American Exceptionalism

[billc]

This is a column that links to Professor David Galertner's Op-ed on why Americans need to learn about American Exceptionalism. I link through this site because the Wall street journal wants you to subscribe to get the op-ed. This is the David Galertner, I believe, who was targeted by the left wing Unabomber for murder by explosive device.

In 1993, Gelernter was critically injured opening a mailbomb sent by the Unabomber. He recovered from his injuries but his right hand and eye were permanently damaged.[SUP][5][/SUP]

David Hillel Gelernter (born 1955) is an eminent artist, writer, and professor of computer science at Yale University. He is a former national fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and senior fellow in Jewish thought at the Shalem Center, and sat on the National Endowment for the Arts. He publishes widely in the Wall Street Journal, New York Post, LA Times, Weekly Standard, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and elsewhere. His paintings have been exhibited in New Haven and Manhattan.
His book Mirror Worlds (1991) "prophesied the rise of the World Wide Web."[SUP][1][/SUP] Bill Joy, founder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems, says Gelernter is "one of the most brilliant and visionary computer scientists of our time.”[SUP][1][/SUP] The New York Times called him a computer science "rock star".[SUP][2][/SUP] His latest book, Judaism (2009), is "one of the most original interpretations of Judaism I have ever read" (Michael Novak) and "a new Psalter" (Cynthia Ozick).[SUP][3][/SUP]

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/02/Yale-professor-WSJ-plea-American-exceptionalism

Gelernter starts form the premise that not enough Americans know what their birthright as Americans entails and others know but feel that that the ideas stemming from that birthright are antiquated:
Who are we? What is the United States? Recently Gov. Mitt Romney urged us to return to "the principles that made America, America." But too many of us don't know what those are, or think they can't work.
Starting from the age when ignorance of American ideals is inculcated, Gelernter writes:
Almost no one believes that our public schools are doing a passable job of teaching American and Western civilization. Modern humanities education starts from the bizarre premise that students must be cured of the Europe-centered, misogynist, bigoted ideas of the past. Many American children have never heard a good word for the United States, the West, Judaism or Christianity their whole lives.
Who are we? Dawdling time is over. We have failed a whole generation of children. As of fall 2012, let all public schools be charter schools, competing for each tax dollar and student with every other school in the country.
Gelernter then takes on the issue of using racism to divide us:
We are a nation of equal citizens, not of races or privileged cliques. Affirmative action has always been a misfit in this country. A system that elevates individuals because of the color of their skin, their race or their sex has no place in America. Yet a boy born yesterday is destined to atone (if he happens to be the wrong color) for prejudice against black women 50 years ago. Modern America is a world where a future Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor, can say publicly in 2001, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [on the bench] than a white male who hasn't lived that life.”

 

[elder999]

This is the David Galertner, I believe, who was targeted by the left wing Unabomber for murder by explosive device.

What makes an "anarcho-primitivist" left wing?

I mean, Kaczynski argued against "leftism" in the first pages of his manifesto-or, at least, argued against his understanding of what "leftism" is. More to the point, though, Kaczynski is a Luddite, the very definition of a social conservativism, and resistance to social change-right wing-in other words....

 

[elder999]

What makes an "anarcho-primitivist" left wing?

Kaczynski is a Luddite, the very definition of a social conservativism, and resistance to social change-right wing-in other words....

 

[granfire]

What, no pancake bunny?

 

[geezer]

I'm more inclined towards "Elder Exceptionalism". Still, I don't get the whole cricket thing. Is it a reference to some of the empty political chatter here and on the media? 'Cause personally I enjoy the soothing chorus of crickets on a summer evening. No so much the other.