Aldous Huxley at Auraria?
Last week I was on the Auraria campus of CU-Denver a couple of times for notable events. On Sept. 11, President Hank Brown launched a new lecture series under his personal sponsorship, hosting John Agresto for a discussion of lessons about the American character in light of our Iraq experience and the struggle against terrorism.
Then on Sept. 15, a statewide teen conference in honor of Constitution Day was presented on campus by LibertyDay.org, the national civics project headed by Andy McKean of Littleton.
Several impressions stayed with me. One, education for citizenship isn’t quite as dead at our high schools and colleges as curmudgeons like me sometimes claim, though it still needs a lot of reviving.
Two, the Auraria campus buildings and grounds look great — well-appointed, attentively maintained, and with visible signs of expansion. No evidence of the alleged financial crisis of Colorado higher education meets the eye.
Three, it always saddens me to see Auraria’s grand old churches (including our state’s first synagogue) now serving mostly as museums, historic sites, or secular meeting facilities rather than houses of worship. You couldn’t have a more vivid symbol of our current practice of drawing down the West’s moral and spiritual heritage, rather than sustaining it as integral to the process of cultural transmission and learning.
Fourth — and in my opinion the most revealing detail of all, though seemingly small — what volumes were spoken about our times by a men’s-room vending machine in one of the classroom buildings.
The items for sale were condoms, Excedrin, Tylenol, and Tic-Tacs: little packages, none more than a dollar, fully equipping your modern college guy for the day’s eventualities of pleasure, pain, and politeness as he acquires higher learning.
Will it occur to him, if Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” happens be assigned in one of his English classes, that the state-sponsored, responsibility-sapping availability of Soma bliss and recreational sex envisioned by Huxley is not far from being realized in the here and now?
And even if it does, will he recognize the danger this poses to himself, his generation, and our country? I hope so, but I doubt it.
[Cross-posted at PoliticsWest.com]
The author can be reached at John@BackBoneAmerica.net
John:
You’re interesting when you remain substantive. The AHEC men’s room story was tripe. How do you expect us to respond thoughtfully? Ask what the hell were you doing hanging out in a men’s john on a college campus in the first place? I think not. Does the type of vending machine in a men’s room say anything about anything? Even decades ago when the Greatest Generation was running things — when I was in grade school — all men’s johns in taverns, gas stations, etc. had vending machines selling rubbers. This vending machine, the one which seems to have spawned this nonsensical “Brave New World” analogy, is on a college campus for Pete’s sake! And at least these machines have expanded their fare from rubbers to headache-killers and breath mints. That’s progress. That’s capitalism. Get a grip, John, and stick to the substantive stuff. Leave the lightweight material to Dave Barry or Mike Littwin.
Also, I don’t think that was you on the air on 710 Sunday (9/23) interviewing Mary Smith of the RG campaign? Who were there substitutes? I got almost nothing out of the Smith interview. It was mostly a Rudy love fest. Nor were the questioners very insightful, or accurate (referring to the Gore and Kerry defeats as “going down in flames” which to my mind means losing big. Gore actually won the popular vote; lost the electoral vote 271-266. Bush-Kerry at least widened the gap a bit, but that was still only 50.73-48.27 per cent on the popular vote; 286-251 on the electoral vote, hardly flame outs — more like squeakers. You must have been away, following up on the hanging out in the men’s room on college campus story, so the rookies just played back at the station.
Richard J Schneider..
by RICHARD J SCHNEIDER | Sunday, Sep 23, 2007 | 7:51 pm