It is difficult to start a book that one might expect to be an exposé on the scandals of college life, particularly while I have mixed sentiments toward my own college experience. I have read several hundred books over the past three years, on a variety of topics and within a variety of genres, and have found material in almost every book that is worth referencing here. It is nearly impossible to limit a book to the scandals of college life today, for many of the problems we see taking shape in higher education are symptoms of a greater problem of worldview within our society.

When I speak of worldview, I am referring to the way in which one decides to order his life – the purpose that he sees in life, his priorities, his goals, and the influence of economics, politics, culture, and religion on his thinking within any given situation. I should take a moment now to bring to light the fact that I employ the traditional usage of the indefinite pronoun unabashedly. I mean no offense to women or the feminist movement, but I will not beat around the bush – I do not use terms such as ovester instead of semester, herstory instead of history, or any of the other rubbish that has created a great divide between the sexes in the past thirty years. The traditional use of ‘he’ refers to mankind, a grouping that unites men and women of all ages, before our time and after. This idea of unity of the sexes and the divisiveness of the feminist movement will be discussed later in the book, so I shall save my diatribe for later.

It should be clear that my opinions of gender and feminism are part of my worldview, and the fact that I believe in an absolute worldview to shape my life rather than living according to some undefined sense of relativism speaks to the worldview with which I write to a great extent as well. I first was able to articulate my worldview in college and quickly found it in conflict with the typical thinking of college students. If you have not read such books as Brainwashed by Ben Shapiro, The Ivory Tower of Babel by Mike Adams, or The Fall of the American University by Jim Nelson Black, you might not be aware of the significant liberalization of academia over the past thirty years. Wellesley College, my alma mater, has found itself at the forefront of this trend, which is particularly ironic given the media attention of the movie Mona Lisa Smile and the school’s continued ranking as the #4 liberal arts college in the United States.

At one point in time, a liberal arts education taught the art of thinking, with study and open discussion of such writers as Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, and Aristophanes from the Ancient World; Vergil, Cicero, St. Augustine, Anselm, Aquines, and Dante from the time of Rome and the Middle Ages; Machiavelli, Thomas More, Calvin, and Luther from the Renaissance and Reformation; Cervantes, Descartes, Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Kant from the beginning of Modern thought; de Tocqueville, Hamilton, Faulkner, Marx, Freud, and Neitsche from the late- and post-Modern Era. My college curriculum – fortunately – did cover many of these authors, but it failed to allow open dialogue about their work. The authors were presented to us as if there was an obvious sentiment with which we should view them. I count myself lucky, though, because – in spite of the fact that I attended a college known for the liberal bias of the faculty – I feel that I was adequately prepared to engage with the material we covered and argue my perspective (regardless of whether the professors agreed with me or not). Many of my friends – even at less-obviously biased universities – were not as fortunate.

Nearly every person I meet has a story to tell about some form of political or religious bias forced upon students in the classroom. One of my most good-natured and fair-minded friends told me that she was brought before the Honor Board at Elon University, a small liberal arts college in North Carolina, for raising her hand to comment on an opinionated statement that a professor had stated as fact. The professor disputed my friend’s point and asked her to leave the class. The following class session, the professor presented my friend with a letter stating that she would be required to meet with the Dean to discuss her “outburst” (which seems even more absurd given the fact that she can barely make a peep, let alone an outburst).

Another friend told me of an experience in high school in which a teacher compared the historical accuracy of the Bible to a game of Telephone. The teacher explained to her students that, like the game of Telephone, it is impossible for a story to stay the same when passed orally between people. Key word: impossible. She didn’t even allow for the possibility that it could remain the same; instead, she pressured her students into thinking that her opinion, which she stated as if it were fact, was the only acceptable way to look at Biblical scholarship. This example stands out to me, first and foremost, because it clearly shows the potential for teachers to undermine parental authority (for example, if a student’s parents say that the Bible is the foundation for everything in their life and then a teacher says that the Bible is a nothing more than a piece of literary fiction), and secondly, because of the credulity of high school students. I am alarmed by many of the topics to which high school students are exposed today, when they are of an age at which they probably do not have a solid foundational worldview to help them process the information they are given. A recent example of this type made national news, after tenth-grade teacher, Jay Bennish of Colorado, compared the President’s State of the Union to speeches made by Adolf Hitler and led his students to shout that the United States was the most violent of all nations. He also told the students that the United States has engaged in “7,000 terrorist attacks against Cuba” and that “capitalism is at odds with humanity, at odds with caring and compassion and at odds with human rights.” I’ve heard similar comments from political science professors quoting political theorists for the sake of debate, but this was in a tenth-grade geography class!^1

Why do teachers feel compelled to make such comments, and why do they feel that they are justified in doing so? We’ve all heard speculation that this atmosphere of extremism and the politicization of academia began in the Vietnam Era. These changes were not just a clash of worldviews between the Baby Boomers and the Hippies. There were many aspects of the Vietnam Era that contributed to the polarization and politicization of academia as we see it today. The Red Scare, the civil rights movement, the war in Vietnam all did their part to mold the American university of the new millennium.

