It’s a rhetorical question that suggests climate-change catastrophists have become a religious sect.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses have long preached that going to college is a waste of time because the world as we know it is going to end soon. “No doubt, school counselors sincerely believe that it is in your best interests to pursue higher education,” advised the faith’s official publication a few years ago. “Yet, their confidence lies in a social and financial system that has no lasting future.”
This admonition sounds a lot like the Nov. 5 viral tweet from Notre Dame professor Alexander O. Hsu, who claimed to be “tired of defending ‘the humanities’ every five seconds.” Mr. Hsu asked: “Given the very real risk of climate extinction due to capitalism, what are some defenses of business schools? What possible justification is there in making more businesspeople?”
It would be interesting to know how soon Americans actually think the world is going to end. A growing number of secular progressives have begun echoing the apocalyptic rhetoric of religious sects. Their views aren’t driven solely by fear of imminent environmental doomsday. They believe the whole “system” is broken and don’t want to bring children into a world plagued by structural racism, sexism and irreversible oppression. It is one reason campus protests are so common, with some spilling over into violence. According to this worldview, there’s no time for considered political persuasion.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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James Piereson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Naomi Schaefer Riley is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of No Way to Treat a Child.
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