Russ Douthat on Critical Race Theory

[Bootstrap]

We learned a lot about the agricultural genius of Jefferson, but we didn't dwell on the fact that the actual work was done by people he owned. Without them, there's no Monticello.

While that's true most people who emphasize that are focusing on the wickedness of one class exploiting another. The focus is based on Marxist class-consciousness, and that doesn't jibe with my Christian viewpoint.

Does your Bible contain Exodus? Or the 12 prophets? The Bible has a lot to say about the plight of the poor and oppressed. That doesn't make it a Marxist book.

If we tell history from many perspectives, that includes the perspectives of people who were not the "elites", people who were not white land-owning men, people who produced their wealth against their will. They had these experiences long before there ever was a Marx. At a time of much greater inequality than we have today. And I think a good look at the elite economic and social status of the founders is also worthwhile, some people want to paint them as your average ordinary joe, and that distorts history.

Marx offered the wrong solutions to inequality, but surely we should be able to discuss inequality and class. Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, did. And I would expect various perspectives on this throughout history belong in a history class - including descriptions of what poverty and oppression have been like, solutions that have been proposed, and how they worked out. I would expect Adam Smith and Karl Marx to be discussed in the same class, they looked at a lot of the same issues, Marx drew a lot from Adam Smith. I would also expect that class to discuss why communism failed and how American policy developed during the time that both fascism and communism were very real influences in this country, eventually rejecting both.

I would also expect history classes to look at the whole history of slavery and oppression in the United States, from various perspectives. I would expect this in either a public school or a private Christian school.

[Falco Underhill]

Does your Bible contain Exodus? Or the 12 prophets? The Bible has a lot to say about the plight of the poor and oppressed. That doesn't make it a Marxist book.

Certainly not because there's not one word in there about class consciousness and class conflicts, nor do I view this as a defect.

And I think a good look at the elite economic and social status of the founders is also worthwhile, some people want to paint them as your average ordinary joe, and that distorts history.

I don't care one bit if they weren't your ordinary Joe. In fact, I for one am thankful that among their many faults, at least the Founding Fathers weren't exactly the proletariat vanguard.

[temporal1]

Delayed comments ..

Let's take a concrete case. .. ..

.. To me, Jefferson is a very complex figure who accomplished great things and was also a bit hypocritical about some of the same great things he promoted. Without Jefferson, we would be less free, but that does not make him perfect. I think we need to tell this bit of history in all of its complexity.

i hope Valerie and some others who went to lengths to attempt to explain no president has been perfect, some very flawed, yet they were in elected office, in the least, the office should be respected. She/they also made the other point discussed that God chose the imperfect and used them for His purposes. None of this was tolerated discussion regarding DJT.

.. I think the good things that Jefferson started become much more real when "all men are created equal" translates
into "all men and women are treated equally". That was a much longer time coming. But I imagine it would have taken even longer without Jefferson.

That’s not a translation. Those are 2 different topics.
Additionally, i’m not a slave to rejection of words like “men,” and “mankind” to represent adult humans. i’m sorry noisy others are.

In that post there are references to Jefferson’s rejection of certain Christian tenets. i seriously doubt today’s public schools would touch on it, except perhaps to use it for secular fodder as “things he got right.”

[Dan Z]

Speaking of Ross Douthat (and a bit off-topic)...he has written what I consider an excellent piece in today's NY Times framing some of the ethical and legal arguments against abortion. If you can get behind the NYTimes paywall, here it is.

If you are outside of the paywall, here is an excerpt:

At the core of our legal system, you will find a promise that human beings should be protected from lethal violence. That promise is made in different ways by the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence; it’s there in English common law, the Ten Commandments and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We dispute how the promise should be enforced, what penalties should be involved if it is broken and what crimes might deprive someone of the right to life. But the existence of the basic right, and a fundamental duty not to kill, is pretty close to bedrock.

