Peace Studies in DC High Schools

James Taranto writes about a Peace Studies Course at a local high school in the DC area. We lived near the high school and knew Colman McCarthy, a former Trappist monk, who once was a guest of ours for dinner when he was a columnist for the Washington Post. The Post Article Taranto pulled his quotes and commentary from did not mention McCarthy's former employment with the newspaper, nor his former religious affiliation.

Colman McCarthy is a deeply sincere man with bedrock convictions who somehow does not have a mean bone in his body nor evidently, from the conversations I had with him over the years we lived nearby, can understand someone who does. In that sense, he is unworldly to an extent that might be classified as delusional. He does make a very good case that the chain of violence around the world must be broken. Gandhi is his model, and McCarthy's views should be respected.

But teaching a class should present the reasons for a just war, which as a former Catholic steeped in theology, McCarthy knows exist in Catholic thought as well as international law.

Taranto is right that the liberal educational establishment simply hijacks issues and tries to stifle dissent, not by physical means but by ridicule and demeaning remarks. If he has a questioning or critical intellect, almost every college student has had such a moment when he is "put down" by a sanctimonious or intellectually overbearing instructor, often in public and to his acute embarrassment, for expressing unpopular opinions. I know I have.

Colman McCarthy is not that kind of teacher. But the two students who object to his one-sided approach have a point.