Should there be limits on what teachers can teach?

[shesulsa]

Interesting, cuz I'm not itchy in the least.

Again, I do not support all that he says. The core of his argument has already been emphasized here and, if it is that easy to ignore the fact that our government set us up for this kind of tragedy, then the presidentail doghouse is quite full apparently, though I would not know.

To react to the more simplistic elements of this man's speech can be appropriate. I would never dream of saying nor subscribing to the idea that people that sacrificed their lives that fateful day deserved what they got. However, surely even the most, erm, canine of us can admit that 9/11 was a wake-up call and the agencies that allowed these men to remain in our country were slack and we, as an American people, need to be aware of our failings and the failings of our government. And since our government is *cough* of the people *spit*, *ahem* by the people *cough cough* and *sputter* for the people **********, we the people are partly accountable in failing to recognize and respond to internal threats, no?

How is thrashing one unpopular, cowardly, misguided misfit going to fix the problems that led to 9/11? How is firing him going to get us to question how INS operations allowed these men to stay and who is accountable for that? How is squashing rude, noisy opinion by the educational circuit going to keep it from happening again?

 

[rmcrobertson]

Ah. Well, now we're reaching a point of clarity.

If you teach something that the good townsfolk of Salem find discomforting, it's absolutely unacceptable. Apparently the Constitution does not protect (and neither does the vague principle of academic freedom) a speaker or teacher's interest in articulating ideas that disturb the Way Things Are--oh wait, I forgot, that's exactly what the Constitution and academic freedom are there for. To make it possible--not necessarily safe, nor comfortable, just possible--for teachers and students to discuss unhappy ideas and realities.

Incidentally, academic freedom is written into the Education Code out here in California, but I feel sure that minor issue will be written off as just another of those wacky things liberals do. After all, there are all those sad stories about the ACLU presenting the Bill of Rights as a petition every July 4th, and a majority of respondents either not recognizing it, or demanding to know why somebody's circulating an un-American petition.

Perhaps more to the point, the interesting thing is that apparently teachers teaching uncomfortable issues in a classroom is immediately to be equated with terrorism and child molestation--but a magazine that has lots of little ads selling the trinkets of violence, pandering to boys' fascination with things that go boom, and offering 'thought pieces,' that glorify violence, deny the reality of moral responsibility, and present a picture of reality that in its distortion of the world and legitimation of violence is not to be equalled outside the pages of survivalist sf novels like "The Wingman," well, hey, no problem whatsoever.

I'd be curious as to whether any of you folks have ever read the following:

1. "Lysistrata...." ancient Greek play; women go on a sex strike to stop men's wars.
2. "Oedipus Rex," Greek play...."He was a good boy/he loved his mother."
3. Petronius, "The Satyricon." Wall-to-wall hermaphrodites and orgies.
4. The Old Testament....don't ask.
5. Juvenal, "Satires." Roman emperors and boys.
6. Plato, "Symposium." Socrates, drunk philosophers, the nature of love, and cute young Alcibiades.
7. Chaucer, "The Miller's Tale." "I never knew a woman had a beard...," and let's not even discuss, "The Prioress' Tale."
8. Boccacio, "The Decameron." Sex and the Black Death.
9. William Shakespeare, "As You Like It," (cross-dressing!), "Romeo and Juliet" (gang violence, pre-marital sex, teen suicide), or "King Lear" (find out what the phrase, "That dark and vicious place in which thee he got/Cost him his eyes") means...
10. And then let's not even get into "Confessions of an English Opium Eater," Twain's "Huck Finn" (let alone Leslie Fiedler's hilarious essay, "Come Back to the Raft Ag'in, Huck Honey"), Oscar Wilde's whole life, Henry Miller's books, Hemingway's radical college professor in "For Whom the Bell Tolls," running off to Spain to fight with the Communists....

