There is certainly a big difference between an argument in logic verses the creation of a story that supports a political narrative. For several generations, the critical thinking skills that are supposed to be incorporated into a curriculum taught by teachers and professors to our students, has been replaced by programs designed to indoctrinate. Instead of teaching logic, students are taught to regurgitate a story—a narrative. Thinking for oneself and thinking critically are no longer part of the process of education. Students are instead taught to subjugate themselves “for the grade”. I can understand their positions completely.
I graduated from Wittenberg in 1973. Even back then I had to keep my political opinions “under wraps” particularly when writing for a group of professors in the English Department. My senior year I was behind in my English credits, and I had to take a mid-level course entitled FAMOUS WOMEN IN LITERATURE. It was taught by one of the most outspoken feminists on campus Dr. (MKM). My two favorite authors from that course were Jane Austin and Mary Pierce Shelley. My final paper was on FRANKENSTEIN. I today forget exactly what I wrote, but I did include the idea that the creature that Dr. Frankenstein created was Promethean (The Greek God of Fire) who defied the other god’s and gave fire to humanity, just like modern day activists were empowering females and minorities in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
I said that both Jane Fonda and Martin Luther King were modern day Prometheans. (MKM) loved the paper, gave me an A for the course, and invited me for dinner at her home where I was the only guy at the table. I didn’t believe a word that I had written, but I wrote the paper to get the grade, not to make a statement. I someday want to rewrite that paper because there are many great lessons in the story most importantly about the “mechanizing” of society, the relationships that can be had between very different creatures, and how hate and covertness’ can destroy individuals, relationships within families and in whole societies. As the family in the story teaches their language to the creature that Frankenstein created, the creature also learns to speak and write. He also finds a collection of books, including Paradise Lost, and learns to read. When he reveals himself to the family they are horrified and force him to leave. He later on saves the daughter in the family from drowning but is shot by the father thinking that he was attacking the young girl.
Several months later during a Medical School interview I was asked about the vision I had for myself when I became a doctor. My professors at Wittenberg had coached me to say that I wanted to serve in a rural community. That I wanted to serve in primary care. They advised me not to say that I wanted to go into lucrative fields like surgery, radiology, or especially plastic surgery or dermatology. They also advised me not to disclose that I had applied for a military Navy Scholarship program. I had no idea at the time about what kind of doctor I wanted to be, but my role model for the job was my father and he had spent 5 years of his life working as a family doctor in Mohall North Dakota and I thought that would be pretty cool. I knew for sure that I didn’t want to practice in a big city.
I can only imagine what Idaho young adults applying to the Washington, Alaska, Montana, Idaho, (WAMI) medical school program have gone through during the interview process. There is actually a written survey they have to fill out before they interview in person that is purposefully designed to discern their ideas about genderism, woke ideology, and beginning of life and end of life issues. Several years ago, I opined to the Director of a Residency program in Idaho, that I would never be considered for a place in his program precisely because of my outspoken religious and political philosophies—and at the risk of sounding braggadocios I became Boarded in two specialties—Internal Medicine (primary care) and General Surgery.
There really isn’t any difference between “couching the truth” or being forced to take “an academic knee”. Can we all say supplication? Conscience is the direct descendant of God’s second greatest gift to man—FREE WILL. When anyone, but especially those in an academic environment are forced to suppress their conscience in order to get an appointment or an academic degree, all of us suffer. Common sense tells us it is wrong. We are indoctrinated to believe otherwise.
The State of Idaho can to better for our young students wishing to go to Medical School. It is the job of our elected officials to reflect the morality and views of the people they represent. Sending money to The University of Washington Medical School does not support Idaho values. Why not guarantee each student that gets accepted into a Medical school a scholarship that will pay for medical school that will be paid back under the same terms as the (WAMI) scholarship? Or better yet, knowing that we already have the infrastructure in place that supports the first two preclinical years of medical school, establish a clinical scaffolding to support students in their clinical years—it actually is mostly already in place.
Forcing our students to “take a knee to get a grade or a degree” is morally wrong. Both sides of the supplicant benefactor equation suffers when their truths aren’t revealed to each other. There is no place in our country where tolerance is preached ad nauseum—supposedly the virtue signaling “WOKE” is supposed to be a message of tolerance, and where it is overtly not practiced than in The Academy today. The traditions of tolerance do not include the idea of acceptance. What our young students have been asked to do is to leave their own values at the door. The feeling when one does that stinks and stays with a person forever, I Know!
