Clarence Page’s recent commentary headlined “Eliminating Balkanized college programs” (Op-Ed, June 21) strikes me as rather out of character from his usually insightful, well-crafted essays. Has he been deconstructed, in sort of a politically correct process of being “born again”?
Judeo-Christian moral teaching; Greek democratic philosophy; the English language; European history, law and principles of the Enlightenment: logic, rationalism, the scientific method. Far from being mere “academic special interests,” these form the very core of American civilization. To equate or supplant these with fragments of philosophical principles derived from African, Asian, aboriginal or designated aggrieved groups is confusing, absurd and ultimately destructive.
I present this dead-white-male-Eurocentric platform not as a means of exclusion but as a foundation for the extension of expanding understanding. One needs a reference point–a compass, if you will–in order to progress, to gain knowledge, to develop.
The whole plethora of ethnic, religious, women’s, gay/lesbian studies are additions to American culture but should not be imposed as replacements. This is the point Ward Connerly is trying to make; a point Clarence Page is so disingenuously trying to avoid.
