Thread by @yhazony

There was always a problem with the academic study of “classical antiquity,” which was built around the assumption that the West was descended from Greece and Rome—but not from Israel and the Bible.
nationalreview.com/news/princeton…

This was an “Enlightenment” theory and it was a nasty one. It was anti-Semitic and anti-Christian too.

But the destruction of Classics department at Princeton, where I went to school is a shameful thing.

I have always thought Classics students should study Hebrew alongside Greek and Latin.

But no one benefits from dropping the Greek and Latin requirement.

No one will study Hebrew—or any other language—because Greek and Latin are no longer required.

Instead, Princeton students will get the message that it isn’t worth knowing ancient languages or texts or ideas, because the past just doesn’t have that much to teach us.

The project of cutting American and Western life off from its roots will just move all the faster.

Thus cultural revolution has been going on for 60 or 70 years now. Nothing from the past is being spared. Every decade is crazier.

Time to face the truth: Where no one has reason to require the study of Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, people will not continue to “identify” with earlier generations that did value these things.

Real soon they won’t “identify” with anything from the past—including America itself.

Which is the heart of what’s happening at Princeton: The college where James Madison studied Hebrew (he already knew Greek and Latin)—that very school has determined that no one needs these American roots any longer.

They believe the tree will be fine without roots.

But they’re wrong. America will not be fine this way.

And anyone who wants to save something of what America was had better start figuring out a different way to educate their children and grandchildren.

/end for now./