Nadil Malik Hasan and the Street Light
Topic: Obama Nation Building

A joke is told about a drunk who was crawling around under a street lamp on his hands and knees. He had been there for some time, and another guy came along and said, “What are you looking for?” The answer was that he was looking for his lost car keys, and so the new guy joined in the search for ten minutes or so. Finally he asked, “Are you sure you dropped them here?” “Oh, no,” the answer came back. “I lost them over there by my car,” and the drunk pointed over toward the darkness where his car was. Exasperated, the other man said, “So what are you looking here for then?” “Oh,” the drunk said, “the light’s better here.”

Now the moral of this lesson, boys and girls, is that you should look for things where you have the greatest likelihood of finding what you are looking for, and you should not waste your time looking where it is most convenient for you to be looking.

The joke is a guaranteed groaner, in part because we don’t think anyone, however drunk, could be that stupid. And yet this very approach is the public and dogmatically-defended policy of these United States. We look for Islamic terrorism where it is convenient for us to look for it, and not where we are likely to find some. We frisk 88-year-old Swedish grandmas at airports . . . and why again? The light’s better there.

Some years ago, a member of our congregation who was in the National Guard, and who later served in Afghanistan, had to get a security clearance. Part of that process included me being interviewed by someone from the FBI. We got to the part of the interview where I was asked how I knew this gentleman. I said that I was his pastor. The man conducting the background check said (in all seriousness), “Oh, I can’t put that down.” I forget what he had to put down instead, but it was something like “spiritual advisor.” Anybody who thinks that the PC climate created by our contemporary word-morphers does not have a counterproductive effect on people is simply kidding himself. At some point, of course, tenacity in pursuing such a misguided approach becomes simply perverse. And in this case, bloody.

Posted by Douglas Wilson – 11/12/2009

Health Care Freak Show
Topic: Obama Nation Building (from Blog and Mablog by Doug Wilson) www.dougwils.com

Now that the PelosiCare Fiasco has passed the House (in the middle of night, sight unseen, nothing to see here, folks, just keep moving), all eyes turn to the Senate. As Americans who know how to count continue to watch our solons of subtraction with fascinated horror, let me just throw up a small post here in anticipation of crisis of conscience that I think a number of Christians are going to have in pretty short order.

Political junkies like to buy their cloth by the yard, and don’t really know what to do with odds and ends. They deal with the political parties, and conventions every four years, congressional elections every two years, and the occasional off-year elections to give them a handful of tea leaves to read. All the trains run on the tracks, and nobody is doing any political ATV freewheeling out in the fields.

But unless I am misreading the mood out there, we are seeing a genuine national tax revolt coming to a boil. The specter of Pelosi and company just doubling down to push through an exercise in trillionizing that nobody wants is the kind of hubris that has provoked many tax revolts in history, and so I really don’t think we are done with them. We are not yet done with the action, clearly, and so we are not done with the equal and opposite reaction.

And note: by revolt I don’t mean revolution in the streets, and I don’t mean political lobbying as usual. I am referring to direct action, of a peaceful and entirely non-cooperative nature. And when this happens, an awful lot of evangelical Christians are going to be rocking back and forth from one foot to the other, wanting to join in the party and yet feeling constrained by a misunderstanding of Romans 13. But “obey the existing authorities,” in our setting, does not mean submission to arbitrary and caprious government. The president, the Congress, and the judiciary are all part of our existing authority, true. But so are our state and local governments, and so are our constitutions. So the question is this — does our existing authority authorize such direct action by the people? Is such behavior constitutional?

Here are a couple of citations, to provide a little grist for the intellectual mill. The first two are from Idaho’s constitution.

“Section 1.Inalienable rights of man. All men are by nature free and equal, and have certain inalienable rights, among which are enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing and protecting property; pursuing happiness and securing safety” (Art 1/Sec 1, emphasis mine).

Inalienable means that the government can’t take it away, not even if they have a straight-up vote on a bill that nobody has read in the middle of the night.

“Section 2.Political power inherent in the people. All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their equal protection and benefit, and they have the right to alter, reform or abolish the same whenever they may deem it necessary; and no special privileges or immunities shall ever be granted that may not be altered, revoked, or repealed by the legislature” (Art 1/Sec 2, emphasis mine).

