Don’t Give Up on the Young—Prager University Hasn’t
By: AMAC Exclusive by David P. Deavel
Thank God for AMAC! The Association of Mature American Citizens and their news and opinion publication. Since the battle over Senior RX, catastrophic health insurance and Health Savings Accounts, and Medicare Advantage along with the struggle over Obamacare they have been a Godsend for seniors and near seniors such as myself. Now they are impacting on other key issues of the day and the seeded article is a fine example. It is important to maintain the culture and the values of the up and coming generations as we navigate our golden years.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Don’t Give Up on the Young—Prager University Hasn’t
AMAC Exclusive – by David P. Deavel
A new study by the conservative Christian pollster George Barna, conducted for Foundations of Freedom, has some worrying as well as some hopeful news about the largest adult cohort (78 million) in the population. The Millennials are a somewhat mixed-up generation—like every one since that afternoon in the Garden of Eden, I suppose—combining some very new and mistaken views with some very traditional ones. Less atheist than agnostic, less America-Last than they are marinating in cosmopolitanism, and less doctrinaire than they are leaning toward relativism, they are a generation that is still young and still open to being persuaded. While some Gen-Xers and Boomers might be tempted to write them off, it is a mistake to think these young-to-early-middle-aged adults have no hope. Every generation when young will carry the fevers of youth. Better to follow the example of one of the most successful initiatives of the last decade and try to treat the fevers with a dose of calm persuasion: Dennis Prager and Allen Estrin’s Prager U.
“Millennials in America,” which surveyed 600 millennials, defined as those born between 1984 and 2002, asked them questions in August about “lifestyle, politics, faith, relationships, and emotional conditions.” Though they have a positive view of Jesus, they suffer from a greater lack of belief in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus than other generations. Only 35% believe in the “all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect and just creator of the universe who rules that universe today.” The rest are divided up into beliefs in an undefined “higher power” (25%), a realization of human potential (12%), old-fashioned polytheism (8%), atheism (5%), a belief that “Everyone is god” (5%), and sheer agnosticism (11%).
This declining religious belief probably accounts for a tendency towards agnosticism about life itself. What characterizes 50% of them is the conviction that “life is what you make of it; there is no absolute value associated with human life.” 75% are “searching for a sense of purpose in life.” It may also account for a good percentage of them having a drift toward liberal/progressive views on sexuality and toward the political left. If life has no meaning or sacredness, it would be hard to identify any rules for how to treat it, yet people have a need for order and the Progressive left gives that without putting any brakes on the libido. The poll found that 40% of them identify on the left side of the political spectrum while 29% identify as conservatives. Only half have positive associations with the United States and with democracy. And half embrace socialism in the economic and political realm—even if atheism and other personal aspects of socialism are shunned.
All this adds up to a generation that is deeply confused and divided. And it is important to note that division. Younger conservatives are very conservative. And while that group looks to be a bit less than a third, one can see that there is a big group in the middle who are absolutely open to ideas of traditional faith, morality, ordered liberty, and free markets. To give one example, while the generation embraces newer ideas of sexuality in greater numbers, still nearly half (47%) think marriage is a relationship exclusively between a man and a woman.
The difficulty, one might observe, is that Millennials suffer from having not been taught a great deal about the Bible, religion, or the basics of our country. As a Gen-Xer myself, I observed in my generation’s public education the transition away from serious history and civics to “social studies.” And in the religious realm, Catholics and Evangelicals both had large contingents of their populations abandon serious teaching of Scripture and theology for baking cookies, platitudes, and entertainment.
And yet there is a hunger out there for serious things.
One of the most successful groups feeding that hunger is the non-profit media group Prager University , founded in 2009 by radio host Dennis Prager and his longtime producer Allen Estrin. The media behemoth began as a way to provide conservative and generally religious perspectives on and answers to big-picture and controversial questions. While Prager and Estrin initially thought of having a brick-and-mortar institution of some kind, they decided that providing videos that would be accessible online would have a greater effect more quickly. Leading scholars, journalists, and entrepreneurs have provided perspective on hundreds of questions in five-minute videos for over a decade now. Those videos on historical, political, economic, religious, and scientific topics, which anchor the company’s project, have now been augmented with: podcast shows with popular conservative figures including Candace Owens, Michael Knowles, and others; man on the street interviews and short documentaries by filmmaker Will Witt and others; first-person accounts of people who left progressivism and Hispanic/Latinos who love America; and educational shows on history and civics for children.
