I guess it shouldn’t surprise anyone. But this summer’s reading list for incoming college freshmen – is overwhelmingly liberal material. Only 2% of the books were rated conservative in nature. 70% liberal. And the rest apparently neutral. That’s according to a study done by the National Association of Scholars, of 290 colleges across America.
The study found that the overwhelming majority of the books tended to be anti-Western, anti-business, pro-environmentalism, pro-animal rights, or pro-multiculturalism. Common themes were race, gender, class, oppression, and the evils of capitalism. There tended to be very few of the traditional “classics,” and the only work of philosophy was the Communist Manifesto. Books on Africa outnumbered books on Europe 6 to 1. And, oh by the way, Barack Obama’s “Dreams From My Father” is on the list.
I guess stacking the deck with a bunch of liberal reading assignments at least lets the incoming freshmen know what they can expect over the next four years – overwhelmingly liberal college professors, espousing overwhelmingly liberal ideas, in their overwhelmingly liberal classrooms.
It at least partly explains why conservatives have been losing the culture war for decades now. Liberals control the education of our children. They control the curriculum. The educators are overwhelmingly now members of teachers unions, which are reliable functionaries of the Democrat party.
Liberals also predominate in most of the media outlets. They have the major newspapers, the movie industry, television programming, and on and on. FOX News, the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, and talk radio are the exceptions.
The result is that much of the public gets most of their information through a liberal prism. I think that explains to some degree why many social issues have been trending in a liberal direction in recent years. Gay marriage had very little support as recently as 10 years ago. Now a majority of Americans apparently say it’s just fine. The legalization of drugs was scoffed at by most people not long ago. Now marijuana shops seem to be opening in state after state across the nation. And capital punishment used to be supported by large majorities. Now the death penalty is rejected by more and more Americans, and may soon be eliminated altogether.
Fortunately, conservatives seem to be holding their own on Second Amendment rights. And we pro-life Americans may even be picking up support in opposition to abortion on demand.
But the trends in this country aren’t good. At least not if you come from a more conservative philosophical point of view. And it doesn’t help when impressionable, young minds are force-fed a bunch of liberal propaganda right out of the gate.
