Deep Inside, Rioters Are Angry That They Never Learned Anything But Lies By Stella Morabito for The Federalist
Our institutions have stolen critical knowledge from young people and replaced it with the poison of identity politics and political correctness.
I suspect many members of today’s street mobs have a secret in common: At some deep level, they know they are awash in ignorance of core knowledge. Claiming to be “woke” is cover for the ignorance educrats have systematically instilled in them.
For decades, leftist academics have attacked the study of history and real humanities, and now an Illinois legislator has openly called to abolish the study of history. Recent episodes of Bible burning in the streets of Portland indicate the trashing of America’s cultural memory is well past the boiling point.
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Our educational institutions have committed intellectual grand theft. They have withheld critical knowledge from students and replaced it with the poison of identity politics and political correctness. This makes it difficult for students to express independent thoughts, or even to think them. Where does that leave the victims who have been forcibly injected with this ignorance?
They can’t really articulate what has been stolen from them, but they seem to sense the loss deeply. How else can one explain their primal screams and street theater, in which they both accuse and confess “systemic racism?” After educrats and media hounded them for years with the talking point that Western culture is just tales of “dead white males,” how can they even be openly curious about it without the threat of being smeared?
It’s no wonder they can’t, since the rabbit hole into which they’ve been thrown is very deep. Imagine being trained to “think” only with your emotions. The consequence is unbridled passions and confusion, like that of someone who can’t read but pretends to. The resulting impulse undergirds the perverse toppling of a statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, or the burning and vandalizing of a beloved elk statue in Portland while “protesting” for justice. Could the angst behind such senseless acts amount to the deep frustration of knowing so little about so much?
The Anguish and Isolation of Ignorance
If you don’t understand what it feels like to be in the dark about core knowledge, consider the poignant excerpt below. It’s from a 2012 high school newspaper in which a student mourns her ignorance of basic Bible references. The letter illustrates how illiteracy of a huge part of our culture, whether biblical or secular, can cause painful feelings of alienation. While in English class, this student felt disconnected from the culture and from others because of her ignorance.
We were discussing biblical references in passages of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein,’ and how the story of Adam and Eve was reflected into the novel. I thought to myself, Adam and Eve — isn’t that the passage about someone eating an apple? I had no idea what the story was about, and no idea what the lesson or moral was. And this wasn’t the first time something like this had occurred. Genesis? What is that? Moses parting the Red Sea? How did that work? When people bring up these essential topics in religious history, I feel like I am the only one who doesn’t know the story.
My lack of religious knowledge, no matter what religion it may be, is also keeping me from being a well-versed person.
