The Anatomy of the Darkened Mind

Part III: The Dark Age of the Mind 

Part I and Part II are also available on American Reformer

In the same way that we dissect a diseased body to understand the pathology that first sickened and then killed it, we must also examine the darkened mind that has dominated the American university under Marxist ideology for the past 60 years. For many faculty, this is not a controversial statement, nor do I intend it as one. University professors, particularly in the humanities, are often vocal Marxists, critics of Western capitalism, and opponents of the United States, from the Cold War through the War on Terror. While a few may object to this label, their objections are often disingenuous, contradicted by the content of their courses and publications. Statistics reveal that leftists outnumber conservatives by approximately 95% to 5% in the humanities. If we hope for a new era, we must first understand the anatomy of this darkened mind.

The Marxist Phase of the American University

I am officially naming the period from 1960 to 2020 the Marxist phase of the American university. This phase replaced the earlier pragmatist/post-classical era, which aimed to provide a practical education that prepared the student for life in the modern world. The pragmatists sought to move away from abstract contemplation of the forms and instead focused on teaching real-life skills to address practical problems. My one university, Arizona State, continues to have this vision as our President, Michael Crow, is a pragmatist and has moved ASU into their spot of #1 for innovation (dynamic problem solving) for the last 10 years (US News and World Reports).  Nevertheless, the humanities professors under his watch have been as vocal about their Marxism as any other similar university. 

The 1960s instilled in faculty the belief that if they were not “making a difference” in society, their work was not meaningful. For those in applied fields such as engineering, physics, biology, and medicine, this meant focusing on human innovation to address practical problems. For the humanities professor they believed their options were limited: the classical natural law approach which they saw as too detached from real-world concerns and too tied to religion; the capitalist modern West in which they lived; or the Marxist perspective, which framed all history as a struggle between classes, races, and sexes. The Marxist paradigm provided them with tools to critique genuine failures in the West, while also enabling them to critique the West as a whole.

In the humanities, this primarily meant opposing the perceived corruption of the West and frequently offering overt support for Marxist regimes. This behavior persisted even after the end of the Cold War. For these faculty members, “thinking critically” was reduced to “following the money trail” and “speaking truth to power.” They viewed all truth claims as mere expressions of power. To them, the Modern Age was simply an extension of the Colonial Age, which they saw not as a period of spreading medicine and education but as one of subjugating otherwise peaceful peoples.

In 2020, the state of education was laid bare, and the COVID-19 lockdowns seemed to awaken parents and college-age students to its realities. Tools like Zoom made classrooms more transparent, exposing course content to greater scrutiny. At my university, faculty are vocally protesting against the idea of making their syllabi public, a proposal currently being discussed by a group of legislators.

It is these committed faculty members, devoted to this ideology, who embody the darkened mind we are examining. However, this phase has come to an end. We now look ahead with both hope and caution, recognizing that those who oppose God will not rest. What will this next phase bring? Will humanities faculty at American universities teach students to lead the examined life, to seek wisdom, and to understand what is good, true, and beautiful? Or will universities continue to serve as ideological propaganda centers, as they have for the past four generations? Let us take a hard, honest look at the darkness present on our campuses.

The Anatomy of a Darkened Mind

In Romans 1:18-32, the Apostle Paul describes the decline of the sinful mind: humanity, in its rebellion against God, denies what is evident about Him and trades the glory of God for a lie. This darkness represents a willful ignorance in the face of what is clearly revealed in creation. Paul further defines sin as failing to seek, understand, or do what is right (Romans 3:10-11), quoting Psalm 14, which states that the fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” This stands in stark contrast to the message of the fallen world, which claims that if God exists at all, He is difficult to know and that faith is merely a blind leap without clear evidence.

