Totalitarian states, and our own Marxist higher education authorities, find that students are receptive to propaganda when they forget who they are. Men will believe nearly anything about themselves and others if they do not know who their parents were, what they believed, how they lived, what was important to them, who their friends were, and who meant them harm. It is with good reason that oppressive regimes take over the schools, control the media, and harass the intelligentsia.
Since the 1960s, American students have been groomed to forget about our history and instead learn a morality tale based on the educators’ preferred winners and losers . In school we learn a great deal about evils associated with slavery, the Holocaust, and the conquest of the Americas to such an extent that history becomes one long guilt trip. This parade of horribles lacks any context. We learn little about Beethoven, John Locke, Magna Charta, St. Thomas Aquinas, Bartoleme de las Casas, and George Washington, nor do we put our own failings in perspective by learning about the evils of pagan or Islamic societies.
Counterpunch ran an article about the forgotten, recent history of Albanian attempts to expel Serbs from Kosovo throughout the 1980s. While victimization by Albanians does not authorize Serbian counter-oppresion, it does put into perspective Serbian concerns. In his discussion, the author included this excellent quote by Aldous Huxley:
Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects… totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations.
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De las Casas? Really?
He seems like a good guy to me and did a lot to ammeliorate abuses against the Indians in the Americas. Instead we get the “Black Legend.”
Yes, he did, but, come on — de las Casas on par with the titans who created the Western civilization on which American ideals were founded? Or the American who actually saw that those ideas were fulfiled in our independence? Or were you trying to speak to historical ignorance generally and not make the more specific point about the poor education of American students that I thought?
I was just generally listing good things that don’t fit the script. Also, I’m Catholic. You’re lucky I didn’t put up the Syllabus of Errors and Pius X. : )
If you were going to go that far, you should’ve probably just listed Tetzel and the Diet of Worms. But, of course, I’m not your entire audience.
The straightforward solution to the Kosovo crisis would be the re-patriation of the Kosovars to their home country, Albania (yes, all you public school graduates, the Kosovars are actually Albanians!). This would have the beneficial effect of reducing the number of Islamic states in Europe to 1 1/2 (Albania + Bosnia). This would also be a nice precedent for the re-patriation of Muslims from Europe in general, back to the Umma they love so much. The longer the Europeans wait, the tougher it will be.