COLLEGE AVENUE: To Tell the Truth
Kalthoff, Mark A.
COLLEGE AVENUE MARK A . KALTHOFF To Tell the Truth ! T T HILE PREPARING TO INTERVIEW a job candi: ~ ] date recently, I studiedthe website of the / ~ ] applicant's current academic...
...Consider just a sampling of old college and university mottoes, many of which antedate the American founding: Veritas (Truth...
...Values are relative...
...The point of such academic give-and-take, however, is not diversity of opinion for its own sake...
...but since you also have nothing in common with me, we have something in common after all...
...In fact, the differences are such that nothing applicable to all can go bythe name of truth...
...One might chuckle at the fatuous diversity drivel masquerading as wisdom, but, to paraphrase the title of Pdchard Weaver's famous polemic, "Fatuous drivel has Consequences" The consequences of campus diversity mantras are indeed dire, for they reveal the deep betrayal of higher education's foundational principles-principles upon which civilizations stand or fall...
...So every perspective does not deserve a seat at the high table of academic respectability...
...I so appreciated your defense of truth" she gushed...
...A daily celebration of diversity...
...Alongside this goal stands the traditional aim of American colleges to foster virtue, both moral and intellectual...
...Universities exist to serve the higher things--the pursuit, preservation, and propagation of the Truth...
...We have family values, feminist values, queer values, classical values, atheist values, and on and on...
...Then they beg, in the name of fairness, for a seat at the table...
...Chances are if you have an American bachelor's degree, your alma mater had a similar motto...
...but never about whether conforming to virtue is primary...
...One might as well declare, "I have nothing in common with you...
...Truth, then, is still praised, but it becomes a code word for effervescent notions that come and go, and differ from place to place and from person to person...
...This tactic betrays the historic purpose of higher education, which is not to give every view a place at the table...
...Hence the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, part of our national organic law, opened its third article with the words, "Religion, Morality, and Knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged...
...MARCH 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 63...
...Universities and teachers do still voice their praise for "truth," but the meaning of "truth" has evolved-which reminds me of an experience on the lecture circuit...
...Indeed, without a prior commitment to certain primary truths, the business of the university cannot even begin...
...Lux Veritas Virtus (Light, Truth, Virtue...
...hardened skeptics and swaggering cynics who zealously attack, in the name of reason or science, either religious faith or the ascertainability of tranWe have family values, feminist values, queer values, classical values, atheist values, and on and on...
...Scores upon scores of colleges and universities admit this explicitly in their mottoes...
...Rather, it is movement toward a resting place called Truth...
...After speaking to a group of high school teachers at a conference on civics education, I was approached by a participant who thanked me for my remarks, only to reveal she had thoroughly misunderstood them...
...We'll call it diversity...
...Mark A. Kalthoff is chairman of the department of history and political science at Hillsdale College...
...Regardless of the differences so touted by the diversity nuts, all people aspire to these...
...These are axioms upon which universities rest...
...Colleges exist to propagate truth and to fan virtue into flame...
...Among the postulates axiomatic to collegiate education, reminded Russell Kirk, was that "for the sake of the commonwealth, sctiooling should quicken the moral imagination...
...Colleges have a duty to encourage authentic faith and fixed moral excellence...
...For nothing applies to all...
...If a motto expresses an ideal for which to strive, then a great many colleges aspire to uphold Truth and Virtue...
...Chesterton's observation that "the object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid...
...Is diversity a "thing...
...T HIS IS WHY WE HEAR SO MUCH TALK of "values" on campuses--though in reviewing university mottoes I never found a university motto upholding the terms diversitas (diversity) orpretia (values...
...But virtues are not...
...Truth and virtue matter, for they bind men and sustain civilizations...
...Values are relative...
...These days many conservatives seek to reform higher education by demanding that universities practice their professed diversity...
...COLLEGE AVENUE MARK A . KALTHOFF To Tell the Truth ! T T HILE PREPARING TO INTERVIEW a job candi: ~ ] date recently, I studiedthe website of the / ~ ] applicant's current academic employer, 1' ~ ] wondering at what sort of college he V V worked...
...The founders of our universities and of our nation knew this...
...Virtus etScientia (Virtue and Knowledge...
...Whoever heard of a campus group saying, "Our membership is declining a bit, but we're doing pretty well for a club united behind a commitment to foolishness, injustice, gluttony, and cowardice...
...Veritas et Virtus (Truth and Virtue...
...The university ought to be concerned with truth, not diversity...
...Set them aside, treat them as quaint, but dated, opinions, and legitimate higher education crumbles...
...I do not deny that universities must enable dialogue, foster debate, and encourage deliberation about all sorts of things...
...Ergo, let's throw a party...
...That is why virtus appeared so frequently in university mottoes...
...And this: "Knowledge 62 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 2006 MARK A, KALTHOFF and wisdom are to be sought for their own sake...
...These confused folks are all free to hold and express their views, of course, but they should not be paid and tenured to preach them in the classroom...
...I strive to have my students understand how important it is...
...Among the website's nuggets of inane propaganda was the proclamation, "Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common, celebrate it everyday...
...They plead, "Let us traditionalists, let us strict constitutional constructionists, and let us defenders of Intelligent Design Theory have seats beside the queer theorists, the professors of deconstructed whiteness studies, and the post-Marxist feminist evolutionary biologists...
...and champions of open-minded tolerance who neglect G.K...
...When universities replace the permanent things with such insipid counterfeits as diversity, pragmatism, and mushy values, they demolish their own foundation, abandon our cultural heritage, and scramble the minds and hearts of the coming generations...
...Lux et Veritas (Light and Truth...
...scendent truth...
...To the contrary, the interesting debates concern whether a deed is just or courageous, whether an act is temperate or prudent...
...Now I probably should not have T been so astonished at the answer...
...Take as examples the cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude...
...The founders of our universities and of our nation knew this...
...But we know that this assertion means that no statements are true of all people because people differ too much from one another in their opinions, values, habits, customs, and beliefs-not to mention gender, ethnicity, and sexual preference...
...Magna est Veritas (Great is the Truth...
...These conservatives grant the diversity crowd's premise...
...But virtues are not...
...Veritas Vox Liberabit (The Truth Will Set You Free...
...Doesn't one assign truth values to propositions rather than to things...
...Such activityis fundamental...
...And: "Prudence, courage, temperance, and justice are virtues worthy of acquisition and practice...
...In fact, I want each one to determine his or her own truth since truth is different for everyone...
...Some should be excluded: morally confused advocates of values relativism and those indifferent to virtue's primacy of place...
...Values are relative to those who hold them...
...Rather, they were founded upon the principle that ascertainable Truth exists...
...However regarded by trendy academic fashion makers, diversity shrivels and fades before the supremacy of transcendent truths, like those that a once-enlightened generation called self-evident and summoned to create this nation...
...Giving every side an equal say denies that some things are actually higher and more worthy than others...
...These are fixed moral and intellectual goods that all should seek to acquire and practice...
...Consider this proposition: "Our ancestors acquired wisdom from which we can profit and which we are obliged to transmit...
...Universities were not created to encourage diversity or throw parties in its honor...
Vol. 39 • March 2006 • No. 2
