The Decline of College

by Victor Davis Hanson // Tribune Media Services 

For the last 70 years, American higher education was assumed to be the pathway to upper-mobility and a rich shared-learning experience.

Young Americans for four years took a common core of classes, learned to look at the world dispassionately, and gained the concrete knowledge to make informed arguments logically.

The result was a more skilled workforce and a competent democratic citizenry. That ideal may still be true at our flagship universities, with their enormous endowments and stellar world rankings.

Yet most elsewhere, something went terribly wrong with that model. Almost all the old campus protocols are now tragically outdated or antithetical to their original mission.

Tenure — virtual lifelong job security for full-time faculty after six years — was supposed to protect free speech on campus. How, then, did campus ideology become more monotonous than diverse, more intolerant of politically unpopular views than open-minded?

Continue reading “The Decline of College”

The Myth of a California Renaissance

Sacramento’s strategy for recovery is more taxes, more regulation, and more government.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online 

Are the recent raves about a new California renaissance true?

SF_From_Marin_Highlands3Rolling Stone magazine just gushed that California governor Jerry Brown has brought the state back from the brink of “double-digit unemployment, a $26 billion deficit and an accumulated ‘wall of debt’ topping $35 billion.”

Unfortunately, California still faces existential crises. Continue reading “The Myth of a California Renaissance”

Liberal Apartheid

The elite mostly lead a reactionary existence of talking one way and living another.

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

One of the strangest things about the modern progression in liberal thought is its increasing comfort with elitism and high style. Over the last 30 years, the enjoyment of refined tastes, both material and psychological, has become a hallmark of liberalism — hand in glove with the art of professional altruism, so necessary to the guilt-free enjoyment of the good life. Take most any contemporary issue, and the theme of elite progressivism predominates. Continue reading “Liberal Apartheid”

America’s Vast Margin of Error

by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

The Obama administration is facing scandals everywhere — using the IRS to punish political enemies, seizing the phone records of Associated Press and Fox News reporters, monitoring phone and email accounts of millions, and making up stories about what happened in Benghazi. Continue reading “America’s Vast Margin of Error”

The End of the Old Order

The well-intentioned social programs of the 1960s make no sense today.

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

Ideas of the 1960s have grown reactionary in our world, which is vastly different from the America of a half-century ago. Continue reading “The End of the Old Order”

Why Read Old Books?

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

We all know the usual reasons why we are prodded to read the classics — moving characters, seminal ideas, blueprints of our culture, and paradigms of sterling prose and poetry. Then we nod and snooze. Continue reading “Why Read Old Books?”

America in the Age of Myth

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

We live in a mythic age — but mythic in the sense of made-up.

The Coastal Aristocrat

In the last thirty years, I have probably spoken 200 times at a coastal university of some sort, most of which were on the Eastern seaboard. Continue reading “America in the Age of Myth”

The Tin-Drum Progressive Boomers

by Bruce S. Thornton

FrontPage

Like the hero of Gunter Grass’ novel The Tin Drum, America’s progressive Baby Boomers chose not to grow up. Why should they? Continue reading “The Tin-Drum Progressive Boomers”

Five Days of Hope and Despair

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

Here is a brief travel log of five days amid 21st-century California. Continue reading “Five Days of Hope and Despair”

How to Weaken an Economy

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

It is not easy to ruin the American economy; doing nothing[1] usually means it repairs itself[2] and soon is healthier than before a recession. Continue reading “How to Weaken an Economy”