Students in the Vietnam Era saw the negative effects of “intolerance” on their parents’ generation in the blacklisting of the Red Scare and opted, instead, for the other extreme: unconditional tolerance and relativism. Simultaneously, the civil rights movement was pushing this unprecedented level of tolerance in a new direction, to the point that tolerance was expected to mean complete acceptance regardless of race, ethnicity, culture, gender, sexuality, or religious preference. All of this opened the door for the feminist movement (or more accurately, as I will explain later, the “gender feminist” movement), which I, as a woman who attended a women’s college, tend to see as the most grievous result of the Vietnam Era because of the role it has played in contributing to the oppression of women in later generations. Many of the “freedoms” gained in the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties have done more to bring forth an oppressive zeitgeist than they have to truly liberate women.

As we will see, this is how many of the policies and movements pursued by the Vietnam generation have turned out: they end with a result opposite their intended effect. How can such well-intending people have such a detrimental effect on society over such an extended amount of time without questioning their efforts? And why do they continue as proponents of the causes they took up in the 1960s, fighting for them in the same way as they did in the 1960s, rather than admit that they might have been wrong, that there might be another way to deal with the problem?

These activists cannot give up the causes they took up more than thirty years ago because the issues are emotive. At the time that the Vietnam generation started its movement, it was not simply to “put something on their résumé.” They were involved in their various causes because they had been taught to care about such causes. At the time when the Vietnam generation was young and credulous, they were persuaded to believe new ideas of “liberation” – whereas their parents’ generation supposedly was indoctrinated and completely reliant on tradition, their generation could be freed of such constraints. At the same time that these students were being convicted of newly-found freedoms, they were being exposed to arguments on issues of the day well beyond those relating to Vietnam: the debate of privacy rights, freedom of speech, and family structure came to the forefront, as well as birth control, abortion, divorce, women in the workforce, single parenthood, welfare, flag burning, the relationship of Church and State, pornography, etc. The generation that became of college age during Vietnam has been exposed to more political controversies and historical changes, involving greater resources and populations, than have any other generation of students in a comparable period.^2

There were changes internal to the university that supplemented the external issues of the time to create an environment more receptive to the politicization of academia: (1) In response to the extremism of McCarthyism, many universities implemented a new tenure system, which allowed professors much more freedom to bring political commentary to the classroom;^3 (2) New courses and departments were added for the study of peace and black and women’s rights movements; (3) Restrictions on dating and political involvement were lightened or entirely removed from school policies; and (4) Academic freedom and freedom of speech became a central goal for many schools after the general “sense of powerlessness” that had been felt after World War II.^4 The new direction of the university allowed much more room for, and even inspired to some extent, political activity among the faculty. Faculty members at many of the larger, more prestigious schools (and even at some smaller state schools^5 ) led protests and worked to inform students of the need to pull out of Vietnam.

It was the example set by these activist professors that allowed students to take hold of the anti-Vietnam War movement and run with it. By 1972, students had taken over the Democratic party – pushing it to a new extremist perspective that isolated its traditional blue-collar and Catholic membership.^6 Their extremism with regard to Vietnam – which led many activists to not only be anti-war, but also anti-American and anti-capitalism – began the polarization that we now see plaguing academia and, to a lesser extent, all of our society.^7

This split – between liberals in academia at the time and the New Left (who went on to become the radical liberals that we see in academia today) - has now taken shape as a divide limited not only to politics, but also issues of morals, family, culture, education, economics, and every other aspect of life. Its influence has become widespread not because of its worthwhile contribution to all of these matters; rather, it is because it essentially handicapped academia from having the capacity to dialogue on these significant issues. Without teaching students how to engage in a free exchange of ideas and an intentional process of deliberation, our entire society is left handicapped with an insufficiently-prepared generation.

