American Decadence 2

                                           American Decadence 2

                                                     Published in Marietta Daily Journal April 17, 2016

            This column is so titled because it is a follow-up to the Monday, April 11 Marietta Daily Journal column of Kennesaw State University professor, Dr. Melvyn Fein.  I only hope it’s not presumptuous to “follow-up” on anything Dr. Fein would write, so esteemed is he in my estimation.

            I met the gentleman a few years ago after he spoke at the Madison Forum, though I doubt  he could remember.  The line of admirers wanting to meet him was long, but I waited it out, wishing to express appreciation to such a rare bird.

            Make that bird an eagle because Professor Fein has always soared high above academia’s orthodoxy, better to peer down into it, examine its preoccupations, and challenge its presuppositions.

            Anyone who has had any connection at all with universities will understand why Fein is an anomaly.  It’s because he is a conservative sociology professor at a sizable state university.  I’m careful with the word “conservative.”  I don’t know if the gentleman applies that word to himself or not.  Thanks to current presidential politics, the liberal-conservative spectrum, long used for labeling political views, isn’t so certain anymore. Fein thinks for himself, no matter how a spectrum is worded.  With few exceptions, the professor’s writings have elicited strong hallelujahs from this scribe.

            What is it about higher education (George Will is still asking, “Higher than what?”) that draws progressives/liberals/leftists to college teaching?  I don’t use those three terms derogatorily, but descriptively.  Some of my best friends truly are left of center.  And, oh, do they love educational institutions!

            Are liberals drawn to college teaching because they’re smarter than conservatives?  Well, was historian Woodrow Wilson smarter than Jefferson?   Or law professor Obama smarter than Truman?  No, smart is not the issue.  For certain, liberals feel more.  Do they think less?  They are without doubt more evangelistic.  Maybe conservatives are less evangelistic, less activist, because they’re at work and just can’t attend all the protests.

            No, liberals know where young minds are and how to influence them.  Thank heaven for the Feins of the world who also seek to instruct them.

            At any rate, Fein is in academia but not of academia.   He works and thrives in the university setting, serving as a bright light of dissent, daring to question academia’s ideology.  His April 11 column, which analyzed the college scene, touched every base.

            For instance, his comparison of America and Rome raised the following question in my mind: are there any significant differences between Rome’s decline and our own recent steps toward the precipice?  Fein correctly compares President Obama’s deal with Iran to Rome who in her latter days tried to buy off her enemies.  He refers to profligate spending which America, like ancient Rome, has fallen into.  Pax Romana and Pax Americana are different in many ways but their decisive retreat from world influence is quite similar.

              Fein correctly asserts that education’s self-esteem emphasis has led to “a fool’s paradise.”  I’ve observed this at both high school and college levels. Fein mentions the trophies that we now give to all participants rather than just to winners.  I would add the grief brigades (counselors) that we parachute into the high schools whenever a tragedy of any kind occurs, a practice that is turning us into one nation under therapy.  I would also add the tenderness that now runs amuck on college campuses because college presidents wish to protect college kids from “harmful viewpoints.”

Novelist Saul Bellow said it this way: “I never viewed the university as a sanctuary or shelter from the outer world.”  For at least a decade, however, we have treated college students like babes and are now scratching our heads at the number of just-old-enough-to-vote youths who are flocking to a free-stuff, socialist candidate’s rallies.

Academia’s embrace of modern psychology’s “Esteem thyself” has birthed children.  None of those children have flawed character, of course.  They are victims of “disorders.”   They’ve been told to “seize the day” because they are special.  And they’re voting.

Fein is in good company.  Twenty-five year ago another respected university personality, Columbia University’s Dean, Jacques Barzun, opined that “self-esteem comes from work done,” and that universities “barely weave intellect into socialization, entertainment, and political activism.”  Barzun, too, wrote of the decadence that so often has its roots in academia.

 To see what college students should be learning, join yours truly and Constitutional scholar Jim Jess in “A Reading of the Constitution” at 7 PM on April 19 at Kennesaw First Baptist Church.  Decadence can only be reversed by life-giving ideals and principles.  Our Constitution provides just that.  It’s an antidote to what ails the university.

Roger Hines

4/13/16