In this category, we’ve seen some examples of Bad History, and considered a few characteristics of poor historical narrative construction: incorrect implication vectors, omission of contrary facts, facts that are simply incorrect. We’ve looked at an extended case study of the manner in which a simplistic prevailing narrative can differ sharply from a more thoroughly considered one. We’ve observed that poor historical narrative, when used in education, can be used to develop a “repudiation of inheritance and home” – what can be done to forestall this in USA version 2?
In Scruton’s paper discussed in the introduction to this category, he lays out a number of strategies for doing this, principally:
- Don’t be afraid of educational discussions of right and wrong. Much of oikophobia is predicated on the postmodernism-inspired refusal to discuss morality except in the context of “opinion” (and then mostly the opinions of others). Remember that true tolerance is not “everything goes and nothing matters” but rather “putting up with that of which one disapproves, to avoid civil conflict.”
- Insist on an education that includes traditional subjects such as philosophy, artistic and literary criticism and thorough, accurate history. These have always been hostile to “the stereotype, the ‘stock response,’ the foregone conclusion.” These are intended to “teach young people to see the detail and complexity of human life, to exchange their simple falsehoods for complicated truths, and to respond to the human world as it really is, without sentimentality.”
None of this, I suspect, can be structured into USA version 2, but rather will need to be a point at which parents will need to be more vigilant than, frankly, we were. Be aware of educational trends that are subverting your children’s natural love for their home culture. This is not to say that education must be jingoistic head-in-the-sand boosterism, but when all historical revisions cut in the same downward direction and motives/thoughts are routinely ascribed to our ancestors that they never (or rarely) expressed, begin to push back!
As another data point in this same discussion, I will mention the demographer and geographer Joel Kotkin’s article entitled “The New Dark Ages.” He sounds some of the same themes as Scruton, but with less of an academic bent (his piece is in Spiked, not the Journal of Education), more breadth (he is concerned with the entire West, not just the US) and more recency and urgency (his piece is 2021, not 1993). Perhaps even more tellingly, Kotkin (at least when last I saw him address this) does not consider himself a conservative, but a Democrat. As time goes on, this becomes more and more a bipartisan problem. Kotkin’s recommendations are much the same as Scruton’s: restore the classical canon to education.
One final cautionary note: the political Left (as exemplified in this category – see here for what I mean by political “left”) routinely argues in bad faith, attempting to redefine language and rewrite history in order to gain power in the present – “the primary purpose of language – which is to describe reality – is replaced by the rival purpose of asserting power over it” (Scruton again). To tell the truth to them under such circumstances is fraught with peril (see here for an excellent discussion with many examples) and requires tremendous personal courage (note that I am anonymous). However, the people to whom you are speaking about these things may not themselves be arguing in bad faith, they may simply be people who have been captured by the narrative of the progressive nihilists who are. Speak the truth, but be kind. It’s difficult, especially since it’s nearly impossible to separate the deceived from the deceivers, but is necessary if civil discourse is to return to our society.
Postscript: after writing this series of essays, I read Bill McClay’s Land of Hope, a single-volume general history of the United States. I had heard that it was excellent, and those reports understated the facts – I can’t recommend the book highly enough as an antidote to the oikophobia-inducing version(s) of American history that are all too common now. Buy it, read it, then give it to a young person (or better yet, lend it to a succession of young people).
Further Postscript: also after writing this series, I ran across a Richard Fernandez post that I had somehow missed back in 2015. He describes the common thread of oikophobia in both Gramscian (neo-Marxist) and Islamist conversion/radicalization techniques: “They were purposely drained of God, country, family like chickens so they could be stuffed with the latest narrative of the progressive meme machine. The Gramscian idea was to produce a blank slate upon which the Marxist narrative could be written. Too bad for the Gramscians that the Islamists are beating them to the empty sheets of paper. And they are better at it too.” Read the whole thing.