4 ms·

I found the writing here far too inflammatory to be taken seriously.

cwan 17y ago
Yes, I too found it a bit irritating in how it was initially framed. The first page appears as mostly an unsubstantiated rant, but if you can get past the first page, she delves into the specifics. Not being an American but a Canadian, more broadly I worry that noise like this gets in the way of things like critical thinking, logic and reason - the antithesis of moves to enforce political correctness as this may or may not prove to be an example of. I am, however, interested in learning more.
dkarl 17y ago
True, but the exercise described is a good example of how educators set impossibly lofty goals and then declare them fulfilled on the basis of a shallow, pious ritual. In this case, the goal is for teachers to understand culture and cultural difference and gain a critical cultural perspective on their own culture. How do you reliably accomplish this with college kids? Well, you can't. You don't. You just make them recite a shibboleth of their culture -- a very white, very privileged, very genteel culture -- shallow formulas that are easily parroted by college kids with narrow experience. As snarky and ineffective as the article is, the writer does perceive that the real purpose is entirely opposite to the declared purpose. These future teachers are not learning to be open to and less judgmental of the cultures of their students. They are repudiating the culture they were born into so they can be initiated into a more enlightened culture from which they will patronize and feel compassion for their students. The writer is also dead on in his comparison with oppressive left-wing regimes (though theocratic regimes would have been a good comparison as well.) Forcing people to declare breakthroughs of personal insight and understanding, and subjecting these declarations to the scrutiny of enlightened officials, is a dangerous farce. Anyone trying to actually achieve and describe such a breakthrough -- for example, a student actually grappling with his own feelings about certain American subcultures -- is doomed to failure. Yet even the least enlightened person can trivially pass the test by parroting approved language. This is the enforcement of orthodoxy under the guise of fostering personal growth. The parallel to the Cultural Revolution is exact.

cwan 17y ago

Yes, I too found it a bit irritating in how it was initially framed. The first page appears as mostly an unsubstantiated rant, but if you can get past the first page, she delves into the specifics. Not being an American but a Canadian, more broadly I worry that noise like this gets in the way of things like critical thinking, logic and reason - the antithesis of moves to enforce political correctness as this may or may not prove to be an example of. I am, however, interested in learning more.

dkarl 17y ago

True, but the exercise described is a good example of how educators set impossibly lofty goals and then declare them fulfilled on the basis of a shallow, pious ritual. In this case, the goal is for teachers to understand culture and cultural difference and gain a critical cultural perspective on their own culture. How do you reliably accomplish this with college kids? Well, you can't. You don't. You just make them recite a shibboleth of their culture -- a very white, very privileged, very genteel culture -- shallow formulas that are easily parroted by college kids with narrow experience. As snarky and ineffective as the article is, the writer does perceive that the real purpose is entirely opposite to the declared purpose. These future teachers are not learning to be open to and less judgmental of the cultures of their students. They are repudiating the culture they were born into so they can be initiated into a more enlightened culture from which they will patronize and feel compassion for their students. The writer is also dead on in his comparison with oppressive left-wing regimes (though theocratic regimes would have been a good comparison as well.) Forcing people to declare breakthroughs of personal insight and understanding, and subjecting these declarations to the scrutiny of enlightened officials, is a dangerous farce. Anyone trying to actually achieve and describe such a breakthrough -- for example, a student actually grappling with his own feelings about certain American subcultures -- is doomed to failure. Yet even the least enlightened person can trivially pass the test by parroting approved language. This is the enforcement of orthodoxy under the guise of fostering personal growth. The parallel to the Cultural Revolution is exact.