Is America losing its religion? I’m not talking about declining church attendance or fewer prayers in schools. I’m talking about America’s secular religion — our understanding of ourselves, our institutions and our history. The civic literacy that underlies our way of life is on the decline, according to a new report by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and the University of Connecticut.
People should always be suspicious of studies that ask us to fret about “the kids today” or “the future of America.” But if the findings in the ISI study reflect the woeful state of civic literacy among college students, we have good reason to be concerned. Consider:
» “Seniors scored just 1.5 percent higher on average than freshmen.”
» “If the survey were a college exam in a college course, seniors would fail with an overall average score of 53.2 percent” — an F.
» “Though … college students on average leave campus $19,300 in debt, they are no better off than when they arrived in terms of acquiring the knowledge necessary for informed engagement in a democratic republic and global economy.”
» Students of elite schools fared among the poorest, and seniors at schools like Brown, Georgetown and Yale scored lower than their freshmen counterparts.
» “Students who demonstrated greater learning of America’s history and institutions were more engaged in citizenship activities.”
So what’s wrong with this picture?
It’s no secret universities have long been dominated by competing agendas. But none of these include basic civic literacy. “Diversity” curricula like global awareness, minority studies and various non-traditional disciplines have come into vogue. It’s not so much a conspiracy as a herd mentality among academic elites. Study of basic institutions gets passedover in favor of “alternative” subjects.
But apparently, there are opportunity costs. If the ISI survey tells us anything, it’s that students are implicitly asking “alternative to what?” Socialist economics and obscure cultural theories are evidently the new baseline of comparison.
None of this is to suggest students should be inculcated with a particular worldview. But they should be offered greater options — particularly if their school receives government funding. And under no circumstances should state universities be allowed to leave civic literacy out of the core curriculum.
Private universities are just that — private. So if they want to offer “History 101: From Mother Goddess to Marx,” then fine. But when a loud, activist professoriat at UNC-Chapel Hill rejects millions of dollars in private funding for a Western Civ program, while cutting the ribbon on a Black History and Culture center built with public money, something’s gone wrong.
Do your college kids know more about Rigoberta Menchu than Patrick Henry? Have they read more Marx and Engels than Locke and Hume? Are they asked to share stories of phallo-logo-centric abuse in required courses, but can’t explain the Bill of Rights? Is their idea of “democracy” populist rebellions and land reforms, or based on the Constitution and private property?
Of course, one could argue that Civics 101 is the responsibility of our ailing public school system. Students should enter college well-armed, and have their understanding augmented by higher education. If they’re arriving as civic ignoramuses and leaving even worse off, then pragmatics must surely confront high school administrators — just as they would if kids arrived never having read Shakespeare nor learned the Pythagorean Theorem.
Students who are poorly armed with civic understanding become either apathetic rubes or victims of the latest idealist fancies. Politicians with vacuous promises or black-robed activists will come along and subvert Constitutional protections our collegiate generation never even knew they had.
In five years, students-turned-money-making professionals benefitting from our market economy will nevertheless fall for fantastic claims about government manipulation of gas prices by the president because they’ve never had to draw a demand curve. Millions will line up behind partisans fighting over territory that belongs to neither, such as private rights to property. If today’s college students don’t know that life, liberty and property are fundamental to our national identity, won’t these be up for grabs too?
How will tomorrow’s citizens know that church-state separation, rather than government accommodation, has created a vast, robust and pluralistic system of private religious organizations peacefully operating side by side for more than 200 years?
Even so-called activists against the status quo will not even have a reference point against which to protest. Vocal minorities with extreme views represent political polarities that no longer have grounding in the system that gave rise to them.
Do we want our vital institutions to be forgotten? The American Founders established a secular religion with trappings similar to that of the spiritual type: i.e. knowledge, understanding and veneration. Without these, the very idea of America gets fractured. And the pieces will be picked up by people who love only power.
Max Borders is a writer living in Arlington.
