So argues Rockford University philosophy professor Stephen Hicks in today’s Martin Center article:

Most of us encountered old-fashioned indoctrinators in our education. Indoctrinators think this way: There is the One Truth. I am in possession of it. So important is it that students must believe it. Alternative ideas are a waste of time—and a temptation to unformed minds—and should be shunned. So as a teacher I will use my authority and my power to instill only the correct ideas.

Unfortunately, many college professors are like that and those who espouse “postmodernism” are extremely likely to use their classrooms to train students to be activists rather than to present ideas for them to ponder. Hicks quotes Duke University professor Frank Lentricchia, who declared that the postmodern educator’s task is to train students to “spot, confront, and work against the political horrors of one’s time.” The result is a lot of angry young people who can’t wait to do something to fight everything they’ve been programmed to hate. But because they reject the idea of objective truth, they are ill-equipped to figure out what really merits opposition.

The educational malpractice of postmodernism, Hicks concludes, “needs to be challenged with every fiber of our being.”