The circular "kids should know the Bible" argument (CONTINUED, AS PROMISED)

David Gelernter points out, in the Weekly Standard, that kids today don't know much about the Bible. The Bible is, as Great Books go, by far the greatest, the most important to Western Civilization and some others as well. So regardless of their religion or religiousity, young people ought to study the Bible. But the Bible cannot be studied as anything other than a religious document. Ergo, to study the Bible, you need to look at it not as the greatest of the Great Books, but as God's word. And since everyone's got to study the Bible, everyone's got to be religious. It's simply being ignorant of Western Civilization not to be a believer. Gelernter eagerly awaits a "Great Awakening" among--you guessed it--American college students. (That gives me three weeks to go if I'm going to get greatly awakened. Yikes!):

My guess is that our next Great Awakening will begin among college students. College students today are (spiritually speaking) the driest timber I have ever come across. Mostly they know little or nothing about religion; little or nothing about Americanism. Mostly no one ever speaks to them about truth and beauty, or nobility or honor or greatness. They are empty--spiritually bone dry--because no one has ever bothered to give them anything spiritual that is worth having. Platitudes about diversity and tolerance and multiculturalism are thin gruel for intellectually growing young people.

Argh! All anyone ever talks about at Chicago is "what is truth" or "what is beauty," though all everyone seems to agree on is that the latter isn't especially common among students here....

To be continued, post-TA session.

BACK FROM TA SESSION

Mmm, the perfect blogging snack of black coffee and peanut butter M&Ms...

So yeah, I don't see how a discussion of truth or beauty must be a discussion of the Bible. While it's true that the Bible's had a huge impact on where we are today, the fact that for a while now many people have looked to other sources for their understanding of the world means that a move towards the Bible isn't embracing how things are but is hoping things move in a way that they wouldn't necessarily be moving in otherwise. To put it another way, if the Bible really were everything, kids today would already be studying it up the wazoo. Speaking as one of those dry-timber college students Gelernter can't stand the thought of, I think part of why college students get so much PC input from profs is that we are, in many ways, a conservative bunch. The debauchery of "I am Charlotte Simmons" or of most of the people I know at Chicago tends to be of the drunken heterosexual variety. (Is that just Chicago? I have no idea.) Students who want their heterosexual sex, their i-banking jobs, their post-college yuppie lifestyle followed by a house in the suburbs, get exposed to the counterculture by some profs, only to abandon it later, but the idea is, at least they've heard of liminal queer spaces, even if they never care to enter any themselves. So, what does all this have to do with the Bible? Hard to say, but it's a part of my aforementioned defense of political correctness...

But whatever may be the case at other colleges, here at Chicago the "intellectual gruel" is thick (as is the Pierce dining hall oatmeal, geez). As for whether we know about "Americanism," I, for one, didn't know that America had an associated "ism." Does he mean American history? Does he know what he means, or does that just make for a good socially conservative catchword? Regardless, the absolute last thing that should come as an antidote to the excesses of multiculturalism is a friggin' "Great Awakening." Like that's what will bring this country together.

FYI those were some tasty M&Ms.