worked that way. What changed? "It is not impossible for a student in today’s university to wend his or her way through all of the requirements, ending in a blaze of glory and relief in the graduation ceremonies, without having received an education. This happens even in the best universities. Somehow they manage to graduate students who have no mental connections with the past, little knowledge of its literature, less of its great thinkers, scant ability to think for themselves, and for whom the prospect of writing a research paper is a matter for great consternation." (David Wells in No Place for Truth). Is there anyone who doesn’t recognize this situation? But If this is a fair assessment, we ought to be asking ourselves: What Happened? Has human nature changed so much, or did the academy one day decide that truth doesn’t matter? Or have we convinced ourselves that all truths are the same?
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