How the University Replaced the Church as the Home of Liberal Morality

"If it's true that those earlier movements drew inspiration and leadership from the church, and if it's also true that young liberals are increasingly secular, then where does that progressive energy come from? Why do young people participate in politics today, either through voting or through protest, in high numbers? What institution taught them a sense of morality, gave them words to express their outrage, and offered them the space and infrastructure to imagine a different world?"

"The answer is obvious: the university. In the past thirty or so years, the academy has replaced the church as the center of the liberal moral imagination, providing the sense of a community bound by ethics, a firmament of texts and knowledge that should inform action, and a meeting space for like-minded people. This isn't an entirely new development, of course-American history is full of student-protest movements-but, rather, a consolidation of the university's influence."

Progressive movements historically relied on churches for infrastructure, moral clarity, and organizing purpose, as seen in mid-twentieth-century civil-rights and eighties Sanctuary efforts. Young liberals have become increasingly secular, reducing churches' role in political formation. University campuses have increasingly fulfilled the role of moral and organizational center for liberal activism by providing ethical frameworks, canonical texts, communal bonds, and physical meeting spaces that encourage collective action. The academy's influence has consolidated over recent decades as student-protest traditions continued. Declines in church attendance and union employment have left college as the primary institutional site where many middle-class and upper-middle-class young people develop political identity and skills.

Read at The New Yorker