Since God’s eternal power and divine nature are clearly revealed to all people through general revelation, unbelief is without excuse. In this context, the unbeliever suppresses what is true by substituting it with their own opinions. They believe that something other than God is eternal (without beginning), shape their lives around this belief, and strive to keep what is objectively true about God—yet denied by them—hidden and suppressed. This is precisely what we see in American universities today: a deliberate rejection of the Creator in favor of worshiping creation. The darkened mind prevalent in these institutions not only denies God’s existence but, in its blindness, fails to grasp basic realities of existence. This essay will examine the content—or, more accurately, the lack thereof—within this darkened mind and the consequences it produces.

The bone structure of the darkened mind can be outlined as follows: 1) shutting the eyes of reason to what is clearly revealed about God in creation, 2) replacing the objective truth about God with a lie, 3) suppressing the teaching of God’s objective truth and substituting it with falsehoods, 4) descending into God-hatred, arrogance, wickedness, sexual immorality, and leading others down the same path.  The muscles and flesh that cover these bones look like this, 5) outwardly reflecting this inner corruption by praising crime, homelessness, and illegal immigration as merely misunderstood or even virtuous, while dismissing the pursuit of law and order as racist, 6) romanticizing primitive societies known for brutal violence until recent times and denigrating the achievements of modern Western Christianity, and 7) labeling mental confusion as good while condemning mental clarity—such as distinguishing between men and women—as bigotry. They enable all kinds of uncleanness. This darkened mindset manifests in our society today, with major cities overwhelmed by homeless encampments, American students forced to recite Native American land acknowledgments at state universities, and men demanding access to women’s sports and restrooms. This is the reality of a society shaped by a darkened mind.

The Darkened Mind and Reality

The first sign of the darkened mind is its inability to understand the basic structure of reality. It cannot discern between God and creation, leading to an inversion of priorities and a denial of fundamental truths. The darkened mind calls the creation eternal and uncreated, dismissing the idea of a transcendent, personal God who is distinct from the universe He made. Professors and intellectuals in the modern academy often proclaim that the cosmos is all there is, all there was, and all there ever will be—a declaration not of reason, but of misplaced reverence.

The consequences of this are profound. A mind that cannot distinguish between Creator and creation inevitably turns its affections and worship toward aspects of the created order. Power, fame, and money become the objects of devotion. Students are taught—either explicitly or implicitly—that the highest good lies in accumulating influence, achieving recognition, or amassing wealth. By doing so, universities abandon their duty to cultivate virtue and instead encourage idolatry.

The Worship of Created Things

The darkened mind does not merely ignore God; it actively redirects worship toward created things. Professors who should be guides to truth, goodness, and beauty instead become purveyors of ideologies that elevate power structures, political agendas, or material success above all else. Consider the academic who champions the pursuit of influence in the social sphere while claiming to be a voice of moral progress. Such a person may speak eloquently about justice, equity, and compassion, but these virtues are hollow when they serve as mere vehicles for personal advancement or political gain.

Paul’s indictment in Romans remains true today: humanity “exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator.” Professors may scoff at the notion of God, but they are not without objects of worship. Whether they revere the university itself, viewing it as a self-sustaining, eternal institution, or idolize their own intellect and academic prowess, they demonstrate the fundamental error of the darkened mind.  They love darkness, teach others to love darkness, and yet they claim that education will solve their problems.  They can’t see the direct contradiction in this, or that all of their best education can never change their heart.

Professors as Guides Who Cannot See

The tragedy of the modern university is that it purports to educate and enlighten, while led by professors who themselves stumble in the dark. Charged with teaching about the good, the true, and the beautiful, many professors are unable to define or defend these concepts. They speak of “goodness” in relativistic terms, deny objective truth, and reduce beauty to subjective preference. How, then, can they hope to lead students to an understanding of what is meaningful, virtuous, or genuinely fulfilling?

In place of true knowledge, the darkened mind offers skepticism and doubt. Academic skepticism—a posture of doubting everything while asserting nothing of substance—has become a hallmark of modern thought. Professors may pride themselves on their intellectual rigor, but if their teaching amounts to little more than tearing down beliefs without offering anything in their place, they are like blind guides leading the blind. Students emerge from these institutions with a sense of uncertainty, unable to distinguish between what is real and what is illusion.