The professors of the 1960s may have been well-intentioned in their protests against Vietnam, but they failed to foresee the greater implications of their actions. Arnold Kaufman, who led a teach-in of 200 faculty and nearly 3,000 students in Michigan, articulated a belief that, while teachers have a responsibility to speak out on political issues, that responsibility is coupled with an obligation “to listen to other citizens and take part in a general deliberative process” and to recognize that they are entrusted with the duty “to build a society which is free because its citizens are thoughtful and informed.” Younger protesters did not grasp such a vision – they protested against the system as a whole and did not accept its underlying foundations. While the professors of the Sixties became politically active with the hopes of preparing their students for the “roles of citizen and leader,” they instead created a whole new monster – the radicals who have polarized today’s universities.^8

The effect of the Vietnam Era on the political climate of today is a topic that has not gone unarticulated before. However, I feel that it is something worth emphasizing so that you have a sense of the extremism that divides America’s campuses today. I went to college as a registered Democrat and found myself so appalled by the extreme liberalism present in the classroom and social atmosphere that I quickly found myself seeking refuge among campus conservatives. That is the problem with the New Left that formed in the Sixties. Rather than engaging in intellectual discourse and building coalitions, the New Left turned against their potential allies, thereby starting the breakdown of productive communication.^9 They squandered their college years participating in activities such as seizing campus buildings (Columbia in 1968), blocking transportation of important political figures (Harvard in 1966), and publicly rebelling against authority figures (Berkeley in 1964), instead of using them – as is the intention of college – to research and contemplate academic scholarship so as to gain knowledge and understanding to equip them to better deal with the problems of the world after graduation.^10 What is worse is that these activists actually believe that their public displays were effective – that President Nixon pulled out of Vietnam because of the activity of a few outspoken radicals – and, thus, they still advocate such methods for dealing with political disputes.

Even when conservative Democrats abandoned them to bring about Republican dominance in the Eighties, these radicals still would not admit defeat. They maintained that they were right and that they would have to take more drastic measures for their agenda to get a foothold in American society; hence, their retreat to academia. It is within this context that they are able to spread their ideas to a new generation of protesters (and the fact that, at present, it is almost required to obtain at least a bachelor’s degree for most professions allows them to reach an ever-growing portion of the population). They have brought their anti-American, anti-military, Marxist, feminist, antireligious rhetoric into the classrooms in the guise of instruction, making comments such as those made by Professor Ward Churchill at CU-Boulder after the attacks of September 11th.

However, their efforts have yet again been met with failure. While some students take their bate, others have found such partisan teaching to be repugnant. A friend of mine who lost someone in the 9/11 attacks told me of the difficulty she experienced in listening to her professors banter on with anti-American assertions following the attacks, with comments such as “this has been a long time in coming given the way that we treat other countries” and “this is the price we pay for our greed.” It was because of statements like these that the conservative movement began to catch like wildfire among students who were in college after 1997. The students who became conservative became ultra-conservative: very patriotic, very pro-military, very neo-conservative^11 , very pro-strong Defense, and supporting all of the conservative principles that come with these labels. The students who became liberal became ultra-liberal, responding to the controversy over military action with the same methods used by their liberal predecessors during the time of Vietnam. This split augmented the extremism that began with the formation of the New Left in the Sixties and added to the polarization of college campuses.

Unfortunately, schools have not been equipped to deal with the problems associated with such polarization. They can see that there is in fact a problem there, but they don’t quite know how to get their hands around it. Even more unfortunately, the Administration – in addition to the faculty – of most schools is dominated by the radicals of the Sixties who retreated into academia in the late Seventies and Eighties, so the Administration is more likely to notice and object to the problems caused by conservative activists than they are to liberal activists. Ultimately, authority on college campuses rests with the Administration. Administrations on campuses across the United State have implemented “politically correct regulations that often intrude upon notions of academic freedom.”^12

These policies have led many conservatives to call foul, leading them to make the same claims of “victimization” and “oppression” that I find so appalling from liberals. They have, in recent years, proposed such policies and legislation as The Student’s Bill of Rights and affirmative action in the hiring of conservative professors, while others have run away from secular colleges to find religiously-based conservative schools. In many ways, I believe that the conservative response to liberal provocation has contributed as much to the problems of higher education today as liberals have. Both sides fail to see how their actions continue to isolate the other side in an unproductive opposition.

Add to this the fact that many of the issues discussed on college campuses today are very emotive, leading to a feeling of personal attack in many intellectual exchanges, physical demonstrations, and even greater difficulty in finding balance.^13 Media and political attention to the problem have added to its complexity and served to spread the extreme political orientation of college campuses to other venues and aspects of life as well. I hope that if you are the type of person to read this book, that you can already see that these changes are problematic. There are some people who would say that it is not a problem, and that, instead, people of my perspective are just being uptight. To these people I would respond by saying that, I used to be one of them – I used to see no problem with “kids being kids” or with the loosening of restrictive norms from past generations. Now, I contend that this problem is more than just “kids being kids.” I might find the loosening of cultural restrictions suitable if it came after deep consideration of the reasoning behind past norms and the value of holding onto such norms. However, there is no such consideration today. Students today – for the most part – feel entitled to freedom to do whatever they want; they feel entitled to be in college, and typically at their parents’ expense. Hence the reason why we have seen the emergence of extreme behavior on college campuses over the past 10 years (much of which has been condensed into the past 5 years). I will not be so naïve as to suppose that this kind of behavior did not exist in past generations. The reason why I feel that it warrants attention now is because it has become much more prolific in this generation and serves much more as a reflection of a new way of thinking than it does of “acting out.”

