Multiculturalism's War on Education

[musashi]

Interesting article from Elan Journo at ARI.

Back to school nowadays means back to classrooms, lessons and textbooks permeated by multiculturalism and its championing of "diversity." Many parents and teachers regard multiculturalism as an indispensable educational supplement, a salutary influence that "enriches" the curriculum. But is it?

With the world's continents bridged by the Internet and global commerce, multiculturalism claims to offer a real value: a cosmopolitan, rather than provincial, understanding of the world beyond the student's immediate surroundings. But it is a peculiar kind of "broadening." Multiculturalists would rather have students admire the primitive patterns of Navajo blankets, say, than learn why Islam's medieval golden age of scientific progress was replaced by fervent piety and centuries of stagnation.

Leaf through a school textbook and you'll find that there is a definite pattern behind multiculturalism's reshaping of the curriculum. What multiculturalists seek is not the goal they advertise, but something else entirely. Consider, for instance, the teaching of history.

One text acclaims the inhabitants of West Africa in pre-Columbian times for having prosperous economies and for establishing a university in Timbuktu; but it ignores their brutal trade in slaves and the proliferation of far more consequential institutions of learning in Paris, Oxford and elsewhere in Europe. Some books routinely lionize the architecture of the Aztecs, but purposely overlook or underplay the fact that they practiced human sacrifices. A few textbooks seek to portray Islam as peaceful in part by presenting the concept of "jihad" ("sacred war") to mean an internal struggle to surmount temptation and evil, while playing down Islam's actual wars of religious conquest.

What these textbooks reveal is a concerted effort to portray the most backward, impoverished and murderous cultures as advanced, prosperous and life-enhancing. Multiculturalism's goal is not to teach about other cultures, but to promote--by means of distortions and half-truths--the notion that non-Western cultures are as good as, if not better than, Western culture. Far from "broadening" the curriculum, what multiculturalism seeks is to diminish the value of Western culture in the minds of students. But, given all the facts, the objective superiority of Western culture is apparent, so multiculturalists must artificially elevate other cultures and depreciate the West.

If students were to learn the truth of the hardscrabble life of primitive farming in, say, India, they would recognize that subsistence living is far inferior to life on any mechanized farm in Kansas, which demands so little manpower, yet yields so much. An informed, rational student would not swallow the "politically correct" conclusions he is fed by multiculturalism. If he were given the actual facts, he could recognize that where men are politically free, as in the West, they can prosper economically; that science and technology are superior to superstition; that man's life is far longer, happier and safer in the West today than in any other culture in history.

The ideals, achievements and history of Western culture in general--and of America in particular--are therefore purposely given short-shrift by multiculturalism. That the Industrial Revolution and the Information Age were born and flourished in Western nations; that the preponderance of Nobel prizes in science have been awarded to people in the West--such facts, if they are noted, are passed over with little elaboration.

The "history" that students do learn is rewritten to fit multiculturalism's agenda. Consider the birth of the United States. Some texts would have children believe the baseless claim that America's Founders modeled the Constitution on a confederation of Indian tribes. This is part of a wider drive to portray the United States as a product of the "convergence" of three traditions--native Indian, African and European. But the American republic, with an elected government limited by individual rights, was born not of stone-age peoples, but primarily of the European Enlightenment. It is a product of the ideas of thinkers like John Locke, a British philosopher, and his intellectual heirs in colonial America, such as Thomas Jefferson.

It is a gross misconception to view multiculturalism as an effort to enrich education. By reshaping the curriculum, the purveyors of "diversity" in the classroom calculatedly seek to prevent students from grasping the objective value to human life of Western culture--a culture whose magnificent achievements have brought man from mud huts to moon landings.

Multiculturalism is no boon to education, but an agent of anti-Western ideology.

Elan Journo is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute http://www.aynrand.org/ in Irvine, Calif.

[Tolthar Lockbar]

Canada freedom party talks on something similar

[musashi]

The State of California requires all teachers to take a full semester of multicultural indoctrination (brain-washing) as a pre-requisite for entry into any teaching credential program (primary and secondary).