Today, Prager U, as it was eventually rebranded, has a $50 million annual budget funded by over 200 thousand donors. In their most recent bi-annual report , from which I’ve taken these statistics, they claim over 5 billion views of their videos and note that 45% of their current viewership began in 2020 or 2021. 32% of their viewership under 35 watches daily and 70% of their overall viewership agrees that they have learned more from watching Prager University than they did from their own university experience. The about page for the website adds the details that 60% of the YouTube viewership is under 35 and that 70% of viewers have had their minds changed on at least one topic by one of the videos.
As you might expect, such success has made the non-profit media company a big target for those unhappy with their perspectives. Prager U proudly points to some of the famous attacks on them in such places as New York Times ., Media Matters , Vice , and Buzzfeed . One might add that the entry at Wikipedia, now a partisan online reference guide, reads mostly as a summary argument against the company, citing a series of attacks on particular videos for having inaccuracies. And as a number of the attack articles observe, an entire sub-genre of videos supposedly debunking Prager U has arisen. Some of these have poked holes in a few of the presentations, but most of them I’ve watched seem to involve sputtering disbelief that conservative views like the ones from figures such as former CKE CEO Andy Puzder, conservative academics Carol Swain and Jordan Peterson, or journalist Michael Knowles are allowed. It’s not the arguments but the conclusions that are being protested—that’s why you have so many accusations that videos are “dog whistles” or “alt-right.” When all else fails for the left, they usually call you a racist or a Nazi. And if not all else, a lot has been failing for the left with regard to Prager U. The more journalist attacks are all made with the tacit and sometimes explicit admission that Prager U has been successful in helping shift the positions of Millennials and even the teenage Gen-Z kids. The bi-annual report quotes from a Mother Jones article subheaded, “Inside the Right-Wing YouTube Empire That’s Quietly Turning Millennials into Conservatives.”
What’s the secret to the success of the Prager U videos? I don’t think it’s simply glitz or tech wizardry. One of the consistent complaints of many of the video “debunkers” is that the original Prager U videos have bad graphics and musical accompaniment. I don’t think that entirely fair, but when it’s true, it’s part of the charm. Barna and his research group say Millennials put a high priority on authenticity. Prager U presenters come from a variety of different positions, backgrounds, and kinds of expertise. One need not agree with every single video or every part of every argument to see that the presenters are passionate and informed but also calm, thoughtful, and not reliant on the wizardry of tech effects to get their points across. In short, the videos have an authenticity that, whether it is immediately effective or not, comes across to those who are open to listening. How else to explain somebody like Andy Puzder, the genial former lawyer and businessman whose videos “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Does Not Understand Capitalism or Socialism,” “Capit alism vs. Socialism,” and “Who Does a 15 Dollar Minimum Wage Help?” have 21 million, 16 million, and 9.7 million views respectively?
The great thing is that Prager U is not the only resource conservatives have for conversing with Millennials and others. But it is a really effective one. And, as Barna, notes, most Millennials still claim that the influencers they trust most to tell the truth and do the right thing are parents (46% say “always” and 32% “sometimes”) and friends (36% and 40%). While there are many areas of life in which persuasion has been made impossible, Millennials are still open to family and friends who will show them a video and reason together in search of the truth about God and a sane approach to politics, economics, and even the sacredness and meaning of life.
David P. Deavel is editor of Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture , co-director of the Terrence J. Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy, and a visiting professor at the University of St. Thomas (MN).
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The non-existent Prager eats the young, the old and everybody inbetween in it's lust to concentrate the wealth and power into the wealth autocratic class.
It is the bi coastal secular progressive elites that are the oligarchs who are concentrating power and wealth unto themselves. Prager gives voice to the powerless to the middle and working classes, the religious, and to flyover heartland America. Thanks to AMAC for giving us a voice.
The vast majority of Democrats are working class and religious and many live in flyover heartland America. The moronic fantasy of some league of bi-coastal secular progressive elites "concentrating power and wealth unto themselves" is just sad. Sounds more like just whiny bitter jealous lazy have-nots crying in their can of Pabst and blaming anyone and everyone other than themselves for their lot in life.
The denial of the bicoastal oligarchy of their true power over the lives of the rest of us knows no bounds. The multinational corporations, the wall st banksters, academia, the entertainment elites, and the msm all gang up upon the middle and working classes. There is a growing divide between the working and upper classes, the religious and the secular, the urban coastal population and exurban to rural heartland.
You are talking in sound bites that make no sense.