And oh whoops, I left out "Spoon River Anthology," and its "Dulce et decorum est," James Jones' "The Thin Red Line," Tim O'Brien's, "The Things They Carried," all of which fall short of the flag-waving glorification of stupidity in war that is apparently now de rigeur.

All of which I mention because there's a lot of hooey written on these forums about separating the clean, good tradition of Western culture from the filthy, dirty products of sick liberal minds. That way, the fantasy goes, we can just teach the clean and vilify the dirty.

What a load. Only people who don't know jack about the very tradition and culture--and I deliberately picked a list of stuff by Dead White Guys, books that're on everybody's list of Great Books--could possibly argue that.

So I'd be fascinated to know--how exactly do y'all propose organizing and teaching this squeaky-clean, sanitized-for-your-protection canon? Where do you plan to get it from? Mars?

Or is it that you've simply bought the current politically-correct Party Line: teachers should only be giving kids information on A Useful Profession or How To Get A Job and Be An Ant?

 

[kenpo tiger]

Ah. Well, now we're reaching a point of clarity.

If you teach something that the good townsfolk of Salem find discomforting, it's absolutely unacceptable. Apparently the Constitution does not protect (and neither does the vague principle of academic freedom) a speaker or teacher's interest in articulating ideas that disturb the Way Things Are--oh wait, I forgot, that's exactly what the Constitution and academic freedom are there for. To make it possible--not necessarily safe, nor comfortable, just possible--for teachers and students to discuss unhappy ideas and realities.

Incidentally, academic freedom is written into the Education Code out here in California, but I feel sure that minor issue will be written off as just another of those wacky things liberals do. After all, there are all those sad stories about the ACLU presenting the Bill of Rights as a petition every July 4th, and a majority of respondents either not recognizing it, or demanding to know why somebody's circulating an un-American petition.

Perhaps more to the point, the interesting thing is that apparently teachers teaching uncomfortable issues in a classroom is immediately to be equated with terrorism and child molestation--but a magazine that has lots of little ads selling the trinkets of violence, pandering to boys' fascination with things that go boom, and offering 'thought pieces,' that glorify violence, deny the reality of moral responsibility, and present a picture of reality that in its distortion of the world and legitimation of violence is not to be equalled outside the pages of survivalist sf novels like "The Wingman," well, hey, no problem whatsoever.

I'd be curious as to whether any of you folks have ever read the following:

1. "Lysistrata...." ancient Greek play; women go on a sex strike to stop men's wars.
2. "Oedipus Rex," Greek play...."He was a good boy/he loved his mother."
3. Petronius, "The Satyricon." Wall-to-wall hermaphrodites and orgies.
4. The Old Testament....don't ask.
5. Juvenal, "Satires." Roman emperors and boys.
6. Plato, "Symposium." Socrates, drunk philosophers, the nature of love, and cute young Alcibiades.
7. Chaucer, "The Miller's Tale." "I never knew a woman had a beard...," and let's not even discuss, "The Prioress' Tale."
8. Boccacio, "The Decameron." Sex and the Black Death.
9. William Shakespeare, "As You Like It," (cross-dressing!), "Romeo and Juliet" (gang violence, pre-marital sex, teen suicide), or "King Lear" (find out what the phrase, "That dark and vicious place in which thee he got/Cost him his eyes") means...
10. And then let's not even get into "Confessions of an English Opium Eater," Twain's "Huck Finn" (let alone Leslie Fiedler's hilarious essay, "Come Back to the Raft Ag'in, Huck Honey"), Oscar Wilde's whole life, Henry Miller's books, Hemingway's radical college professor in "For Whom the Bell Tolls," running off to Spain to fight with the Communists....

And oh whoops, I left out "Spoon River Anthology," and its "Dulce et decorum est," James Jones' "The Thin Red Line," Tim O'Brien's, "The Things They Carried," all of which fall short of the flag-waving glorification of stupidity in war that is apparently now de rigeur.