It was a really difficult experience for me. At best the whole approach focuses all its attention on only the contributions to the subject matter made by other cultures. So each culture and protected class must get its day in the sun (of course that didn’t happen in my class my teacher was black, so his bias was 90% black). Preserving the cultural balance was the key objective. Forget about the subject, let’s just talk about each race, gender, religious or sexual orientation’s contribution to the subject.

I was credentialed to teach Chemistry. It was hard to find the contributions of Lesbian Latinas to Chemistry. That was the type of expectations the multiculturalism class and school system had for my lesson planning.

At some level connecting with the identity of the students must have value. But Multiculturalism makes this connection the sole focus, forget about the actual content. I’m happy not to be a teacher any more.

[Tolthar Lockbar]

Yeah, this is why Brandon Cropper is one of my heros. He has really taken the book, "The Fountainhead", to heard in his career. Basically he dropped out of teaching school because he thought it was crap, and is opening his own secular private school. He says that if a child is intelligent and taught well, that they will also become socially skilled and happy. Schools now days seem to have it backwards--they try to teach a kid to be socially good and think that that will somehow make them smart.

Anyways, he actually hasn't started his first semester yet but plans to soon. His site is at http://www.cropperlyceum.com/.

[Emizzon]

o.O;

Dunno what to say... heh. History's written by the winners, but we haven't really won anything in a while, so I guess the historians are getting bored.

[Tolthar Lockbar]

Thats an evil statement. I won't take the time to say why, but instead, someone has already said that to cropper and he already defended his school about this.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FSGm3PTqEKE& ... ed&search=

If you don't want to watch the entire series, I think he starts talking about it in video one around 5:30 into it.

[musashi]

You’d mention Mr. Copper in-game a awhile back Tolthar. I’ve been playing him in the background, during my writing sessions for the last few weeks. I’ve also been playing some of the people that respond to his posts.

Mr. Cropper is certainly more prepared than his detractors. Copper has some keen perspectives on issues, perspectives that I hadn’t considered before watching him. Can’t say I agree totally, but there is very little that I agree totally with. If you like Mr. Copper you might also like Mr. Diety, funny stuff I will post a link.

[Oleksandr]

Can’t say I agree totally, but there is very little that I agree totally with. If you like Mr. Cropper you might also like Mr. Diety, funny stuff I will post a link.

What do you disagree with, Musashi?

Also, I don't think Horvay watches cropperb, because it's funny.

[musashi]

Can’t say I agree totally, but there is very little that I agree totally with. If you like Mr. Copper you might also like Mr. Diety, funny stuff I will post a link.

What do you disagree with, Musashi?

I listened to his post on foreign oil, and didn’t agree with most of it. His thesis was that oil had no value or use to the primitive cultures that held sovereignty to the lands where oil was found. And since these primitives had no use for it, or capability to exploit it, that the oil reserves could be taken by outside interests who had the need and capability.

I can’t get to common ground with Mr. Copper on this one. Agreed that primitives controlled this unusable resource, but I don’t understand how ignorance or incapacity nullifies property owners’ mineral rights.

Now if Mr. Copper destroyed euthanized every person, then I could understand the argument from a manifest destiny perspective. At least this way he could say yes, these primitives owned a resource, and yeah we killed them all and took it. The resource is ours now. Might makes right. Of course this logic blows up on a human rights perspective.

[Oleksandr]

I listened to his post on foreign oil, and didn’t agree with most of it. His thesis was that oil had no value or use to the primitive cultures that held sovereignty to the lands where oil was found. And since these primitives had no use for it, or capability to exploit it, that the oil reserves could be taken by outside interests who had the need and capability.

I can’t get to common ground with Mr. Copper on this one. Agreed that primitives controlled this unusable resource, but I don’t understand how ignorance or incapacity nullifies property owners’ mineral rights.

Hold on a second. How did the primitives own the oil?
Is there an example of some primitives owning the oil field? Especially under ground?
Or are you saying that their government owned the land?

