Commentary: The Slow-Motion Suicide of the West

I have been thinking a good deal recently about Arnold Toynbee’s much-quoted observation that “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.” As an historical proposition, I’d say that it was like the story of the curate’s breakfast egg. “I’m afraid you’ve got a bad egg, Mr. Jones!” “Oh no, my Lord, I assure you!” the curate replied. “Parts of it are excellent!”

And yet we all see the pertinence of Toynbee’s point. While there are, as a matter of historical fact, plenty of civilizations that succumb to invasion, occupation, and subjugation, there are also many that wither from within from a failure of self-confidence, of (for the Bergsonians out there) élan vital, of what your philosophy graduate student likes to call thumos: spirit, gumption, “heart,” manliness.

The fact that no one can even speak of “manliness” today without looking over his shoulder these days is an index that thumos is on the endangered species list (along, as it happens, with sperm counts in the Western world). Why this should be is a fraught question—something whose answer is “overdetermined” as our Freudian friends like to say.

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Commentary: Proposed Education Department Rule Would Prioritize Funding Critical Race Theory Grant Applications

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The Biden Administration is wasting no time in working to promote highly controversial critical race theory and anti-racism concepts into curriculums nationwide.

A proposed rule from the U.S. Education Department seeks to prioritize funding grant proposals that support diversity and inclusion narratives within American History and Civics Education programs.

The department states on the Federal Register that such a move would “support the development of culturally responsive teaching.”

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Commentary: Big Business Joins the Other Crumbling Pillars of Society

T Mobile storefront

What a pitiful trajectory the woke leaders of large American corporations have traced as American business, once a pillar of American society and political science, has crumbled along with other pillars as if in a choreographed sequence.

The senior levels of national intelligence and the Justice Department were tainted in the nonsense about collusion between Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia in 2016. Academia, apparently down to kindergarten, largely has been transformed into a massive brainwashing operation to convince the country’s youth that the United States is hateful and racist. The national political media have failed catastrophically and all surveys show that over 80 percent of Americans don’t believe a word they read or hear from that source. Any sector of American society which has done such savage violence to its own franchise will pay dearly for it commercially.

Owners of major sports franchises roll over like poodles in perfect conformity with the league commissioners, as players prostrate themselves before the totalitarian authorities of China, denigrating the flag and national anthem. Team revenues have suffered, but the insolent players have not—yet.

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Intellectual Magazine Removes Professor’s Column Critiquing Critical Race Theory

Alaric Naudé

A lengthy column by a professor that critiques critical race theory and the concept of “whiteness” and “blackness” was removed by an online intellectual magazine after it generated controversy.

Alaric Naudé, a linguistics professor at Suwon Science College in South Korea and head professor of its English Department, said his essay “Blackness, Whiteness and Other Mythological Creatures” was removed by the UK-based online magazine Res Publica.

The publication bills itself as providing “an academic platform where ideas and concepts can be praised and challenged.” It did not respond to requests from The College Fix seeking comment on the matter.

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Tom Cotton Introduces Bill to Ban Critical Race Theory from U.S. Armed Forces

Tom Cotton CRT

Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) introduced a bill on Thursday seeking to ban critical race theory from being taught in the United States military, referring to such a practice as “anti-American,” as reported by the Washington Free Beacon.

Senator Cotton said that such teachings, which essentially claim that America is an “inherently racist” country and that White people are automatically racist and “privileged,” would only “demoralize and divide” members of the armed forces. In his statement announcing the bill, Cotton declared that “our military’s strength depends on the unity of our troops and the knowledge that America is a noble nation worth fighting for.”

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Commentary: Higher Ed Approaches the Antiracism Training Abyss

Free expression and open inquiry in higher education are under attack by ideologues seeking to impose neo-Marxist “critical” theories, most prominently critical race theory, which places race at the center of all political and social issues.

Critical race theory training, misleadingly characterized as “antiracism” training, has spread widely throughout higher education and is often compared to Maoist struggle sessions, where dissent incurs public shaming, job loss, and harassment. This training often turns into race-shaming and Kafka-trapping, using denial of racism as proof of racism. The result is self-imposed racial conflict and systemic retaliatory discrimination masquerading as “equity.”

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DeSantis Slams Critical Race Theory, Says Florida Schools Will Exclude ‘Unsubstantiated Theories’ from Curriculum

During a press conference in Palm Harbor, Florida on Wednesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that his administration is banning “Critical Race Theory” from being taught in Florida schools.

The governor made the announcement while describing a new civics education initiative aimed at teaching students “foundational concepts” in America, rather than “unsubstantiated theories.”

