The New Core Curriculum

JAMES O'KEEFE

ISI books, a division of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, recently sent us a copy of their 2006 masterpiece “Choosing the Right College,” which rates the best 134 colleges from a classically conservative perspective, emphasizing the core curriculum and the college experience.

Wouldn’t you know it, Rutgers University made the list (after all, our philosophy department alone was ranked number one by the Philosophical Gourmet Report). Despite a less-than stellar review of residence life, (frankly, we deserve it), our academics received great praise. ISI also published a list of classics that could compose a core curriculum (which the administrators have been removing from the list of requirements since the 1960s).

Contemporary “postmodern” (and often Marxist) dogma attacks the achievements of those who authored the classics because they were privileged and powerful white males. However, such ad hominem attacks against the character and socialization of such individuals ignores the superiority of their objective insights and their achievements.

Another of the points contributing author Mark Henrie emphasizes in his introduction is that students are losing the opportunity to gain a broad understanding of the laws that govern human nature and human understanding. The decline of classical education is a modern tragedy.

Bill J. Bennett of the Heritage Foundation pointed out that, upon graduating, only 14 percent of students know that James Madison wrote the United States Constitution, one of many statistics indicating a pathetic lack of civic knowledge and responsibility perpetuated by strange agendas of “multiculturalism” and “diversity.” Most electives do not focus on anything of substantive historical value,

Timely axioms like “god and man,” “virtue and vice,” “heroism and cowardice,” “tyranny and freedom,” and “truth and untruth” are replaced with electives concerning racial, ethnic, sexual and non-literary themes. The focus of the humanities is now underdog appeasement, e.g. encouraging the use of Ebonics.

Though the classics are no longer required of students, we encourages students to register for classes in western civilization and philosophy - you may just learn something.

NJO: Originally printed in the November 2005 issue of The Centurion at Rutgers.