V-Grams

V-Gram 23

July 10, 1996


How much of America remains?

Today's Wall Street Journal laments the impending disappearance of the amateur athlete, until recently the heart and soul of the Olympics. Also until recently, professional athletes masquerading as amateurs came exclusively from the other side of the Iron Curtain, where the aberration originated. It has taken root here, alongside others from the same source: class envy, entitlements, group hatred, quotas, redistribution, speech codes. The list is growing day-by-day.

As Budapest's famed Liszt Music Academy was ordered to do when it failed to satisfy quota regulations, American universities now have entire departments created to accommodate students and faculty who do not pursue established courses of study. Under a variety of titles ("Judicial Inquiry Officer," "Affirmative Action Officer") non-academic persons have come to wield power over academic life and death. The model for such functions, once again, comes from behind the Iron Curtain. The funny part is that the Iron Curtain is no more. Why do the practices survive? And why, of all places, in America?

How much longer are we going to fool ourselves, believing that those who bring these "changes" are merely continuing and 'improving' American traditions? Most of our schools have been reformatted to discourage interest in American traditions altogether. Soon, no one will even know the difference. Then what do we do?