A Critique of Dennis Prager’s Straw Man on how “The Left Loathes Western Civilization”
Everyone’s (least) favorite pseudo-intellectual neo-conservative junk columnist, Dennis Prager, is at it again. This time, apparently, his completely academically rigorous, 2deep4me, and definitely logical insight is that “the left” (whoever that is) “loathes western civilization.” First, Prager points to recent events at Stanford University as evidence that these horrible leftists hate the west:
This month, Stanford University students voted on a campus resolution that would have their college require a course on Western civilization, as it did until the 1980s.
Stanford students rejected the proposal 1,992 to 347. A columnist at the Stanford Daily explained why: Teaching Western civilization means "upholding white supremacy, capitalism and colonialism, and all other oppressive systems that flow from Western civilizations."
As one Reddit user pointed out, Prager’s account of what happened at Stanford is, at best, over-simplistic and, at worst, misleading. They did not reject teaching the Western civilization at Stanford, they simply gave students options on classes to fulfill that requirement. Here’s what the actual description of the core says:
The Core’s four tiers each consist of a class or series of classes that addresses a certain aspect of the humanities. According to the proposal, the first tier, “Foundations,” will focus on the ancient origins of world civilizations. The second tier, “Traditions,” will study the history and traditions of various cultures through a three-course sequence. As of now, there are four planned tracks within “Traditions:” students may study works from East Asian, Middle Eastern, African/African-American or European traditions. The third tier is called “Disciplines” and is comprised of introductory courses for various disciplines in the humanities, including (but not limited to) philosophy, classics and art history. The fourth tier is a series of advanced seminars in the humanities.
…The Humanities Core comes at a time when humanities requirements at Stanford have been the subject of broad campus discourse. With regards to the “Traditions” tier, the Core places a large emphasis on diversity in cultures, and states that “no single cultural tradition can be required of all students.” This seems to contrast with the Western Civilization requirement proposed earlier this year, which proposed a standardized humanities curriculum based in the Western canon.
So students can still study western civilization, not only in the “traditions” segment, but also the “foundations” (there are western civilizations that are ancient), and the “disciplines” (philosophy, classics, and art history all have western topics); they just gave the option of students to study other cultures in addition to the western civilization, not instead of.
But of course, Prager has more misleading mind vomit to regurgitate. In the rest of the article, he ridicules “the left” for hating western civilization because they “hate standards.” For being posted on a website called "Real Clear Politics," Prager is surprisingly unclear with what it even means by "the left." He tries to add a pseudo-intellectual facade of nuance by separating "liberalism" from what it calls "the left," and then destroys that by calling people who are pretty much liberals by any standard (eg., Obama) "the left." Basically, "the left" becomes an obscure, faceless enemy in the dark for all things bad in the way the likes of truly academic intellectual giants like Rush Limbaugh use the term, similar to "the state" for some cartoon libertarians or “neoliberals” for today’s socialists and far leftists.
Next, Prager builds a straw man directed at nobody in particular (probably whoever "the left" is supposed to be) thinly veiled under the guise of a pseudo-intellectual argument. First of all, I’m pretty sure very few self-identified leftists, except a few people who misuse anti-colonialist critical theory on Tumblr, truly "loathe" western civilization. Look at the intellectual heroes of the variety of ideologies on the modern "left:" Rawls, Zizek, Marx, Dworkin, or Dewey. If you seriously think, in all their serious engagements with western philosophy and at times almost ethnocentric (in the Rortian use of the term) focus on the west, they "loathe western civilization" you are probably a neck-bearded conservative ignoramus in the first place. If you think they "hate standards" when pretty much their entire projects are to create a theory of standards--moral, aesthetic, social, and otherwise--you're not only an ignoramus, but you're willfully trying to be an ignoramus.
Then Prager says that leftists think “Michelangelo is no better than any contemporary artist, and Rembrandt is no greater than any non-Western artist,” and implies that “the left” doesn’t believe in any aesthetic standards. I suspect the only people who dislike people like Michaelangelo or think there are no aesthetic standards are probably the same imaginary evil homosexuals seeking to persecute homophobic Christians.
No attack on “the left” is incomplete without a little Islamophobia as well, as Prager continues:
That is why the left is so protective of Islam. America's left-wing president, Barack Obama, will not use, and does not seem to allow the government to use, the words "Islamic terrorism." And, criticism of Islam is labeled "Islamophobic," thereby morally equating any such criticism with racism. It is not that the left is sympathetic to Islam, for it has contempt for all religions. It is that many Muslims loathe the West, and the enemies of my enemy (the West) must be protected.
I'm pretty sure the reason modern leftists are critical of Islamophobia is probably thanks to arguments they actually make (eg. Rawls's application of self-respect under the veil of ignorance) than that they're some relativist nihilist monsters who hate all "western moral standards" (whatever those are). And if there are appreciations of eastern over western values, they're probably not because of a hatred of standards (as if standards are only a western phenomenon), but probably for some variety of reasons such as those given by Nietzsche in regards to Buddhism.
The article then ends like your typical bad sermon given by an evangelical megachurch brought sponsored by Jesus, Inc. about how leftists hate God's judgment:
And finally, we come to the left's loathing of the religions of Western civilization -- the Judeo-Christian religions, which have clear standards of right and wrong.
Bible-based religions affirm a morally judging God. For the left, that is anathema. For the left, the only judging allowed is leftists' judging of others. No one judges the left -- neither man nor God.
Ironically, this comes just after Prager talks about how leftists are defensive of Islam which has perhaps the most judgmental concept of God out there.
This little bit of pseudo-intellectual, straw-manned drivel truly proves, though, that Prager is the Kidz Bop of right wing, quasi-evangelical nonsense.