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Thats the default though. 60 years ago kids were being indoctrinated into an ideological system with the backing of the state, whether their parents liked it or not. And 40 years ago, and 20 years ago.
Arguably the issue with America right now is not that kids are being indoctrinated but that they are not all being indoctrinated the same way. Thats how you get a cohesive polity. Too many states, too many systems. Call it a civic religion, a shared mythos or whatever. The point is what you are complaining about is not new, every kid is getting indoctrinated into something.
The fight is over what. But the sholip on not having kids indoctrinated at all sailed a long time ago. But
60 years ago it wasn't at all surprising that a Nixon or a Reagan could win 49 out of 50 states running on a platform of US civic religion.
A religion that academics, imagining themselves to be somehow more worthy than everyone, have always deeply resented and accordingly have spent the last 60 years trying to undermine and destroy.
Academics didn't undermine it. Its own inconsistencies and the number of people excluded from it did I think. In practice if not in theory.
I think a version of it can still stand, the shining city on the hill, but it has to be less exclusionary, probably less wrapped in actual religion.
It's nowhere near as exclusionary now after successive waves of accepting other groups - so why doesn't it reconstitute itself?
The answer is that academics and progressives continue to problematize it as fundamentally racist and sexist* and to push more atomizing forms of identity and a replacement civic cult (Pride, the "LGBT" nation).
* To give one of many examples: the 1619 project was made recently to attack the founding story of America. It wasn't published in NYT in the 1950s or in the Jim Crow era.
Do they problematize it? Or are they seeing actual problems? Are they pushing more atomizing forms of identity or were their forms of identity not accepted so they rebelled? Have they succeeded in convincing everyone their forms of identity should be accepted on the shining city or is that still ongoing with significant numbers of hold outs? Chicken or egg?
They problematize it.
I just edited my post to add an example: The 1619 Project is a deliberate and historically dubious attempt to problematize the founding myth of the US. The problems of 1776 I think are pretty obvious, there was no need to go looking for trouble. But apparently it's not enough to simply point out those undisputed issues.
They're pushing it. In a variety of ways. Even if we put aside that their refusal to countenance ROGD and their pushing of pronouns may lead to kids adopting it.
Just their general denigration of straight,white males and their pushing of AA gives people a reason to adopt other identities in progressive spaces. The funniest and most out there examples of this are of course people who claim to be a totally different race (usually Native American or First Nations) so they can get some sinecure.
They've made serious gains with gays, blacks, Latinos and so on. Many smaller and more recent minorities (e.g. Indians) honestly have no need of a movement as intense as the Civil Rights movement
There are obviously issues but those issues do not prevent appealing to the promise of the civic faith of the US -MLK did it in far worse times . They don't want to. They have a general cultural bias against patriotism and see it coded as right-wing and they believe in the idpol view of focusing on ever more specific minorities and consider stuff like "I don't see race" that fits with the civic faith problematic.
Also, they have serious problems they apparently can't solve (the most important of which being the black achievement gap) and their solution is to destroy standards and the basic ideal/goal of the country as meritocratic as a result.
Serious gains is not enough. If you want the shining city on the hill as the tied civic religion (from these groups perspective) it must be near universal. The ongoing culture war is evidence the battle has not been won. Gay marriage could be gone in a snap.
Going from being ostracised to merely tolerated is not enough. To be part of the shining city on the hill that they would want to valorize they must be as accepted as anyone else. And in large swathes of America this is not the case.
Blue Tribe Americans are less patriotic than Red Tribe this is true in my experience, but they are still much more patriotic than average citizens of most other nations. So that isn't on its own a problem, part of them accepting the new city on the hill is being proud of it. They are not patriotic because they see flaws in their own nation.
Thats the key, they are not currently as proud of America as it is, but they could be of an America as they want it to be.
I am a straight white male in academia, I am told the wokest area of all, yet I do not feel denigrated at all. Most of my colleagues are still straight white males, then straight white females. I just don't see that denigration even here in what should be its heart. My boss is a straight white man, his boss is a straight white man.
"I don't see race", requires with those races (primarily black communities in the US) to have moved past previous (and current) mistreatments. They haven't. My ex-wife still tells how her mom lost 3 babies with a white ob-gyn and her last was born with a needle in his skull, she is convinced the doctor tried to abort him too. When she avoided doctors entirely she had 5 healthy babies. The trauma is not from academia, but from the communities themselves. Wounds are still generationally fresh. Handed from one to the other.
