Why Aren’t American Students Taught About Evil?

In an opinion piece for the Daily Signal, social commentator Dennis Prager observed that in all the talk about preferred pronouns, sexism, and phobias, American schools miss one key topic—evil.

In “Why Young Americans Are Not Taught About Evil,” the Daily Signal columnist wrote that young people are not being taught about things people have done across history that can only be called evil. 

“When it comes to evil, the ignorance is enormous, often almost total. For example, according to Pew, about half of Americans ages 18-39 cannot identify Auschwitz or any other Nazi death camp,” he wrote. 

A 2020 survey on Holocaust knowledge among Millennials and Gen Z’s found that less than half of them could “name a single one of the more than 40,000 concentration camps or ghettos established during World War II.” The survey also found that 11% of those surveyed believed that Jews caused the Holocaust. 

“And there is every reason to assume that much fewer than half could identify the Gulag Archipelago (20 million-plus murdered); the Ukrainian forced famine (5 to 6 million murdered in a little over a year); Mao’s Great Leap Forward (about 60 million murdered); or Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge (about one in every four Cambodians murdered),” Prager continued. 

Prager saw a connection across all these travesties: communism. 

“Nearly all the genocides of the 20th century were committed by communists, and the Left, which runs virtually all educational institutions, has always had a soft spot for communism,” noted Prager. 

Prager observed that communists or secular regimes were responsible for almost all mass genocides. 

“A true depiction of the evils of the 20th century would mean the end of the two pillars of left-wing ideology: secularism and big government.”

Prager also observed that many believe in “the foolish notion that people are basically good.”

While Judaism and Christianity see man as created to be good but born with an inherent struggle with sin, Marxism purports the idea that “Man is God,” so man must be good. 

“For if there is no God to believe in, one must believe in man—or one has literally nothing to believe in,” Prager wrote. 

Atheism, secularism, and communism mix into the education system, molding ignorant young people who “believe in man,” according to Prager. 

With no evil within themselves to combat—man is good—and with no sense of the evil without that is often purported by overpowered, communist governments, young left-wing people have nothing else to fight but “made-up evils: American systemic racism, transphobia, capitalism, carbon emissions, sexism and former President Donald Trump, to name a few.”

This can lead nowhere good, Prager said. 

“If you want to make a more moral world, you must begin with the study of evil,” he observed. 

Prager took “know thy enemies” to heart, especially when that enemy is an ideological government and even when that enemy is your own heart.

Prager is a radio talk show host, author, and founder of PragerU. PragerU, an online learning resource, offers an antidote to ignorance through shows and video series for kids and adults

“Knowledge of evil,” Prager concluded, “inevitably leads directly to rejection of the Left.”