It is not unlikely that many of the students who could not identify the names Grant and Lee are aware that sex is a purely recreational activity, -- with no moral, spiritual or love-related importance, and with no strings attached to it -- that white, Christian males who vote Republican are inherently evil, and that racism is the greatest problem facing our country (and that, appropriately following this claim, Jesse Jackson is a hero). (Of course, this attitude involving race transcends age. For some reason or another, the Detroit Lions were fined a large some of money for failing to interview a minority candidate to fill the vacant head coaching job. Of course, this had to have been because the organization is racist, and not because a respected coach was already said to be holding talks with the team and as a result, few coaches, black or white, felt it would make sense to waste time with an interview. A black assistant on the Lions’ staff refused to be interviewed, claiming it would be degrading to be involved in a “token interview.”)
Of course, it is not always the Left, but sometimes the Right, and even the moderate Left, who fails to push for the truth in our schools. Children are taught of the Pilgrims who came on the Mayflower (although New Jersey almost cut the story of the Pilgrims from its texts), and of how they came to be free, and made peace with Indians; we are taught to celebrate Thanksgiving as a holiday of giving and thanks, never told that we are more or less also celebrating genocide and hate. And then, we are often told of the evils of slavery, but never that they slaves were sold to traders by . . . their own fellow Africans.
Understanding and respecting all cultures is important; it is truly American, as is welcoming legally entering immigrants into this nation (perhaps at a small number per year to avoid overpopulation). However, doing this to the point of diluting the regard we have for our own, homegrown culture, created by centuries of hardworking European immigrants who adapted to the culture already in place, is wrong, an insult to those whose workweeks which lasted well over forty hours so that they could make a living for their families. These immigrants added to the culture, but did not subtract from it. They learned English, the lingua franca of the nation, and found jobs. They did not expect the Americans to dole out money they had not earned, nor did they expect the English-speaking majority to learn dozens of languages to coddle them. They acclimated to the new country of opportunity. Why should this change now?
A truly multicultural curriculum should reflect all cultures, including the mainstream American culture that is so influential in the lives of most, if not all, Americans, and not just minority cultures, as proposed by those who are so unaware as to believe that American culture is instilled thoroughly in today’s youth. However, to the Left, multiculturalism and diversity mean non-whites, the ACLU, the NAACP, and an all-gay high school, but not student-led prayer in school, the Boy Scouts of America, and The John Birch Society.
Are We Stupid?
Just as we have diluted the curricula in our schools in order to cater to minorities at the risk of forgetting great American figures and pieces of literature (and have tried, unsuccessfully, to further do as such), we have managed to dilute the quality of instruction we do receive. Nationally, our test scores are abysmal. No, standardized tests are not everything, but they do offer some insight into the learning, or lack thereof, of our children. Internationally, American students come nowhere near the highest ranking nations in science and mathematics testing. We are the world’s superpower, yet our students are not learning.
Politics has taken over our education system. As mentioned above, the NEA is a rather Leftist organization. Following the beliefs of it and similar organizations, teachers are leading classes in pro-peace sit-ins, while chastising, sometimes even punishing, students who publicly support war [in Iraq] or the pro-life movement. Long gone is the “board of education,” deemed to be cruel and unusual punishment. This strict enforcer of the rules has been replaced by “anger management” and other buzzword ideas which fail to show our children that disobedience and a general lack of respect for authority are inappropriate and counterproductive. We have taken a concept at the core of our nation, individual rights, and extended it well beyond a useful purpose.
Rather than letting parents and teachers educate our children, we allow them to be only puppets of higher powers. Indiana has set particular standards toward which teachers must direct students in various subjects. This is a good plan in theory. However, it is difficult, unfair even, to carry out. How can teachers help students to understand the works of Chaucer and Joyce when the school system has thus far failed to help them understand the difference between “who,” “whom,” and “that”? Why haven’t the teachers been able to educate these students in simple grammar (and the basics in other subjects, and other subjects, for that matter -- A retired eighth grade English teacher once told of when he was looking for summer work to supplement his salary and the only summer school opening was in math, a subject in which his skills were limited. He said that the class turned out to be a class in multiplication tables. Eighth grade students did not know their multiplication tables.)? Education money is hard to find. Communities in which the schools have more money within reach hire better teachers, while poorer communities suffer, forced to hire poorer teachers. There is not enough money, and what money is available is not distributed equally. We have plenty of money to wage war across the world and to pay egregious salaries to our elected public servants, yet we cannot direct enough money to our schools to insure that only highly qualified, intelligent people are allowed to educate our children. The lack of financing behind the No Child Left Behind Act is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of an undersized education budget. Of course, the state and national governments are deserving only of so much of the blame. All to often, money is directed towards extracurriculars, such as new football fields and band uniforms, instead of higher teachers’ salaries and better textbooks. While extracurriculars are an essential part of educating our youths, they should not come before the actual process of education. They should re-enforce education, and not hinder it.