Then there is this little gem from the New Hampshire constitution:

“Whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind” (Article X, emphasis mine).

And though I am not accustomed to quoting him with approval, we can even read this from Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural:

“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.”

Now I am not trying to sum everything up in one simplistic point. The issues involved in teh situation at large are simply enormous. I just want to separate that little Romans 13 point out of the general confusion, and set it off to the side. If five million people marched on Washington to inform our elected representatives that they had absolutely no intention of paying for this health care freakshow, and they thereby succeeded in scaring all the professional politicos to death, and as a result the aforementioned freakshow was trundled off and quietly drowned in the Chesapeake Bay, this deliverance would have involved absolutely no violation of Romans 13. And why? Because the documents that constitute an essential part of our “existing authorities” say that this kind of thing is necessary from time to time. Keeps the politicians limber.

Posted by Douglas Wilson – 11/9/2009

Many of us evangelicals need to read this once a year just for drill.  Does or should God actually judge?  Was Jesus a “tough customer” after all?  I did not write this piece and I’d lay down, well, I guess there’s just not much you can give for someone else’s gift, but I thank God for this writer’s gift.  This piece is from “Blog and Mablog” by Doug Wilson www.dougwils.com  I feel like he’s essential reading for the serious Christian.

What Would Jesus Damn?

I hope it is possible to say this with all reverence, but Jesus was a tough customer. Contrary to popular opinion, the Lord of the gospels was not the original flower child, and He did not come in order to make us all feel better about ourselves. The image that many have of the Lord’s personality and strength of character comes more from man-made traditions and saccharine portrait painters than it does from the Bible. One easily envisions the image of a genteel limpwrist standing outside the door of someone’s heart, gently tapping, because of course the doorknob is only on the inside. The only thing missing from this vision is the ribbon in his hair. I have sometimes thought that a far better picture of Jesus knocking at the door of my heart would be a commanding hand from offstage, two rows of angels with a battering ram, and a worried-looking troll peeking out over the wall of a castle.

Otto Scott put it well when he said that the God of the Bible is no buttercup. And when Jesus came He revealed all the attributes of the Father, and not just those things which we can easily interpret as comforting to ourselves. But the Lord’s words were simultaneously blunt and pointed, and as Chesterton put it, He did not hesitate to throw furniture down the front steps of the Temple. However, we like to hear all about love, and mercy, and comfort, and kindness. This is not bad in itself; these are all biblical revelations of God’s nature and character. But we present them out of context; we neglect the wrath, and holiness, and justice of God. We do not neglect these attributes because they are contradictions to the first set; we neglect them because we do not know how the Bible reconciles them. Notice how the apostle seats them at the table together, as though they were good friends. “Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness” (Rom. 11:22). We must constantly remember that a half-truth presented as the whole truth is an untruth. God is kind, and God is severe. Jesus reveals the nature of the Father to us; Jesus is kind, and Jesus is severe.

Now this necessarily relates to the slogan, “What Would Jesus Do?,” a slogan which is quite popular in evangelical circles. Of course the problem with this is not the question — it is a fine question. The difficulty is that we do not answer it biblically. We ask the question, but then the biblical answer comes back that just about now He would make approximately a hundred and fifty gallons of fine Merlot wine for the wedding guests. We ignore this answer as being inconvenient for our traditions, and say that of course the Jesus “we know” would never, ever, drink alcohol. And this is because we do not know Him according to His Word.

We can illustrate this point on a more profound level by asking who Jesus would damn. Tragically, the modern evangelical Church has slid considerably from the historic Christian understanding of heaven and hell. It is unfortunate, but in order for us to answer the question, we must first reassert the reality of damnation. It has become increasingly acceptable (even within purported evangelical circles) to question or deny the reality of eternal punishment. But such evasions of the biblical teaching are hardly to be taken seriously. The greatest and most obvious “hellfire and damnation” preacher in the whole Bible is the Lord Jesus Himself. Some like to talk as though Jesus came down to us, preaching a simple message of love and peace, scattering rose petals as He went, but then along came the tight-lipped apostle Paul after him, hauling all that grim stuff into Christianity. This caricature persists only because of rank biblical ignorance. While Paul plainly affirms the reality of God’s eternal judgment, he doesn’t mention hell by name once. Jesus talks about it all the time, and with the most graphic imagery. “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched—where ‘Their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched’” (Mark 9:43-44). Jesus talks about hell as a place of horrifying punishment, and a place every bit as real and everlasting as heaven (Matt. 25:41,46).

