Donald Kagan

Fire of Liberty

Here's a great column by Suzanne Fields on Donald Kagan, Sterling professor of Classics and History at Yale, who presented the 34 annual Jefferson Lecture (Sponsored by the National Endowment of Humanities). It's a good read on how a "liberal studies" have been corrupted by the odious idea of multiculturalism. A good read though.

Also, check out George Will's take on Professor Kagan and his recent speech. Here's a brief sample:

"Religion and the traditions based on it were once the chief sources for moral confidence and strength. Their influence has faded in the modern world, but the need for a sound base for moral judgments has not. If we cannot look simply to moral guidance firmly founded on religious precepts it is natural and reasonable to turn to history, the record of human experience, as a necessary supplement if not a substitute."

Kagan's idea is not novel. Nearly three centuries ago Lord Bolingbroke said that "history is philosophy teaching by examples." However, at this American moment of mutual incomprehension and even contempt between theists and their postmodernist despisers, it is "transgressive" -- to purloin a bit of the postmodernists' jargon -- for Kagan to insist that there is a firm middle, or perhaps higher, ground for moral confidence.

I just wish we had more academics like Kagan on the various campuses of the US. We could learn a lot from these rare gems.