Color blindness is still the end goal I personally think, but it isn't plausible from where we are right now.
I don't accept the premise. You can appeal to the promise of the American civic religion without it being perfectly implemented - arguably that is precisely when you should lean on it most. Again, people used to do this.
By this standard it'll never be legitimate to back said civic religion cause some group, somewhere, will always claim oppression, dubious or no.
For example: I find the idea that America can't lean on the civic faith if say...transpeople are "oppressed" by not getting blockers to be a dubious on yet left-wingers are, as a matter of fact, acting like this is some grand injustice. Does that push back the great colorblind utopia by another 20 years (this was Contrapoints' estimation on trans acceptance). And who's to say they won't spin up another group like "non-binary"?
Except many groups are not just tolerated. They are affirmed. Important distinction.
If we take gays as an example not only has public opinion shifted heavily on gay rights (one example).They have Pride marches that are attended by the major corporations that determine things in the US (see the Disney kerfuffle) and, in some places, being part of Pride is seen as prestigious enough that people being denied (e.g. cops) is the site of controversy, not people being allowed to go.
Yes, they want to change the basic premise. The problem for your argument is that many of those cases like 1619 Project are about undermining the very founding story you're saying they eventually want to appeal to.
If the goal was to actually assimilate into that story then why undermine it? Surely the rhetorical force of "America should live up to its foundational promises" is a more intuitive take than "actually it was about enslaving us from before the start".
There's also the fact that some forms of lack of pride can't be fixed. If a black American wants to insist that "this country wasn't made for us" and to not be proud cause his people were slaves and didn't really found the country and were kept marginalized for a long while you can't stop them. They're not wrong, it's just not a workable standard to expect people to not buy into America due to this.
Yet that's how people talk.
Then why the reports about people identifying out of whiteness?.
Also: the denigration obviously happens in left spaces, it's just that left-wing men have become acclimated to it and have accepted the logic it's not really denigration but the expression of in-group approved political priorities - recall the Sarah Jeong story where she was criticized for what would usually be called straightforward racism but it was okay because
it was against white mena satirical response to patriarchy and white supremacy. Of course, the men who can't convince themselves of this are selected out.The trauma isn't the issue - though here I would say the wounds are still "fresh" because some communities (blacks specifically) may be caught in a self-perpetuating feedback loop of maladaptive behaviors besides any direct legal discrimination or hell, sometimes even dispositional attitudes - it is the story and narrative used to fight those issues.
It doesn't have to be divisive, to undermine the founding story of America or to insist on racial quotas or trying to bring America closer to some Lebanese-style sectarian compromise. And many groups didn't ask for that. Of course, as I said, the more the gap persists - even if for more complex reasons- the greater the incentive to destroy the idea of meritocracy.
Here the very anti-color blind systems we're talking about prevent color-blindness: if blacks are disproportionately less educated I can't have a color-blind education or hiring system or I'll be "racist" or potentially showing some sort of bias. Can't just use IQ and call it a day cause that shows disparate impact.
How you're going determines where you go.
If all your actions are basically attempting to end color blindness, to make it taboo and immoral to even say it (the example I gave is an alleged microaggression) why should anyone believe that you'll circle back to it at some point? This is like saying statelessness is the ultimate goal of Christianity because the Messiah will abolish earthly states. Does anyone care if Christians believe in statelessness in this sense? Is anyone blase about Christian theocrats seizing the state? Will it all just "work out"?
When you implement a regime of affirmative action that racially discriminates, when you pass laws creating an entire DEI infrastructure in every major company that encourages discrimination, when you deliberately shape the demographics and thus interests of a university using it, when you make it more and more a part of policy, people are just supposed to take you at your word - all while you're crowing about the upcoming eclipse of the white man - that you'll eventually rollback all of these things (that give you power) in the name of fairness and retire to your farm like Cincinnatus?
Psychology is disproportionately female. Are these gains being rolled back so we can hit a more even distribution? HR is 70% female. Are we going to see rollbacks in specific fields like that or even AA in the other direction? Has the progress led to much reconsideration of "the patriarchy"? That'd be a better indicator that what you want might happen but I doubt it. The movement mainly just demands more.
The funny thing is that the progressives' own argument undermines this - why did it require a movement to get white people to relinquish power? Are minorities just more virtuous than the whites before them?