All of which I mention because there's a lot of hooey written on these forums about separating the clean, good tradition of Western culture from the filthy, dirty products of sick liberal minds. That way, the fantasy goes, we can just teach the clean and vilify the dirty.

What a load. Only people who don't know jack about the very tradition and culture--and I deliberately picked a list of stuff by Dead White Guys, books that're on everybody's list of Great Books--could possibly argue that.

So I'd be fascinated to know--how exactly do y'all propose organizing and teaching this squeaky-clean, sanitized-for-your-protection canon? Where do you plan to get it from? Mars?

Or is it that you've simply bought the current politically-correct Party Line: teachers should only be giving kids information on A Useful Profession or How To Get A Job and Be An Ant?

1,2,3,4,6,7,9,and 10, to be exact. Some in junior high, some in high school, some in college.

I must've grown up in a real anti-establishment place, huh. Like suburbia. Gone to a good school? Yep -- public.

Can't paint everywhere with the same brush. However, Robert, our generation (yes, yours and mine, although I'm your chronological senior by a year or two *chuckles*) was exposed to much more because there weren't the vigilantes of properness breathing down our teacher's backs.

I certainly hope you remember how lucky you were to have read all of the above and I also certainly hope your teaching style reflects same.

Oh yes. You left out Oscar Wilde, and my guy Chuck [Darwin]...

 

[rmcrobertson]

Sorry, Wilde's in there....

But I actually simply took pretty much the list from the "Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces," that I recently used as a class text, sticking to white guys who're considered essential to the Western canon (a book list, a set of reading methods, some notions about the social use and moral teachings of literature) that the, "liberals are destroying the precious bodily fluids of our youth," boyos would pretty much have to agree are mainstream.

Unless, of course, they actually turn out to be fundamentally opposed to the philosophical and moral traditions they claim to be defending...which, I suspect, is the problem right there.

 

[Phil Elmore]

How thoroughly unsurprising.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Ah, the old, "I am too superior to engage in discussion of the issue," tactic! Always good to see the antiques trotted out.

Just incidentally, there are all sorts of ways for Churchill's college and administration and groups like the AAUP to deal with his arguments and ways of expressing them without the hooraw from people who obviously haven't troubled themselves to do the slightest research on the topic.

Personally, the hooraw and the sleazy remarks from the hoorawers is beginning to convince me that this is just another right-wing, politically-correct witch-hunt from guys who want everyone else suppressed so they can sell more stuff.

 

[Makalakumu]

By the same token, it does not take a genius to recognize that advocating the destruction of the very nation of which one's students are citizens while proclaiming that those mass-murdered by cowardly terrorist attacks deserved what happened to them are neither viable nor acceptable subjects that a student must study for the betterment of the mind.

This is not a freedom of speech issue and it is not an academic freedom issue -- any more than shouting "Fire!" or perhaps "Let's go murder some people!" in a crowded theater or classroom would be protected by said freedoms.

All those lining up to defend Ward Churchill (while paying lipservice to his right to "free speech") have outed themselves as no better than the aforementioned child molesters, terrorists, and mass-murdering thugs. As the old saying goes, when you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

As someone who regularly influences the young mind of our youth, I'm reminded constantly by administrative folks how political hot button issues should be avoided, lest some irate parents call and complain, or heaven forbid, take it to the school board.

My principal put it rather succinctly, "Teachers have tenure. Administrators do not. When parents complain and the school board listens, we get fired. Therefore, what choice do we have other then to reign in our teachers..."

Idealistically, I found the above discussion repugnant. The free flow of ideas should be more important then any silly job, (realistically, I know that doesn't put food on the table, but wtf). Nor does it deal with the realities of the materialistic culture that we have created. Things have become more then words and we have become fat and lazy with our riches.

With the above in mind, I would like to state that I would put my career on the line if someone told me not to teach evolution. I would put my career on the line if someone handed me a list of "approved" topics. Yet, I think that there is a line and Mr. Churchill crossed it.

