The One with God and Man at Yale

176. Title & Author: God and Man at Yale by William F. Buckley Jr. (218 pages)

Genre: Nonfiction—Politics

Completed: 28 January 2011

Summary & Review:

As a recent graduate of Yale, the now legendary Conservative, William F. Buckley Jr., made his case that the academic program and emphasis of the university needed serious attention. Rather than encouraging the principles of Christianity and what Buckley terms “Individualism,” i.e. free-market capitalism, Yale faculty and the texts they used were at best apathetic to these ideals, and at worst openly critical and disparaging of them. Buckley encouraged the alumni of Yale to encourage the university they attended and financially contribute to to stop its attack of their values.

This book is part of the canon of modern American Conservatism, and that is largely the reason I read it. As far as it’s applicability to me or even to 2011, that is up for debate. The book is a very specific look at Yale’s education in 1950, and Buckley admits that readily. However, what I did find interesting was how little has changed in the liberal argument arsenal in the days since God and Man at Yale was written. Throughout the book were cited quotes of liberals, or “collectivists” in Buckley’s vernacular, using terms like “income redistribution,” “Keynesian economics,” “progressivism,” etc. It makes perfect sense, though, that today's liberals would use these same arguments because these were the years when today’s leaders…no, that’s not the right word for them…today’s politicians were at these Ivy League schools being indoctrinated in all forms of agnosticism, moral relativity, and Marxism.

My dad was at Yale about 20 years after Buckley in the late sixties. I’ll bet he could make Buckley’s complaints seem like trivial worries with the climate of Yale he experienced while he was there.

Rating: 6.5