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60 years ago, our society was much more homogeneous than it is now. The social systems in contention now weren't set up to create that homogeneity, they were set up because the homogeneity allowed the public at large to see value in systems and structures that achieved common, (that is to say homogeneous) goals.
Now we are heterogenous, and the systems and structures become a weapon to fight over, in the endlessly spiraling series of escalations. You're describing it as though that fight was the norm previously, only it really, really wasn't. There would be no public school system if the population that established it had suffered the level of values-conflict we currently endure. Likely there would have been no nation either.
I think you're wrong. This homogeneity is a historical illusion. 60 years ago you had the civil rights era. Was that because everyone thought and was treated the same?
60 years before that it was womens suffrage you were divided over. With differing feelings and laws in different states.
60 years before that you're fighting over whether men who can't own land can vote. Plus you know the whole civil war.
The difference i would argue in each of these cases is that one side won convincingly each time. And that then trickled down to all states. You had some forced homogeneity for a time before the next division erupted. But only because there was victory. There were always weapons to fight over. You just don't see them because the battles were so convincingly won. And that changed landscape is the water you swim in.
Women not being able to vote being a niche idea in the US is because a cultural battle was fought and won over it. Thats why 98% of people don't question it.
If the right wins the trans "war" in 60 years people will look back and say how the right side won and how quickly everyone fell into line. They get broad strokes. And someone then will say thats because 2023 is more homogeneous in views than 2083. Not realising that battleground is why homogeneity emerged.
That's not going to happen. If the trans side loses the whole thing is getting memory holed. Best case scenario we'll be talking about it like we do about lobotomies as "bad thing crazy doctors were doing", not as something intimately connected to the progressive movement. Worst case scenario the whole thing is getting pinned on the right ("in Iran the government was forcing gay people to transition, and even in the west we had a movement trying to promote transition for gender non-conforming people") the same way eugenics is nowadays, and the only people knowing this is ass backwards will be a bunch of internet contrarians.
Might be naive, but I don't think things like that can get memory-holed.
The fucking President met with Dylan Mulvaney, on HD video, visible from the little clairvoyant in everyone's pocket. It's over.
There used to be leftist groups in the UK and elsewhere in Western Europe advocating the decriminalization and normalization of pedophilia / man-boy-love. After they failed to replicate the success of the Civil Rights Movement as they wanted, they faded away and their entire existence was memory-holed. The same happened to the wing of radical feminists advocating for lesbian separationism. The fact that gay rights groups didn't promote the legalization of gay marriage as their main goal until the early 2000s is also memory-holed. So yes, it can actually be done.
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To use an example that makes my side look bad, as somebody pro-trans.
How many people do you think knew about Donald Rumsfeld happily shaking hands with Saddam only about 15-20 years before treating him like the most dangerous man in the world? Probably not a lot. Or I'll put it more accurately if you put that picture in front of somebody who was pro-Iraq War, would their opinion have changed? Probably not.
90% of people don't put much thought into politics, 9% put only a little, another 0.9% put a lot, and the last 0.1% are weirdos like us.
If it turns out the gender-critical/anti-trans side is completely right, nobody is going to get punished, there will be no massive shift in societal or political views. We'll just move on to the next fight, and you'll move on to the next fight, trying to block us.
Wait, you're neocon? Or did you mean it was going to be an example where his side looks as bad as the pro-trans side? What makes you think the anti-gender side is not already overwhelmingly against the Iraq war, and would want to put the neocons on trial?
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Sure, and in 2083 this will get the same treatment as the "Democrats" in the KKK
(Byrd), and the ones who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the ones who voted to expand slavery into every new state at the 1860 Democratic Convention. To wit, "Those were actually Republicans."
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In a year or two most people are going to barely remember what all that was even about. The ones that will vaguely remember something will struggle to find said video because Google / GPT5000 will suck at historical searchers relating to culture war. As years go by the few internet contrarians that will remember it fully, and have the video on hand, might elicit a reaction similar to the one you get when someone posts a from the 90's relating to the current culture war.
One of my first top level comments I made after we moved here was about this very question because I already felt the vibes shifting, and if at all possible, I would like to preserve the historical memory of this particular culture war exchange, and one of the most compelling responses was that I don't have a chance. A culture war issue has to be constantly reinforced to maintain it's position in our awareness. As an illustration, you may have heard about lobotomies, but have you heard their sequel: psychosurgery? From what I gather it was a massive culture fight spanning a decade, with choirs of Expert Trusters shouting down dissent. It even got it's own Hollywood movie. How much have you heard about it?
