So I was in the car again today and... you know what's coming: Yes, I was listening to my local NPR 'outlet', a term carefully chosen. Brian Lehrer, a longtime fixture on the local scene -- he even interviewed me once -- was talking to Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor at NYU -- aieee! -- about the Arizona law against school courses that encourage 'resentment'. The immediate occasion was the ban on a course which appears to have taught that the Mexican war was nakedly a war of conquest.
Zimmerman strangely seemed to believe that this was somehow a one-sided view of the matter, though it sounds to me like a thoroughly accurate characterization. Lehrer, to his credit, seemed a little dismayed to hear him talking this way -- he mentioned that Thoreau and the young Lincoln took the same view -- but like a good host, he let his guest blether on to the top of his bent.
(There doesn't seem to be a transcript up yet, but if you want to listen to the whole thing, be my guest. Warning: Zimmerman has a very annoying grating voice.)
At one point Lehrer asked Zimmerman -- quoting from memory here, so don't hold me to it: "Is teaching supposed to make patriots? Or just convey the facts? Is it to form skills?" -- and a number of other alternatives which I don't now remember, all equally unappetizing. And Zimmerman replied "It's to form good citizens."
Now apart from the fact that this program is hard to distinguish from Lehrer's first alternative, what struck me most, at first, was the breathtaking arrogance of it. The auld dominies have appointed themselves soul engineers.
Upon reflection, though, the conceit seemed less remarkable than the abjection -- strange to think, is it not, that the two can cohabit so intimately? All this study and thinking and dialectic, this painful mastery of dead languages and complicated mathematics, this sweaty fieldwork among the ants and the Hottentots -- it's all about delivering a high-quality feedstock of cives to the civitas?
Comments (9)
"What are our schools for if not for indoctrination against communism?"
- Richard Nixon in a speech before San Diego educators
Posted by sk | February 2, 2012 7:51 PM
Posted on February 2, 2012 19:51
I can't think of a nobler purpose of education than to stir --- and nurture and outright inflame ---resentment. If my child's education falls short in this vital pursuit, I plan to supplement it at home.
What was the occasion/topic of your Lehrer interview?
Posted by Chomskyzinn | February 2, 2012 8:45 PM
Posted on February 2, 2012 20:45
Mine was just a modest neighborhood thing -- nothing of any consequence. Music, actually. Long story. The point, if any, is Lehrer's New Yorkishness and attentiveness -- when he's not distracted by the Big Topics -- to what's happening in his home town. He's a mixed picture, as who is not, but clearly institutional imperatives about even-handedness have made his show less interesting and more risible than it would have been -- I think -- if he had a free hand.
Posted by MJS | February 2, 2012 9:06 PM
Posted on February 2, 2012 21:06
pianophobia?
Posted by Boink | February 2, 2012 11:54 PM
Posted on February 2, 2012 23:54
Some random points:
Curious, these Arizona legislators appalled at the fostering of social resentment: they reek of such acidulous resentment themselves that it appears to be corroding their innards.
The Tempest as a catalyst to rancor? Do school boards see minority students as Calibans? Would the students themselves want to identify with a credulous half-man? As a pretext for ethnic studies, it seems as loftily contemptuous as Prospero.
How to "form good citizens" in our spiritless academies? O Frankensteinian task! How many cobbled and galvanized corpses, gathered up from battlefields, from prison graveyards, would be needed to make an exemplary citizen? And not just any citizen, but a modern-day American, the exception among exceptions. Dealers in fantasy though our leaders be, it would strain their resources to fashion this chimerical horde.
Posted by antonello | February 3, 2012 12:18 AM
Posted on February 3, 2012 00:18
good show
antonello
Posted by op | February 3, 2012 8:13 AM
Posted on February 3, 2012 08:13
chom
resentment can come thru the curiculur course and against it too
in fact i prefer the against mode
let the schools flail away at indoctrination
and
leave the counter thrusting up to
the "pupils"
their households
and their hood
Posted by op | February 3, 2012 8:18 AM
Posted on February 3, 2012 08:18
Op: good point, and this also nurtures young 'uns in the habit of being against. And in learning where you find the truth and where you find the party line.
MJS: Brian has always struck me as a decent chap. I agree: you can feel his strain at balance, like when, in hostage-tape fashion, he feels compelled, as if by the threat of electrodes, to thank military callers for their service. But occasionally, the real Brian slips out. Not a Leninist or anything, but....
Posted by Chomskyzinn | February 3, 2012 8:26 AM
Posted on February 3, 2012 08:26
I liked him in person. He's not a lefty by any means, but he has a good ear for bullshit.
Posted by MJS | February 3, 2012 6:01 PM
Posted on February 3, 2012 18:01