One of the reasons CRT has become a major social issue goes back to the USSR in 1956

[AZLD4Candidate]

At the 1956 Supreme Soviet, Nikita Khrushchev gave a speech about the state of education in the USSR. To paraphrase, he stated that education needs to be controlled to maintain Communism and that history teachers are the most dangerous teachers that need to be watched and controlled the most.

Fast forward to 2021 and all the screaming being done about CRT. Khrushchev's idea was simply that history teacher not only teach facts, but perspective and interpretation of those facts. History, in fact all humanities classes, are an exercise in data analysis. You are given the data and the students need to synthesize their values based on data.

If you control the data, you get the logical result of "continuing an narrative," even if the narrative is wrong and facts can prove it. You censor out those facts, similar to how China censors Tiananmen Square and censored nearly everything about Arab Spring. The idea is to keep up a narrative that is simple and nationalistic.

One of reasons students, especially young students, say the pledge is because it is expected of them. While no school can force anyone to say it, the inherent social pressure to conform and not be looked at as weird is fierce in the elementary grades. By the time a student is in middle school, it's ingrained. "Give me a child until he's seven and he's mine forever" was something Hitler said. And it is completely true.

History and humanities classes are under attack because people like me force students to challenge a narrative and nationalistic jingoists wrapped up in American exceptionalism find this a threat to their entire identity. As the play Inherit the Wind said: "Murdering your mother is not as original as murdering an old wife's tale. Challenge one of their fairy tale notions and they'll bring down the wrath of God, Brady, and the state legislature on you every time."

As we approach Thanksgiving, I'm faced with either continuing the narrative in class about why the Puritans came to the new world. The national approved narrative is that they were escaping religious persecution.

The ACUTAL reason is that the Puritans were a radical band of Calvinists that rejected the Anglican Church and were trying to foster a rebellion against Queen Elizabeth to install a Calvinist monarch. Elizabeth viewed them as a poisonous religious cult trying to break up English unity. So she gave them an option: "leave or die." The Anglican Church was not persecuting them. Their actions forced the hand of the Queen to act to prevent this "cult" from fostering civil war as the Calvinists were gaining strength through word, actions, and violence.

That's the true story of the Pilgrims. But no history textbooks will say that because of reasons already stated in this post.

Education is under attack with CRT claims simply because narratives are being challenged. As a result, those trying to outlaw it are doing exactly what Khrushchev started in 1956. It is amazing to me that those who are doing this now screamed how awful the USSR was in the 150s. Same tactics, same ideas, same hooey.

[TheRealNorth]

1. The Nazi's railed on about the influence of Jews and other "deviants"...

In education. So Kruschev was not the first to realize the education system can be used to brainwash kids (the Nazis probably were not either).

[AZLD4Candidate]

2. I decided not to go down the Nazi rabbit hole because it sparks an emotional response

from those that would negate my points.

But comparing them to Communist leaders should, if they have one functioning brain cell, make them pause and say "how can Democrats be Communist/Socialists when we are doing the same thing the USSR did."

One can hope.

[Voltaire2]

3. Your Puritan history is off by a monarch or two.

While it’s origins go back to The reign of Elizabeth, it was during the reigns of James and Charles that they became a factor in the turmoil that lead to the civil war and (temporary) end of the monarchy, and of course the migration to America.

[RamblingRose]

4. I'm enjoying your posts. Very informative. Thanks n/t

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. uh Hitler did not say that

[chia]

6. "Give me a child until he's seven and he's mine forever" That quotation's been attributed variously

To Hitler, Lenin, Aristotle, and the Jesuits, which reminds us of both the dark side and the light side.

[gulliver]

7. CRT is just a wedge issue cheap shot in the political realm

Where it stands as a theory is really irrelevant at the moment. Republicans will keep using it as a wedge issue as long as it pays. Arguing about its reasoning is exactly what the Republicans want, so it's the last thing we should do. I heard Paul Begala's suggested response on CNN a week or so ago, and I thought it was really good. It was something like, "CRT? Yeah, that's a theory in some grad school classes in some colleges, not in public schools or anywhere else. What I know is Critical Jobs Theory, that's where we beat the Republicans hands down..."

[soryang]

8. this is the latest iteration of the same problem in conservatively governed Japan

The Asia-Pacific War in Japan’s New Moral Education Textbooks
Felix Spremberg

By upgrading moral education to a formal school subject in elementary schools (2018) and junior high schools (2019) the Abe administration and its allies in the Japanese establishment1 reached an important milestone in realizing their vision of Japan as a “beautiful country” (utsukushii kuni). In their view, this “beautification” will be achieved by replacing the postwar legal order with a semiauthoritarian constitution (Repeta 2013) and by overcoming what they deem a “masochistic view of history” (jigyaku shikan). They blame the latter for a lack of self-confidence among Japanese youth which leads to social pathologies such as bullying and child suicide (Abe 2007). This is the rationale behind the conservatives’ relentless pursuit of educational reform and support for a revisionist understanding of the Asia-Pacific War.

While rewriting history to accommodate new findings and research interests is a normal process, historical revisionism re-interprets history from a decidedly political logic and denies any knowledge that does not fit pre-defined aims (Richter 2008; 47; Saaler 2005, 23–25). In the Japanese case these aims are the strengthening of national pride and allegiance to the state. To attain this, revisionists construct a “‘bright’ narrative” (Saaler 2005, 24) of Japanese history, including the Asia-Pacific War. They claim that the war was a glorious struggle for Asian liberation and omit the dark sides of Japanese colonial rule as well as the war crimes committed by the Japanese military in Nanjing, Okinawa and elsewhere. Obviously, revisionist ideas overlap considerably with nationalist and conservative thought, as well as with nihonjinron – a bundle of theories revolving around the idea of Japanese uniqueness and superiority (Saaler 2005, 24)...

https://apjjf.org/2021/18/Spremberg.html

Japan's textbook problem is matter of international concern in Asia. You almost never hear of it in US mainstream reporting.

[chia]

9. Thank you. Very interesting read.