Most educators recognize that there is a problem, but have mischaracterized the nature of the problem. Rather than try to restore the order of the past by calling on the positive aspects of past generations, schools now make efforts to push their curriculum and social policies even further toward modern – and misguided – ideals. For example, the National Education Association (NEA) enthusiastically endorses diversity education, global education, sex education (including education on sexual abuse, incest, and sexual orientation), AIDs education, environmental education, and self-esteem education^14 , with no mention of phonics education or helping students master the Three R’s (reading, writing, and arithmetic).^15 Beginning in the early 1980s, the NEA began to follow the SIECUS-Planned Parenthood dogma in “vigorously attack[ing] ‘materials that promote sex stereotypes’ such as non-employed mothers and breadwinning fathers and affirmed the right of school children ‘to live in an environment [i.e. , the school] of freely available information, knowledge, and wisdom [i.e. , as defined by the school] about sexuality’,” because it believed that strict views of the traditional family model were responsible for the harsh divisions that were forming within our society.^16 It now “condemn[s] ‘homophobia,’ celebrate[s] ‘reproductive freedom’ and ‘family planning,’ …welcome[s] ‘diverse sexual orientation,’ and urge[s] the positive portrayal ‘of the roles and contributions of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people throughout history.’”^17

The policies put forth by the NEA and promoted by many university administrations have been wrapped in the guise of feminism, multiculturalism, tolerance, and understanding. However, most of these policies have proven unfit to accomplish their aims and have distorted the terminology with which they are associated. At one point, feminism sought to enable women to have equal opportunities as men and focused on the fact that women can do whatever they set their mind to do just as well as men. Many schools endorsed programs that would allow female students to excel in fields such as math and science. This kind of feminism is the kind of feminism supported by the original feminists (the “equity feminists”). When I served as a tour guide at Wellesley College, it was because of this view that I felt it important to point out that Wellesley has one of the best observatories available to an undergraduate institution (with three permanent telescopes: 6-inch and 12-inch Alvan Clark refractors and a 24-inch telescope), as well as an X-ray diffractometer, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectrometers, electron microsopes, and argon and dye lasers.^18 This is what feminism should be about – if a woman wants to become an astronomer, chemist, or scientist, she should have equal access to the resources necessary to become one as any similarly-situated man.

This is not, however, the version of feminism practiced (and encouraged) on most college campuses today. Most feminists on college campuses today are “gender feminists,” or as Rush Limbaugh coined, “feminazis.” In my experience at Wellesley – particularly in the Women’s Studies course that I signed up for before realizing what I was getting into – many of the problems that girls experienced were somehow related to oppression by men. Obviously, men are responsible for a girl going into the bathroom to throw up after every meal or exercising four hours per day. Obviously… Just as men are responsible for girls feeling the need to get drunk to the point of passing out and have one-night hookups^19 on the weekend so that they can feel loved and worthwhile, because the world obviously does not value women enough. I became so infuriated with the constant cries of victimization, oppression, and bitterness expressed by feminazis during my undergraduate experience, that I quickly found myself converted to a traditionalist perspective. Probably one of the only good things to come out of the shift to gender feminism is that it made those women who value motherhood and marriage, and their distinctive role as supplement to man, that much more passionate about their view^20 . This, unfortunately, has furthered the rift and polarization of ideologies that I described earlier. However, rather than trying to encourage a balanced perspective, many administrations have continued to press feminism to new levels of “empowerment,” which has only served to increase the feeling of oppression among women.

As much as I hate to make references to pop culture, I think a line from the movie “The Stepford Wives” is particularly relevant here. Near the end of the movie, Mike – the man who supposedly invented the entire concept of “Stepford wives” – says, “While you women were trying to become men, we made ourselves gods.” This highlights the fact that, rather than becoming successful in their role as women, feminazis have put all of their effort into making themselves equal with men. Yet men have become what they are today after thousands of years (depending on your view of creation) of development. Women will always be behind in the process of “becoming men.” Why not strive to be the best as women? If you want to see the epitome of what feminism should encourage women to seek, look at Condoleeza Rice. Regardless of where you lie on the political spectrum, I think that everyone can agree that she is a brilliant and talented woman: she is a concert pianist, knows football as well as – if not better than – the back of her hand, and her knowledge and understanding of international relations is probably unsurpassed. And yet she continues to wear skirts and makeup; she does her hair. She doesn’t complain that George Bush is “holding her down” from advancement up the political ladder. She has gotten to where she is today because she has worked incredibly hard and proven herself worthy to be there – not because she is entitled to it.

