The newspaper from another planet

“Freaking unbelievable,” says Powerline, and I agree. In a story about a service medal being presented to the mother of Sgt. Jose Gomez of Queens, who was killed last month in Iraq, the New York Times misnamed the Purple Heart as the Purple Star, about which Powerline comments:

We have never pretended to any expertise in military matters, but I wouldn’t have thought there was a single adult American who didn’t know that the medal that is awarded to wounded servicemen is the Purple Heart. Now we know there are at least two: the reporter who wrote that story, and the editor who—presumably—read it before it was published. Keep that in mind next time you’re wondering whether to trust the Times’ coverage of military affairs.

What this means is that the sheer ignorance shown by today’s young people (and not-so-young people) of the most basic facts about our country and culture, known as cultural illiteracy, also characterizes the editors and reporters of the country’s most influential newspaper. And in both cases there is not the slightest hint of embarrassment about the ignorance. But why should there be? Under the dictates of liberalism and neoconservatism, our country and culture have ceased to exist as entities that have any transcendent or positive value in themselves; the only index of America’s worth is its capacity to satisfy people’s desires—our own desires and those of foreigners and immigrants. Since our country has no intrinsic value, why should people be expected to know anything about its history, culture, and lore?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 13, 2006 10:44 AM | Send