A Journal for Western Man-- Issue VI
Part III: The Enemies of Civilization (Continued)
Harry Roolaart
On a political and economic level, the academic is hostile to capitalism because it is a system that is primarily intellectual: everything needed to survive is directly due to man’s application of reason to the problem of survival. The academic is hostile to individual rights because they rely on man’s right to life, to man’s right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action. The academic is hostile to reason because it is man’s only means to his survival.
Never a champion of merit the academic champions instead the disadvantaged – a class to which he “intellectually” belongs. Never an advocate for competition, he instead defends those incapable of it – himself included. Denying the validity of reality, he upholds the rights of those who seek to evade it.
For example: what is the prize so sought after by the academic? Tenure, with its way of shielding the senior staff from the reality which they claim doesn't exist. Working for an institution in which neither pay nor promotion is connected to performance, the academic’s job security is guaranteed (after tenure is attained). His pension arrangement is probably the finest in the country. Though he is anti-value by necessity, the academic does pursue one value: his own survival. He ensures that he is effectively shielded from public life – from reality - and from the disastrous consequences of his actions as a so-called educator.”
What are some of the consequences of his actions? Most Americans wonder about the state of our cultural atmosphere, its cynicism, its skeptical indifference, the appalling apathy, nihilism, violence and moral decadence that has spread like a cancer across our nation. Wonder no more. Take a good look at academia.
When the academic indoctrinates our children with his own envious predilection to faultfinding, criticism, and misanthropy is it any wonder that our culture reflects such views? When the envious academic hammers it into our children’s heads that reason is impotent, that ability is a non-value, that the individual must suborn his own pursuit for happiness to the will of others, is it any surprise that skepticism and indifference reign across our cultural landscape? When the academic relentlessly purges all concepts of self-interest from our children’s minds– without which their self-reliance and self-sustaining action is possible – is it any wonder that the pervading emotion in our nation is, not the passionate pursuit of happiness, but the apathetic acceptance for the lack of it? When the academic instructs his students that moral and cultural relativism constitute the good, that truth is whatever one chooses it to be, can we expect anything other than a Columbine massacre? When the envious academic instructs his students not towards a society in which the man of ability engages in peaceful trade, but rather a society in which some are entitled to the productive efforts of others, than is it any wonder that violence now spreads like a cancer across the American tapestry? And finally, when the academic tells his students that no thing is better than any other thing, then is it any wonder that our children no longer understand the difference between right and wrong?
Most Americans view their politicians worthy only of contempt, their government as corrupt, and taxes as a metaphysical fact of reality. And yet, they continually vote the same politicians into office, vote to grow government, and remain silent when their taxes are raised to the point that now most Americans work at least six months out of each year to sustain government, rather than their own lives. Why? Ask the academics.
If the academic himself works for an institution which forcibly takes its wealth from those who produce it, how can we expect him to educate his students that they have a right to their own wealth? If it requires a politician to vote in tax legislation that supports, for one, the taking of wealth from the productive and the giving of it to the institutions that shield the academic from having to survive via competitive means, than why are we so surprised if the academic teaches our future politicians that to do so constitutes the “moral good”? If the government has no principles and instead replaces - truths with statistics, morality with the taking of polls, and individual rights with the will of the common good - then is it any wonder that the academic who bristles at the very idea of principles, indoctrinates our children with the notion that compromise – the willingness to sacrifice one’s values - is a virtue?
Most Americans wonder about the state of the economy. Where once we were a free nation, engaged in free trade and a nation that championed the industrialist and business class above all others, we now legislate and regulate every aspect of trade, condemn the successful for being a success, and instead look to political action for the advancement of mankind. Who transformed America from a nation of self-reliant individuals to one whose people continually look to Washington, D.C. for solutions?
If the freedom to engage in free trade is the requirement of survival for a thinking and valuing man, then you must expect that the envious mind of an academic will attempt to take way from man that which is required for his survival. If the businessman is precisely that man who takes risks, who does not shield himself from reality, who does not use forcible means but rather free trade in order to survive, then we can expect the envious mind of the academic - who relies on tenure, eschews society to live only in academic circles, and who does use forcible means for his survival - to condemn the businessman for being opportunistic, materialistic and greedy (their euphomism for the proper virtue of self-interest).
And last, but not least, most Americans wonder about our War on Terrorism. How is it possible to declare war not on the terrorists themselves, but rather on their methodology? How is it possible that we praise the Islamic faith for doing exactly what it’s holy book describes, the annihilation of western man? How is it possible to drop food and bombs on the enemy at the same time? How is it possible to fight a long, protracted war without actually declaring war? How is it possible that the only revolt against this war erupts from within our own campuses?
Look no further than our academics. Their virulent hatred for America, its principles and ideas have been taught for decades to those students who now constitute our current political leaders. If it is the academic who teaches that America’s value system comes at the expense of those systems of lesser value, then it can come as no surprise that our leaders engage not in our own moral self-defense, but in an appeasement (apology) towards the enemy who view us as oppressive and tyrannical. For the same reason, if our culture is no better than anyone else’s, then it’s no surprise that our leaders in their fear of appearing superior - and therefore supposedly oppressive and tyrannical - continue to praise Islam. In its consistent policy of compromise, we need not wonder at the seeming contradiction of dropping food and bombs on the enemy. Our leaders have been taught that a consensus is necessary, that a policy of pleasing everyone is superior to morality. Why do we fight a war without officially declaring one, because it would mean officially declaring war against all nations harboring terrorists? And finally, how is it that only academia has expressed revulsion towards this war and how is it that only academia expresses a vicious anti-American sentiment?
The answer to this last, is that academia does not consider itself part of reality. Only that portion of society that is completely closed off from it, that is safely ensconced from man’s requirement to sustain himself, that officially denies the existence of reality, reason, values and principles can utter a statement no one else facing a direct attack against their lives would . It is precisely the terrorists’ gross attack against life, reason, our values and principles that have made America – those of us living in the reality of it – aware once again of what makes this nation great. That the academics refuse to do so, is the final proof that they now constitute civilization’s deadliest enemy.
In closing, let me say that there are those in academia who are not destroyers of the mind. In fact, there are many who remain objective, who educate instead of indoctrinate, who are advocates for reason, individual rights, and capitalism while teaching opposing views as well. My attack is most definitely not aimed against them. They are precisely what this country needs. They constitute the necessary reform our educational institutions require. They are our true intellectuals who seek, as we all do, to further mankind and civilization through the educational process.
