Culture Warriors category archive
Blissful Students, Ignorance Is Bliss Dept. 0
The Houston Chronicle lists the five books in Texas public school systems most often challenged by parents and politicians who want Texas students to remain blissfully ignorant.
Some of them will surprise you.
The Kult of Kyle 0
This is just creepy.
Will Lack of Preparation Prove Pestilential? 0
John J. Petillo, president of Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn., is concerned that the neglect of education in civics bodes ill. He writes in the Hartford Courant:
Follow the link for more.
Regulating the Marketplace of Ideas 0
A retired English teacher has a suggestion for parents who fear that their children might learn something of which said parents disapprove (like, for example, American history or human diversity).
Follow the link for his rationale.
“Manufacturing Enemies” 0
Michael in Norfolk takes a look at Fox News’s faux war on Christmas and its maleficent implications.
Book Fits 0
John M. Crisp considers the outcry in right-wing circles about “obscene” books in school libraries. He wonders whether it’s really about protecting children. A snippet
So, which poses the greater threat to public school students? The abundance, availability and normalization of firearms and a casual attitude toward a deadly disease? Or a copy of “In the Dream House” in a public school library?
Aside:
Of course it’s not about protecting children. It’s a culture war misdirection play on a grand scale.
It’s All about the Algorithm 0
I recently listened to a podcast in which one of my favorite podcasters spent five minutes discussing a comment that podcaster made on Twitter. The complaint was that the person to whom the comment was directed (and which the podcaster admitted had been a mistake) had responded with a screenshot of the comment, rather than with a “quote tweet.” The podcaster’s point was that said podcaster could have responded to a “quote tweet” by admitting the response was wrong and apologizing for it, but could not respond to the screenshot. (My reaction was relief and self-congratulation that I never became a twit on Twitter.)
That such an inconsequential incident, such a tempest in a twitpot, could assume such significance, if only for a short time, is, frankly, distressing, which leads me to recommend Dr. Charles Johnson’s post at Psychology Today Blogs, in which he takes a look at how our metastasized “social” media has monopolized our attention and distorted our discourse, and at what we can do about it. Here’s a bit of what he has to day:
All That Was Old Is New Again 0
As my two or three regular readers know, I’m a bit of a mystery buff.
I’ve recently reread one of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels, Champaign for One, which was first published in the mid-1950s. Prominent in the plot is a “home for unwed mothers,” a place where expectant unwed mothers could go to hide their shame until their children were born and given up for adoption, once a common practice. (The one featured in the story, the Grantham Institute, was no Magdalene Laundry by any means, but a gracious and humane institution, but that’s neither here nor there. A true Magdalen Laundry does feature in one of Kerry Greenwood’s Phrynne Fisher stories.)
Rebecca Watson fears a return on such institutions (Magdalene Laundries, that is, not Grantham Institutes) may be in the offing.
CRT: Corrosive Racist Tactics 0
Writing at Above the Law, Chris Williams explains how the right-wing is using their made-up anguish oover “critical race theory” as a Trojan horse to fuel the culture war and recruit new adherents. Here’s a tiny bit of his piece: