VIETNAM VETERANS FOR ACADEMIC REFORM
The University of Kansas Student Auxiliary
V.V.A.R.: Leading the student revolt on campus against speech codes, political correctness, multiculturalism, gender feminism, dormitory re-education, lying about Vietnam, and other instruments of academic oppression.
Leonard Magruder - Founder/President
Former professor of psychology - Suffolk College, N.Y.
Member: National Association of Scholars
CONTACT: Magruder44@aol.com - Phone: 785-312-9303
Part 9 of a 10-part series, Vietnam and the Media, from the archives of Vietnam Veterans for Academic Reform - Leonard Magruder, President
Part 9 - Subject: An interlude on education - the primary mission of V.V.A.R.
We are almost at the end of this series on Vietnam and the media. The final part will be a selection on the media from a just-finished book on the Vietnam War by one of its veterans. And there will be one part after that on the issues that cannot be discussed in today’s campus newspapers, as the result of the “advocacy journalism” of the 60’s continuing into our times. Or, as David Horowitz recently said, “Campus newspapers demonstrate that campuses are terrorized by left-wing totalitarians.”
But before we share that, we would like to say a word about the primary mission of Vietnam Veterans for Academic Reform, and that is education reform.
The first part of this report is from a one-hour talk Mr. Magruder gave on radio station KAW recently in Lawrence, Kansas. This is followed, however, by material that was not reported by the media. Vietnam Veterans for Academic Reform has held four protests on the Univ. of Kansas campus in recent years. The university newspaper, The Daily Kansan, would not report on the substance of any of them, showing that not much has changed.
From the radio talk:
“Those who fought for freedom for South Vietnam will continue to speak out against the growing totalitarianism on the American campus, as seen in multiculturalism, dormitory re-education, gender feminism, sensitivity training, speech codes, political correctness, historical revisionism (particularly on the Vietnam War), leftist attacks on America and democracy, postmodernism, and deconstructionism. We are also concerned about why American students rank so poorly in international competition (19th), as well as the seriously flawed approaches to education being fostered by the social sciences, such as “approximate” spelling and math, massive grade inflation to assure “self-esteem,” “look-say” over the proven superiority of phonics in reading, dropping of the multiplication table, serious historical revisionism by gender feminists, literature chosen on the accidental basis of gender, class, and race, and the attack on excellence, standards, and honors. The perpetuation of these demonstrably failed approaches by the education establishment strikes us as perversity and utter folly, a total betray of its charge and something this nation should not put up with any longer.
Our social scientists and educators now stand speechless before the specter of a collapse they themselves engineered. The nation is under no further obligation to indulge them with the whole future of the nation now at stake.
We are also concerned about the psychonoxious impact of humanistic psychology on students. There is significant research showing that the “psychological conditioning” courses in high schools, (sex education, values clarification, affective education, death education, drug and alcohol courses, etc.) are resulting in significant rises in violence, abortion, teen-age pregnancy, AIDS, racism, drug and alcohol abuse, the exact opposite of what was intended.
The impact of the social sciences on secondary education is a growing national disaster, as the flawed theories of humanistic psychologists (Rogers, Maslow, Kohlberg, etc.) produce students who are intellectually incompetent, morally confused, sexually absorbed, and socially maladjusted. The emphasis in these theories on feelings (“trust the organism” -Rogers) to the neglect of reason is the most profound failing of 20th century psychology. This, combined with the teaching that “there is no right or wrong,” is the direct cause of the rise of the sociopathic personality in our time .
The first warning that these “psychological conditioning” courses in high schools would produce sociopaths, or “killer kids,” antedated the first student killing at Pearl, Mississippi, by four months, and appeared in material V.V.A.R. distributed at the Univ. of Kansas in its second protest, ignored by the university newspaper. The protest also dealt with certain developments in higher educations, as follows:
“Self-esteem”- quintessential humanistic psychobabble, source of dumbed-down textbooks, the deception of parents in grade inflation, and the “new racism” on campus. Creates make-believe uniqueness, an absolute barrier to personal growth.
“Sensitivity training” - the dormitory as re-education camp, teaching students “proper” beliefs about race, gender, and sexual preferences, sources of rising rates on campus of pregnancy, abortion, AIDS, and date rape. Social scientists teach students to view sex as a non-moral, non-romantic recreational activity, something like football.
“Speech Codes” - hunting licenses to track down and punish those who are not in step ideologically with the social sciences, denying students the right to disapprove of something, such as homosexuality.
“Political correctness”- forcing conformity to the moral relativism of the social scientists through administrative harassment, with immunity for left/liberal academic thugs who beat up dissident guest speakers .
“Gender feminism” - “The most destructive and fanatical movement to come down to us from the 60’s. It certainly deserves its place in the halls of intellectual barbarism. Women’s studies are abysmal swamps of irrational dogma and hatred.” –Robert Bork
“Deconstructionism” - tendentious mumbo-jumbo, using the classroom to propapagandize for self-congratulatory nihilism. A massive attack on conscience and the values of Western civilization.
“Postmodernism”- the New Left of the 60’s come to power, with all the distinguishing characteristics of fascism: social contructionism, cultural relativism, rejection of individual identity, rejection of transcendence, science and reason. Fueled by the anti-humanism of Heidegger, who along with Paul de Man (deconstructionism) were both Nazi apologists.
We call on all the universities of America to begin reform by adopting something like the following Charter of Purpose of Bellarmine College in Lousiville, Kentucky:
It is the position of Vietnam Veterans for Academic Reform that by neglecting these questions the university is in the vangard of moving society in an increasingly sociopathic direction. There is now no alternative but to acknowledge a massive moral, intellectual, and scientific bankruptcy on the part of the social sciences and the humanities and to call for immediate exposure of their basic assumptions to re-examination in debate with philosophers and especially theologians. We also call for an immediate moratorium on all psychological conditioning courses in our high schools and universities and a march by 1,000,000 Vietnan veterans and 3,000,000 parents on the National Education Association in Washington in demand of reform.
The critics scoffed when the majority argued that the loss of South Vietnam to Communism would threaten America. That it has, but in a manner unforeseen.
It isn’t that foreign armies threaten us, it is that when Southeast Asia fell, the New Left, the S.D.S. and other radicals on campus were encouraged, strengthening the leftist attack on American values. They cowered so long in the classroom to avoid the battlefield they became tenured professors, now dominating our universities and brainwashing students with their alien and totalitarian philosophy. We call on all veterans to join us in this struggle for freedom from tyranny on a new battlefield— the university. We urge all veterans groups to be ready to march in protest when blatant oppression of student rights appear on any nearby campus, and to call in the local newspapers and complain. It is time to reclaim our educational systems from those who want only to impose on them their own alien agendas, hostile to democracy and traditional American values.
This article may be reproduced in any form.
Founder/President, V.V.A.R.
Phone: 785-312-9303
Part 10, Vietnam and The Media
Part 10a, Vietnam and The Media
RETURN TO MAGRUDER ARTICLE INDEX
Website Design Courtesy of Annette R. Hall, http://www.i-served.com.