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Commentary: Critical Race Theory as a Leftist Hammer

You have to hand it to the Left: they are relentless and always at war on a thousand fronts. As my father once told me when he was in Congress, “The shame is our people come and go, while evil never sleeps.” As I have pointed out, leftists are on the level of religious zealots; politics and government are their religion, the vehicle by which perfection and utopia will be achieved in this world. 

The worst that can be said about many on the Right, however, is that they are just careerists. Most are nine to five types on weekdays and politics is not a religion for them. They consider politics a necessary evil. So if it seems like the Left is always on the move, it’s because politics is a lifestyle for them and they fully intend to reshape this country into their vision for it, everything else be damned.

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Website Tracks Which Colleges Embrace Training in Critical Race Theory

It takes only a few clicks to see that critical race theory is influencing hundreds of college campuses and universities across America.

A new website called Critical Race Training in Education allows users to quickly access information about more than 230 schools and the ways in which those schools are instituting critical race theory on campus.

Critical race theory holds that whites use their social status or their legal and economic advantages to create or maintain power over people of color.

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Gender and Sexuality Studies Professor Applies Critical Race Theory to the Lives of Shelter Dogs

A professor of gender and sexuality studies at the University of California Riverside claims in a recent book that dogs end up being killed in shelters due to “capitalism, anthroparchy, white supremacy and patriarchy.”

Katja Guenther’s “The Lives and Deaths of Shelter Animals” also says that allowing your dog(s) to sleep inside your house is actually a manifestation of white privilege, reports Areo Magazine.

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Legal Coalition to Sue to Stop Feds’ Critical Race Theory Training

One of President Joe Biden’s new executive actions is in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to a coalition of legal foundations and lawyers, which is planning to take legal action to stop it.

On his first day in office, Biden signed an executive order reversing former President Donald Trump’s ban on critical race theory training programs within the federal government.

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Family Files Civil Rights Lawsuit Against Charter School for Mandating Anti-White ‘Critical Race Theory’ Class

A Nevada mother has followed through on her threat to file a civil rights lawsuit against her son’s charter school for refusing to let him opt out of a mandatory class that promotes hostility toward whites as a race.

Democracy Prep at the Agassi Campus (DPAC) forced William Clark “to make professions about his racial, sexual, gender and religious identities in verbal class exercises and in graded, written homework assignments,” creating a hostile environment, the biracial high school student and Gabrielle Clark allege in their federal lawsuit filed Tuesday.

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Commentary: Southern Baptist Seminary Presidents Announce New Rejection of ‘Critical Race Theory’

In a stunning reversal on November 30, presidents of the six Southern Baptist seminaries issued a joint statement that said, “we … declare that affirmation of Critical Race Theory (CRT), Intersectionality, and any version of Critical Theory (CT) is incompatible with [our confessional standards].” Just a year and half earlier, at their 2019 annual convention, Southern Baptists passed Resolution 9, affirming CRT and intersectionality. Had Southern Baptist leaders been unaware that CRT is a subset of CT, which itself is the main ideological underpinning of neo-Marxist revolutionary movements?

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Carol Swain Commentary: Critical Race Theory and the Decline of American Justice

Is racism in the DNA of white people, and is it a permanent part of American society? Critical race theorists argue that American society is structured to give white people undeserved advantages over people of color. They say people who look like me (Black) are victims. We are supposedly powerless to free ourselves from systemic racism, institutional structures, and cultural stereotypes that keep us in bondage. Systemic racism permeates every facet of our lives, including institutions and laws. The only hope is for whites to become “woke,” or conscious, of their racism and commit themselves to becoming antiracist. So, where did we get these ideas that now undergird the diversity, equity, and inclusion industry that rests on top of existing affirmative action programs that have been around since the mid-1960s?

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Commentary: Critical Race Theory Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg in Woke Government Training

The Trump Administration put critical race theory on notice this month. The White House issued a directive outlawing the inclusion of exercises based on this theory in government training. “These types of ‘trainings’ not only run counter to the fundamental beliefs for which our Nation has stood since its inception, but they also engender division and resentment within the Federal workforce,” the directive declared.

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Carol Swain Commentary: A Dangerous Revisionist History of America’s Founding Pushes a False and Destructive Narrative

Under the guise of a venture called the “1619 Project,” revisionist history about race in America is being introduced into classrooms across America without undergoing the normal peer review expected of educational materials. August 2019 marked the birth of the project, a publication of The New York Times Magazine and the Pulitzer organization, containing a collection of essays and artistic works to commemorate the 400-year anniversary of slavery in America. The project has mushroomed into a movement to re-educate Americans via newfangled claims about how deeply racism is embedded in America’s core.

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