This might be counting my chickens before they hatch, but still, if you have any ideas for how to preserve the memory of what is happening now around this subject, please share them. This is the second most important thing after winning the issue itself.
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Which another way of saying the past will look homogenous right? It was only some crazy doctors and so on. That's my point, the past will look more homogeneous than it actually was.
In this case it will, but your other examples are wrong. All the other movements are talked about as an epic battle between good and evil, that does not leave one with an impression of homogeneity.
Also, aren't you conflating broader society with what is taught in schools?
Depending on when you pick your points it looks homogeneous would be a more accurate statement yeah. It took 60 years between the first state to grant womens sufftrage and it happening federally.
What was being taught in those first states would be that women can vote. Do you think they taught that as a good or bad thing to the generations that were in school and then became adults while that was going on in those dirst more "progressive" states?
It's very likely that it was not taught at all, or taught neutrally.
That seems unlikely, Utah under heavy Mormon control allowed women to vote in 1870 because they thought Mormon women would vote to uphold polygamy.
I.e. Because they thought it would be a positive change.
(They revoked that right later because as it turns out that did not happen).
You think Mormons weren't teaching their kids that polygamy was good and (for those 17 years) that therefore women voting was a positive thing?
Schools always have and always will take sides on things. American schools teach it's good the Allies won WW2 and it was good the Union won the Civil War and it was good the Colonies won the Revolutionary war. Politics and political bias has been in schools for nearly forever. And it should be! Kids should be taught a postion when it comes to the civics of their nation. And they should all roughly be taught the same position.
It can evolve over time of course but if you want a cohesive polity you have to trach them cohesively in my opinion.
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Do you think that parents now have more or less control of the specific curriculum and lessons being presented to their children now than they did 40 or even 20 years ago?
Sure, and it is arguable how much that of that brainwashing actually 'takes' because it sure seems like most kids end up rebelling against whatever paradigm they were taught.
Do they? It seems like most kids turn out to be conformist and mediocre members of their parents’ social stratum.
Obviously there’s a teenaged/youth rebellious phase, but I’m not convinced that’s a cultural universal even in America.
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It seems less relevant whether parents have more or less control. 60 years ago there was probably more shared beliefs between the curriculum maker and parents compared to today. Thus the question of control was of less importance.
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Temporarily sure, but as this SNL Skit illustrates:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=lK0Lp43a8z0
How long do they actually rebel for before they settle down?
And parents probably have more control of curriculums than they ever did. Which is probably part of the problem.
I see little evidence for that in a world where Teachers Unions can shut down school systems on a seeming whim, but maybe you have a different perspective.
Almost my point. The boomers were the generation that produced hippies, and a full on counter-culture. And then they became, well, the Boomers, the ones who elected Trump.
It's not clear that schooling will produce lasting ideological commitment 10, 15, or more years down the line, without some external force acting (i.e. the CCCP in China).
Sorry missed this. Compared to the power unions had back in the 70's, where they could shut down close to the entire economy, yes it is significantly weaker. The reaction to that power and its use is quite a bit of what led to Reagan and Thatcher (not unreasonably, honestly). Teachers unions only look powerful compared to unions in other sectors which are nigh toothless tigers nowadays.
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Back in my day you had basically no access to the curriculum is my point. No internet, etc. You got to see homework and that was about it. No smartphones recording and so on.
Parents have much more access and thus control than they ever did when I was in school. 40 plus years ago.
More access means more control? The Taliban also have access to those curricula thanks to the internet, does the Taliban have more control of Western schools than ever before?
Without knowing what is going on,you can't have any control, that combined with stronger unions in the past makes it a slam dunk. My dad was a teacher in the 60's and onwards and parents had essentially no say at all.
My point is that access does not equal control, it only increases the potential for it. It is true that without access you can't have control, but that doesn't mean that if you have access you have control, that's crazy. My free Disney plus subscription ends tonight, but just because I still have access that doesn't mean I have until midnight to revamp the platform to only show Bedknobs and Broomsticks and The Rescuers Down Under on a loop.
Right but if in the past parents had no access and thus (as you agree) no control. Parents of today have access and weaker unions.
The argument was over which had more control, and the assertion I was contesting was it was past parents.
Parents of today don't have to have much control to have more than basically zero.
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