MARCH 1998 Volume 27, Number 3

IMPRIMISBecause Ideas Have Consequences 26th Are We Living in a year Moral Stone Age? Christina Hoff Sommers W. H. Brady Fellow 775,000 subscribers American Enterprise Institute

Philosopher Christina Sommers charges that hristina Hoff Sommers is the today’s young people are suffering from “cognitive CW. H. Brady Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in moral confusion.” They not only have trouble dis- Washington, D.C. She is also a tinguishing right from wrong–they question professor of philosophy at Clark whether such standards even exist. The threat this University, where she has served moral relativism poses to society is greater than on the faculty since 1980. any external danger. Dr. Sommers has appeared Dr. Sommers spoke at the Shavano Institute on such programs as 20/20, the for National Leadership fifteenth anniversary McLaughlin Group, program, “Heroes for a New Generation and a Donahue, 60 Min- New Century,” last October. utes, Nightline, and Crossfire to discuss the future of femi- e hear a lot today about how Johnny nism, gender bias in can’t read, how he can’t write, and the the schools, and trouble he is having finding France on moral education. a map. It is also true that Johnny is havingW difficulty distinguishing right from wrong. Her articles have appeared in the New Along with illiteracy and innumeracy, we must add England Journal of deep moral confusion to the list of educational Medicine, the Wall problems. Increasingly, today’s young people know Street Journal, the little or nothing about the Western moral tradition. Journal of Philos- This was recently demonstrated by Tonight Show ophy, USA Today, host Jay Leno. Leno frequently does “man-on-the the New Republic, the Washington Post, the Chicago street” interviews, and one night he collared some Tribune, and the Times Literary young people to ask them questions about the Bible. Supplement. “Can you name one of the Ten Commandments?” She has edited Vice and Virtue he asked two college-age women. One replied, in Everyday Life and written Who “Freedom of speech?” Mr. Leno said to the other, Stole Feminism? Currently, she is “Complete this sentence: Let he who is without at work on a third book, The War sin. . . .” Her response was, “have a good time?” Mr. Against Boys. Leno then turned to a young man and asked, “Who, according to the Bible, was eaten by a whale?” The confident answer was, “Pinocchio.” As with many humorous anecdotes, the under- Also in this issue: lying reality is not funny at all. These young peo- H. Norman Schwarzkopf ple are morally confused. They are the students I Ethical Leadership and other teachers of ethics see every day. Like most in the 21st Century

Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan 49242 IMPRIMIS Because Ideas Have Consequences professors, I am acutely aware of the “hole in the between saving their pet or a human being, they moral ozone.” One of the best things our schools would choose the former. can do for America is to set about repairing it–by We have been thrown back into a moral Stone confronting the moral nihilism that is now the Age; many young people are totally unaffected by norm for so many students. thousands of years of moral experience and moral I believe that schools at all levels can do a lot to progress. The notion of objective moral truths is in improve the moral climate of our society. They can disrepute. And this mistrust of objectivity has help restore civility and community if they commit begun to spill over into other areas of knowledge. themselves and if they have the courage to act. Today, the concept of objective truth in science and history is also being impugned. An under- graduate at Williams College recently reported Conceptual Moral that her classmates, who had been taught that Chaos “all knowledge is a social construct,” were doubt- ful that the Holocaust ever occurred. One of her hen you have as many conversations classmates said, “Although the Holocaust may not with young people as I do, you come have happened, it’s a perfectly reasonable concep- away both exhilarated and depressed. tual hallucination.” Still, there is a great deal of simple A creative writing teacher at Pasadena City good-heartedness,W instinctive fair-mindedness, and College wrote an article in the Chronicle of Higher spontaneous generosity of spirit in them. Most of the Education about what it is like to teach Shirley students I meet are basically decent individuals. Jackson’s celebrated short story “The Lottery” to They form wonderful friendships and seem to be today’s college students. It is a tale of a small farm- considerate of and grateful to their parents–more so ing community that seems normal in every way; its than the baby boomers were. people are hardworking and friendly. As the plot In many ways they are