In addition, in Acts 17, the apostle Paul tells us that the judgment of God is visited upon the world under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. “He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). The Lord said of Himself that one day He would come to say, “Depart from Me, workers of iniquity.” So we see clearly the fact that Jesus will damn, but we still need to know who will fall under His judgment.

At first glance, the answer would appear to be theologians, Bible teachers, and writers of articles for Christian magazines like this one. “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in” (Matt. 23:13). The Lords’ usual preaching target did not appear to be drug dealers and hookers; His assaults were usually directed at religious professionals. Further, He did not address them in a true collegial spirit, as one truth-seeking rabbi to another. “Fools and blind! Blind guides! Hypocrites! Serpents! Brood of vipers!” From all this we might conclude that seminaries should be called a bag of snakes from time to time in order to help them keep their vision and focus clear.

But it would actually be a mistake to think that the issue is a particular vocation or calling. It is not as though the Lord arbitrarily decided to attack scribes instead of plumbers. The Lord’s basic target in all such assaults is the cancer of self-sufficiency, self-worship, self-righteousness. Just as the wealthy are prone to certain temptations, so the Lord shows us that the devout and pious are prone to their own sets of temptations, and among them is this deadliest temptation of all — the corruption of self-righteousness. A man is much more likely to think himself a fine fellow indeed if he is singing hymns in his car than if he is engaged in fornication. He is much more likely to approve of himself if he is doing externally virtuous things. Of course, in a perverted time, the licentious can develop their own brand of self-righteousness, and when they do, it is twice as deadly. “This is the way of an adulterous woman: she eats and wipes her mouth, and says, ‘I have done no wickedness’” (Prov. 30:20).

The Lord is our only righteousness. As the Lord of righteousness, the only true righteousness, He must of necessity be constantly at war with every form of counterfeit righteousness. Who will Jesus damn? The answer is everyone outside His righteousness, everyone who therefore relies on their own righteousness. We know that God loves no sinner redemptively outside of Christ. We should also know that outside of Christ is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

As Christians we all understand that we are supposed to imitate the Lord Jesus in all His actions and words. This is what lies behind our readiness to gladly receive the question, “What would Jesus do?” Unfortunately, once we get past this general point of consensus the agreement breaks down as soon as we cite specifics. Some specifics seem to be be quite alright. “Neither do I condemn you.” Other specifics are problematic. “Snakes!” As a result we are highly selective as we choose what we will imitate. We think it is somehow “safer” for us to be imitate His words of kindness and ignore all His words of scathing rebuke. But we must think through this carefully. It is dangerous for a sinner to imitate Christ in any way, including His love and kindness. Do we really believe that love and kindness cannot to be grossly perverted? For a fallen man to pick and choose how he will imitate Christ is treacherous territory indeed.

Our safety lies in remembering His warnings, the central object of His attack — self-righteousness. So when we have answered the question, “What would Jesus condemn?,” we must take care to condemn it ourselves. And the best place to condemn self-righteousness first is in one’s very own self. In a war, it always makes good sense to shoot more at the closer targets, and less at the distant ones. As we imitate Christ, and attack sin in the church, and all the various forms of self-righteousness that pervade the modern church, we must take special care to have carefully hated the manifestations of this same spirit as they appear daily in our own hearts. The Lord is not only a Savior, He is also a Judge.
Posted by Douglas Wilson – 6/19/2007

A Big Misunderstanding?- from “Blog and Mablog” from Doug Wilson  www.dougwils.com

Topic: Dualism Is Bad JuJu

There is a new evangelical group blog that looks pretty lively, and which also looks like a good addition to the fray. HT: Justin Taylor

It was there, however, that Jared Wilson wrote a bit on why the culture war will go to hell. He gave ten reasons that I would like to interact with briefly, but make sure you go over there first and read the full expression of his reasons first. My responses will not be an expression of any kind of fullness at all, but rather just a bit of kibbitzing from the sidelines.

Here are his thoughts and my responses.