Yet most schools don’t promote women such as Condoleeza Rice as the model of success.^21 They remain staunchly devoted to the likes of Betty Freidan and to a feminist movement which has thus far had questionable results. In a similar way, many schools have prided themselves on multicultural curriculum and programs that have done more to divide students along ethnic and racial lines than they have to encourage unity and understanding. A student can now graduate with a bachelor’s degree from a top institution taking nothing more than classes such as “Rap Music and the African American Poetical Tradition” and “Goddesses, Queens, and Witches: Survey of the Ancient Near East,” perhaps with a class such as “Our Place in Space and Time” to fill the science or math requirement.^22

An example of the 4-year plan for such a degree is available later in the book. I will not judge whether these courses are “worthwhile” or not; I will leave that judgment to you. I will, however, make the claim that today’s curriculum is very different from the curriculum upheld by generations from Socrates through Einstein (do you suppose Einstein had the option to take any classes such as “History of Sexuality: Queer Theory” or “Multidisciplinary Approaches to Abortion?”^23 ) and that it does not challenge students in the same way. While I will not judge the value of studying topics that I personally would not care to study, I will say that it does not seem worth the $150,000 that it typically costs to attend a well-known school these days for such an education.

Outside of the classroom, many “multicultural” activities and organizations have also come into existence in recent years. Consider some of the organizations offered at Wellesley College:

• Alianza (Latin American)
• Asian Student Union
• Canadian Club
• Chinese Students Association
• Cielito Lindo
• Club Filipina
• Ethos (African)
• Failte (Irish)
• Fusion (mixed race)
• GenerAsians (Asian magazine)
• German Club
• Hellenic Society (Greek)
• Hui O’Hawaii (Native Hawaiian)
• Italian Society
• Japan Club
• Korean Students Association
• Latin American Concerns
• Mariachi Femenil de Wellesley
• Mezcla (Latin American)
• Ministry to Black Women
• Multicultural Council
• National Society of Black Engineers
• Native American Student Organization
• Open World (multicultural magazine)
• Pakistani Students Association
• Russian Club
• Slater International Association
• Taiwanese Cultural Committee
• Taiwanese Students Association
• Vietnamese Students Association
• Wellesley African Students’ Association
• Wellesley Arab Women
• Wellesley Asian Alliance
• Wellesley Association for South Asian Cultures
• Wellesley Belly Dancing Society (Middle Eastern)
• Wellesley Persian Students Association
• Women for Caribbean Development
• Yanvalou (African dance)

At first glance, such an assortment of cultural groups might seem to be a very positive aspect of campus life and to have the potential to greatly add to the intellectual diversity of the college. They would be, if students outside of the given culture actually joined the group^24 . I remember one American student dancing in Yanvalou, and I’m sure that some American students join the club relating to their foreign language class (such as the German Club or Russian Club). For the most part, though, these clubs just breed exclusivity and do not do much to promote sincere cultural interest from other groups.

Similarly, there are several organizations at Wellesley devoted specifically to sexuality and sexual orientation: Anais (an erotica magazine), the Sexual Health Educators (SHEs, responsible for putting free condoms around the dorm), and Spectrum (a queer issues group formerly known as Wellesley Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transgenders, and Friends, or WLBTF for short). Like many of the groups based on ethnicity or race, these groups bring attention to the differences among students on campus, rather than promoting unity and understanding as they set out to do.

In 1995, the NEA passed a resolution endorsing a Lesbian and Gay History Month, and in 1996, about one-third of the delegates to the NEA convention sported buttons supporting the NEA’s Gay-Lesbian Caucus (NEA-GLC) and the NEA ended up passing resolutions lobbying for the rewriting of curriculum, textbooks, and activities according to the demands of the homosexual lobby.^25 It is support such as this – which is incredibly disproportional in comparison to the rest of society – that has caused such a tremendous opposition to rise up in the past few years, contributing more to the division along ideological lines within our educational system.

The advocates of the policies and structures such as those listed above believe that our society is rich in culture simply because of its emphasis on the acceptance or tolerance of all cultures. They fail to recognize that our lack of a single unifying culture leaves us feeling unfulfilled and empty. Early twentieth-century writer Pitirim A. Sorokin defines culture as the representation of a unity permeated by one fundamental principle, with its foundation rooted in one basic value. As an example, Sorokin shows how Western medieval culture was formed around a basic value derived from religion. Many people today would cringe at the thought of our culture being restricted to one unifying principle in the way that medieval culture was “limited” by religion. The emphasis on multiculturalism and diversity has fooled many people into thinking that we are not so limited, when, in fact, these principles, and the relativistic sensate ideology in which they have formed, are precisely what limit us now.