Yes, I know what his underlying message was and I may agree with parts, but expressing it by saying what he did is like me going in front of my class and expressing my dislike of President Bush's environmental policies by saying, "we should kill the son of a ***** for cutting down all of the trees."

Academic freedom is one thing, irresponsibility is another. Mr. Churchill's comments were an abuse of academic freedom in my opinion. What does society do about it? I don't know. The slippery slope, as has been correctly pointed out, is letting the catagory of who is abusing academic freedom get overly broad.

 

[Adept]

Robert, I'm sensing a lot of vitriol. What exactly is your point? I'm sure it's in there, but it must be carefully concealed.

Do you simply disagree with limiting the subjects available for discussion when teaching?

 

[kenpo tiger]

Sorry, Wilde's in there....

But I actually simply took pretty much the list from the "Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces," that I recently used as a class text, sticking to white guys who're considered essential to the Western canon (a book list, a set of reading methods, some notions about the social use and moral teachings of literature) that the, "liberals are destroying the precious bodily fluids of our youth," boyos would pretty much have to agree are mainstream.

Unless, of course, they actually turn out to be fundamentally opposed to the philosophical and moral traditions they claim to be defending...which, I suspect, is the problem right there.

And, upon re-reading the post (for probably the fourth time or so since it's rife with possibilities...), yes, you do mention him -- 'his whole life'. I was looking for a specific citation and got caught up in the --- anyway,

I agree that the concept of academic freedom is what is important here. And yes, there are too many nay-sayers who wish to *sanitize* what is taught (read: conform it to their way of thinking.) However, as with anything good and right, there need be parameters within which *one* operates. Academia seems to have some of the widest, but they should be observed, not abused and used to obfuscate.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Well, citing, "vitriol," (because one just knows that those liberals are prone to hysteria...) is easier than discussing the issues.

Let me try to be more explicit:

1. I'm in favor of academic freedom.

2. I support the Bill of Rights.

3. I dislike the idea that well-paid talk show hosts should decide who's a good American. I also dislike the fact that these entertainers are often confused with intellectuals.

4. I am opposed to the glorification and commodification of violence.

5. I wish people who complain about teachers and about what they teach knew something about what they're attacking, or that they would find out about the traditions they're attacking.

6. I dislike the bad manners, abusive discourse and fake morality of guys like Michael Savage.

I realize that such ideas--which I consider pretty pedestrian and obvious--are taken as radical, these days. Sorry. They come out of my having been raised and educated in an older, more-traditional America, unlike the one in which the Almighty Dollar reigneth.

 

[Adept]

1. I'm in favor of academic freedom.

Yet I'm sure you realise that some boundaries must be in place.

2. I support the Bill of Rights.

Not entirely relevant on an international message board.

3. I dislike the idea that well-paid talk show hosts should decide who's a good American. I also dislike the fact that these entertainers are often confused with intellectuals.

Everyone decides for themselves who is a good American, and who is not.

4. I am opposed to the glorification and commodification of violence.

How do you percieve violence to be glorified?

5. I wish people who complain about teachers and about what they teach knew something about what they're attacking, or that they would find out about the traditions they're attacking.

Agreed.

6. I dislike the bad manners, abusive discourse and fake morality of guys like Michael Savage.

I also agree. While I don't know who Michael Savage is, not being an American and trying my hardest to keep out of political news in general, I can only assume he is the rights answer to Michael Moore?

Sorry. They come out of my having been raised and educated in an older, more-traditional America, unlike the one in which the Almighty Dollar reigneth.

Oh yes, the 'good old days'.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Gosh, you mean that freedom is not licence? "Tis meet I write that down...oops, "Hamlet," and then there's that whole, "Lay my head in your lap," to which the response is, "Do you mean country matters?" thing, just One More Sign Of The Way Professors Are Corrupting Our Youth.

