The problem with having political purpose as your chief end, for either a university or the media, is that in effect it resigns you to being in the business of propaganda rather than reporting or discussion. Certsi ly, because we each come with our perspectives, there is a sense in which all dissemination is a kind of propaganda, a pitch for our way of seeing the world. But the modern institutions of the university and the press were founded with trying to avoid and mitigate and acknowledge this tendency as part of the central mission. They were very concerned that they strive not to become tools of propaganda and not be overly influenced by social and political concerns, the better to promote the pursuit and transmission and testing of knowledge. The very fact that a large percentage of the current surveyed student population believes that a professor who says something offensive on a single occasion to his or her class (and exceptions are not made for scientific or historical facts or theories) should be fired, and the fact that they have the power to accomplish that goal quite easily in today’s system, means that the university as a free enterprise of intellectual enquiry is essentially over. If the mob can dictate what you can and cannot say, if they can report and remove you for a single perceived offense (and perceived is the key word, it doesn’t have to be intended, perception is sufficient evidence), if how a fact or statement might make someone feel is the guiding test for whether something can be spoken and discussed, then free speech and enquiry has long gone out the window. Only correct speech and correct thoughts are allowed and may be advanced. Only those voices and those facts that support the noble cause may be spoken and considered and allowed a platform. That is why the work of the media and of much of the university can no longer be considered the pursuit of truth any more, but rather the pursuit of noble lies.

The lies are most sins of omission, a failure to consider alternative arguments or viewpoints, suppression of data that doesn’t support the narrative, blind spots both deliberate and unintentional, and a strength founded largely in the narrative and editorial powers that capture the human imagination and emotions. Is this any different from what people have always done? Well, maybe not entirely. But we at least believed for a while that there were alternatives.

Unfortunately, in a postmodern ideological world, it’s not clear that there really are alternatives. Truth is a construction based on values (our desired goals and outcomes), not objective processes and universal standards. It exists as a construct within the values, prejudices, and structures of meaning of the person or culture that has produced them. Because there is no independent basis from which to criticize different viewpoints, no objective truth that each was claiming to access, just different constructions based on different values, then any victory of one viewpoint or culture over another must be inherently oppressive, whatever means were used to achieve it. Unfortunately, I don’t think the problem is confined to any group. It’s a reciprocal process, and both of the major ideological parties in our country make use of it in different ways.

What all this process adds up to is the slow motion end of Western Civilization. Not by external threat or pressure, but by internal threat and pressure. By its own efforts to disprove and undo itself. Possibly, when this has sufficiently weakened it enough that it collapses, or when it becomes weak and divided enough that external threats see the opportunity and sieze their moment, and whatever results after arises, there will be time for reconsideration. I’m not arguing, of course, that Western civilization doesn’t have its problems. But it built the world we live in, and there seem to be some reasons why it was successful, and there was a reason everyone wanted to jump on the bandwagon and gain those advantages. It also isn’t, and never was, a unified or uniform system in any sense. It was always local, diverse, changing, over extending itself, making mistakes, collapsing, correcting itself, rising again, moving to a new place, taking a new form, going in a new direction.

So what exactly are the core concepts that form the basis of Western civilization? That’s harder to pin down definitively. And it’s been explored by wiser heads than mine. There are some ideas, and there are also some values. One idea that’s very prominent is the idea of a fixed, objective truth. Another is the idea of transcendent moral truths or values. Both of these are available to all humans, belong to no one, and have claims upon everyone. Knowledge of them grants vitality and effective power, conformation to them creates health and stability, strength and wisdom.