Sensate culture develops with value placed upon sensory happiness, pleasure, utility and comfort. Our culture has expanded most rapidly over the last century in its indulgence of and fulfillment in these values. It functions with rules that are relative, expedient, and changeable – according to the persons, groups, and situations involved – as to maximize “happiness” for the maximum number of people. Culture cannot remain solely focused on one idea or entity for all time, however, even if it is happiness, pleasure, or comfort, for that would restrict the culture’s capacity for creativity. As such, Western civilization regularly experiences transformation, of which, so far, we have seen it shift between sensate culture, ideational culture, and idealist culture. Now, Sorokin argues, we are reaching the climax of sensate culture – the point at which we have pushed the ideology to its maximum and are beginning to see the repercussions of our actions in the fact that our society is becoming less able to function productively.^26

Arthur Chickering and Linda Reisser found that college students face seven developmental tasks: developing competence, managing emotions, moving through autonomy toward interdependence, developing mature interpersonal relationships, establishing identity, developing purpose, and developing integrity.^27 The culture of our day and the structure of our universities have inhibited these essential vectors of development in many ways (even though the mission statement of many universities may seek to cultivate them) and will negatively impact the future of our society.

This is primarily because our culture, and the principles upon which our universities operate, lack any sense of the common law or moral absolutes. A shared understanding of the principles that guide life, such as common law and moral absolutes, contributes to solidarity and order, thereby fostering freedom and social improvement. The voluntary (not forced, as social progressives would have you believe) obedience to a shared understanding of law, founded upon national custom and precedent, is what drove civil society forward from Norman times through the late nineteenth century by making it possible for people from diverse backgrounds within a nation to be able to “unite against foreign enemies, to reconcile old ways with prudent change, and to prosper materially.”^28

The relativism promoted within our culture has created what Sorokin would deem “the crisis of our age.” While it will not eliminate mankind, it will – and has already begun to – change every aspect of life as we know it. The Hitlers of the world, the bloodshed of war and genocide, the increasing discrepancy of rich and poor are not the cause of such transition so much as they are a reflection of its imminence.^29

“Revolutions usually happen when change has so roiled a society that little of the past remains in place. They happen when change is too rapid, deep, and broad to be absorbed and processed. Then the old ways are simply swept away; old conventions, structures, beliefs, values, and players all become obsolete. …It is thus that our world replaces its civilizations and political orders. At least this is the way revolution has typically come. But today something quite different is afoot in the West. There is no question that Western culture is now being upended. What is interesting about this, however, is the relative ease with which this revolution has occurred. It has not been savage. It has held out blessings indiscriminately to all. It has been a sly, unobtrusive transformation. Nevertheless, every aspect of Western society, every nook and cranny, is now awash with change. ^30

Many universities have taken drastic measures (on paper, anyways) to gain control over the symptoms of this problem. Their efforts have proven nugatory, though, in many cases, and even detrimental in others because of their failure to recognize the root of the problem. They have found false hope in the promises of technology, feminism, multiculturalism, and relativism, failing to recognize that for every one step they make forward, they take two steps back. As David F. Wells points out,

“[T]his change has not merely been technological in nature, as innovative products and techniques continue to alter the fabric and the rhythms of our lives. Nor has it simply been political and economic, important as these factors may have been. No, this change has in the profoundest sense been spiritual. It is not just the outer fabric of our life that has been assaulted by change but its inner sanctum as well. Change has intruded on the core of our being, the place where values are wrought, appetites emerge, expectations arise, and meaning is constructed. Our world has changed, and so have we.”^31

Our trust in technology, feminism, multiculturalism, and relativism to correct the problems of our day shows our neglect in recognizing that these solutions fail to address the underlying issues of the misguided zeitgeist that has plagued the last half-century.

Rick Warren, in his best-selling book The Purpose-Driven Life, makes the case that, “many of our troubles occur because we base our choices on unreliable authorities: culture (“everyone is doing it”), tradition (“we’ve always done it”), reason (“it seemed logical”), or emotion (“it just felt right”),” when what we really need “is a perfect standard that will never lead us in the wrong direction.”^32 Our culture suffers from a deformation of civil society that prevents us from being able to enforce any “perfect standard.” For those readers who identify as conservatives, please do not look at my comments as yet another excuse to point fingers at liberals. Even conservatives can be found guilty in their failure to find an effective solution to this problem: many have sought to rebuild civil society by means of communal or libertarian views, which have proven just as unsuccessful as the liberal methods. As Gertrude Himmelfarb reveals in her book One Nation, Two Cultures, liberals and conservatives alike have made civil society “the mantra of our time,” calling upon families, communities, churches, civic and cultural organizations to remedy the moral disorders of our society. Yet where many liberals and conservatives have failed in this regard is by using “community” as synonym for “civil society.” As Himmelfarb puts so eloquently,

