Ever since I hit the academic scene with a fresh Ph.D., higher education in the USA has suffered one shock wave after another.

Admittedly, that had little to do with me. It was mostly the product of bloviating right-wingers and grandstanding politicians fomenting a so-called “culture war.” They were convinced that academia was firmly beholden to humanist relativism and leftist ideologies. Oh, yes, and vile feminists who would come out by night and eat your brain.

I always felt that this was just the tiniest bit exaggerated. So, I ducked and  continued to teach my courses, inserting the odd crumb of secular humanism here and leftist orthodoxy there, and never feeling very sorry for it.

And so, by my count, thousands of young minds have gone through my classes, occasionally with enjoyment, and have learned to think just a little more clearly.

And that’s something, isn’t it?