Unpacking Liberalism: Interview with my daughter.

My daughter Cecily is 18, and she attends the University of Arizona where she studies Classics (her true love is Latin). 


The high school Cecily attended (a public, charter school founded eight years ago) has as its motto: Truth, Goodness, Beauty. The school, along with its sister schools, uses a classical, Great Books model to teach students the basis of Western Civilization. 


By contrast, the University of Arizona approaches most liberal arts courses through the prism of "race, gender, and class" -- a standard model of the left. After hearing her outrageous stories from the classroom this past year, I decided to interview her about these two completely different approaches to education. 


Me: Cecily, what's the main difference you see between your high school and your university?


Cecily: In high school, our model was Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. I got to college and I was shocked to realize that the actual world cares nothing about truth, goodness and beauty, but instead it's all about race, gender and class. Really, all they care about is emotions instead of reason and intellect. It's all about "We don't want to hurt anyone's feelings." If something "offends" someone, that's not okay.


We had to watch The Little Mermaid (Disney movie) in my English 101 class and see how it related to race, gender and class. We were shown by the professor that the movie was actually a representation of "mermaid" as one race and "humans" as another. And we were supposedly taught by the film to see that there was something wrong with the mermaid race and that's why Ariel wants to be human.


Me: You mean, in the professor's view, the writers of the movie were supposedly trying to show us that the mermaids were inferior to humans?


Cecily: Yes. The teacher said we need to look at this and see how it applies to everyday life.


Me: So, since your teacher was talking about "race," was the mermaid vs. human thing supposed to be about black people vs. white people?


Cecily: Yes, but class issues, too. But I'm not done with the race stuff. The teacher pointed out that the only black mermaid was the one waving at the end, a very insignificant creature. Pretty much I wanted to laugh, because we also read the original version, and it is an Anglo-Saxon fairy tale! I mean, we don't take African folk stories and try to make the characters white, so it made me laugh to hear her say that.


And in reality, this movie has nothing to do with race, it's simply a tale about mermaids for children. In fact, it's a Hollywood, dumbed-down version of the Christian tale of the The Little Mermaid.


Me: What was your teacher's purpose in all this?


Cecily: To show that rich, white men see themselves as superior to everyone else. And to show us that it's a horrible depiction of women because Ariel wants to be with a white man -- not just an ordinary white man, but with a prince, in other words, a rich white man.


Also, the teacher pointed out that the servants were shown as a bit overweight and not as pretty as Ariel, which showed that the poor are not as good as the rich. It's also a horrible depiction of men, according to the teacher, because the movie shows us that men should be manly and buff, sailing the seas with a dog at their side, and have a pretty woman, too. And that that is the only type of man who can get a woman.


Me: So, your teacher was basically indicting the filmmakers for promoting harmful stereotypes?


Cecily: Yes. Stereotypes that poison the minds of children at a young age. This will live in their subconscious, etc., etc.


Me: You've had one year of college. Did you find that this kind of liberal worldview (seeing through the lens of race, gender, class) is common? Did you experience this a lot in your classes?


Cecily: Yes.


Me: So it wasn't unique to this teacher?


Cecily: No.


Me: And this is a very different paradigm from your high school {where students are educated the way kids used to be educated}?


Cecily: Yes. In my high school Humane Letters class, we read books and dialogues that actually had great significance and shaped Western Civilization. In my college classes this year, we looked at contemporary stuff, or if we did look at older works it was to relate them to a current agenda, a.k.a. race, gender, class. There was no looking for objective truth. It was all subjective: How would this make another person "feel."


Me: You could never draw conclusions?


Cecily: No. You couldn't look for a "truth" that could unite us all as humans. It was always, "What is this saying about women? What is this saying about black people? What is this saying about poor people?"


Me: Would you say then, that liberals/leftists have an obsession with putting people into categories? Separating them into different groups and compartments?


Cecily: Yes. They are the ones who are the racists, in my opinion. They are racist against white people, sexist against men, and classist against rich people. At my high school, we'd try to find uniting qualities of human nature (i.e., people are simply people). It shouldn't matter what sex, color, or social status, because at our core, humans are the same.


At college, the teachers are not showing people as equal, but as unequal, and it's always based on externals not internal things. They base it on shallow things that don't matter.


Me: Do you think that the "race, gender, class" model tends to divide people?


Cecily: They are trying to make you aware of differences instead of forgetting about differences -- supposedly to be sensitive. Instead of just seeing people as people. I think it starts as a good intention, but as they go into it, it doesn't end with good intentions. Like, they end up hating the white male.


There is more to her college adventures in liberalism, and I will post more interviews later. Meantime, I confess to being annoyed that not only are my tax dollars going to support these classes and professors, but it also costs a small fortune in tuition as well. Parents are paying universities to teach their kids leftist ideology, which is the ideology of "victimhood." I have no problem with that if that is what the parents want, but I think most parents would be appalled if they really knew what is being shoveled into their kids' brains on college campuses.


Exit question: Why is it good to teach in a way that divides groups according to superficialities instead of uniting them through things that transcend?