“From being a subset of civil society, “communities” (in the plural) have been elevated into “community” (in the singular). Yet the two concepts, civil society and community, have had very different histories and, until recently, very different connotations. Civil society has the function of mediating between the individual and the state, restraining the excessive individualism of the one and the overweening designs of the other, socializing the individual by imbuing him with a sense of duties and responsibilities as well as rights and privileges. Community has had a more collectivist, organic, integral character, recalling a tribal or feudal society (or a mythicized tribal or feudal society), in which individuals are socialized by being fused together in a single entity, a ‘solidarity.’ …[Yet in] contemporary parlance, a much emasculated idea of community retains some of the evocative appeal of the old term with little of its substance. Sociologists now speak of ‘small groups’ – self-help and support groups, …Bible study and prayer fellowships, youth and singles clubs – as providing something of the emotional sustenance of community in the older sense. But unlike the community of old, these are voluntary, transient, often therapeutic groups that individuals freely move into and out of as the occasion requires.”^33

As you can see, conservatives are equally as guilty of running to self-help books and emotive support groups as liberals are (whether they are Bible Study groups or Feminist vegetarian co-ops, they all give an artificial sense of community, connectedness, and permanence that simply does not exist within our modernized society). The deformation of civil society has come about because of the intrusion of such groups that wear a mask of civil society while simultaneously working against it, as well as a changing expectation of the ability of civil society to provide a mediating role caused by the neglect of its institutions, the abuse of the legal system in a way that undermines institutions of civil society, and the increased integration of government with the institutions of civil society. If we are to rebuild and reshape civil society to serve as an effective instrument of social mediation and reformation, it must be rooted in moral principles and it must unapologetically reaffirm those principles.

So what are these principles in which our society must find its foundation if it is to survive the cultural changes of the past forty years, and what do these principles tell us about the cause of these changes? As I’ve already argued, the growth of sensate culture in the past few decades has spurred reliance on a distorted view of community, freedom, and happiness, which has proven problematic in that all of them have left our society feeling unfulfilled. In his book Happiness and Man’s Completion, Joseph Peeper suggests that in pursuing happiness, people are actually pursuing God. ^34 If true, this highlights a fundamental disconnect within our society: everything revolves around the pursuit of happiness and self-fulfillment, while there is a simultaneous rejection of the need for a god or, at best, a view that all gods (the authorities in our lives – whether religious, such as Yahweh, Allah, or Jesus; or secular, such as money, possessions, or power) are equally suitable guides for life.^35

A man who conducted a survey on NBC’s The Morning Show on August 21, 2005 said that people today are searching for a religion that helps them understand their purpose, but without judgment or guilt. His findings showed that 79% of people surveyed believed that people outside of their religious faith could go to heaven. This highlights how our society has separated itself from the notion of an ultimate authority or absolute, and how undesirable these concepts have become within our sensate culture. Absolutes necessitate judgment – there is one right and anything other than that is wrong. However, what our society has failed to see is that absolutes can exist without condemnation. The partisanship of the past forty years has left a feeling that if one side is right, the other side is wrong; the one will be rewarded, the other condemned. Even while preaching “tolerance,” our society has focused on “proving the other side wrong.” This perplexing concurrence of tolerance and condemnation has led people to pull away from the idea of moral absolutes in favor of a more relativistic way of life.

It might seem that such “tolerance” and “acceptance” would help to close the rift between religions and build the infamous “community” that I mentioned before. However, this is not what we see. As Thomas Jefferson once said, “Whether my neighbor believes in one god or twenty gods does not affect me.” Is this tolerant? Yes. Is it accepting? Yes. Is it politically correct? Yes. The problem with this mentality is that it creates a detachment and lack of caring among people, and signifies that we have ceased to seek rightness and truth. Hence, even these misguided attempts to resolve the moral dilemmas of our day through religion have fallen short. The idea of tolerance sounds like a good idea, but when it really comes down to it, it only serves to isolate and tear people apart.

It is for this reason that even religious figures such as Ken Meyers, Francis Schaeffer, G.K. Chesterton, and C.S. Lewis find disappointment with the typical methods for addressing the problems of our deteriorating culture. As we will see later in the book, Schaeffer’s solution to this problem is found in Christianity (as displayed in the L’Abri community) – the infinite-personal relationship with God, which is the only formula that can endure the trials of life because of its eternal, observable truths. I find some aspects of Schaeffer’s thinking very desirable, while others I find quite unpalatable. Whether you agree with Schaeffer’s ideas for solving the crisis of our age or not, I hope that you can at least see value in it for bringing attention to our need to restore and reconnect with an understanding of certain unobservable truths and moral absolutes.