Let's dissect that a bit. Multinational corporations and the Wall St. banksters literally count on the middle and working classes. Furthermore, they don't get along with the entertainment elites, and the MSM, who get along with each other. Academia, laugh at the lot of them. You clumping them together is just wrong.
They never had anything in common. Tell me, how many working-class people do you think, the Vanderbilts, the Fords, and the Gugenhiems knew? I can tell you. The ones that worked from the basement of their estates.
They get along fine in my family. We just respect one another's beliefs.
I love this one the best. Since I live where you are deciding to put down, please tell me some facts about Long Island to support this?
I too live in a state that I put down.
How could one who is non existent do all those things.
Coming Home to Roost
To have this much go so wrong in so little time almost seems intentional.
Read More »We did and still do and are proud of it…
The attacks upon his efforts are simply gravy to us on the right. The efforts of the critics are less than meaningless to those of us who like what he’s saying and doing.
Global warming is a hoax. Man caused climate change as opposed to cyclical and solar are a fraud.
An example of how religiosity can lead to scientific illiteracy.
Religion has nothing to do with that. I’ll take what the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Heartland Institute have to say on these matters and they are secular groups.
When you read this, does it translate into CEI says global warming is a hoax?:
Heartland Institute is not known for its credibility:
By the way, this comes directly from the link you provided:
You really should read before you post.
But at least (per your claim) you are not holding a position based on religious beliefs; you are just turning to other authorities to believe without question.
I never denied that climate change happens. I never said there’s never been global warming or global cooling. The issue is mans role in any of it and the extent that we play in it. I remember well the impending global ice age coming our way growing up. I remember the whole world was going to starve when we had 1/2 the population we have now.
Speaking of fossil fuels, we’ve made great progress cleaning our air and water even with every increasing continuous use of them. And I made a play investment wise on coal and steel since Biden took office. His stopping leases of natural gas and of fracking on federal land has caused the price of it to go sky high. Now the conversion of coal power plants to natural gas has slowed and the demand for coal this winter for heat and for increased domestic steel production is making it profitable again. I sold my stock in Exxon Mobil after their board changes and got an energy ETF and when Biden took office bought oil and gas commodity tracker ETF’s. So, the more expensive oil and gas get, I’ll have an offset in my retirement years to cover the $4.29 I’m paying for a gallon of premium unleaded now. I have about 10% of my portfolio allocated for energy development companies invested in a clean energy ETF.
You did not write this?:
When someone claims that something is a hoax that means it is a malicious deception; that it is a lie; that it is not real (never happened).
When someone claims that something is a fraud that means it is a criminal deception; that it is a lie; that it is not real (never happened).
Figure out what position you wish to hold because right now you appear to not know what you are talking about.
I said what I said. It is the MBFC consensus of science people that are the frauds perpetrating the hoax of man as primary cause of climate change.
And don’t you ever for any reason dare to presume to tell me what to do or say on any matter.
Yes, you certainly did. I quoted you.
Thus, figure out what position you wish to hold because right now you appear to not know what you are talking about.
Except that the oil industry is now admitting they knew they were contributing to climate change and making you feel doubtful at the same time:
How can you deny something that the oil industry is admitting to?
I believe it's called ''talking out your ass''
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Your link has nothing to do with the lies you're telling regarding approving oil and gas leases.
What you posted was an outright lie.
There is not as much exploration and drilling of NG on federal lands as there was and the result is a big increase in the cost of natural gas.
No, it was not.
LOL, the commenter/seeder lies and gets called out with facts and it's a violation in your world, Vic.
Certainly goes to prove that lying is the preferred form of communication on XX's seeds.
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Not taunting at all, Charger. XX made a totally off topic comment which he thought was an insult or was taunting me and got called out and knowing the area he lives in I simply told him to go down the street and do the Tomahawk chop at Win-River or Redding Rancheria which of course are Native America and try that stupid shit. Then I remember who I was talking to and my suggestion would require some balls.
But please let his off-topic attempted insult stand, it goes to show what you and XX really are.
Carry on
You have no idea how many Native Americans to whom you are speaking here, do you?
Now, kindly point out Native Americans who don't believe the chop is offensive. I know, I know...you didn't say 'Native American' Indians, but go ahead and use that sorry-ass line to try and excuse your stupid, and off-the-chain uneducated comment.
www.nbcnews.com /news/us-news/tribes-push-back-against-mlb-claims-native-americans-approve-tomahawk-n1282516
Tribes push back against MLB claims that Native Americans approve of tomahawk chop
By David K. Li and Graham Lee Brewer 4-4 minutes
Native American groups pushed back Wednesday against Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred's claim that Indigenous communities support the Atlanta Braves' tomahawk chop.