There is no way to seriously deny that abortion is a form of killing. At a less advanced stage of scientific understanding, it was possible to believe that the embryo or fetus was somehow inert or vegetative until so-called quickening, months into pregnancy. But we now know the embryo is not merely a cell with potential, like a sperm or ovum, or a constituent part of human tissue, like a skin cell. Rather, a distinct human organism comes into existence at conception, and every stage of your biological life, from infancy and childhood to middle age and beyond, is part of a single continuous process that began when you were just a zygote.

We know from embryology, in other words, not Scripture or philosophy, that abortion kills a unique member of the species Homo sapiens, an act that in almost every other context is forbidden by the law.

This means that the affirmative case for abortion rights is inherently exceptionalist, demanding a suspension of a principle that prevails in practically every other case. This does not automatically tell against it; exceptions as well as rules are part of law. But it means that there is a burden of proof on the pro-choice side to explain why in this case taking another human life is acceptable, indeed a protected right itself.

[Ken]

Regarding how you teach “controversial” subjects like Thomas Jefferson or historic racism in the public schools.

Just yesterday my daughter explained to me an assignment they just did in her World History class that she really enjoyed and engaged with.

They were studying the Mongol Empire and the class did a mock trial of Genghis Khan. Every student had a different role as part of the prosecution or defense or as various witnesses. My daughter’s role was as a Mongol woman testifying for the defense and as such she researched and spoke on women’s roles and equality in Mongol society compared to other societies that existed at the time.

The class got very deep into comparative history and judged Genghis Kahn based on the standards of his time and how the other empires and kingdoms of the 12th century behaved. It went on for two days and in the end they voted to acquit Genghis Khan because he behaved no differently in war than most other conquering empires at the time but provided more individual freedom, peace, and prosperity than any comparable empire. Rather than judging him by modern standards.

That one interesting way to teach about figures such as Thomas Jefferson. Let the kids do their own research, take sides, come up with their own criteria for evaluating the person in question, and have at it. See where their own research and arguments take them rather than trying to carefully curate what they learn or don’t learn.

[Josh]

Regarding how you teach “controversial” subjects like Thomas Jefferson or historic racism in the public schools.

Just yesterday my daughter explained to me an assignment they just did in her World History class that she really enjoyed and engaged with.

They were studying the Mongol Empire and the class did a mock trial of Genghis Khan. Every student had a different role as part of the prosecution or defense or as various witnesses. My daughter’s role was as a Mongol woman testifying for the defense and as such she researched and spoke on women’s roles and equality in Mongol society compared to other societies that existed at the time.

The class got very deep into comparative history and judged Genghis Kahn based on the standards of his time and how the other empires and kingdoms of the 12th century behaved. It went on for two days and in the end they voted to acquit Genghis Khan because he behaved no differently in war than most other conquering empires at the time but provided more individual freedom, peace, and prosperity than any comparable empire.

That one interesting way to teach about figures such as Thomas Jefferson. Let the kids do their own research, take sides, come up with their own criteria for evaluating the person in question, and have at it. See where their own research and arguments take them rather than trying to carefully curate what they learn or don’t learn.

If their conclusion was Genghis Khan was somehow a champion for women’s rights and freedoms, I’d say they failed at getting an education.

[Ken]

If their conclusion was Genghis Khan was somehow a champion for women’s rights and freedoms, I’d say they failed at getting an education.

Really? Here are quotes from the first two sources that pop up in a search on the role of women in Mongol society during the time of Genghis Khan

https://www.historyonthenet.com/mongol-women-in-society In Mongol society, men were dominant. The society was patriarchal and patrilineal. However, Mongol women had far more freedom and power than women in other patriarchal cultures such as Persia and China. While the Chinese were binding women’s feet, Mongol women were riding horseback, fighting in battles, tending their herds and influencing their men on important decisions for the Mongolian Empire.

https://www.theglobalist.com/the-women- ... ol-empire/ Traditionally among the Mongols, women managed the affairs at home, while men went off to herd, hunt or fight.