1. It is theologically naive to think that laws or policies can make anybody a Christian.

Right. And nobody I know thinks that they can.

2. Its medium is moralism, not gospel.

That is a real danger. Activist moralists can forget the gospel. So can inactive immoralists. So can quietists. So can watchers of Monday Night Football. Who forgets the gospel most frequently?

3. It is theologically naive to expect people who don’t know Jesus to act like they do.

It depends on what you mean by “act like they do.” I don’t expect them to sing robust psalms and hymns, and tithe faithfully. I do expect them to refrain from chopping babies up into little pieces.

4. It is often hypocritical because judgment begins at the house of God (1 Peter 4:17). We need to get the beam out of our own eye before getting that other beam out of the world’s eye.

This one is dead on. Evangelicalism is not the solution to America’s problem. Evangelicalism is America’s problem. That reflection we see of ourselves in the outside culture is simply our own reflection in a set of fun house mirrors. That’s us you are looking at. You name the problem in the outside culture, and it is simply an overblown and grotesque version of what we have going on in the sanctuary . . . for those of us who even have sanctuaries anymore, and that’s another thing.

5. It battles against flesh and blood, something we are not supposed to do (Eph. 6:12).

The man who wrote that he did not battle against flesh and blood witnessed to kings and appealed to caesars. We don’t fight horizontal battles without reference to the spiritual battle. Obviously. But if we fight “spiritual” battles only, then we are to real spiritual war what video gamers are to actual combat. Adept with our thumbs.

6. Its cultural treasury is temporary.

Aborted children are not temporary. “Culture wars” does not refer to art museum funding squabbles.

7. It makes idols of comfort and safety and propriety and power, and is largely driven by a fear of what icky people are doing in the public schools.

People sometimes throw themselves into battle because of fear, that is true. And it is bad when they do. But they more frequently stay out of battles because of fear.

8. It has no root in Jesus’ ministry, and needs to recognize that heart change doesn’t come through political power, cultural pressure, or zealotry.

And yet Jesus, with this transparently “non-political” agenda, managed to get Himself on the hit list of all the political authorities. How did He manage that? Was it all a big misunderstanding?

9. It mangles mission, putting us in an adversarial relationship to the world, instead of in a relational, serving, and evangelistic stance.

It only mangles mission if we substitute it in for mission. But we can engage in the culture war without making that mistake. Forgetting or downplaying the gospel is always bad. It is bad when you do it in a picket line, and bad when you do it in a Lazy Boy recliner.

10. The culture war is carried out for our name’s sake, and not for the name of Jesus. Dying for somebody says a whole lot more than debating them.

The first part of this is important. Everything is always to be done in the name of Jesus. But the “dying” versus “debating” dichotomy is too simplistic. What if debating one person is a way of dying for another? What if dying for someone involves saying something on their behalf in a way that ruins my reputation?

Posted by Douglas Wilson – 10/20/2009

Just Plain Greasy from the blog of Doug Wilson www.dougwils.com
Topic: Sex and Culture

There is something different about these latest examples of sexual hypocrisy. We are used to sexual shenanigans, and we are used to people lying to cover them up. We are also used to the double standard — if a Republican congressman were to do to a fetching staffer what a Democratic congressman does to a fetching staffer, as he routinely does, the sky falls in — abuse of power, sexual harassment, and all the rest of it. But if the Democratic congressman does to an alluring staffer what the Republican congressman does to an alluring staffer, then it is an office romance, America needs to get over its puritanical past, and haven’t we grown up yet?

But the latest go-rounds on this particular piece of playground equipment are just creepy. Letterman has announced that he had a series of sexual relationships with staffers, folks whose jobs were dependent on his continued good graces. Okay, that kind of thing is as old as dirt. But he announced it as though he expected the sympathies of the public, using the old brazen it out move. And he has gotten at least some of that sympathy.

And the Roman Polanski affair is beyond creepy. All of Hollywood — including Woody Allen, who should have thought about it some more before lending his support — has come out in support of the talented perv.

The problem in these situations is not the individual hypocrisy or the individual capacity for sin and deception. I mean, as far as that is concerned, welcome to earth. The problem is the full-throated and open support for these men from a sub-culture that had previously raised moralistic posturing and ethical preening in front of the mirror to an art form.

