The dialogue before us reveals the tragic fracture of the Western mind. On one side, we have a defense of the modern university as a place of "critical thinking" and open inquiry. On the other, a deep suspicion that these institutions have become factories for a specific ideological conformity. As a son of St. Dominic -- whose Order was born in the lecture halls of medieval Europe -- I must say that both sides are touching different parts of the same elephant, but missing the beast itself.

The question is not whether the university leans Left or Right. The question is whether the university still believes in the Universe.

The Invention of the University

To understand what has been lost, we must remember what was found. The university is not a secular invention; it is a distinct fruit of the Catholic Middle Ages. It arose from the conviction that because the world was created by a rational Logos (God), the world is intelligible. Faith and Reason were not enemies; they were two wings lifting the human spirit toward the contemplation of Truth.

In Paris, Bologna, and Oxford, the "Scholastic" method was born. This was the original "critical thinking." A student could not simply assert a thesis; he had to list every possible objection -- including those of Jewish, Muslim, and pagan philosophers -- and answer them with logic and evidence. The goal was not to "win" a debate, but to harmonize apparent contradictions into a unified vision of Reality. This was "Freedom for Excellence" applied to the mind: the disciplined pursuit of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.

The Great Fragmentation

What, then, is the "indoctrination" that the critic senses? It is the result of the separation of the university from its source.

Beginning with the Enlightenment and accelerating in the 20th century, the academy embraced a new dogma: the separation of "fact" from "value." Science could tell us how things work, but philosophy and theology were dismissed as subjective feelings.

Once you remove the pursuit of objective, transcendent Truth from the core of education, the vacuum must be filled. It is filled by Ideology.

If there is no "Nature" to study -- only matter in motion -- then the humanities become nothing more than the study of power dynamics. Literature is no longer about the human soul; it is about race, class, and gender struggles. History is no longer the unfolding of providence or human agency; it is a catalogue of oppressions. This is not "critical thinking" in the Scholastic sense, which seeks to distinguish truth from error. This is "critical theory," which seeks to unmask power structures.

Why "Critical Thinking" Is Not Enough

The Leftist student offers to "consider your perspectives against my own knowledge base." This sounds fair. But if the "knowledge base" of the modern university assumes a priori that there is no God, no natural law, and no fixed human nature, then the game is rigged before it begins.

If I argue that marriage is a natural institution rooted in biology and the divine plan, and the university teaches that gender is a social construct and marriage is a patriarchal oppression, we are not just having a "difference of opinion." We are inhabiting two different universes.

The "indoctrination" is not always explicit. It is the subtle, pervasive pressure to view the world through the lens of Nominalism -- the belief that we give things their meaning, rather than discovering the meaning God has given them.

What Conservatives Value

The Leftist asks, "What higher ed do conservatives value?"

I cannot speak for a political party, but I can speak for the tradition of the West. We value an education that forms the soul, not just the skillset. We value an education that teaches the student to recognize the True, to desire the Good, and to love the Beautiful.

We value an institution that understands that "freedom" is not the license to deconstruct reality, but the liberty to conform oneself to it. We value the "University" -- the Unity of knowledge -- where biology, philosophy, mathematics, and theology all point toward the same Creator.

Until we recover this unity, our universities will remain "Multiversities" -- fragmented, confused, and prone to the tyranny of whatever fashion holds power today.