So how can we successfully navigate this troubled time in university history – and in the development of our culture – so as to not only change the actions of students, but reshape their worldview to recognize some absolute guide for their lives? Is this achievable? And if we achieve it, will it actually make a difference in reshaping society and undoing the damage of the past forty years?

As Wendell Berry writes, “part of the problem in universities now (or part of the cause of the problem) is this loss of concern for the thing being made and, back of that, I think, the loss of agreement on what the thing is that is being made.”^36 If anything is to change, we must first put an end to the variance in how the purpose of education is defined. Is it to give the students a passion and a purpose for which to live? Is it to help them to transition from a life based on the parent-child relationship to life in the “real world”? Is it to cultivate the foundations already instilled by the parents? If we define the purpose of education to be giving students the academic tools to read, write, and think on their own, is it possible to do this without presenting any opinions or bias into the material? Should it be?

Through anecdotes from students, professors, and administrators, as well as studies and research done on the topic of higher education, you will see how various schools have attempted to answer these questions, the results of their answers, and how parents, students, professors, and alumni have responded to them. You may be surprised (even the most jaded of readers) at some of the policies implemented on college campuses, how these policies have been carried out (particularly in the difference between what is in writing and what is actually enforced), and the way that these policies are conveyed to prospective students and the media. Unfortunately, many schools have implemented policies with good intentions, only to see them end up even further away from what they were designed to accomplish. As one of the staff members at Wellesley pointed out, it is ridiculous when the administration still talks about how they “take the concerns about alcohol on campus very seriously” and want to make sure that they have an alcohol policy that “promotes a healthy community” in which the students “feel comfortable seeking out help without fear of punishment,” when there are students nearly dying under the current policy.

The misguided efforts that we see in college policymaking – all of which are part of a greater attempt to redefine and reshape our educational system – have fallen under three primary categories: multiculturalism, feminism, and social policies (this book will focus primarily on policies relating to alcohol and sex). Some of these policies are the “hippi” policies that we know do not work (as well intentioned as they may be!). Others are conservative policies trying to respond to the cultural crisis resulting from liberal policies. Yet others are common sense policies that just don’t work with today’s distorted cultural climate.

There is little use, however, to a book that only regurgitates the anecdotes about a problem of which most of us are already aware. I’m not writing this book to burn bridges or to point fingers. There are plenty of successes in higher education for every story that I point out about the absurdity of college policies and campus activity. This is not a hopeless situation in which we will be forced to either accept the fact that children must go to college and be “indoctrinated” by flag-burners of the Vietnam era or go the other route of going to a Bob Jones University (or skipping college all together).

There are steps that schools, and their students and alumni, can take to improve our educational system and circumvent the problems that we are seeing today. However, we must also recognize – particularly now that we’ve transferred many of the responsibilities of the family to the government – that the “government, law, and other agencies of the State are as much the repositories, transmitters, even the creators of values as are the culture and the institutions of civil society.” Since we have empowered the government, the transfer of power back to the family must be initiated by the government, either through the legislation of morality (as social conservatives would suggest) or through the transfer of power back to smaller communities, such as state or local government. Furthermore, the government must be effective in enforcing the law, so as to “provide the framework within which individuals and mediating institutions can effectively function.” With these changes allowing for the proper functioning of civil society, there comes responsibility for students, parents, extended family, communities, and organizations to take their role in restoring a civil society.

The last section of this book is dedicated to all of the steps that can be taken by the players involved in and affected by our higher education system – that is, everyone. Whether you are school-aged or retired, have children or not, work or teach, are rich or poor, religious or secular, or conservative or liberal, everyone has their part to play in preventing the deterioration and collapse of higher education, and for that matter, the deterioration and collapse of our culture for future generations. Schools are a reflection of society, and the free exchange of ideas simply is not tolerated any more on college campuses. It is time to decide whether our system of higher education is salvageable, or if we will see a new genre of schools replacing the old and a completely new system and view of education arise. The path that higher education takes over the next few decades will have substantial consequences on the shaping of our world and will affect you, regardless of your connection to it.

I do not claim that the stories in this book are what every student experiences in college, but I will go so far as to say that every student in college today has a story to tell – something that would relate to the questions and problems I raise in this book. The solutions I discuss may or may not work depending on the people, campus, and general direction of culture. I simply bring all of these points up because of my experiences at Wellesley College and the experiences that I have heard from my friends. These examples bring up issues that need to be considered in a thoughtful manner, with the hopes that they will inspire you, the reader, to engage in a dialogue about the issues raised.

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