In short, our entertainment culture is openly and unabashedly . . . greasy.

Posted by Douglas Wilson – 10/4/2009

Czars Jumping on the Couch From Doug Wilson’s Blog and Mablog www.dougwils.com
Topic: Obama Nation Building

The Obama administration is starting to look like an old couch, the kind you see at the dump with six or seven springs sticking out. But it is not an old couch; it’s a new couch. It is not supposed to look like this just yet. Have all the czars been coming over in the evening to jump on it?

One thing after another. As National Review put it, he’s holding all the cards — and still losing. Cap and trade got bogged down. The stimulus got us a national mortgage that will be paid off when the sun goes out. Obama adopted numerous key elements of Bush’s foreign policy, down to and including Bush’s Secretary of Defense. More quietly, he has become a Bushie on issues like war tribunals and rendition programs. That made the Left hopping mad, and his only hope was to placate them with a bunch of Pinko Programs here at home. But then his health care program got town halled, out in the broad light of day. The Prophet got the Bronx cheer. His fan base responded by calling middle America a bunch of names. Speaking of calling names, the president thought he ought to mix it up a little bit with a local police department. So now he can’t placate the Left domestically, which appears to have led to the (politically) insane decision to let Eric Holder investigate the possibility of prosecuting interrogators of terrorists from the Bush years. That will fly like three helium balloons tied to an anvil. Enter Van Jones.

Now the thing to note about all these dust-ups is not the fact that they are occuring. They occur under every president. Like clockwork, somebody in every administration is regularly found in the wrong bedroom, the wrong boardroom, or the wrong backroom. There are teams of experts in Washington, working diligently for both parties, to make them happen. And so they do happen. The various sinners and ninnyhammers employed by every administration do their part to help the process along. Big whoop. So the stories are not the story here.

The story is the fact that Obama is starting to look like he has an innate capacity to become the velcro president. The stories are sticking to him. Reagan had his series of incidents, resulting in front page stories pretty regularly, but he had some mysterious ability summed up by the phrase the teflon president. Nothing really stuck to him. Reagan and Carter had different surfaces, and only Reagan’s was of the non-stick variety. Obama is starting to look a lot like Carter.

Another way of describing this is that Obama is being successfully named by his opposition. The opposition always says these sorts of things. You are not in trouble if the opposition says these things. That’s what they do. It’s their job. You are in trouble if they say these things, and what they say resonates with a bunch of other people. As a result, a received wisdom forms, and it forms outside the ranks of the political wonks and activists. From death panels to his Dear Leader speech to the kids in public schools, it is becoming increasingly apparent that Obama is sticky. For what it is worth, Bush was sticky too, and he was successfully named by the opposition — but not nearly as quickly.

In the campaign, all this was not readily apparent. Obama was the teflon candidate, and what better way to get a teflon president than to run a teflon candidate? Well, surprise.

Obama’s tactical decisions have to be set against this backdrop. The congressional elections of 2010 are about a year out now. There is not the slightest chance that Obama’s political position will be improved in those elections, and there is a robust chance that they will plummet drastically. That means that what he really needs to get done, he needs to get done now. But the more he tries to accomplish in the coming months, the more he will continue to freak everybody out. In order to overcome the perceptions that have formed about him (long term), he will have to act in a way that will reinforce them drastically in the coming months. It is starting to look as though he will have a very hard time.

But of course, let it never be forgotten that the Republicans have a genius for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Posted by Douglas Wilson – 9/5/2009

Knowledge and power

(from World Magazine www.worldmag.com)

Scientific evidence won’t likely sway those who are sold on socialism | Janie B. Cheaney

Charles Murray, author and policy advisor, writes this: “The stuff of life occurs within just four institutions: family, community, vocation and faith.” In his 2009 Irving Kristol lecture titled “The Happiness of the People,” Murray goes on to show how personal satisfaction derives from success in one or more of those institutions, and America has thrived insofar as she has encouraged them.

But, he goes on to show, there’s a difference between encouragement and support. European-style socialism “supports” faith by providing and maintaining church buildings; “supports” family with childcare and generous maternity benefits, “supports” vocation through workplace regulations, and community through the creation of a European brand. The result is, according to Murray, empty churches, a collapsing birthrate, low job satisfaction, and increasingly cynical Germans, Swedes, Frenchmen, and Spaniards.

