see url:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/07/ban-critical-race-theory-from-k-12-classrooms-a-response-to-the-new-york-times/
see full article. I am trying to get an understanding of what Critical
Race Theory is and what it isn't...And also, what one side thinks it is
and what the other side thinks it is, and what one side thinks that the
other side thinks it is...and vikki verki...all very complicated.
Racism is racism, and equal opportunities is equal
opportunities...Equality doesn't exist, either, in the human species,
nor does equity...we are all different as individuals, only reflecting
patterns or norms of behaviour in our different ethnic histories,
cultures, economic and social systems and backgrounds...but what do I
know? However, the so called right and the so called left: the so
called retrogressives and the so called progressives in the USA appear
to be at loggerheads over it, particularly in the universities and
educational establishments, and what it means for the future of the USA
and what should be taught in the schools to the children about US
history and the relationships between different ethnic groupings. I
suppose that at least it is better to have some sort of discourse going
on between the various ethnic groupings, rather than them getting ready
for another civil war by all factions arming themselves to the teeth...
Quote<<<
There can be no credible objection to prohibiting the racially based
shaming of children.
One of the interesting lexical shifts that took place during the
Enlightenment had to do with the way in which we speak about civil
magistrates. As the manifold forms of classical liberalism espoused by
Locke, Hobbes, Spinoza, and Rousseau began to supplant throne-and-altar
autocracies across Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries, political
figures ceased to be called “rulers” and began to be called “leaders.”
This change was not a coincidence. Rule, as Harvey Mansfield helpfully
pointed out during a recorded conversation with Bill Kristol a few years
ago, is the means by which a society is given its particular character
by its political institutions. Rulers indoctrinate, enforce, and set the
boundaries for acceptable beliefs and behavior in a given polity. It’s
always the attempt of the ruler to take his or her country or people in
a given direction, and, for that reason, rule is always partisan.
The early classically liberal theorists believed that rule was not a
necessary or inevitable feature of human relations. They believed that a
primal state of natural freedom and equality among all people could be
imagined which preceded the division of people into rulers and ruled,
and they thought it possible to construct a political system that would
safeguard this primordial condition by allowing each individual to
exercise an attenuated form of the natural liberty which he had enjoyed
in this “state of nature.”
More in Critical Race Theory
From Grad School to Kindergarten: How Critical Race Theory Is
Remaking a Connecticut School District
Cameras in Classrooms? Not So Fast
Why It’s Important to Pass State Critical Race Theory Bills Now
For these liberals, then, the starting point for thinking about human
action was apolitical. Furthermore, they argued that politics should
only be introduced voluntarily and always with an eye towards protecting
the pre-political freedoms of men and women. This view was in contrast
to the older, ancient notion of Aristotle’s that “man is by nature a
political animal.” From this Aristotelian perspective, human freedom and
equality are thought to be political achievements rather than natural
facts. No “state of nature” that pre-exists politics is admitted into
this scheme of thought. Politics is inevitable, and so, as a result, is
the fact of rule.
All of this might seem needlessly abstract and far removed from the
debates roiling the United States today over the bans placed by several
states on the teaching of critical race theory in K–12 classrooms, but
an understanding of how the ancient and liberal understandings of rule
differ is actually indispensable to understanding this conflict.
>>>End of Quote