Manfred told reporters at the World Series on Tuesday that Native Americans near Atlanta don't mind the sight of Braves fans' chanting in a faux battle cry during games at Truist Park in Cobb County, north of Atlanta.
"The Braves have done a phenomenal job with the Native American community," Manfred said on the field at Minute Maid Park in Houston. "The Native American community in that region is wholly supportive of the Braves' program, including the chop.
"And for me, that's kind of the end of the story," he continued. "In that market, taking into account the Native American community, it works."
But Jason Salsman, a spokesman for Chief David Hill of the Muscogee Nation, said Manfred can't base his opinion on any one stance from a Native community.
"If you just go out and get a group here or there and say you're good, I don't think that's how Indian Country works," Salsman said. "You need to speak to the whole of Indian Country and make sure that you get a grand consensus. I wouldn't say that they have that."
The ancestral homelands of the Muscogee Nation, before its forced relocation to what is now Oklahoma along the deadly Trail of Tears in the 19th century, are in what is now Georgia. The tribe doesn't support the tomahawk chop.
"I think for us, with the tomahawk chop, you're not getting anything really authentic," Salsman said. "You're getting something that's more of a caricature."
Manfred said he consulted with local Cherokees. None of the three federally recognized bands of Cherokees is based in Georgia.
The Cherokee Nation and the United Keetowah Band of Cherokee Indians were forcibly removed to Oklahoma, where they remain. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians remains in nearby North Carolina, and Principal Chief Richard Sneed has said for years that the tribe doesn't support the Braves' cheer.
Crystal Echo Hawk, an enrolled member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma who is president of the Indigenous advocacy group IllumiNative, said: "We can't let this just be a local Native issue. The imagery, chant, red face aren't just impacting locally — it's impacting all Natives."
Stephanie Fryberg, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan and a member of the Tulalip Tribes, said the effect of such mascots and gestures is not always immediately obvious."The Commissioner’s comment focuses solely on peoples’ attitudes, but ignores the fact that there are decades of research that document the psychological harm associated with Native-themed mascots and related gameday behavior," she said in a statement.
The Washington Football Team changed its racist nickname last year, and Cleveland's baseball team has ditched its long-held moniker for a new brand, the Guardian, beginning next year.
Echo Hawk and others have also pointed out that psychological research has shown for years that the use of Native American imagery and mascots in sports has negative consequences for the mental health of both Native and non-Native children.
There is nothing wrong with the chop at all and the local or regional tribe has had absolutely no objections whatsoever to its use by the Atlanta Braves.
Exactly the point. I make no apologies at all and have no regrets of showing Trump doing it last night.
The ones in Florida have no issues with the chop chant that Florida State uses either, To say it’s racist is pure bs plain and simple.
Oh, if he thought he could get away with it, he’d try it. He did steal the all star game. I hope Atlanta wins tonight so that he gets to present the trophy on national tv to a throng of what was ridiculously censored here.
He’s right. It was in the news reports. Fortunately the Atlanta organization has more fortitude than the one in Cleveland.
You made that remark to Kavkia on purpose as a nasty dig taking a shot at what you felt mocked his heritage. Between that and your other points for the month, you have earned yourself a suspension.
That it was a ruling that happened in San Francisco is the surest of signs that it will be reversed on appeal.
He should downplay it.
Thank God for AMAC! The Association of Mature American Citizens and their news and opinion publication. Since the battle over Senior RX, catastrophic health insurance and Health Savings Accounts, and Medicare Advantage along with the struggle over Obamacare they have been an awesome group for seniors and near seniors. They are impacting on other big issues of the day and this article is a fine example. It is important to maintain the culture and the values of the up and coming generations as we navigate our golden years and Prager U. is a great organization for doing that.
If everything that some group or another claimed was offensive suddenly magically disappeared there would be very little left
First off we are not a group. It's far more accurate to refer to us as a nation or an entire race of people, roughly 10 million in the US.
That said, lame bs excuses for expressed stupidity are expected from the uninformed.
That’s for sure and it happened on this very seed. President Trump celebrating at a World Series game is laughably taboo to some…
That is the aim of the progressive left. You should have seen all the racist crap they directed at an African American woman who was an immigrant, a veteran, and is the Lt. Governor elect of Virginia and the Hispanic son of immigrants who is the AG elect of the state of Virginia. The bigotry and racism directed at them and at those of us who supported them or voted for them is blatant.
Dennis Prager is right!