On Valentine's Day, the Department of Education sent out a "Dear Colleague" letter on the subject of discrimination, a strongly-worded reminder that when the Musktrump administration says they want to "send education back the states," they mean "the states that don't do things that they object to," and what they object to most of all is the giant wave of discrimination against white guys.
Yes 100 times. I know exactly what the right pretends to mean by "wokery," and have been rolling my eyes at it for over thirty years. More than that, actually: I really really bristle at the illiberal underpinning, the preachiness, the pointlessly fancy language, all of it.
But that has got NOTHING to do with what's going on now.
For one thing, where the *$#%@ does the DoE get off telling everyone that they need to teach history a certain way?? Even if their grasp of history were sound (newsflash: it's complete rubbish) it's outrageous to assert it as some de facto truth that we must all adhere to.
Although I think post-modernism is a load of dingo's kidneys, it would *never* cross my mind to insist that therefore no one else should teach it. I think much of Marxist political theory is wrong, and so is Hayek - but if I were running an economics department, I'd completely expect to have all kinds of economists on staff, because it's a COLLEGE, and the whole point is supposed to be that we argue.
You are quite right, Peter: like the anti-trans legislation, this is just an attempt to legislate their particular view of what the country *should* be like into reality.
It reminds me of the casual remark in Faulkner's "Rose for Emily," where he refers to the old mayor who, years after the Civil War, passed a law dictating that Black women should always appear in public in a maid's uniform. Cosplay legislation.
Finally: this is also dead right "these folks are never satisfied." There's a line in a Tom Stoppard play, "Rock and Roll," about life in Soviet-era Czechoslovakia. One punk rocker ends up in jail for not cutting his hair. He explains that the policeman always starts by asking you to cut your hair, then you can play your music. Then it's, Just cut this line, or this tune, or change the name of the band. Better to not comply from the start.
White Americans will do anything, including shooting themselves in the head, to avoid accepting non whites as equals.
Yes 100 times. I know exactly what the right pretends to mean by "wokery," and have been rolling my eyes at it for over thirty years. More than that, actually: I really really bristle at the illiberal underpinning, the preachiness, the pointlessly fancy language, all of it.
But that has got NOTHING to do with what's going on now.
For one thing, where the *$#%@ does the DoE get off telling everyone that they need to teach history a certain way?? Even if their grasp of history were sound (newsflash: it's complete rubbish) it's outrageous to assert it as some de facto truth that we must all adhere to.
Although I think post-modernism is a load of dingo's kidneys, it would *never* cross my mind to insist that therefore no one else should teach it. I think much of Marxist political theory is wrong, and so is Hayek - but if I were running an economics department, I'd completely expect to have all kinds of economists on staff, because it's a COLLEGE, and the whole point is supposed to be that we argue.
You are quite right, Peter: like the anti-trans legislation, this is just an attempt to legislate their particular view of what the country *should* be like into reality.
It reminds me of the casual remark in Faulkner's "Rose for Emily," where he refers to the old mayor who, years after the Civil War, passed a law dictating that Black women should always appear in public in a maid's uniform. Cosplay legislation.
Finally: this is also dead right "these folks are never satisfied." There's a line in a Tom Stoppard play, "Rock and Roll," about life in Soviet-era Czechoslovakia. One punk rocker ends up in jail for not cutting his hair. He explains that the policeman always starts by asking you to cut your hair, then you can play your music. Then it's, Just cut this line, or this tune, or change the name of the band. Better to not comply from the start.