Civilization at Stake?    

Conclusion

   In George Orwell's 1984 story, written in 1949, a Party official explains to Winston, "There will be no love except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter except the laugh over a defeated enemy. Always...there will be the intoxication of power." 

   Larry Arrn points out, "Totalitarianism will never win in the end - but it can win long enough to destroy a civilization. That is what is at stake in the fight we are in. 

   "We can see today the totalitarian impulse among powerful forces in politics and culture. We see it in the rise of doublethink, and we see it in attempts to rewrite our history. 

   "Some things have changed. Younger parents aren't sure that appreciation of America is the right thing to teach children. We've got to get across that America is freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. Freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs protection. 

   "I'm warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit. The astounding thing is not that some of our Founders were slaveholders. The astounding thing is that they founded a republic based on principles designed to abnegate slavery." 

   Dr. Arnn calls for investing young people with the spirit of freedom. To teach that people in the past were human and had to struggle. (Jefferson regretted things, and strived for change.) To prepare them to struggle with (current) problems and evils. To see one-sided teaching as a disservice to students. 

   "Depriving the young of the spirit of freedom will deprive all of us of our country," he concludes. "It could deprive us of our humanity itself. This must be stopped."