Since Trump’s 2nd election, the U.S. has moved toward a new “dark ages” - similar to the period from 500ad to 1000ad, when Western Europe went into economic, intellectual, and cultural decline after the fall of the Roman Empire. historians quibble with how appropriate that comparison is, but it captures the change from a competent government to an every man for himself society. The romans were not angels, but they knew how to run an enormous organization effectively. The U.S. is not operating effectively under trump.
there are any number of ways that trump and maga are changing the country. below, I focus on three areas hit by trump that are particularly important to me - higher education, museums and libraries, and the arts and humanities. these are the highest accomplishments of western civilization. the take over of these institutions will alter western civilization as we have known it for the last hundred years. maga acolytes will say that is exactly the point, and certainly there is room for improvement in all of these areas, but destroying them is not the right direction.
MAGA claims they are fighting to save Western Civilization. Listen to people like Ben Shapiro who says Western Civilization came from Biblical wisdom, period. Steve Bannon, Michael Johnson, Elon Musk, J D Vance, Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick, Ken Paxton, Glen Youngkin, etc would agree.
So from your own perspective, what does Western Civilization mean to you? What are its origins? What are its accomplishments? Where are we heading?
The Garden of Delights
Higher Education
Start from the beginning - what today we call higher education in the West began with early Greek philosophy and the medieval Christian church. Education meant learning the seven liberal arts - the Trivium and the Quadrivium - which taught “thinking skills.” This training of the mind included general knowledge and intellectual skills which were necessary for all human beings – especially society’s leaders – in order to live well, both individually and collectively.
The term liberal arts comes from the Latin liberales artes - think of it as learned skills that benefit a free person. Has nothing to do with liberal in the American political sense. In comparison, law, medicine, engineering, and business are the servile arts.
The Garden of Delights illustrates the seven liberal arts, circling Socrates and Plato and Philosophy. Starting at 12 o’clock:
Trivium - language arts
Grammar: The study of language, including its structure, rules, and usage.
Rhetoric: The ability to effectively communicate ideas through speaking and writing.
Logic: The art of reasoning and making sound arguments.
Quadrivium - mathematical arts
Music: The study of the science and art of sounds and their relationships.
Arithmetic: The study of numbers and their relationships.
Geometry: The study of spatial relationships and shapes.
Astronomy: The study of celestial bodies and their movements.
We sometimes think of the first universities as those in Bologna during the 1100’s, then Oxford and Cambridge during the 1200’s. Or we could go back to cathedral schools in the early Middle Ages such as the ones established by Charlemagne in the 700’s. Or even go back to Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum around 400 BC. Just for comparison, the first colleges in the new world were Harvard founded in 1636 and William & Mary in 693.
Today the US enrolls almost 25 million students in higher education. About two-thirds are undergrads in state schools; less than 1% are in Ivy League schools, though they get a lot of attention. And today a little over one-third of American adults have a bachelor’s degree; when I started college 50 years ago, around 20% had an undergrad degree.
We baby boomers may have been the last of the lucky ones - college was cheap for us. I paid literally $64 per semester for 15 hours of classes at The University of Texas at Austin in the early 1970’s. That would be around $500 adjusted for inflation, but UT now costs over $10,000 a semester for tuition. What happened? Salaries increased. Staff size increased. Rock climbing walls and lazy rivers for students increased. More new dorms, more new buildings. Lots of loans available for students, allowing colleges to charge more. The state stopped putting as much (percentage wise) into higher ed, shifting the cost burden to parents and students. Legislatures ran away from the costs of higher ed but enjoyed its benefits.
We have hit a turning point. Universities cannot continue to increase tuition and continue to grow without bounds. For all of his insanity about how universities are anti-American, Trump is forcing the US to re-think how we do higher ed. I worked at two large state universities for close to 20 years. There are plenty of ways they can be improved - besides being expensive, they can be isolated, arrogant, unresponsive, on and on. Yes, they can even be “woke” and push DEI at times.
Re-working higher ed is one of the most important tasks for the country at this time. Higher ed is too important to let Trump destroy it and it is too critical not to use our talents wisely. Let’s start by reviving the Trivium and the Quadrivium.
Reading room of the Library of Congress
Museums and Libraries
Blame it on my public-school teachers in Texas. We were exposed to museums, books, theaters, and films in the early 1970’s. Even as we looked around our neighborhood and mainly saw mesquite trees and dirt, several of my teachers encouraged us to appreciate the wider world. We had an OK public library, three small colleges, local theater, and the beginnings of a movie club.
What jump started my interest in museums was a trip to Europe in 1974 with teachers from my old high school. Hard to visit the Uffizi, the Louvre, the British Museum without feeling a jolt - I wanted to learn as much about history and culture as possible. That spurred a dozen plus trips to Europe over the years. And we are members of several museums in US now, such as NGA, VMFA, ACWM
An area I did not expect Trump to attack is the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities which includes the Institute for Museum and Library Services. Project 2025 had to dig pretty deep into the federal budget to think of cutting the $300 million for the IMLS. That money is the “primary source of federal support for the nation’s libraries and museums.” One of Trump’s 2025 executive orders says the IMLS will “be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law,” shrinking it down to its statutory minimum. In other words, kill as many museums and libraries as possible.
Arts and humanities
The humanities cover a wide range of disciplines including history, classics, literature, philosophy, music, and art. A couple of books that are the basis of my interests in philosophy and history:
Will Durant The Story of Philosophy 1926
Huston Smith The Religions of Man 1958
And that is still what I am reading. A few books I have read over the last year:
Elain Pagels Miracles and Wonder and related articles
Karen Armstrong A History of God
Richard Rohr Immortal Diamond