Gelernter’s “America Lite”
David Gelernter, professor of computer science at Yale University, was a victim of the Unabomber who was “on to” Gelernter’s innovative ideas about how computers work and can work.
Recovering from being wounded by the mailed bomb, Gelernter proceeded to broaden his perspectives in his subsequent books. His newest, “America Lite,” sounds like an update on Alan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, his complaint and lament at how Universities are failing in their task to broaden critical thinking.
Here is a short interview and also some brief words by him. (He has an apt name, which in Yiddish means “learned one” or “educated.”)
Click Here to View: Video of an Interview with Galertner on the Fox Business News website on June 26, 2012.
“How did it happen? We know how many of our public schools teach no serious American history or civics, that our toniest colleges preach left-liberalism, that 40% of American babies are illegitimate and the rate keeps rising, that too many thriving young Americans worship money and casual hedonism and are too ignorant of religion even to be proper atheists, that President Obama rejects outright the heart of AmericaÆs Creed: American uniqueness, the American Zion, the city on a hill striving to be a beacon to mankind. How did this happen? When did we decide to swap America for America Lite? We canÆt undo these changes unless we know how they came about.
Our disastrous Cultural Revolution (its effects are still unfolding) was an unintended consequence of a beautiful impulse.
After the Second World War, our snootiest and most powerful colleges opened their gates to non-WASPs. Within a generation, they had been overrun by intellectualsùwho, in general, make no secret of their disdain for America and the west. Meanwhile the power of these same colleges, and their alumni, and their law and business and journalism and education schools, continued to grow. By turning over Yale and Harvard et al. to the intellectuals, we gave them a sledgehammer, which they have used just as they always said they wouldùto smash American culture. LetÆs hope that non-left Americans get to work replacing AmericaÆs irremediably corrupt schools and colleges before itÆs too late. The Internet is no panacea, but it is a way forward.”