Again, part of my point would be that right-wing talk-show hosts from G. Gordon Liddy through Tom Leykis all the way to Michael Savage, as well as TV preachers like Robertson and Falwell, as well as university Presidents like Bob Jones, say and write things every week that are far, far worse--and more inciting of violence--that anything Ward Churchill's on record as having said or written.

And part of my point, too, would be that the very people most hot to bay after professors for what they teach seem to be those most very ignorant of the tradition they claim to be supporting.

Hey, I went out and bought (Barnes and Noble, remaindered at 4.99 today) what so far looks like an intelligent, thoughtful book by Patrick Brantlinger titled, "Who Killed Shakespeare: What's Happened to English Since the Radical Sixties."

Anybody out there who's been demanding that them liberal professors be silenced who plans to read the book so they'll have a decent clue as to what they're talking about?

Oh well. I know you're busy picking out a new tactical folder, and it is a whole 201 pages long...

For the other pointy-head intellectuals--I was thinking of Wilde's, "Ballad of Reading Gaol," his, "Picture of Dorian Grey," and--just to be perverse--his, "The Selfish Giant."

Then there was Joanna Russ' great short story about Wilde's being offered the choice of Achilles by Satan, which I read in "Fantasy and Science Fiction," back when I was a kid..."Oscar Wilde, poet, dead at forty-four, broke the board over his knee..."

 

[kenpo tiger]

Adept in[/b] bold
How do you percieve violence to be glorified?

Seen any *good* movies lately? Read the newspapers? Watch the news on television?

There are junior high and high schools in this country which have metal detectors at the entrances along with armed guards for the students' (and teachers') protection. These exist in part due to the glorification of violence in all the media mentioned above, together with cartoons (have you seen YuGiOh and the new genre of cartoon lately?)

Teachers can't teach to the best of their ability in such an environment.


Oh yes, the 'good old days'.

I've got to agree with Robert again. As he and I are of an age, I can relate to what [I think] he's saying. We were each given a classical (if you will) education -- the three Rs -- in spite of growing up in different places. Because of political correctness these days, teachers are hamstrung as to what they can and can't say or do in the classroom, and discipline isn't as stringent as it once was. I'm not in any way calling for the reintroduction of corporal punishment -- I don't believe in it -- but I do think that suspension and expulsion from school should be given *teeth* again to avoid having some kid decide to go Columbine on his school AND to restore a little respect for teachers and learning.

Maybe then Conservative demagogues wouldn't have as much impact on the profession.

 

[Adept]

Seen any *good* movies lately? Read the newspapers? Watch the news on television?

Well, in most action movies I don't see violence as glorified. I see the determination to do violence, for whatever reason, as being glorified. Things like self defense, the defense of others, devotion to a cause, etc. It's not so much 'shooting people is cool' as 'protecting your family from jamaican voodoo drug lords is cool'.

I've got to agree with Robert again. As he and I are of an age, I can relate to what [I think] he's saying. We were each given a classical (if you will) education -- the three Rs -- in spite of growing up in different places. Because of political correctness these days, teachers are hamstrung as to what they can and can't say or do in the classroom, and discipline isn't as stringent as it once was.

I got the impression that Robert was referring more to society as a whole, rather than just education.

"an older, more-traditional America, unlike the one in which the Almighty Dollar reigneth."

I find much wrong with such an implication.

 

[ginshun]

The arguments here for "Academic Freedom" seem pretty circular to me. Everyone seems to agree that there is a point somewhere that should not be crossed, but it all comes back to the teachers themselves are the only ones who should be able to decide what those limits are. What it comes down to is that you saying that a teacher has absolute power over what is taught in his / her classroom. That I just can't agree with.

I don't have kids in school yet, but basically what you are telling me is that once I do, I should't have any say in what they are taught. Sure, I can pull them out of the school, but according to some here, that means that I would somehow be harming their academic developement.