[musashi]

Yes I am saying that those indigenous people and their government owned the lands they occupied, at least they had a greater claim than any colonizer. And by extension the primitives owned the rights associated with the land, things like mineral rights, water rights, and internationally recognized air & ocean boundaries. At least they owned these rights until the land was taken by force by someone else (I bet that statement will start some conversations).

Suppose we should introduce a specific example, how about Venezuela (I hate Hugo Chavez). It existed as a country long before the discovery of oil. Multinational companies discovered and developed the oil reserve, but this investment did not assign the mineral rights to these companies.

Here’s the raw deal. In this instance Venezuela did sell the oil rights. The payment was embezzled by some despot. Then Venezuela had a change in government and promptly retracted the rights, and nationalized the oil production assets in country. All of that I CAN NOT abide with.

I don’t think a country should be able to sell their mineral rights, lease yes. To divide these rights indicates some form a dual sovereignty, and more than that some higher government to resolve disputes.

Second If I am an investor in a foreign land, the risk based on instability within that foreign land is a part of my business plan. You can have a deal with the current government, but you can’t expect with total certainty that the foreign government will remain. Instability remains a risk.

Legal jurisdiction is typically tied with the physical property in question. There really is no international court with sufficient controls to enforce abridged contracts like this. Oh sure the parent country of the multinational can seek sanctions, but the sanctions are easily subverted, and in the end a nation is only as reliable as its national legal system requires it to be - see China.

Last Venezuela has no right to the oil infrastructure they nationalized, but the companies had no fall back plan to protect the assets or destroy them. Venezuela stole the assets, and yet world governments look the other way and continue to buy the oil.

All of this rotten stuff doesn’t change my opinion that the oil reserves under Venezuelan soil belong to the Venezuelan people, and to their currently functioning government. As corrupt and oppressive as the government actually is.

I listened to his post on foreign oil, and didn’t agree with most of it. His thesis was that oil had no value or use to the primitive cultures that held sovereignty to the lands where oil was found. And since these primitives had no use for it, or capability to exploit it, that the oil reserves could be taken by outside interests who had the need and capability.

I can’t get to common ground with Mr. Copper on this one. Agreed that primitives controlled this unusable resource, but I don’t understand how ignorance or incapacity nullifies property owners’ mineral rights.

Hold on a second. How did the primitives own the oil?
Is there an example of some primitives owning the oil field? Especially under ground?
Or are you saying that their government owned the land?

[Tolthar Lockbar]

I don't think it has anything to do with government. It has to do with property and open immigration and, in the end, individual rights. You seem to be saying that even if a government is communistic then we must abide by their rules.

So instead we should discuss individual rights.

An explorer can't go around the world and find an entire continent and claim the entire thing his. He has to actually use it. Force does not imply ownership. If I thief steels my money, he does not own that money, he is merely spending my money.

So we know that the government of these nationalizing countries should not of taken the stuff by force. So now the question is, who protects it?

America does not protect their property, it is supposed to protect American property. The police don't protect my house because the government owns the house, they protect it because they protect my rights. So I don't see why it would make a different where the American is.

Its not a matter of Government property, its a matter protecting individual's property rights. And the responsibility of American peoples' rights is the American Governments domain.

So lets murder the leader of Venezuela who took that property!

[musashi]

I don't think it has anything to do with government. It has to do with property and open immigration and, in the end, individual rights. You seem to be saying that even if a government is communistic then we must abide by their rules.

This is a great conversation; it has had me thinking for days.

Yes I am saying the within a communist country we must abide by their screwed up rules. At least until the economic and political system collapses under its own mass. Or the government is deposed. While a government (or even a person) exists, I believe we have to recognize their right to exist.

Getting back to the oil, you have oil on your property and for your own reasons you decide not to exploit that resource (let’s assume you have the mineral rights). I don’t think I have the right to set up shop on your property and take that oil. It is your oil as long as you control your property.

[Tolthar Lockbar]

What about the Native Tribes that lived in North America before the colonies got here? They would have about 100 people roam about 100 square miles hunting and gathering. Does that mean we should steer clear of those 100 square miles? That that land should just be wasted like that? Even if they refuse technology (like many did)?