As the war campaigns extended farther away and grew ever longer during the 13th century, women expanded their control and assumed public office as rulers.

This is especially true for most of the years between the reign of Genghis Khan, which ended in 1227, and that of his grandson Khubilai, which commenced in 1260.

Genghis Khan’s son Ogodei became Great Khan in 1229. However, he increasingly spent his time in drunken binges. As a result, power gradually conveyed to Toregene, the most capable, although not the senior, wife.

The oldest surviving evidence of Toregene’s authority in the Mongol court appears in an order to print Taoist texts issued by her as Yeke Khatun, Great Empress, under her own name, but still under the seal of Ogodei on April 10, 1240. The document shows clearly that she already controlled part of the civilian administration of the empire.

Getting an education in this day and age is more about learning how to think critically and evaluate information rather than memorizing a set of facts that you or some curriculum board thinks are important.

[Josh]

I’m focused more on how Genghis Khan was believed to personally treat women. He seemed to think he should try to have as many descendants as possible. I think having children by lots of different women shows a very poor attitude towards women and doesn’t treat them well.

[Ken]

I’m focused more on how Genghis Khan was believed to personally treat women. He seemed to think he should try to have as many descendants as possible. I think having children by lots of different women shows a very poor attitude towards women and doesn’t treat them well.

You missed the entire point of the exercise which was that students did their own historical research on an infamous figure from history. And they developed their own criteria through which to judge him by the standards of his own time. They did this entirely on their own and they decided it was most appropriate to judge him according to his own time. They developed their own arguments, did their own research. And came to their own conclusions. Rather than being fed some dry cursory textbook narrative.

Judged by the standards of the time they reached the conclusion that the role of women in Mongol society provided them with more freedom and responsibility than any of the surrounding empires against which the Mongols competed. Especially the Chinese to the east and the Muslim empires to the west. I think they were probably right to reach that conclusion. But even if they weren't it was a valuable exercise. And that was only just one point of evidence among many that they used to judge Genghis Kahn.

That is how you teach figures like Thomas Jefferson, Lincoln, Malcom X, Robert E Lee, or Stalin. You come up with a lesson that gives students a chance to dig their teeth into the subject, discuss, argue, and reach their own conclusions. The teacher is, of course, there to keep things on track. But not to promote any particular narrative or indoctrinate them into any particular viewpoint.

[nett]

I’m focused more on how Genghis Khan was believed to personally treat women. He seemed to think he should try to have as many descendants as possible. I think having children by lots of different women shows a very poor attitude towards women and doesn’t treat them well.

You missed the entire point of the exercise which was that students did their own historical research on an infamous figure from history. And they developed their own criteria through which to judge him by the standards of his own time. They did this entirely on their own and they decided it was most appropriate to judge him according to his own time. They developed their own arguments, did their own research. And came to their own conclusions. Rather than being fed some dry cursory textbook narrative.

Judged by the standards of the time they reached the conclusion that the role of women in Mongol society provided them with more freedom and responsibility than any of the surrounding empires against which the Mongols competed. Especially the Chinese to the east and the Muslim empires to the west. I think they were probably right to reach that conclusion. But even if they weren't it was a valuable exercise. And that was only just one point of evidence among many that they used to judge Genghis Kahn.

That is how you teach figures like Thomas Jefferson, Lincoln, Malcom X, Robert E Lee, or Stalin. You come up with a lesson that gives students a chance to dig their teeth into the subject, discuss, argue, and reach their own conclusions. The teacher is, of course, there to keep things on track. But not to promote any particular narrative or indoctrinate them into any particular viewpoint.

What perfect timing. Ken, I believe you asked for evidence of teachers trying to corrupt students?

https://abigailshrier.substack.com/p/ho ... cruit-kids

Do you support the agenda and techniques that were discussed at this conference?