Like a whitewashed tomb, the Marxist professor boasts about their virtue signaling.  They tell everyone who will listen that they help the poor and the marginalized.  They talk about their efforts to bring down the oppressors and protest capital.  And they say “I see you” to those with gender dysphoria and work to force the rest of society to accept the subjective feelings of a man who wants to be a woman but cannot define “woman.”  None of these behaviors will have them from their failure to know God, all of their works are as filthy rags, and their best efforts are only destroying their society.

The Test of the Good

If humanities professors are to claim authority in teaching humanities, they must be able to demonstrate what is good. This is the litmus test that every student should apply to their instructors: Can you show me what is the good? If a professor cannot answer this question, they have no business teaching a course that purports to examine the human condition or what is good for humanity. A professor who denies the existence of objective moral truths, or who cannot articulate a coherent vision of human flourishing, has nothing to offer beyond confusion and nihilism.

This question can be posed on the first day as the professor reviews the syllabus: Do you know what is the good? The professor may attempt to evade the question, saying, “This class is not about that,” or may provide an unsound answer. The student can respond by pointing out that every humanities professor should know what is good in order to teach their subject effectively and guide students toward that end. If the professor offers an unsound answer—such as claiming that the highest good is happiness, helping others, or leaving the world better than one found it—the student can clarify that happiness results from possessing what one deems good, and helping others or improving the world requires first understanding what is truly good. Such responses reflect fundamental errors that are unworthy of a professor. Seek out teachers who genuinely know what is good.

This failure is not merely intellectual; it is moral. A teacher who cannot guide students toward the good is complicit in their descent into meaninglessness. The darkened mind, which denies what is clear about God, leads students not toward enlightenment but toward despair. By abandoning their duty to seek and teach the good, professors become agents of the very darkness they claim to resist. The professor has failed to seek God, and therefore does not understand all that is clearly revealed right in front of them about the eternal power and divine nature, and instead has led a life of unrighteousness. 

The Hollow Curricula of the Modern Humanities

Many humanities professors at the contemporary American universities devote themselves to teaching ideologies they claim will lead to societal progress and personal liberation. They lecture passionately about social justice, framing it as the moral imperative of our age, yet their understanding of justice is often divorced from any objective moral foundation. Instead, it becomes a tool for power redistribution and ideological conformity. These professors champion the sex philosophies of Alfred Kinsey and John Money, promoting views on human sexuality that strip away notions of virtue, modesty, or restraint. What passes as “enlightened” teaching in these areas often leads students into confusion, self-indulgence, and a fractured sense of identity. In the realm of education, many professors adopt the philosophy of Paulo Freire, advocating for “critical pedagogy” as a means of subverting traditional structures. The aim, they assert, is to liberate the oppressed, yet they offer no substantive moral vision to guide this liberation beyond dismantling what exists.

These same educators often turn to the epistemology of Michel Foucault, a figure who argued that knowledge is a construct of power and that all truth claims are suspect. Such teaching breeds skepticism and cynicism in the hearts and minds of students. And herein lies the tragedy: these professors, despite their claims to social and intellectual enlightenment, cannot tell a student what is the good. They profess to break chains and expand minds, but they have no answer for the most fundamental question of human life. When pressed to define what constitutes a good life or a virtuous character, they falter, for they themselves are adrift. They can tear down, criticize, and deconstruct, but they cannot build anything lasting, true, or beautiful. Their teachings leave students spiritually and morally unmoored, grasping for meaning that their instructors cannot provide.

The Hollow Performance of Virtue

Despite their blindness, professors often cloak themselves in the language of virtue. They speak passionately about social justice, human rights, and equality. Yet, without a foundation rooted in the reality of God, their efforts are little more than hollow performances. Virtue-signaling becomes a substitute for genuine virtue, and moral posturing replaces true moral conviction. The darkened mind can mimic the language of morality, but it cannot produce the substance.