more likable than the progresses, however, the reader learns this village baby boomers–they are less fascinated with them- carries out an annual lottery in which the loser is selves and more able to laugh at their faults. An stoned to death. astonishing number are doing volunteer work (70 It is a shocking lesson about primitive rituals percent of college students, according to one annu- in a modern American setting. In the past, the al survey of freshmen). They donate blood to the students had always understood “The Lottery” as a Red Cross in record numbers and deliver food to warning about the dangers of mindless conformi- housebound elderly people. They spend summer ty, but now they merely think that it is “Neat!” or vacations working with deaf children or doing vol- “Cool!” Today, not one of the teacher’s current unteer work in Mexico. This is a generation of kids students will go out on a limb and take a stand that, despite relatively little moral guidance or reli- against human sacrifice. gious training, is putting compassion into practice. Conceptually and culturally, however, today’s young people live in a moral haze. Ask one of The Loss of Truth them if there are such things as “right” and t was not always thus. When Thomas Jefferson “wrong,” and suddenly you are confronted with a wrote that all men have the right to “life, lib- confused, tongue-tied, nervous, and insecure indi- erty, and the pursuit of happiness,” he did not vidual. The same person who works weekends for say, “At least that is my opinion.” He declared Meals on Wheels, who volunteers for a suicide pre- itI as an objective truth. When Elizabeth Cady vention hotline or a domestic violence shelter Stanton amended the Declaration of Independence might tell you, “Well, there really is no such thing by changing the phrase “all men” to “all men and as right or wrong. It’s kind of like whatever works women,” she was not merely giving an opinion; she best for the individual. Each person has to work it was insisting that females are endowed with the out for himself.” The trouble is that this kind of same rights and entitlements as males. answer, which is so common as to be typical, is no The assertions of both Jefferson and Stanton better than the moral philosophy of a sociopath. were made in the same spirit–as self-evident truths I often meet students incapable of making and not as personal judgments. Today’s young even one single confident moral judgment. And people enjoy the fruits of the battles fought by these it’s getting worse. The things students now say are leaders, but they themselves are not being given more and more unhinged. Recently, several of my the intellectual and moral training to argue for students objected to philosopher Immanuel Kant’s and to justify truth. In fact, the kind of education “principle of humanity”–the doctrine that asserts they are getting is systematically undermining the unique dignity and worth of every human life. their common sense about what is true and right. They told me that if they were faced with the choice 2 Let me be concrete and specific: Men and names, such as the mange, the grunge, the itch, the women died courageously fighting the Nazis. twitch, the thrush, the scroff, the rot.” The itching They included American soldiers, Allied soldiers, and the manginess eventually began to vex the hip- and resistance fighters. Because brave people took pies, leading them to seek help from the local free risks to do what was right and necessary, Hitler was clinics. Step by step, they had to rediscover for eventually defeated. Today, with the assault on themselves the rudiments of modern hygiene. objective truth, many college students find them- Wolfe refers to this as the “Great Relearning.” selves unable to say why the United States was on The Great Relearning is what has to happen the right side in that war. Some even doubt that whenever earnest reformers extirpate too much. America was in the right. To add insult to injury, When, “starting from zero,” they jettison basic they are not even sure that the salient events of the social practices and institutions, abandon com- Second World War ever took place. They simply mon routines, defy common sense, reason, con- lack confidence in the objectivity of history. ventional wisdom–and, sometimes, sanity itself. Too many young people are morally confused, We saw this with the most politically extreme ill-informed, and adrift. This confusion gets worse experiments of our century: Marxism, Maoism, and rather than better once they go to college. If they fascism. Each movement had its share of zealots are attending an elite school, they can actually and social engineers who believed in “starting from lose their common sense and become clever and zero.” They had faith in a new order and ruthless- adroit intellectuals in the worst sense. George