Former Senator and Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum recently blamed colleges for “indoctrinating” students into accepting ideas that he disapproves of:
Rick Santorum said the nation’s colleges are promoting a “sea of antagonism toward Christianity” and “indoctrinating” its youth with ideals that support gay marriage, abortion and pornography.
Santorum called in to Tony Perkins’ “Washington Watch” on Tuesday to talk about the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling. The conversation dealt not only with abortion but also included other “symptoms” that have changed the nation.
Perkins spoke broadly, saying pro-choice Americans represent a troubled country that doesn’t choose life, meaning “That is to follow the principals, the teachings, the instructions of God … You see that as you’ve been in Washington, D.C. There is a rejection of this idea of truth, and that there is a foundation or morality, which needs to be upheld.”
Santorum agreed, adding that less young people devote themselves to Christianity. “If you look at the popular culture and what comes out of Hollywood, if you go to our schools and particularly our colleges and universities, they are indoctrinated in a sea of relativism and a sea of antagonism towards Christianity.”
“Abortion is a symptom. Marriage is a symptom. Pornography [is a symptom],” he continued. “All of these are symptoms to the fundamental issue that we’ve gotten away from the truth and the ‘Truth-Giver.’”
This isn’t the first time that Rick Santorum has bashed American higher education. Back during the 2012 campaign, he told Glenn Beck that President Obama’s plan to have every American student go to college was part of a plot to “indoctrinate” Americans. Of course, the President never actually said that he thought every American should go to college, but what do facts matter when you are on a good rant. At the time Santorum said this, I made this comment about what it actually said about the state of modern conservatism:
This isn’t about a policy disagreement between Santorum and Obama over whether education policy should be based on the idea that everyone should go to college, or on ensuring that students are directed into careers paths that are both well-paying and interesting on some level. This is about the Republican war against intellectualism and higher education and the belief, expressed most recently by Rick Santorum but popularized on the right before him by people such as Sarah Palin, that there is something wrong with intellectualism. It is an ironic development on some levels considering that modern American conservatism was started by men who Santorum would likely call snobs, William F. Buckley Jr being perhaps the most prominent. Today, though, conservatism has become predominated by the likes of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh who seem to take special delight in bashing anyone who asserts that knowing something about the world, rather than simply trying to file it away in the appropriate right-wing category.
It’s pathetic, really. What’s so wrong, after all, about learning more about the world and, yes, even learning about opposing points of view? The kind of closed-mindedness that Santorum and his ilk seem to be championing is at odds not only with the founders of modern conservatism but the Founding Fathers as well. What would John Adams have thought about this kind of attitude? Or Thomas Jefferson?
Jefferson and Adams, of course, would have been appalled at an attitude like this, because they believed in the accumulation of knowledge and the value of education. The fact that modern day conservatives like Santorum continue to disparage it seems to be a fairly good indication that the intellectual roots of their ideology, which started with men like William F. Buckley and Russel Kirk, is essentially dead.