By usurping many of the responsibilities that used to belong to individuals, the state has sapped much of the energy, drive, and satisfaction from living. Americans, take note: The benign tyranny of European-style socialism is headed across the Atlantic and has in fact already made a home in certain native enclaves. Fortunately for us, though, Charles Murray sees a glow of hope on the horizon; a new era is riding to the rescue, and with any luck it will get here on time. Our redemption is—are you ready?—science.

In other words, objective truth, derived from rigorous testing, is going to establish beyond any doubt what wise observers have always known: that children are best brought up in families, that humans need a sense of purpose in life, and that individuals thrive when they are allowed to discover that purpose for themselves and given the opportunity to pursue it. Science is poised to shatter two pernicious ideas of modern liberalism, namely that equality is a matter of group distribution and that public policy can change human nature.

Murray’s confidence may owe something to the fact that Losing Ground, his statistics-based critique of welfare policy, helped spur the welfare reform of the ’90s. But science is unlikely to tame the socialist beast, for two reasons.

First, science is not as imperious as it seems. Whatever our platitudes about humbly going where knowledge leads, the hard sciences are as malleable, practically speaking, as the soft (social) ones. Knowledge itself may be objective; its application will not be. For example, lab results show that adult stem cells are a much more promising therapy than embryonic. But billions of taxpayer dollars will soon go to support embryonic research because somebody wants to do it—someone with power and influence and self-interest—and “science” will be shaped, twisted, and misrepresented to suit that purpose. Powerful men tend to use any weapon close at hand—that’s how they get to be powerful.

Second, science carries no moral imperative. You can’t get from “is” to “ought.” Murray seems to picture a day when scientific research and optimum human happiness will meet and join hands, whereby public policy will have to take note and legislate accordingly.

But why? If lawmakers see their purpose as better served by identity politics and the welfare state, science can take a hike. And if individuals find their family responsibilities standing in the way of personal happiness, no amount of bar charts and double-blind studies will convince them otherwise. Science can’t touch those four areas of human fulfillment; if anything, the misuse of science has encouraged their disintegration.

Murray sees the 20th century as the adolescence of humanity: when, equipped with the car keys and legal-age accomplices to buy the booze, society kicked aside parental wisdom and went a little crazy. The 21st century represents adulthood, where circumstances we created will force us to grow up and take responsibility.

Crazy teens do become sober adults, if sober adulthood has been taught and modeled. If not, they may never grow up, even if they can imitate adulthood well enough to play it on TV. Science can’t model or teach. It can only facilitate. Or, more likely, be facilitated.

I found this on www.worldmag.com, the website for World Magazine. (a wonderful Christian news magazine by the way)

Sense and sustainability

New movement aims to take campus radicalism beyond the classroom | Janie B. Cheaney

Illustration by Krieg Barrie

“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,” but you could have fooled the 648 college presidents who have signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) since 2006. The earth is theirs, to make or break.

Academic fads come, but over the last 40 years they haven’t completely gone. The student uprisings of the late 1960s led to identity politics, which cleared the way for political correctness, which solidified into multiculturalism and “diversity.” The ACUPCC pulls all these together under the rubric of “sustainability.” Sustainability has a much broader application than clean air and water; it’s a doctrine and a worldview that aims to influence every academic discipline. Its success so far is remarkable. “Five years ago, it [the sustainability movement] did not exist,” writes Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars. “Today it is nearly everywhere, and declares itself as having over­whelming importance.”

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

Wood traces the historical milestones of the movement from Murray Bookchin, an anarchist inspired by the success of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring to marry his radical views to sentimentality about nature, coining the term “social ecology.” Over the next decades, public concern over pollution, the establishment of Earth Day in 1970, and various UN ecological pronouncements and treaties have helped to create an undercurrent of hostility to capitalism and industrial development. Or rather, grounded a preexisting hostility in pseudo-science rather than philosophical theory. Forget dialectical materialism—we have a planet to save!

Second Nature, an activist organization founded in 1993, has emerged from a cluster of similar groups to lead the sustainability charge. John Kerry, prestigious senator, and Teresa Heinz, the wealthy heiress he married in 1995, were co-founders. But the main driver of the organization is Anthony Cortese, president and spokesman.

