Our teachers are not “certified,” nor isrnthe school “accredited.” Our studentsrnmust create their own extracurricular activities,rnbe content with the daily basketballrngames during their recess time, typernon outdated computers, and make dornwithout science labs. The austere surroundingsrnraise the question: Is it worthwhilernto deny a student the perks of arnwell-funded, albeit eccentric, publicrnschool to transfer to our bare-bones operation?rnHere’s one student’s perspective.rnNicholas Keenan transferred tornHRHS from Amherst Regional HighrnSchool in his junior year. Nick was welllikedrnby his public school teachers, andrnhis peers were the school’s most articulaternstudents. A published essay Nickrnwrote comparing his public education tornhis private education is illuminating.rnNick (now a 4.0 honors student majoringrnin Japanese at a state university) noted: “Irnknew about the heroic efforts of MartinrnLuther King, Jr., Harriet Tubman, andrnFrederick Douglass; but I had barelyrnheard of other historical greats such asrnJames K. Polk, Henry Clay, Daniel Websterrn(I thought he wrote the dictionary),rnAndrew Jackson, and even Thomas Jefferson.rnAlthough I had been taughtrnabout Darwinism, I was almost completelyrnignorant of Christianity and thernBible.”rnHe continues: “I could also talk a bluernstorm about how racism has ripped apartrnAmerica, but my math, English, socialrnstudies, and even French were compromisedrnbecause of it. In other words, myrnteachers deemed it necessary to jeopardizernmy education by filling my brainrnwith ‘What I Should Believe’ and ‘How IrnShould Act’ propaganda.”rnFor skeptics who insist that littlernschoolhouses are a step backward intornthe 19th century, I offer the followingrnacademic tidbits: 14 of the 16 HRHSrngraduates have gone on to college; alumnusrnCraig Webster was named a NationalrnMerit Scholar in the school’s thirdrnyear; and last year, sophomore MorganrnRobinson scored a perfect 800 on thernverbal portion of the PSAT and has sincernthen been selected as a semifinalist for arn1998 National Merit Scholarship.rnCharacter education proponentsrnmight be impressed that a group ofrnHRHS students were hired to tear downrna barn in Connecticut, a two-day jobrnfor which the crew was paid $3,000.rnAmherst Town Hall employees regularlyrnrequest our shidents to work in the collector’srnoffice. And when a serious drugrnproblem among Amherst teenagers becamerna town-wide crisis, Joe Hession, arnjunior, organized a collaborative letterto-rnthe-editor explaining how HRHS studentsrnare educated in a drug-free environment.rnThis summer, HRHS embarked on itsrnmost ambitious project to date: the buildingrnand selling of a home. The profitsrnwill be used to upgrade the facilities andrnallow the school to accept two or threernmore students.rnWid and I liken this modest endeavorrnin a hotbed of liberalism to tlie labors ofrnthe monks during the Dark Ages. Even ifrnwe only teach a tiny percentage of westernrnMassachusetts’ teenage population,rnwe feel we are following the advice thatrnsays if you cannot feed lOO children, feedrnone. Our prayer is that ovir tribe—educatorsrnthat honor the 2,300 years of thernWestern tradition and that can speak thernlanguage of teenagers—would increase.rnWe are encouraged that one womanrnwho sought our counsel founded a classicalrnCatholic school in a neighboringrncounty.rnMeanwhile, we are looking forward tornthe class of 1999’s commencement.rnThat’s when Daniel, our son, will graduaternfrom HRHS—that is, if he passes allrnhis courses (with at least a B).rnAdditional information about HRHS canrnbe obtained by writing Isabel Lyman atrn264 Harkness Road, Amherst, Massachusetts,rn01002.rnPHILOSOPHYrnThomas Molnarrnand Late ModernrnDecadencernby Paul GottfriedrnThomas Molnar has published booksrnin English, French, and Hungarian,rnwhile seeing some of his writings,rnmostly those dealing with the “mal moderne,”rntranslated into Cerman, Spanish,rnand Italian. Though defined in his workrnin various ways, from rampant Catholicrnheresy to political utopianism, this evilrnfor Molnar is best described by his phrasernI’hegemonie liberale. The progression ofrnhegemonic liberalism since the 18thrncentury, which he thinks was nurturedrnby both the Protestant Reformation andrnthe Enlightenment, has led to dire consequences,rnincluding the disintegrationrnof ecclesiastical authority, an obsessivelyrnconsumerist society, a religion of secularism,rnand, finally, a “reconstruction of thernstate as a profoundly coercive caricature”rnof political authority.rnMost striking about these critical observations,rnwhich do seem justified, isrnMolnar’s intensive search for long-rangerncauses. This often results in connectionsrnbeing assumed between modern evilsrnand temporally distant developments.rnMolnar insists, for example, that onerncannot understand today’s moral anarchyrnor parody of a state without lookingrnback to the late Middle Ages, specificallyrnto the breakdown of medieval forms ofrninterrelated secular and ecclesiastical authoritiesrnand to the attack made on theirrnessentialist philosophical foundations.rnThis progressive imdoing of medievalrnauthorities did more than subvert corruptrninstitutions. It had the ultimate effectrnof devaluing authority itself, as somethingrnto which deference is due andrnwhich in turn is bound by a higher law.rnIn this widening rebellion, Molnar seesrnthe contributions of many thinkers andrnmovements, extending from nominalism,rnLuther, Calvin, Hobbes, Descartes,rnand the “temptation of German philosophy”rnto deify individual consciousness,rndown to the atomistic hedonism and sexualrnkinkiness associated with contemporaryrnAmerica: “ce theatre permanent durnbouffon et de I’absurde, la langue neutralisee,rnofficiellement dissolue, et I’armee homosexualisee.”rnWhat makes liberalism a unifyingrntheme in this brief is the growing centralityrnof individual expressiveness andrnindividual will. Though Molnar doesrnnot imagine that a straight causal linerncan be drawn from William of Ockhamrnto Hillary Clinton —that is, from thern14th-century English monk who deniedrnthe possibility of demonstrating moralrnand theological axioms to a self-actualizingrnfeminist as world-historical figure—rnhe nonetheless believes that one thingsrnleads to another—or in his own idiomaticrnFrench, tout se passe du fil en aiguille.rnMoreover, it might behoove those who,rnaccording to him, have entered the “terminalrnphase of a mortal illness” causedrnby “defective social organization” to retracernthe steps by which society got tornDECEMBER 1997/47rnrnrn