[musashi]

What about the Native Tribes that lived in North America before the colonies got here? They would have about 100 people roam about 100 square miles hunting and gathering. Does that mean we should steer clear of those 100 square miles? That the land should just be wasted like that? Even if they refuse technology (like many did)?

I had that question covered. The Native Americans were deposed, the European settlers killed most of them. And took the land and all the rights associated with the land. It is not a very cool thing, but that is how they do it in the big leagues.

So when Mr. Cropper says the Arabs had no use for oil, and no technical capacity to exploit the oil therefore anyone should be able to come take the oil – I don’t agree. You either have to respect the rights of the current government and inhabitants (trade), or you have to subjugate them (aggression).

I am listening to a great set of history lectures right now (at your suggestion Tolthar) the Teaching Company produced it, “Must history repeat the great conflicts of this century?” taught by Joseph S. Nye, Jr. PhD. Harvard University. I am enjoying the lectures. He relates some great points about international politics.

One of his points is that international politics is a “self help” affair, and that countries with greater capacities can help themselves to more. He asserted a point that countries can really only expand by either aggression or through trade – thought provoking stuff. As I reflect on my limited experience with world history I have a hard time refuting his assertion.

He goes on to claim that domestic politics can be dramatically different than international politics. I catch myself often reflecting my domestic perspectives into an international context. He’s pointed out some great examples about why that was mistaken thought process on my part.

[Tolthar Lockbar]

I have been thinking about this subject again. I completely agree with Musashi in that they own the land. What they don't own (and still don't) is the concept of oil. They took our tools that America built in their lands but that is not the largest act of thievery on their part. The largest act of theivery that, I believe, we should bomb them to hell for, is stealing the concept of oil.

Like Cropper said, they had black nasty goo. We had a concept that turned that goo into something that puts a country into a world power. They tool our efforts and are profiting off of it by steeling the concept of oil.

We did take their goo and turn it into oil for ourselves because they let us do it. Then they said, "oh hey, thats worth something, I want it" and they took it back, and everything that belong to us... by force. They stole the concept of oil, the process of making it, and the equiptment to get there.

So I say again, they do not own that oil. But they do own that annoying black crap. I say bomb them right to where their philosophy will take them: to the stone age.

[Tolthar Lockbar]

Also, if we had any sort of contract that said that the oil refineries owners could have the land, then no matter of government change makes taking the land moral.

[musashi]

We did take their goo and turn it into oil for ourselves because they let us do it. Then they said, "oh hey, that’s worth something, I want it" and they took it back, and everything that belong to us... by force. They stole the concept of oil, the process of making it, and the equipment to get there.

Ahhh, now we are talking about intellectual property. Yep they did all that, and it was a bad thing for the companies that risked their capital. But, did the companies really loose out? For the most part I say no, the companies reaped a return on their investment. Yes it ended badly for the companies. But does their investment authorize a foreign investor to take a resource at below market value from an under-developed country in perpetuity?

Intellectual property is a hot topic these days. In the USA you receive a 20 year license (from date of filing) on your patent. Then the technology becomes public domain. In China you get one day. In our oil example I’d think that 99% of the technology the investors brought in was in the public domain.

Tolthar are you making the case that the license for IP should be perpetual?

[Oleksandr]

Who owns the land in those places?

I completely disagree that they own the land.

The government is the only place that is allowed to own anything there. And that's not private property. It's bunch of gangs claiming "ownership". But this is not a way to own anything.

Also, no government can own the land. Nor can any nation own the land their country takes up.

There is no such thing as a collective ownership.

[musashi]

Also, no government can own the land. Nor can any nation own the land their country takes up.

This opens the question, if a government does not have title to the land within its borders, then who does hold title?

I own property. The rights to my property are defined by federal, state and local laws (defined by the government). I purchased the property from a previous owner, and they from yet an earlier owner, but it is the government that established the system for property ownership. It seems to me that the only way someone can own property is through government sanction.

Aboriginal people have simplistic forms of government. And even though these simple states might under utilize the land that they dwell upon, they own their land by virtue of their existence. They own it until they willingly disband their union, or the government is crushed.