Their stated goal is “to accelerate movement toward a sustainable future by serving and supporting senior college and university leaders in making healthy, just, and sustainable living the foundation of all learning and practice in high education” [emphasis in the original]. Wait, thinks the casual reader: the “foundation of all learning and practice”? Meaning hard sciences, mathematics, history?

Yes indeed, if the “sustainatopians” get their way. For years, students (or their parents) have paid good money to be subjected to the anarchist, feminist, and Marxist professors who tilt most universities far to port. But professors are merely individuals, with little influence outside the classroom. The sustainability movement is systematically imposing itself from the top down: first signing up university and college presidents by such means as “Climate Commitments.” Next to get on board are deans and student life coordinators, who see themselves as equally qualified with professors to enlighten frat rats and sorority chicks.

Sustainability thus becomes more than one academic subject among many—it’s an overarching philosophy, the approved way of life. Two years ago, a controversy erupted at the University of Delaware, when students reported an unusual level of indoctrination going on in the dorm. All resident undergraduates were required to participate in consciousness-raising circles that subjected any “bad” worldviews to ruthless mocking and criticism. The Residence Assistants in charge were to check off desirable responses (such as, “The student will recognize that systematic oppression exists in our society”) and report undesirable ones. When word got out about the program, public outcry forced its suspension. But it’s back in a modified form.

How are these browbeating techniques justified? By sustainability, which forces leftist environmental, economic, and social goals into a one-size-fits-all pattern for citizens of the world (who pledge to reduce their carbon footprints by 20 percent while still in school).

So the modern university, founded on the old liberal principles of free inquiry and individual development, is being deliberately reshaped into an illiberal institution of intimidation and groupthink. How far the process will go is unknown, but it’s well underway.

Peter Wood writes, “What the sustainability movement aims to sustain above all is the earth. What higher education aims to sustain above all is civilization.” One guess as to which is the more fragile.

If you have a question or comment for Janie Cheaney, send it to jcheaney@worldmag.com.

Copyright © 2009 WORLD Magazine

I found this very well written piece on Blog and Mablog by Doug Wilson @ http://www.dougwils.com

Breathing the Air of Smug Platitudes
Topic: Obama Nation Building

Samuel Johnson famously said that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. That being the case, accusations of racism (when losing an argument) is the last refuge of the liberal scoundrel. And, as time goes by, and the argument (on health care, say) continues to be lost, the accusation moves closer and closer to the head of the line, becoming the first refuge of the liberal scoundrel.

And the liberals are in a bad jam. Obama’s economic expertise is starting to look like a corpse that has been in the river for three days. They can do one of two things — they can accuse Obama’s opponents of wanting him to fail because he is black — and as the wheels continue to come off, look for that to become a daily theme. Or they could admit the fact that the first black president we elected is a shyster, and is in way over his head. Don’t look for this second option anytime soon.

I know this is kind of hard to fathom, but some might want to accuse me of racism. I know, I know, but it has happened before. So, just for the record, as I have said before, there are lots of whites who would be every bit as incompetent as Obama is being. I bet he learned a bunch of this stuff at Harvard, taught by distinguished looking white guy profs with silver hair and glasses on the ends of their noses. And patches on the elbows of their corduroy jackets. Talk about Whiteville, not really disturbed by the mandatory diversity sprinklings here and there.

What would these folks have done if the first black president had been a Clarence Thomas type? Right — the charges would have been that conservative whites were only comfortable with him because he was white deep down, he was an oreo — black on the outside, white on the inside.

There are different kinds of racism — the malicious kind, which we all recognize, and the patronizing, “benevolent” kind, the kind that liberals specialize in, and which is invisible to them. Smug platitudes make up the air they breathe, and you can’t point it out to them. How are they supposed to see their air?

If a black man who is steeped in the standards of real civilization — highly educated, industrious, hard-working, and he were to propose economic policies that would actually be a blessing, what will he be accused of by liberals? Right, he would be accused of being a race traitor. Liberals think that a black man cannot be a true black man without being dysfunctional, and dysfunctional in such a way as to require them to be his savior. How convenient. In their on-going self-narrative, they landed the starring role yet again. I call that real acting talent.

Posted by Douglas Wilson – 9/16/2009