American higher and now secondary and even elementary education are being swamped by “woke” people looking for things about which to be offended, claiming victimhood based upon race, gender, or class, and seeking to install their propaganda at the expense of liberal education.
Universities like Princeton, Cornell, Rutgers, Northwestern, to name a few, are trying to outdo one another in proclaiming their racism, abject apologies, and kowtowing to the new woke ideology. Their political correctness knows no limits. Even elementary schools are being required to embrace Black Lives Matter racist propaganda.
The more woke education becomes the more it declines, turns in on itself, and implodes. Education is no longer perceived as a place of free inquiry and exchange of ideas to advance knowledge but as a political battleground where the Left vies for the minds of America’s youth. It’s what one commentator called the “Great American Awokening.”
Leftists—not classical Liberals who actually believe in freedom—promote “wokeness,” to the point they don’t discuss but make demands, which turns them into tyrannical bullies. They attack and demean, destroy reputations, get people fired, and tear down history and tradition, offering racist solutions in the name of “anti-racism,” an ironic lack of self-awareness.
Woke education leftists are anti- intellectual. They believe misogyny, racism, and bigotry characterize all whites and American systems, which they say are ipso facto against women and non-binary people, affirm patriarchy, binary gender roles, and heteronormativity and thus further exclusivity, classism, racism. They argue these terrible discriminations are irredeemably embedded in all structures, systems, and institutions (which themselves are setting on “stolen land,” rooted in historic colonization and white supremacy), so they cannot be changed, repaired, reformed, or saved. So they must be “burned down.”
So in the end, woke education is about little more than destruction in the interest of power.
I spent 34 years in higher education. Loved every minute of it. I hold a Ph.D. in political science and to this day appreciate the critical thinking, energetic grad school seminars discussing world issues, the joy of learning, the feeling nothing was beyond our ability to comprehend, and the great camaraderie with other academics. But alas that campus culture is mostly gone and what’s left of it is fast disappearing.
This is an harbinger of worse to come, because what happens in the university does not stay there. It turns up in a few years in society and culture. This is what we are witnessing now, 20-somethings who’ve been sold a bill of goods, who despise their heritage, reject its gifts, and offer no better alternative. And worse, none of this makes them feel better. They are in fact full of anxiety, fragile, and ill-prepared for life.
Woke education is not just ill-advised. It is threatening, dangerous, damaging, and destructive.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2020
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.