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> We teach five year olds about Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement because it’s an important part of our history. Children are going to have questions about
by ptero 6y ago
> We teach five year olds about Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement because it’s an important part of our history. Children are going to have questions about why things happened, and what the “right” side of it was. What are we going to tell them?
I hope you have a good answer. And if they question it, because it is natural for kids to question the world around them, you have a great chance to explain and reinforce that message with arguments. But if instead we shut down the questioner that chance will be lost, and they will likely revisit it later as they grow up, not inclined to take your priors anymore.
And yes, a few will always stay unconvinced. That is the price of freedom. But the country where the majority holds their opinions because they were allowed to think them through, consider alternatives and were not demonized for disagreement is much more resistant to sellers of next Auschwitz than the country where the majority parrots what a talking head on TV/Twitter/Facebook tells them.
> Like, how are you gonna convince the dude wearing the Camp Auschwitz sweatshirt?
A dude or a gal wearing the Camp Auschwitz sweatshirt is, as I said, the price you pay for freedom. In a society where the majority would like to live, the predominant reaction on the street would be "Yuck". In a society that is told what is right it is much easier for the ruling party to bring the next extermination camp to a site next to you.
- jakelazaroff 6y agoI think we are talking past each other. No one is saying that we shouldn't allow people to question why things are right and wrong, or that we shouldn't explain our reasoning. Let me repeat the original comment to which I responded: > The problem is - who decides what should be fringe and ostracized? At different times in history, women's rights, abolition, etc were all heretical ideas that the majority would want to squish if they could. Rephrased: "since there is no omniscient referee to determine which ideas are good and which are bad, we should treat all ideas as equal." But of course, not all ideas are equal. You and I have acknowledged as much in this conversation. One of the points of society — indeed, the very thing that lets us progress — is figuring out which ones are good and which are bad. And in the case of racial equality, genocide, etc, we've put in the work and mostly agreed that these are bad things. The reason I reach for the teaching example is that it basically forces that choice. We either design the lesson so they learn that racial equality is good, and why it's good… or we throw our hands up and say "who decides that segregation should be a fringe view?" and teach them Jim Crow propaganda and race science as well. And of course, despite all that, there will always be Camp Auschwitz sweatshirt guy. But if he wants to eat in our restaurants, or socialize on our networks, or host websites on our servers, we should have no qualms telling him to take it off first.