Via Insty, I was reading this article which talks about how the First Amendment is designed to protect unpopular speech, and everyone’s speech in general, when this little sentence stopped me in my tracks (with my emphasis on the part which did so):
For White and Czjetanovic, being white nationalists has no impact on their ability to do their jobs. Had they held other jobs in which their white nationalism would directly affect their job performance, perhaps the internet mob would be justified in its quest to take heads (white nationalists shouldn’t be teaching WWII history to impressionable middle school students, for example).
Here’s where this little thing falls apart. We conservatives have been aghast at how “impressionable middle school students” have, for decades now, been taught by Frankfurt-School socialists, who have been busy with their little Gramscian plan of inculcating Marxist principles and Weltanschauung into our kids — and now I’m supposed to bristle at the thought of white nationalists teaching in middle-school classrooms?
The author (Bethany Daniel) has done precisely what she argues against in her article: she’s conflated white supremacists with Western Civ devotees (like myself). Frankly, if a white nationalist teacher kept herself in check and kept the racist shit to herself while extolling the value of Western Civilization when teaching history to middleschoolers, I’d rather see that than some vapid socialist twerpette interpreting WWII as a struggle between the patriotic proletariat of the glorious Soviet Union and the oppressive capitalist systems of the West.
The difference is that socialists are quite unapologetic about their propagandizing — even while teaching impressionable middle school students — while we Western Civ boosters have to be constantly on the defensive about our position lest we offend someone in the Perpetually Offended Set because racism.
Screw that. Given that bias is inevitable in any teaching system, the goal should be to stop not just white nationalists from teaching, but Marxists as well. Sadly, the education hierarchy in the West is only doing half the job.
It is sad what we allow to happen to children as they progress through our purported school system. Rote memorization for the most part. I have had three go through the system and I do not recognize the result. I have decided that my estate will go to the NRA rather than allow them to retire early.
” the goal should be to stop not just white nationalists from teaching, but Marxists as well”
No, no, no, the goal should be to let them both teach, but make them declare their positions at the start and remove all authority to bully kids by removing marks and grades for political opinions. At least in government schools. Private ones should teach what they want so long as they don’t get a dime of tax money.
Most kids are smart enough to reject Marxist idiocy when the opposing view is properly presented contemporaneously. Marxism is senseless, most Marxists are swivel eyed loons and kids have an annoyingly acute eye for stupidity. Mine never tire of pointing out my idiocies.
Besides, your goal would be implemented by bureaucrats and that hasn’t worked well has it? They would simply declare Karl Marx to be neutral and Adam Smith, George Washington et al. a dangerous ware and hate mongers.
I like this approach a lot. Present both sides, let the kids think about it. If nothing else, it will teach them there’s more than one side to an issue.
I still think that you have to slice things far too thinly to matter to come up with the difference between white nationalist and western civilizationist, but maybe I’ll see a substantial difference at some point. Note that I’m not lumping in national socialists, who are indeed an entirely different thing.
My wife compared the AnComs vs NatSocs in Charlottesville as catholics vs protestants. I’m of the opinion that it’s more like lutherans vs calvinists. The distinctions are oh-so-important to them, but to everyone else, you couldn’t slip a piece of onionskin between them. (And I say that as a bona fide Calvinist.)
One thing that seems to separate the leftists/progressive/whatevers from rational conservatives is the ability to look at their own behavior and judge it by their own declared principles.
I can’t tell whether the lefty types lecturing us are Machiavellianly manipulative or seriously self-deluded. Could be some of each. It could make an interesting exercise in cognitive dissonance analysis.