Motus Mentis

In a new worldwide evaluation of various cognitive skills, Americans have made a poor showing.

Americans performed below the international average on math, reading and problem-solving on the exam, known as the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies. U.S. math skills lagged far behind top performers, including Japan and Finland. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, based in Paris, released the results early Tuesday.

A key sentence from the linked item:

The oldest U.S. adults were close to the international average, but American adults in every other age group performed far worse than the world average.

Do not believe for a moment, readers, that this age-related distribution in any way suggests that the education of our youth is in decline.

Remember, always: our republic enjoys consistent gains in all social metrics!
Is it not true that today No Child is Left Behind, and every pupil in need gets a Head Start?
Furthermore, it is known by all that high-school graduation rates are up!

If only we had the cognitive skills to understand what the actual problem could be…

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

— C. S. Lewis.

Here is the opening of Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, pp 25-26, 1986. (My emphasis.) For “openness”, you may substitute “non-discrimination”.

There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative. If this belief is put to the test, one can count on the students’ reaction: they will be uncomprehending. That anyone should regard the proposition as not self-evident astonishes them, as though he were calling into question 2 + 2 = 4. These are things you don’t think about. The students’ backgrounds are as various as America can provide. Some are religious, some atheists; some are to the Left, some to the Right; some intend to be scientists, some humanists or professionals or businessmen; some are poor, some rich. They are unified only in their relativism and in their allegiance to equality. And the two are related in a moral intention. The relativity of truth is not a theoretical insight but a moral postulate, the condition of a free society, or so they see it. They have all been equipped with this framework early on, and it is the modern replacement for the inalienable natural rights that used to be the traditional American grounds for a free society. That it is a moral issue for students is revealed by the character of their response when challenged — a combination of disbelief and indignation: “Are you an absolutist?,’ the only alternative they know, uttered in the same tone as “Are you a monarchist?’ or “Do you really believe in witches?’ This latter leads into indignation, for someone who believes in witches might well be a witch-hunter or a Salem judge. The danger they have been taught to fear from absolutism is not error but intolerance. Relativism is necessary to openness; and this is the virtue, the only virtue, which all primary education for more than fifty years has dedicated itself to inculcating. Openness ”“ and the relativism that makes it the only plausible stance in the face of various claims to truth and various ways of life and kinds of human beings ”“ is the great insight of our times. The true believer is the real danger. The study of history and of culture teaches that all the world was mad in the past; men always thought they were right, and that led to wars, persecutions, slavery, xenophobia, racism, and chauvinism. The point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all.

The students, of course, cannot defend their opinion.

This book, given to me as a gift a year or two after it came out, was my ‘red pill’. Further, painful rounds of memetic chemotherapy lay ahead, but for me, this is where it began.

Jonah Goldberg has posted a tart essay on the Left’s conceit that it is they, not conservatives, who stand on the side of personal liberty.

We read:

Alleged proof for this amusing myth (or pernicious lie; take your pick) comes in the form of liberal support for gay marriage and abortion rights, and opposition to a few things that smack of what some people call “traditional values.’

The evidence disproving this adorable story of live-and-let-live liberalism comes in the form of pretty much everything else liberals say, do, and believe.

Social liberalism is the foremost, predominant, and in many instances sole impulse for zealous regulation in this country, particularly in big cities. I love it when liberals complain about a ridiculous bit of PC nanny-statism coming out of New York, L.A., Chicago, D.C., Seattle, etc. ”” “What will they do next?’

Uh, sorry to tell you, but you are “they.’ Outside of a Law and Order script ”” or an equally implausible MSNBC diatribe about who ruined Detroit ”” conservatives have as much influence on big-city liberalism as the Knights of Malta do.

Seriously, who else do people think are behind efforts to ban big sodas or sue hairdressers for charging women more than men? Who harasses little kids for making toy guns out of sticks, Pop Tarts, or their own fingers? Who wants to regulate the air you breathe, the food you eat, and the beverages you drink? Who wants to control your thermostat? Take your guns? Your cigarettes? Heck, your candy cigarettes? Who’s in favor of speech codes on campuses and “hate crime’ laws everywhere? Who’s in favor of free speech when it comes to taxpayer-subsidized “art’ and pornography (so long as you use a condom, if liberals get their way) but then bang their spoons on their high chairs for strict regulations when it comes to political speech? Who loves meddling, finger-wagging billionaires like Michael Bloomberg when they use state power and taxpayer money to herd, bully, and nudge people but thinks billionaires like the Koch brothers who want to shrink government are the root of all tyranny?

Right. And when it comes to taking control, let’s not forget toilets, light bulbs, and a whole lot more. Pretty much everything, in fact, except sex, drugs and the border.

Read the whole thing here.

Writing at Taki’s, John Derbyshire marks the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s greatest oration by contrasting a world of genuine obstacles with a modern-day retreat into magical thinking. Here.