11-23-2013, 06:33 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-23-2013, 07:30 PM by FireIceTalon.)
(11-23-2013, 08:14 AM)DeeBye Wrote: It's pretty awful that schools in America are requiring kids to read books about their democratically elected president. That's what the commie countries did in the 80's and it almost won them the Cold War.
This doesn't really make any sense to me. First off, there is no such thing as a "communist country", and secondly, it seems grossly oversimplified to attribute EASTERN-BLOC/State Capitalist countries resolve in competition for global markets against the "west" to teaching their kids about their leaders. Any country teaching its kids about its leaders is not to win any war ("cold" or "hot"), but a type of social engineering to foster nationalism, to teach kids in the context of the 'Great Man' theory of history so they have a particular way of looking at the world that is favorable for the status quo (the skewing and misrepresentation of the historical narrative is necessary for this), and to instill a sort of respect for authority so they are more obedient workers when they enter the job market. Or in short, to keep false consciousness and ideological control of the populace intact. But to directly (or even indirectly) win a war? This seems unlikely.
Anyways, while I think having to read about any leader is in general dubious, there are things we should be much more worried about that are being taught in the classroom. I am much more alarmed that certain localities teach kids Creationism as a science, than I am them teaching them about the life and times of bourgeois politicians.
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"Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of the existence of your class." - Marx (on capitalist laws and institutions)
"Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of the existence of your class." - Marx (on capitalist laws and institutions)