The bias against Europeans, their descendants, and the culture they begot and advanced has been intensifying since American politics turned sharply left in the last few decades.

A PBS documentary I watched in 1992 made me write the following, presented again because the bias it addresses continues to infect our times:

_____________

“Barbarians of the West,” they are called in a garden path tour called Legacy, conducted by PBS television [in 1992] under the guise of a documentary on civilization. With the suppressed passion of a pro­secuting attorney out to nail his defendant – in this case the Euro­peans – the host of the show travels to China, Egypt, Central America, and other centers of civilization to find all the evidence he can to damn the Graeco-Roman civilization – which furnished the language, the knowledge, and the technology for this production.

Legacy's thesis, that the world was fine until Europeans messed it up is, frankly, a dud. High craft keeps such a childish concept from becoming a comedy. Exciting images, choreographed against muted music, a host with an earnest and expressive face, talking and moving with impeccable grace, carefully avoiding the trapdoors of sophistry – all this fails, neverthe­less, to redeem the Europe bashing or smooth the leftist warp of the script. Everyone enjoys a good yarn, but not when it’s offered as nonfiction. As with so many docu­mentaries, investigative reports, and exposés, lately, Legacy is barely more than a political story line, illustrated.

Fascinated, as many of us are, by the Aztecs, our host holds up a fist-size crystal skull that brings to mind the eye and skill of Japanese Sung Dynasty sculptors. But our wonder sticks in the throat when he tries to justify the ritual gouging of thous­ands of human hearts, forming a sacrificial river of blood down the temple steps. We gasp and note the concession that Europe did not invent cruelty. In another breath, the host declares life sacred. That follows, we suppose. Then he goes on to include in the alleged Euro­pean treachery a........

© American Thinker