"Battle for the American Mind" by Pete Hegseth & David Goodwin Provides a Road Map for Reclaiming Our Schools AND Our Culture
Whether you're a parent, grandparent, or merely an alarmed patriot shocked at the state of American culture, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation will explain how we got to this societal low point and what we can do to fix it.
Battle for the American Mind Provides Historical Insight into Our Current Educational Crisis
It might seem like today's classrooms have taken a sudden hard left turn into cultural Marxism within the last few years, but Battle for the American Mind reveals that the strategic overhaul of American education has been in the works for more than a century.
Terms like critical race theory, diversity, equity, inclusion, environmentalism, social justice, and gender fluidity have appeared seemingly out of nowhere and highjacked American culture, but radical cultural Marxists have been stealthily chipping away at the very bedrock of our Western civilization for much longer than we realize.
Even if you are raising your children in the church and grounding them in faith at home, they are spending 16,000 hours from grades K-12 in schools that are infusing them with an agenda to completely remake America. Today's schools don't reinforce the truths and virtues you are instilling--they try to deconstruct them.
This book explains the critical role teachers' unions play in undermining the Judeo-Christian roots of the West and how Common Core standards federalized curriculum and testing to formulate a different culture in America.
Hegseth explains that the Western Christian Paideia (WCP)--our vision of "the good life"--is based on traditional family models, church, community, industriousness, and virtue and how they have guided our culture for centuries. For more than 1,500 years, Classical Christian Education has been the model for training free thinkers. It's a model that is based on God's absolute truth, which is diametrically opposed to Progressive ideology.
While we value patriotism, Battle for the American Mind explains how even our Pledge of Allegiance has been part of the left-wing plot to shift our love and allegiance from Jesus Christ to country and flag. Under a Cultural Marxist Paideia, a pseudo-science has supplanted real science, history has been deemed part of an irrelevant past and erased, and God and tradition have been removed.
For centuries, empires have been rooted in Christendom before politics, but when reason and faith have been obliterated, it has historically resulted in the rise of tyranny and brutality.
Battle for the American Mind Explains Why Private Schools Are No Better
If you think your kids are safely sheltered in a private or parochial school, think again.
Religion might be thrown into the mix in these schools, but the curriculum and educational model still stem from the same poisoned well as public schools.
Although Progressives attempted to close down all private schools in 1920 but were unsuccessful, they still control textbook and curriculum standards, which are saturated with an agenda. No matter how much "freedom" private schools have in selecting educational materials, much of what is available is progressive propaganda.
Private schools are not exempt from preaching social justice.
Battle for the American Mind Exposes the Shift from Virtue to Values
Hegseth exposes the role the church has played in the demise of our culture, starting with it handing over its responsibilities to the government.
America's schools were once predominantly Christian and built to sustain the WCP. European immigration made our country so culturally and religiously diverse that citizens were no longer united via the local church.
We are living in a time when vice has become virtue, and virtue has become vice.
Virtue stems from God and loves what is right and good. Virtue imitates God and requires transformation and repentance. Virtue is rooted in biblical truth.
Values are something a person believes, and they are self-defined. Values require "tolerance" for people who feel differently about issues, but it's clear that "tolerance" is really "intolerance." The Left's "values" don't flow from God's Word, but from their own ideas on race, gender, oppression, environmentalism, and inclusivity.
Battle for the American Mind Says the Answer Is to Return to Classical Christian Education
Hegseth and Goodwin share a battle plan to win back American culture, and it starts with a return to Classical Christian Education (CCE). Through CCE, we can reestablish the Western Christian Paideia and eliminate cultural Marxism.
Since the first century, CCE advanced the idea of seeking Christ's kingdom first, and the CCE model was followed exclusively in college and younger grades through the late 1800s.
CCE cultivates the WCP, which is grounded in divine truth. In classical Christian schools, history, literature, philosophy, and human arts are presented completely differently than in public schools. One of the goals of CCE is to teach students to reason. Contrast this with public education, which is little more than job training that refocuses students on vocation rather than divine truth.
The SAT used to measure reasoning skills, but now, thanks to Common Core standards, it has been overhauled to measure skills and information retention. Knowing information isn't reasoning. You can't study to become better at reasoning--it is cultivated in a complex way, which CCE schools accomplish. CCE schools include classic books and curriculum steeped in morals and patriotism, resources that have been eliminated from many public schools.
Since the Left controls the high ground in education--the unions, colleges, bureaucracy, textbooks, standards, purse strings, and testing--they control the culture.
Hegseth says the answer is insurgency.
The battle plan is to build an alternative educational model. To accomplish this, we must first survive current educational conditions, regroup and organize while weakening the control and legitimacy of our foe, and ultimately replace the Marxist power structure with reconstructed schools based on freedom and faith.
Unfortunately, this is a process that will take decades to complete, well past many of our lifetimes, but it can be done.
My Thoughts on Battle for the American Mind
Marxist ideology isn't reserved for college elites anymore--it's incorporated in all classrooms and indoctrinating our youngest students. The goal is to replace Christianity and Western classical roots with cultural Marxism, and the enemy appears to be winning.
As America drifts further and further from divine truth, evil increasingly abounds in our society.
Complaining at school board meetings does nothing. Parents are ignored and even labeled "domestic terrorists" by a corrupt government. Replacing school boards with conservative members might create a buffer, but it's a mere bandaid on the root of the issues our educational insitutions face. The current system needs a complete overhaul.
Hegseth's solution of creating a parallel model and ultimately overthrowing the current left-wing institutions is noble, and it can work.
The number of Classical Christian schools in America continues to rise, but many parents aren't even aware of their existence or understand what a pivotal role they can play in turning our country around for the better.
The Progressives have been strategically dismantling our educational system for over a century to create the anti-God and anti-American culture we are living in today. We can't fix this dire problem overnight. We must be willing to join the insurgency Hegseth suggests, even if our generation won't taste the fruits of our labor.
Battle for the American Mind is an excellent, eye-opening manual that explains how our school system has eroded from the classical Christian model that undergirded the Western Christian Paideia to the cultural Marxist indoctrination camp it is today. The transformation happened under our noses, with many not noticing it until our culture spiraled out of control.
Hegseth offers hope that it's not too late to fix the problems, but the fight requires all hands on deck. Whether people will join the insurgency or remain complacent remains to be seen.
Order Your Copy of Battle for the American Mind
To defeat the enemy, we have to know what he's up to and join forces with like-minded individuals who are willing to stand up for what is good and right.
Battle for the American Mind is a much-needed tool for our aresenal. Get your copy and then share it with a friend to grow our army and win the battle!