I don't think that the teachers should all teach a single goverment produced and regulated cirriculum either, but there has to be some middle ground, and some way that it doesn't have to lead to one extreme or the other.

I will admit that I haven't read many of the books on that list, but I also fail to see how that somehow makes my opinions inferior to yours, as is obviously implied. I am sure that without reading them (and doing a bunch of other stuff) I couldn't do your job, but I doubt that you could do mine either.

And as far as all the talkshow hosts go, I don't put much stock in any of them, but I do listen in on occasion, and I have yet to here any of them say anything that offends me as much as the things that Ward Churchill said (or wrote as the case may be). Thats only my opinion though.

 

[loki09789]

This question has been spawned from the Ward Churchill debate in the other thread. The question just seems to keep popping into my head, and I thought it was a little out of the scope of the other thread.

Should anything a teacher says in his/her classroom be up for debate, or can they say anything they please?

Is there a limit, or a line that should not be crossed? Should public opinion have any say in it?

What is the purpose of the class? Is it to use debate to deepen student understanding of the curriculum? Is it a platform for a teacher's personal views to be presented on students?

Personally, as a teacher, I say yes there should be limits. Limits of propriety, of topic, of language use (if we don't want them to swear and talk about 'pimpin' in the classroom we should set the example), of the amount of time a teacher devotes to certain topics/tactics of teaching ..... Teachers are not in the room to serve their own agendas. Teachers are in the room to teach the curriculum within the mission and philosophy of the district - to include some 'citizenship/character' education by the way teachers set up class management rules and how they enforce them regardless of the content area. No class runs well without a good 'classroom culture' as the teacher speak goes. I think that as professionals, the burden is on us to either know (or ask where the boundaries are if we aren't sure) based on the district philosophy and mission.

Do we just throw out things like "Sentry take outs and Quick Kills in 3 easy steps" for children's classes?

We can put our own signature style on that with interpretation and expression, but there are and should be limits.

 

[kenpo tiger]

Well, in most action movies I don't see violence as glorified. I see the determination to do violence, for whatever reason, as being glorified. Things like self defense, the defense of others, devotion to a cause, etc. It's not so much 'shooting people is cool' as 'protecting your family from jamaican voodoo drug lords is cool'.


I got the impression that Robert was referring more to society as a whole, rather than just education.

"an older, more-traditional America, unlike the one in which the Almighty Dollar reigneth."

I find much wrong with such an implication.

That those movies as a genre exist and do well at the box office is indicative of two things to me:
1) maybe thinking people view them as esacpism and entertainment
2) maybe those who take them at face value could be using what's presented as a primer (I'm reading way too many crime novels right now which deal with very violent crimes against the young.)

When I was growing up, the bad guys were the USSR - the Communists of all stripes too. The Cuban Missle crisis was averted by our President -- and we were safe. Just in case, we had air raid drills where we went either under our desks or out into the hallway of the school (would've done lots of good...) Women were burning their bras. The Yippies were preaching on campus. Four students were murdered by the National Guard sent to Kent State by Nixon. A war we probably shouldn't be in.

Today? Nuclear war (a la The Terminator trilogy). Street gang violence (not the Jets and Sharks). A war we probably shouldn't be in. Civil war and genocide in Africa. AIDS. Tsunamis. Global warming.

See the difference? Wasn't about corporate America when we were growing up -- or, if it was, we weren't aware of it. The threats were real, but many of the acts were idealistic and paved the way for you all to have the freedoms you do -- women are a viable part of the workforce and in important positions, equal rights for persons of color has come a long way -- and so on. The difference? Maybe we didn't know better then, but corporate America had seemingly little impact on our daily lives. The media weren't as powerful and did not have a great an influence on our lives as yet.

Teachers stuck to the curriculum and taught us things which made us good citizens and fairly moral people for the most part. Our lives were much simpler.