ly cast aside traditional arrangements. Among the Orwell reputedly said, “Some ideas are so absurd unforeseen consequences were mass suffering and that only an intellectual could believe them.” Well, genocide. Russians and Eastern Europeans are just the students of such intellectuals are in the same beginning their own “Great Relearning.” They now boat. Orwell did not know about the tenured rad- realize, to their dismay, that starting from zero is a icals of the 1990s, but he was presciently aware calamity and that the structural damage wrought that they were on the way. by the political zealots has handicapped their soci- eties for decades to come. They are also learning that it is far easier to tear apart a social fabric than The Great Relearning it is to piece it together again. America, too, has had its share of revolutionary he problem is not that young people are developments–not so much political as moral. We ignorant, distrustful, cruel, or treacher- are living through a great experiment in “moral ous. And it is not that they are moral deregulation,” an experiment whose first principle skeptics. They just talk that way. To put it seems to be: “Conventional morality is oppres- bluntlyT, they are conceptually clueless. The prob- sive.” What is right is what works for us. We lem I am speaking about is cognitive. Our students question everything. We casually, even gleefully, are suffering from “cognitive moral confusion.” throw out old-fashioned customs and practices. What is to be done? How can we improve their Oscar Wilde once said, “I can resist everything knowledge and understanding of moral history? How except temptation.” Many in the Sixties genera- can we restore their confidence in the great moral tion made succumbing to temptation and license ideals? How can we help them become morally artic- their philosophy of life. ulate, morally literate, and morally self-confident? We now jokingly call looters “non-traditional In the late 1960s, a group of hippies living in shoppers.” Killers are described as “morally chal- the Haight-Ashbury District of San Francisco lenged”–again jokingly, but the truth behind the decided that hygiene was a middle class hang-up jokes is that moral deregulation is the order of the that they could best do without. So, they decided to day. We poke fun at our own society for its lack of live without it. For example, baths and showers, moral clarity. In our own way, we are as down and while not actually banned, were frowned upon. out as those poor hippies knocking at the door of The essayist and novelist Tom Wolfe was intrigued the free clinic. by these hippies who, he said, “sought nothing less We need our own Great Relearning. Here, I am than to sweep aside all codes and restraints of the going to propose a few ideas on how we might carry past and start out from zero.” out this relearning. I am going to propose some- Before long, the hippies’ aversion to modern thing that could be called “moral conservation- hygiene had consequences that were as unpleasant ism.” It is based on this premise: We are born into as they were unforeseen. Wolfe describes them: “At a moral environment just as we are born into a nat- the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic there were doctors ural environment. Just as there are basic environ- who were treating diseases no living doctor had ever mental necessities, like clean air, safe food, fresh encountered before, diseases that had disappeared water, there are basic moral necessities. What is a so long ago they had never even picked up Latin

3 IMPRIMIS Because Ideas Have Consequences society without civility, honesty, consideration, self- bring the great books and the great ideas back into discipline? Without a population educated to be the core of the curriculum. We must transmit the civil, considerate, and respectful of one another, best of our political and cultural heritage. Franz what will we end up with? Not much. For as long Kafka once said that a great work of literature as philosophers and theologians have written about melts the “frozen sea within us.” There are also ethics, they have stressed the moral basics. We live any number of works of art and works of philoso- in a moral environment. We must respect and pro- phy that have the same effect. tect it. We must acquaint our children with it. We American children have a right to their moral must make them aware it is precious and fragile. heritage. They should know the Bible. They should I have suggestions for specific reforms. They are be familiar with the moral truths in the tragedies of far from revolutionary, Shakespeare, in the polit- and indeed some are pretty We must make stu- ical ideas of Jefferson, obvious. They are “com- Madison, and Lincoln. mon sense,” but unfortu- dents aware that there They should be exposed to nately, we live