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How did the left come to be so prevalent in so many areas of our society? Let's look at the schools.The current crop of leftists were accurately described over fifty years ago in a dictionary of philosophy, no less. Under “Individualism,” Oswald von Nell-Breuning, a contributor to the Philosophical Dictionary of Walter Brugger/Kenneth Baker (1972), provided the following definition:
[Individualism can mean] the view of society that so stresses the value of the individual that society turns out to be only the sum of the individuals, but not a real whole or unity. The rights and freedom of the individual in this view are supposed to be limited only by the very same rights of the other person and not by an inner relationship to the community. Thus, “order” can be established only when…the reasonable personal interest of each individual leads to a kind of cooperation and harmony…In actual fact however, the stronger [overpower] the weaker and in place of a “free” society appears a tyrannical, irresponsible use of power under the guise of freedom and equality. In the 19th century this form of individualism (in politics it was called “liberalism”) was dominant in both social and economic thinking, and then it fell into disrepute; but it still lives on as individualism on a higher level in the form of collectivism where it has magnified to gigantic proportions. (Emphasis is mine.)
The collectivist mindset of today’s leftists was identified long before any of us learned to walk. And, I would add, it was pointing to a future for America of distorted comm-unity, not out of carelessness or neglect but out of intent by those wanting to change this country into an authoritarian state. Marxists were first in line.
During my school days in the 1940s I was a witness to the beginning of the Marxist campaign to change America into a collectivist state. My high school principal was concerned enough to sound the alarm in a report to the American Education Association in which he detailed the radical changes being implemented in New York City’s public schools. He made plain the purpose of the new “progressive education,” which was, in the words of its promoters, to “dare the teachers to build a new social order.”
Progressive Education had just come into the junior high school (middle school) that I attended. Its immediately noticeable difference from what school had been up to then was a generally more permissible atmosphere, with less attention to discipline and more to “fun.” It was a novelty that prompted some of us to do what we thought would be good ideas during school hours, granted the permission. A school chum and I thought it would be great to paint murals in the school’s hallways. It would mean cutting classes, of course. Permission was granted.
This “official cheating” didn’t bother those of us with A’s and B’s in our subjects. We could always catch up somehow (perhaps in high school?). But what about students who might find it hard or impossible to “catch up” with the growing challenges?
While such relaxed schooling may have pleased the students, most teachers took a dim view of a style of teaching that downgraded authority, tradition, and the knowledge needed for success in the adult world.
This watered-down education was the subject of my high school principal’s concerning report. In it he detailed the deceptive tactics used to get schools to “experiment” with progressive education. The report exposed John Dewey’s “behaviorist” input to the new education. It revealed the adoption of his teaching method in Russia’s Soviet Union for its desired effect on students, which was promptly terminated when it had prepared them for real instruction, according to the Communist doctrines. And it spoke of new textbooks that promoted disloyalty to America and its Judeo-Christian principles.
A feature of major importance was the use of group psychology to weaken individual thinking and initiative, a primary step in brainwashing minds and taking control of loyalties.
The rest, as they say, is history. It is most unfortunate that the many growing up in that history who would be leaders and teachers don’t know their own history. The fogging of their minds and attendant doctrinaire education, starting with the introduction of progressive education in the 1940s, has indeed helped build a new social order: a society top to bottom of great confusion, division, and enfeebled spirit of independence, thanks to neo-Marxists who managed to get both feet in America’s door.
While there is no turning back to “correct history,” the future need not be faced with total ignorance. The true fact of the matter is that impostors posing as reformers cannot defeat the human spirit, which is resistant to total suppression, a reality that its would-be destroyers are having a hard time learning.
Anthony J. DeBlasi is a veteran and longtime defender of Western culture.
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