Our Psychodramatic Campuses

April 15, 2014 victorhanson

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media

Dartmouth College students recently staged an overnight sit-in the office of

their president Philip Hanlon. They had over seventy demands. Apparently, they grew out of their alleged suffering at the hands of “racist, classist, sexist, heterosexist, trans-homophobic, xenophobic, and ablest structures.”

Translating into English, the students elaborated, “Our bodies are already on the line, in danger, and under attack” — suggesting conditions similar to the teen-aged Marines who stormed Fallujah in November 2004, or perhaps the iron-workers who tip-toe on girders 1,000 feet above Manhattan, or an acquaintance of mine whose work clothes reveal that he pumps out quite messy rural cesspools. As redress for their suffering, the oppressed students issued Orwellian calls to ban particularly hurtful vocabulary, to create new faculty positions based entirely on race, and to Continue reading “Our Psychodramatic Campuses” →

Eating Our Young

January 28, 2014 victorhanson

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media

2561532260_2421859f40 — Photo Credit: Reini68 via Flickr

It is popular now to talk of race, class, and gender oppression. But left out of this focus on supposed victim groups is the one truly targeted cohort — the young. Despite the Obama-era hype, we are not suffering new outbreaks of racism. Wendy Davis is not the poster girl for a resurgent misogyny. There is no epidemic of homophobia. Instead, if this administration’s policies are any guide, we are witnessing a pandemic of ephebiphobia — an utter disregard for young people.

The war against those under 30 — and the unborn — is multifaceted. No one believes that the present payroll deductions leveled on working youth will result in the same levels of support upon their retirements that is now extended to the retiring baby-boom Continue reading “Eating Our Young” →

The Last Generation of the West and the Thin Strand of Civilization

January 21, 2014 victorhanson

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media

Had the Greeks lost at Salamis, Western civilization might easily have been strangled in its adolescence. Had Hitler not invaded the Soviet Union, the European democracies would have probably remained overwhelmed. And had the Japanese just sidestepped the Philippines and Pearl Harbor, as they gobbled up the orphaned Pacific colonies of a defunct Western Europe, the Pacific World as we know it now might be a far different, far darker place. Continue reading “The Last Generation of the West and the Thin Strand of Civilization” →

The Outlaw Campus

January 7, 2014 victorhanson

The university has become a rogue institution in need of root-and-branch reform.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online

Two factors have so far shielded the American university from the sort of criticism that it so freely levels against almost every other institution in American life. (1) For decades a college education has been considered the key to an ascendant middle-class existence. (2) Until recently a college degree was not tantamount

to lifelong debt. In other words, American society put up with a lot of arcane things from academia, given that it offered something — a BA or BS degree — that almost everyone agreed was a ticket to personal security and an educated populace.

Not now. Colleges have gone rogue and become virtual outlaw institutions. Graduates owe an aggregate of $1 trillion in student debt, borrowed at interest rates far above home-mortgage rates — all on the principle that universities could charge as much as they liked, given that students could borrow as much as they needed in federally guaranteed loans.

Few graduates have the ability to pay back the principal; they are simply paying the compounded interest. More importantly, a college degree is not any more a sure pathway to a good job, nor does it guarantee that its holder is better educated than those without it. If the best sinecure in America is a tenured full professorship, the worst fate may be that of a recent graduate in anthropology with a $100,000 loan. That the two are co-dependent is a national scandal.

In short, the university has abjectly defaulted on its side of the social contract by no longer providing an affordable and valuable degree. Accordingly, society can no longer grant it an exemption from scrutiny. Continue reading “The Outlaw Campus” →

The Obamacare Generation

December 19, 2013 victorhanson

The ACA depends on Millennials picking up the tab — as they already are for other entitlements — in the midst of a bad economy.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online

There are all sorts of time bombs embedded within Obamacare.

Will we force doctors to treat the millions of new Medicaid patients who are signing up for services that can be only partially reimbursed? How exactly will the IRS collect penalties from millions of off-the-books youth who choose not to buy coverage? Continue reading “The Obamacare Generation” →

The Death of Populism

August 1, 2013 victorhanson

Plenty of pleaders for rich and poor, but no politician speaks for the common man.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online

Occupy Wall Streeters claimed that they were populists. Their ideological opposites, the Tea Partiers, said they were, too. Both became polarizing. And so far populism, whether on the right or left, does not seem to have made inroads with the traditional Republican and Democrat

establishments.

Gas has gone up about $2 a gallon since Barack Obama took office. Given average yearly rates of national consumption, that increase alone translates into an extra $1 trillion that American drivers have collectively paid in higher fuel costs over the last 54 months.

Such a crushing burden on Continue reading “The Death of Populism” →

The End of the Old Order

May 30, 2013 victorhanson

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” →

How to Weaken an Economy

March 16, 2013March 20, 2013 victorhanson

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” →

Brave New World

March 3, 2013March 5, 2013 victorhanson

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

The Revolutions We Missed

Sometimes societies just plod along, oblivious that the world is being reinvented right under their noses. In 2000, one never saw pedestrians bumping into themselves as they glued their noses to iPhones. Continue reading “Brave New World” →

An Anatomy of a Most Peculiar Institution

December 28, 2012February 6, 2013 victorhanson

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

A Campus Full of Contradictions

Almost everything about the modern university is a paradox. It has become a sort of industry gone rogue that embraces practices that a Wal-Mart or Halliburton would never get away with. It is exempt from scrutiny in the fashion that the Left ceased talking about renditions or Guantanamo Bay once Barack Obama was elected, or a Code Pink goes after a NRA official in the way it would never disrupt a hearing on Fast and Furious. Continue reading “An Anatomy of a Most Peculiar Institution” →

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Our Psychodramatic Campuses

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The Outlaw Campus

The university has become a rogue institution in need of root-and-branch reform.

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The Obamacare Generation

The ACA depends on Millennials picking up the tab — as they already are for other entitlements — in the midst of a bad economy.

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The Death of Populism

Plenty of pleaders for rich and poor, but no politician speaks for the common man.

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Brave New World

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An Anatomy of a Most Peculiar Institution

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The university has become a rogue institution in need of root-and-branch reform.

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The ACA depends on Millennials picking up the tab — as they already are for other entitlements — in the midst of a bad economy.

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Plenty of pleaders for rich and poor, but no politician speaks for the common man.

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

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