Moreover, by focusing on social causes detached from a transcendent moral framework, professors mislead students into believing they are living virtuous lives while neglecting the deeper call of their faith. A Christian student, for example, may be persuaded to devote themselves to social activism while never confessing their sins to Christ, never evangelizing, and never making disciples. In this way, the darkened mind not only blinds itself but seeks to blind others, leading them further from the truth.

They claim to identify sins such as oppression, marginalization, racism, sexism, and countless other “-isms,” yet they lack any objective standard or moral law to justify labeling these as sins. These are not seen as acts in violation of God’s law or acts of defiance against Him. Worse still, they attempt to identify sin without offering any real remedy. Like all Marxists, their solution is a centralized state that redistributes resources by taking from some to give to others. Their aim is to destroy the Christian religion and replace it with Pandemonium (the City of Dis).

Conclusion: Confronting the Darkness

If there is any hope for the American university, it lies in confronting the darkness that has taken root within it. Students must demand more from their professors. They must challenge the ideologies and empty philosophies that pass for wisdom and hold their instructors accountable to a higher standard. On the first day of class, every student should ask: Can you show me what is the good? If the answer is evasive or insufficient, they should recognize that they are not in the presence of a true teacher.

The university was once a place where the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty was paramount. Today, it has become a breeding ground for confusion and idolatry. But there is hope. By exposing the darkness for what it is and calling it to account, we may yet see a return to the knowledge of God—for the sake of our students, for the sake of truth, and for the glory of the God who is clearly revealed in all of his works.  Our chief end, the good, is to know God in all that by which he makes himself known, in all of his works of creation and providence–to glorify and enjoy him forever.


Image Credit: Unsplash

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Owen Anderson

Owen Anderson is a professor of philosophy and religious studies at Arizona State University and a teaching associate at Phoenix Seminary. He pastors Historic Christian Church of Phoenix which is a Reformed Church. For hobbies he writes on his Substack (Substack.com/@drowenanderson) about radical liberalism at ASU and is a certified jiu jitsu instructor under Rener and Ryron Gracie.

2 thoughts on “The Anatomy of the Darkened Mind

  1. When asked what is good and what is not, we can either give an abstract answer or a concrete one. For example, when asking what is good, we could use the principle of universality to answer in the abstract. That principle follows, at least in part, the Golden Rule. For that principle says that what is right for us to do to others is right for others to do to us. And what is wrong for others to do to us is wrong for us to do to them. And if we are to pride ourselves on morals and principles, then we need to apply that code more strictly to us than we apply it others.

    If we were to give a concrete answer, we could easily say that slavery is wrong and so was the discriminatory practices that were exercised during Jim Crow in the South and the segregation and discrimination in the North which did not employ Jim Crow laws. Embracing or whitewashing the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans from the land could also be called wrong. We could also argue that the pre-WW I uses power described by Smedley Butler were wrong. And while opposing Bolshevik totalitarianism after WW II was right, supporting other practitioners of totalitarianism, which we often did both before there was any leftist revolution or after there was a move to the left by the government, was wrong.

    Unlike that of Martin Luther King Jr, the modern conservative approach to Marxism employs the same kind of thinking that is foundational to authoritarianism. For that modern conservative approach wants to find the Jenga peg that brings down the whole edifice of Marxism so that we can ignore it altogether. At the same time, there is the begging the question boasting about how Capitalism and the West is above reproach. History begs to differ.

    In addition, that black-white form of thinking when judging those who are different leads us to what could become a mortal spiritual condition of self-righteousness Here we can consult the Parable of the Two Men Praying as well as Romans 2 and James 2 to see how dangerous it is to, as fellow sinners, point to the sins of others without acknowledging our own faults and sins. Again, it is black-white thinking to assume one’s innocent if they do thing different from how a sinner does them.

    Finally, Anderson really did not adequately describe Marxism before condemning it.

  2. Thank you for this excellent article. It reflects the negatives of Psalm 1 – counsel of the ungodly, the way of sinners, the seat of the scoffers. These are the professors you are describing as the “darkened mind.” I’m preaching Psalm 1 as A Psalm for the New Year in January. I hope you don’t mind if I borrow some of your thoughts.

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