Battle for the American Mind Quotes

“Plato records the dialogues that Socrates had with a number of bystanders, like Euthyphro, Gorgias, and Meno. In these dialogues, Socrates employs Logos to prove that there is only one God, one ultimate standard of goodness (virtue), and that man cannot know about God unless He reveals Himself to us. These, and many other logical proofs by Socrates, resulted in two things: First, he was put to death by the Greeks for “corrupting the youth” and “atheism” because he argued against the prevailing view of this time (sound familiar?). And second, five hundred years later, he would be recognized as the first proto-Christian. His views became the center of Hellenistic philosophy, in which Christianity was formed.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“From Trotsky, to Lenin, to Mao, to Castro—to socialist Bernie Sanders and Comrade Ocasio-Cortez—a common tool for manipulating paideia is to use words that people associate with positive virtues, but to change their meaning.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Without realizing it, today’s American students absorb a deep affection for scientism (science is the only way to find truth), equity/equality (there is nothing better or worse, just different), individualism (identity politics), neo-Marxism (the government can and should solve all inequalities), along with a host of other modern and postmodern affections that lead to servitude (it’s all about your job).”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Propaganda not only changes the way we think about politics and contemporary life, . . . [Progressives] imbue other words and phrases—hierarchy, for example, or traditional family—with negative connotations.”8”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“It insists that the plasticity of the child shall not be artificially and prematurely hardened into a philosophy of life, but that experimental naturalistic aptitudes shall constitute the true education. (emphasis mine)7”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“His pragmatic approach to education set most students on a path of vocational training, untethered from the WCP.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Dewey proceeded to argue that most students do not need a liberal education; that could be left to the elites.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“This form of nationalism, married to what has been called Manifest Destiny, became a sort of civil religion in its own right in America. Nationalism has its place—no doubt—but this form of American “democracy” was intentionally disordered. It was an early placement of “nation” above “Christ”—and executed intentionally.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Between the 19th century and the 1950s, the American university was gradually transformed from an institution intended to transmit knowledge into an institution designed to serve technocracy.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Paideia is made up of ideas, presumptions, beliefs, affections, and ways of understanding that define us.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Paideia, simply defined, represents the deeply seated affections, thinking, viewpoints, and virtues embedded in children at a young age, or, more simply, the rearing, molding, and education of a child.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Lenin was an economic Marxist. American progressives are cultural Marxists.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Equality is the pursuit of equal opportunity; equity is the false promise of equal outcome.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Abraham Lincoln’s warning that “the philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation becomes the philosophy of government in the next.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Yes, politics is downstream of culture. But even deeper than that, culture is downstream of religion.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Andrew Breitbart famously said, and I agree, that “politics is downstream of culture.” Meaning, politics is a lagging indicator. Things change in our politics because our culture has already changed.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Get with the program! White people are inherently oppressive. Gender is completely fluid. Climate change will destroy the world. And America is the ultimate source of evil in the world. Up is down, left is right, good and evil are subjective—until an educator tells you who or what is good and evil, and then you must comply.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“one were to place the founding fathers on a spectrum between traditional Christian authority and Deistic rationalism, it might be reflected this way—Christians: John Jay, Patrick Henry, Roger Sherman, John Witherspoon, Benjamin Rush; mixed theology: Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, George Washington; and Deists: James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Human civilization was rooted in raw power and superstition. Life, as Thomas Hobbes wrote, was brutish and short. To our eyes, their customs were weird and pagan. People were told what to believe, and they did. Each tribe or nation had a god. And broader people-groups shared multiple gods. Most men were indentured to authoritarian leaders. The Greco-Roman-Christian civilization changed all that. Today we take this for granted. And, because we take it for granted, we are about to lose civilization as we know it.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Make no mistake about it: the historical singularity that was America’s founding was a result of the culmination of the Western Christian Paideia (WCP). Full stop.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Under the old form of classical Christian education, children gained wisdom by studying history and the classics.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation