The drive to put Western civ back in the college curriculum

[Valin]

NY Post:

Ashley Thorne

March 29, 2016

 

Most college students, we’re told, want easy As, cheap beer and free condoms. Not many care about the quality of their education.

 

Stanford students want more. They’re asking the school to require a course on Western civilization, from Plato to Galileo to Du Bois.

 

The editorial board of The Stanford Review has circulated a petition for a mandatory course on “the politics, history, philosophy, and culture of the Western world.” More than 370 students signed the petition, qualifying it to be voted on by the entire student body in April.

 

(Snip)

 

The Review writers, led by editor-in-chief Harry Elliott, seek a new way to study old ideas. Students want to know the good — the legacies of reason, freedom and innovation. But they also want to know the bad — the skeletons of wars, slavery and the Holocaust.

 

They also recognize that we seek equal rights and individual choice because we have inherited Western ideas about freedom and human dignity.

 

Why study Western civilization? As these students argue in their manifesto, by knowing the West we can understand how knowledge has grown over time; how dictatorships rise and fall; how ideas we now presuppose took many years and much struggle to gain traction; and why these ideas matter. Without such knowledge, students will take the heritage of their civilization for granted and be unable, or unwilling, to defend it.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

The Case for a Western Civilization Requirement at Stanford

Introduction

Liberals cheered and conservatives howled when President Obama unveiled his executive order on immigration. But even the President’s most zealous critics cannot contest that the American creed transcends “what we look like, or what our last names are, or how we worship.” Instead, we define ourselves by the ideals we cherish; by the values, such as equal opportunity and individual initiative, that President Obama invoked because he knew they would resonate with millions of diverse Americans.

The fifty-six signatories of the Declaration of Independence did not conjure these values from midair. Centuries of history forged them. A story of Western Civilization is a history of ideals that guide the Western world, and increasingly, the entire globe. The Western narrative, exalted by virtue and shamed by sin, contextualizes our society.

Western education should tell this narrative. Knowledge of Western values, systems, and institutions prepares students to live, work, and study in Western society, and empowers students to change it when necessary. But Stanford University, an institution purportedly at the pinnacle of higher education, fails its students. Stanford does not require a humanities course that contextualizes our society, and the ramifications transcend the Farm. Our alumni innovating in Silicon Valley, making policy in Washington, and investing on Wall Street lack the historical knowledge necessary to grasp their actions’ implications and responsibly shape the future.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

WARNING may cause extreme pain and loss of IQ points.....You Have Been Warned....Don't Blame Me!

A response to The Review’s Western Civilization petition
Feb. 23 2016

(Snip)
“Western societies have the best track record in enhancing individual well-being. “

I would love to see where TSR got the data for this. Whoever came up with this conclusion did not ask people of color, trans and genderqueer folks, people in low-income communities or anyone who is strategically and directly oppressed by Western society. Western values have created numerous overlapping systems of oppression that destroy the well-being of many individuals daily.

 

​”Stanford students lack the historical context necessary to grasp the implications of their technological innovations ​…​”

 

Speak for yourselves. Many of us, especially those of us who had no other option but to learn our history on our own since we saw no representation in the Western school system, are very well aware of historical context, and we do not need The Review to patronize us.

​

”​Western values unshackled millions in other cultures from oppression.​”

 

Western values put millions in shackles in the first place. A brief and not-at-all encompassing list of historical examples includes genocide of indigenous populations, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Japanese internment camps, sex trafficking in the Vietnam and Korean wars, etc. I encourage TSR to do some research to add to this list.

 

(Snip)

 

 

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For the record I am very pleased to say The Commenters took Mara Chin Loy to task.

[RandyM]

So the quality of such a course, like any other course, will hinge on WHO is teaching it.

[Valin]

So the quality of such a course, like any other course, will hinge on WHO is teaching it.

 

Gotta start somewhere.

[Valin]

From Plato to NATO in a Dangerous World
Suzanne Fields
Apr 01, 2016

(Snip)

Thus, the results of the November election could -- the operative word being could -- challenge American civilization as we know it. But how well do we know American civilization? This isn't purely an academic question, though it's certainly of academic importance.

There's an important debate happening on the campus of one of America's most elite universities: what educated men and women should understand and defend as American values.

It's a reminder of what has been sacrificed to promote political correctness in our culture. Ironically, the debate was ignited by the students, not the professors. Next week, students at Stanford University will decide whether to ask the university to restore a mandatory undergraduate course that was once commonplace on American campuses.

"In recognition of the unique role Western culture has had in shaping our political, economic and social institutions," the student petition declares, "Stanford University should mandate that freshmen complete a two-quarter Western civilization (course) requirement covering the politics, history, philosophy and culture of the Western world."

 

(Snip)

 

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Title reminded me of

 

From Plato to NATO: The Idea of the West and Its Opponents

David Gress

[Valin]

The Stanford Review Is Going to Get in Trouble. . .
Steven Hayward
April 1, 2016

aIt’s April Fool’s Day, of course, but when colleges are dominated by humorless fools (and knaves, but knaves don’t have a Day dedicated to them, unless it is April 15), it is doubtful the obvious satire of the mighty Stanford Review today will go unpunished. This is just too good not to reprint in full here:

 

 

Stanford University has repeatedly failed to address systematic issues on campus. We, the Students of the Stanford Review, have seen our voices silenced, our rights trampled, and our experiences ignored. Not once has an administrator inquired as to the relative health of our feelings – the system is broken! We, the Students of the Stanford Review, DEMAND change.

 

(Snip)

 

4 WE DEMAND that Stanford recognizes that half-lives matter, and establishes a committee to fund the Chemistry and Physics Departments accordingly.

 

8 WE DEMAND that Stanford’s Applied Quantitative Reasoning requirement not be fulfilled by cis-linear algebra. The experiences of marginalized matrices have been ignored for too long.

 

11 WE DEMAND that the Math Department immediately cease reducing fractions, each having their own unique identities and experiences, to their lowest common denominators.

 

15 WE DEMAND that the Administration immediately accepts the aforementioned demands, and that a statement of acceptance, a timetable of implementation for each demand, and an administrative point person for each demand be presented to the Review at 3 PM on Friday April 8, in open forum at Buffalo Wild Wings, San Jose.

 

 

Well done, brave sirs! Meanwhile, cue the outrage in three, two. . .