 

[Flatlander]

KT, is it possible that your take on the difference has more to do with your frame of reference, with respect to your age and experience, as opposed to a real and significant change in the Way Things Are?

 

[Makalakumu]

One of the missing peices of this discussion is the importance and relevance of government mandated standards. I teach in MN and I am required by law to teach certain material. I cannot just do whatever I want. Do people view standards as an abridgement of academic freedom? Some do. Some don't. What do you think?

 

[rmcrobertson]

In the first place, if you go through various forums and threads on martial talk, you will see all sorts of glorifications of violence: advertisements for various cruel little toys for boys, joyful announcements of having found this really kewl way to break a neck, swaggering about fighting prowess and about having hurt some guy last night, hoots about how neato it would be if we just blew up more human beings, and on and on and on. Often, this crap--which is understandable in teenagers, and less and less acceptable in grown-ups--is presented anonymously, or coupled with fundamentalist Protestant ideology (sorry, but I haven't seen a lot of Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Catholic or Epsicopalian ranting about sending unbelievers to hell), with extreme nationalism, with homophobias.

I find this stuff far more offensive than anything a college professor might have said in a public forum, where he was invited to speak because of his controversial views and where the audience had the right to protest, to complain, to ask questions.

As for the changes in American society, the first point I'd make is that the commonest justification for violence on these forums is that Things Have Gotten Worse and This Country Is Going To the (Godless) Dogs. So, guys and gals, that means that folks like me and KT grew up and were educated in a better, more moral, more decent America. It means we know more than you, and are more moral than you--and since that's a ridiculous argument, perhaps you oughta think through the next claim about how much this country has slid downhill.

I took the "Almighty Dollar," from H.L. Mencken, of course, who was pissed about the trend in the 1920s and 1930. So, it's been with us a while. However, things really took off around Reagan's second term, in all sorts of ways. The work-week's longer, real wages have dropped, education is harder for working class people to access, etc. etc., etc.--and to really put the cherry on, anybody who even slightly questions the Way Things Are draws attacks (personal, as well as ideological and intellectual) that I've only read about....because I was a kid when Senator Joe McCarthy was running around loose.

And that's what a lot of this stuff is--McCarthyism. It's red-baiting, or whatever the, "new," terms are. How do I know this? First, because the language is exactly the same. For that matter, it's the same as a century ago, when groups like the AFL were getting called unpatriotic Commies up and down the land.

Second, it's McCarthyism because the hallmark of McCarthyism is ignorance. Just a minor question: how many of you guys actually tracked down exactly what Churchill said before you started yelling about it? Did you look up his writings, his books, his record? Or did you just take a coupla sound bites off the TV, a bit o'this and a bit o'that from O'Reilly or Savage, and launch?

Yeah, that's what I thought. And the fact of the matter is, it doesn't surprise me at all: it's one of the classical intellectual effects and products of advanced capitalism, where knowledge is always presented fast, in little bits, divorced from material reality and identified as purified technology of one kind or another.

I'm not surprised either, because this stuff is endemic in the martial arts--always with the latest and the kewlest, always with the short-cuts, always with the divorce of one's technical proficiency from the simplest moral developments, always with the chortling about hurting other people.

It's at that point that you might consider the extent to which Funakoshi's remarks about the point of the arts being the improvement of character, together with Marx's, "The point, however, is not to understand the world, but to change it." But then, these guys are dead, and the books take a long time to read and think about, and anyway Marx killed millions....

You wanna criticize Churchill? Great. Find out what he actually said, and go git 'im. Then, think about this--did it ever occur to you that the REAL criticism is that when college profs say this stuff, it has no effect on reality whatsoever, that it's just more hot air from the privileged, that you're pissed because your society is trying to erase the whole world of literature, the arts, and ideas from your lives, replacing everything with football, the swimsuit issue, and the, "ideas," of shows like "Crossfire?"