Short Quiz – Judging The Dumbest Generation and “Judge Not Lest You Be Judged”

[johnkarls]

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1. Does our Author, Prof. Mark Bauerlein, judge harshly what he calls “The Dumbest Generation” (millennials born 1981-1996, the first to be suckled on their digital devices)?

2. Did he also judge them harshly in his 2008 book "The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don 't Trust Anyone Under 30)” (Tarcher Publishing – 5/15/2008 – 272 pages)?

3. After lambasting them for many different reasons, does Prof. Bauerlein focus his final chapter on Malcolm X and how he had achieved a “do it yourself” liberal-arts education by reading in prison the classics, history, philosophy, religion, etc.?

4. Did we last focus on Malcolm X for our 9/9/2020 meeting for which our focus book was “The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.” (Basic Books – 3/31/2020 – 318 pages sans notes & index) by U/Texas Prof. Peniel Joseph – the founding director of U/Texas’ Center for the Study of Race and Democracy and, previously, the founding director of Tufts U’s Center for Study of Race and Democracy, as well as the author of many books including a biography of Stokely Carmichael?

5. Does Prof. Joseph’s “The Sword and the Shield” chronicle how Malcolm Little (aka Malcolm X) joined The Nation of Islam while in prison 1946-1952 (age 21-27) and quickly became one of its most influential leaders? And how, following his release from prison and for more than a dozen years thereafter, Malcolm X was the public face of The Nation of Islam advocating black supremacy, black empowerment, and the separation of black and white Americans -- publicly criticizing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s SCLC-led civil rights movement for its emphasis on non-violence and racial integration? And how Malcolm X and MLK influenced each other and came to have surprisingly-similar views by the time of their assassinations (2/21/1965 and 4/4/1968, respectively)?

6. Did Prof. Peniel Joseph argue that the promotion of MLK as a hero while ignoring Malcolm X, is nothing more than mainstream-media propaganda aimed at keeping (at least until the 3/31/2020 publication date of “The Sword and the Shield”), the civil rights movement as Christian and non-violent?

7. Did our 9/9/2020 meeting resolve Short Quiz Q-26 and Discussion Outline Item B-7 – “Would Black America have been better off abandoning Christianity and embracing the Islam of Malcolm X"?

8. Did the BLM Movement answer that question with a RESOUNDING YES IN THEIR OPINION only a few months after the 3/31/2020 publication date of “The Sword and the Shield” with the 500-plus riots across America during the Summer of 2020?

9. Could the rioters of the Summer of 2020 (aka Prof. Bauerlein’s “Dumbest Generation”) have benefitted from reading our Suggested Answers to the Short Quiz for our meeting on “The Sword and the Shield” and its analysis of, inter alia, Nelson Mandela, Karl Marx, Harvard Prof. Samuel Huntington and his famous/infamous “Bloody Borders of Islam,” the history of The Arab, Seljuk Turk and Ottoman Turk Empires, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s analysis of Islam – as well as of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and of Malcolm X?

10. In other words, do you think American public opinion (including public opinion in America’s inner cities) has sided more with “law and order” or with the Summer 2020 rioters?

11. Who famously said that religion is “the opiate of the masses”?

12. Who famously said on The Sermon on the Mount – “Judge Not Lest You Be Judged”?

13. Who famously said that to “inherit eternal life” there are two requirements – (1) love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, AND (2) love your neighbor as yourself followed immediately by the story of the Good Samaritan to drive home the point that EVERY human being, including the poorest Bangladeshi, is your neighbor?

14. Is it ironic that our author Mark Bauerlein (Professor Emeritus of English) spent his career at Emory University which, like Duke U, Boston U, Northwestern U, Southern Cal, etc, was founded by Methodists?

15. Is this irony limited to the fact that as a Methodist Institution to this day, Emory University believes in “Judge Not Lest You Be Judged”?

16. Or does the irony extend to the facts that like the first Buddha who died thinking he was still a Hindu monk, John & Charles Wesley (considered by historians as the founders of the Methodist Church) died thinking they were still Church of England priests? And that during their era (the 1700’s), both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England (whose theology mirrored RCC theology as of 1534 when Henry VIII severed its tie to the Vatican) believed that Christ died ONLY FOR THE ARISTOCRACY or, in other words, the working class was NOT HUMAN but in the same class as other farm animals? And that John & Charles Wesley believed that the working class was indeed human and that Christ had also died for them? And, accordingly, both of them spent their careers riding horseback throughout England preaching to workers from tree stumps, in barns, etc., wherever they could find a group of workers willing to listen?

17. So how does the Christianity of Emory U in general, and Prof. Bauerlein in particular, align with “judging not,” “loving as yourself your neighbors” (including American Blacks), etc.?

18. Is it a legitimate criticism of “The Dumbest Generation” that they cannot comprehend how 250-years-worth of supposedly-Christian Americans have so often failed to “love your neighbors as yourself”?

19. And if “The Dumbest Generation” had followed Prof. Bauerlein’s (and Malcolm X’s) prescription of becoming knowledgeable about history, philosophy, religion, etc., the riots of Summer 2020 might have been transformed into a SUCCESSFUL REVOLUTION???

20. Or would they have “learned” the futility of taking any action from Nelson Mandela (the “heart and soul” of the elimination of “Apartheid” in South Africa and its first Black President) who was incredulous that a racial MINORITY in America could achieve the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965?

21. And wouldn’t that have been one of several “wrong” lessons because the purpose of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) of which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was President from its founding in 1957 until his assassination in 1968 – was to use the moral authority and organizing power of Black Churches to conduct NON-VIOLENT civil rights protests?

22. And what excuse did Nelson Mandela have for only believing in the POWER OF THE MAJORITY while being completely oblivious to the POWER OF APPEALING TO CHRISTIAN MORALITY? After all, weren’t his parents who were Royal Members of the Thembu Tribe, devout Methodists as a result of which Nelson Mandela attended Methodist schools for 17 years from age 7 through his legal studies at the University of Fort Hare?

23. After five chapters and 253 pages, does Prof. Bauerlein have any solutions for “The Dumbest Generation”?

24. Do you have any solutions for “The Dumbest Generation”?

25. BTW, did Nelson Mandela finally abandon his decades-long non-violence campaign which spanned his 27 years in prison, in favor of violence à la Malcolm X? And also BTW, was the thesis of Prof. Peniel Joseph’s “The Sword and the Shield” that Malcolm X and MLK influenced each other and came to have surprisingly-similar views by the time of their assassinations (2/21/1965 and 4/4/1968, respectively) BECAUSE MLK HAD COME TO THE VIEW THAT VIOLENCE WAS NECESSARY?