I Thought This Was America
Despite claims that it would be something other than what it is, President Bush has kept a very interventionist foreign policy in effect. Troops have been sent to Afghanistan (understandably so), Iraq (questionable), and now Liberia (Finally, Blacks on the Left approve of a militaristic move made by the president.). Troops were also sent to Venezuela in an oil-related situation. While all of this money is being spent on the defense budget, America is being forgotten. Jobs are disappearing, our youths are not getting enough of an education, and we are becoming a nation of low-brows.
Garbage Culture
A Catholic priest often ranted in his sermons about the “Culture of Death” pervading America and its youth, particularly via sources such as MTV. While there may have been some merit to his claims, there is perhaps a far greater threat to our culture than this immoral death culture, a threat which crosses any religious or moral lines. It is modern pop culture, garbage spewed forth everyday from Hollywood, on the radio, and on television. Every day Americans are inundated with the latest news about who is sleeping with whom, and who is in rehab for what. Music today, at least on mainstream radio, is smutty, and not at all in an artistic way. Generic lyrics about licentious sex and drug use are blasted from our stereos, backed by repetitive music, often courtesy not of musicians, but of machines. Yes, some musicians do speak of sex and drug use, and other morally questionable (depending of the point of view) topics while remaining at least somewhat artistic, but they tend to exist outside of the mainstream. Movies today are no more intelligent; Steve Martin (who was once funny) starred recently in Bringin’ Down the House, in which in one a) unbelievable and b) yet somehow incredibly predictable scene, an elderly white heiress, sitting in a dance club frequented exclusively by Blacks, took hits off of a joint and soon found herself to be quite stoned.
Perhaps if more actors would keep a lower profile in discussing their political views, instead of preaching them to the masses as if they were experts in public or foreign policy, and spend more time reading and selecting scripts, Hollywood could help to put an end to the downward spiral of culture ignorance suffered by Americans.
It is a sad testament to the cultural intellect of Americans when they are more interested in whether or not Miss Spears and Mr. Durst engaged in sexual intercourse than in what inspired Mozart as he composed his twenty-ninth symphony or in what Shakespeare thought of the historic events which he used and altered to write Macbeth.
The Culture of Death
Maybe the priest was right. Our culture, which once centered around family values, is now a culture of decadence, a culture of the self, of individual rights over individual responsibilities. Children are not being disciplined. While their parents (or whomever they might have as so-called guardians) sit at home watching talk shows and soap operas, they loiter in front of (the few remaining) local stores, littering, fighting, and swearing, must to the displeasure of businessmen and customers. When an adult scolds them and expels them from the premises, they swear more, and more loudly.
The former manager of a grocery store owned by his family for ninety-five years before they sold the business was once painting new yellow lines in the parking lot when a deviant youth came riding through on his bicycle. Having put in hours of labor, he warned the boy not to ride over the fresh paint. When the boy ignored the caveat and did in fact ruin the paint job, the manager grew angry and grabbed the boy by the arm, leaving a fresh coat of yellow paint on the youth’s coat sleeves. The parents of the boy filed a lawsuit and the manager was forced to pay for a new coat, even though he was merely defending his property and hard work. Even the courts side with a morally lax society.
The sexual revolution taught society that sex was about experimentation and fun, and not about commitment, love, or even a feeling perceived to be love until the next morning. From this regression in our morality has stemmed legal abortion across American and multiple forms of birth control. Sex is seen as a carefree activity, yet our society, ever hypocritical, sends mixed messages to those who engage in premarital sex. Pregnant teenagers, even if they are no longer sent off to “live with an aunt,” are still often thought of as sleazy, as sluts. But if they do not get pregnant, they are said to be merely being teenagers. Our schools teach about birth control, but promoting abstinence is assaulted as being the forcing of the morals of some on others. Never mind that using public schools to inform about safe sex violates the First Amendment right to freedom of religious belief of those who feel that premarital sex is wrong and do not want their tax dollars to in any way condone it.
My Only Friend?
Is this the end? Is the foundation of America’s society so damaged that the nation is on the verge of collapse? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Maybe as a new generation, not so convinced of the righteousness of the sexual revolution, with a greater social conscience and eyes open wide to see the ailments of this society, emerges, a change is on the way. Perhaps a nearly deceased intellectual culture will soon begin its phoenix-like resurrection. Or perhaps America is just going to slide all the way down the spiral into moral, intellectual, and cultural ignorance. Ignorance is, after all, bliss.