in an age the exquisite moral sensi- when common sense is is a standard of ethical bility in the novels of Jane becoming increasingly Austen, George Eliot, and hard to come by. ideals that all civiliza- Mark Twain, to mention We must encourage tions worthy of the some of my favorites. and honor institutions like These great works are Hillsdale College, St. Johns name have dicovered. their birthright. College, and Providence This is not to say that College, to name a few, that accept the responsibil- a good literary, artistic, and philosophical educa- ity of providing a classical moral education for tion suffices to create ethical human beings; nor is their students. The last few decades of the twenti- it to suggest that teaching the classics is all we eth century have seen a steady erosion of knowl- need to do to repair the moral ozone. What we edge and a steady increase in moral relativism. know is that we cannot, in good conscience, allow This is partly due to the diffidence of many teach- our children to remain morally illiterate. All ers who are confused by all the talk about plural- healthy societies pass along their moral and cul- ism. Such teachers actually believe that it is wrong tural traditions to their children. to “indoctrinate” our children in our own culture And so I come to another basic reform: and moral tradition. Teachers, professors, and other social critics should Of course, there are pressing moral issues be encouraged to moderate their attacks on our around which there is no consensus; as a modern culture and its institutions. They should be pluralistic society we are arguing about all sorts of encouraged to treat great literary works as litera- things. This is understandable. Moral dilemmas ture and not as reactionary political tracts. In arise in every generation. But, long ago, we many classrooms today, students only learn to achieved consensus on many basic moral ques- “uncover” the allegedly racist, sexist, and elitist tions. Cheating, cowardice, and cruelty are wrong. elements in the great books. As one pundit put it, “The Ten Commandments Meanwhile, pundits, social critics, radical fem- are not the Ten Highly Tentative Suggestions.” inists, and other intellectuals on the cultural left While it is true that we must debate controver- never seem to tire of running down our society and sial issues, we must not forget there exists a core of its institutions and traditions. We are a society noncontroversial ethical issues that were settled a overrun by determined advocacy groups that over- long time ago. We must make students aware that state the weaknesses of our society and show very there is a standard of ethical ideals that all civi- little appreciation for its merits and strengths. I lizations worthy of the name have discovered. We would urge those professors and teachers who use must encourage them to read the Bible, Aristotle’s their classrooms to disparage America to consider Ethics, Shakespeare’s King Lear, the Koran, and the possibility that they are doing more harm than the Analects of Confucius. When they read almost good. Their goal may be to create sensitive, critical any great work, they will encounter these basic citizens, but what they are actually doing is produc- moral values: integrity, respect for human life, ing confusion and cynicism. Their goal may be to self-control, honesty, courage, and self-sacrifice. improve students’ awareness of the plight of exploit- All the world’s major religions proffer some version ed peoples, but what they are actually doing is pro- of the Golden Rule, if only in its negative form: Do ducing kids who are capable of doubting that the not do unto others as you would not have them do Holocaust took place and kids who are incapable of unto you. articulating moral objections to human sacrifice. We must teach the literary classics. We must (continued on page 8) 4 confusion andgetbackourbearingsconfi founding fathers.W have inheritedaveryhealthyconstitutionfromour still asoundsociety;inmorethanonesense,we threats tooursocialfabricandtradition.Butweare warned usthatitisnotholding.Otherstalkofthe the integrityofoursociety against thedivisiveunlearningthatiscorrupting their example.W medicine. Ihopewehavethegoodsensetofollow Haight-Ashbury togettheirdoseoftraditional finally showedupatthedoorsoffreeclinicsin confused, scrofuloushippiesofthelate1960swho (continued frompage4) I sion ofthefollowingcr Exter College.” Cur Executive Editor IMPRIMIS Of M Company: T telephone numberbelow Did youknowthatmanycompaniesmatchtheiremployees’charitablegifts?Listyourcompanynameand fice #1563325. LET YOURCOMP tis. Theopinionsexpr William ButlerY In myopinion,wearetodaynotunlikethose nal Pr P NON-PROFIT ORG. RIMIS Subscription fr (im-pri U.S. POSTAGE ograms division.Copyright© PAID

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