The Pursuit for Academic Freedom

Since the first teachers, there has been an understanding of how one should do the job.  In particular, the historian was tasked with making sense of what happened – to put it into perspective or better, allow the student to do so once they were given the facts.  Nothing was considered beyond the historian’s purview.  Like Keats, historians stand silent on a hill in Darien making use of everything available to use to better understand our story and our surroundings.  Everything is relevant.  All things, potentially, can matter.  For a historian, the concept of academic freedom is one of the most sacred components of their job and that which attempts to prevent said freedom is antithetical to the pursuit of knowledge.  Unfortunately, in my career and recently in the news, there have been people who have sought to limit that freedom. 

Several years ago, I sought to teach my students about the various world religions but I’m certainly no expert on all faiths.  Therefore, I planned a week whereby five men of faith from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism visited my classroom to explain their faith in a historical context.  The visits were amazing and even other teachers stopped by to listen.  However, rather quickly, some parents called to complain and express concern about non-Christian men of faith teaching their “children.”  Even the word “children” is on purpose to further express fragility and impressionability.  The parents’ use of the word also infantilizes the student.  I stood firm on my choice of lessons but it was not without some meetings and intense conversations.     

Earlier this semester at by brand-spanking new school, I was chastised by a parent over a Supreme Court case about privacy issues because it centered on a case dealing with two gay men arrested for having sex.  My students, who are seniors, are required to research individual cases and present it to the class based on its constitutionality.  The parent was outraged that I was “teaching” her son sodomy.  When told of the complaint, I was in a state of disbelief, wondering if the mother really thought I was teaching sodomy.  The case is not about sodomy per se but rather about privacy rights and the state’s ability to legislate such activity.  The case by the way, should you want to peruse it yourself, is Bowers v. Hardwick (1986).  The Supreme Court must hear a plethora of things and as a teacher of government, sometimes it behooves me to broach controversial subjects as it relates to how we, as a nation, struggle with our freedom, rights and the consequences thereof.   

This past week, a parent balked at an AP Human Geography textbook that asked the student to consider why Palestinians might choose to become suicide bombers in Israel.  The parent, reacting to one sentence that was a part of an entire section on the Israeli/Palestinian relations, created a ruckus saying that the textbook and, by proxy, the class and the teacher were anti-Jewish and teaching children to sympathize with terrorists.  James Rubenstein, the writer of the textbook in question, was forced to speak up and in a missive to Fox News, said that condemnation of an act does not negate the need or correctness of understanding why it happened.  One of the reasons that so much effort went into capturing the Boston bomber alive was to understand what happened, why and how extensive the plot went.  One cannot do that without asking questions to better understand the motives.  It does not justify the act and it certainly does not suggest a moral equivalence between the terrorist act and the response.  Mr. Rubenstein implies that it is better to seek understanding than simply condemning.   

I believe in academic freedom but I and others like me pay for that belief.  I’m a conservative, as even the most casual reader of my blog will note but I’ve been called liberal, communist, subversive and much worse.  I understand the importance of parents to the education process.  However, in my endeavors in my classroom, I’m not going to not cover something because it is controversial.  I’m not going to pick and choose the history that I want to share.  Not to make too fine a point on this but those measures are the tactics of dictators.   

I’m a historian and if I dare claim the tradition set forth by Herodotus, Sima Qian, ibn Khaldun, Tacitus and Leopold von Ranke, I must try and maintain a sense of objectivity.  The parents’ role is found prior to the student entering the classroom.  Parents must discuss and decide what kind of education they want for their student and then find the place that will nurture their child in the way they wish.  Once the parent has made the decision, however, it then becomes the responsibility of the teacher to their craft and to their student how best to proceed.

A Brief Message, Part 4

Well, I'm off for a little much needed rest and relaxation...for the weekend.  A getaway with the frau.  Therefore, there will be no blog this weekend.  I think another blog could be how great such a trip can be - hitting the road and leaving behind, however briefly, the drudgery and responsibilities of ordinary life.  As usual, please peruse some of my past articles and perhaps, leave a comment or two.  I will see you next Friday.

Ross

Ave Atque Vale

I am not a consensus politician.  I am a conviction politician.
            Margaret Thatcher

This past week, the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died at the age of 87.  From an international perspective, she is most known as Ronald Reagan’s conservative doppelganger but the shopkeeper’s daughter was much more.  Over the course of her career, she defied traditions, conventions and perceptions about politics, women and the role of the latter within the former.  Her time in office, like Ronald Reagan, coincided with economic difficulties and international skirmishes.  She is, therefore, despised in some corners of the kingdom and the world and beloved in others.  However, despite the differences in how people view her achievements, one cannot question her guts and conviction, nor should one question her impact on the 20^th century.   

In parts of Great Britain this past week, there were cheers and chants, parties and pontifications on the death of Mrs. Thatcher but very little understanding of where the country was in the 1970s.  The British government owned a great deal of the industries that employed Britons, from transportation to manufacturing and it faced economic ruin.  Coming from the same class that would later deplore her and celebrate her death, the prime minister challenged the role of government in the economy.  She sought, in her short time in office, to reverse decades of socialist maneuverings and nationalization, understanding that people had the ability to control their own fate and run their own shops.  Private ownership of industry and businesses were needed to reverse Britain’s economic fortune and she withstood the attacks, the vile insults and self-interested posturing.   She said, “I can’t bear Britain in decline.  I just can’t.”  She remembered a different Britain and she battled first the Heath government in opposition and then both Labour and the Tories to drag the island nation from the precipice.  

Internationally, she was just as fierce and her actions based on a pride of what England was and could be again.  Her most controversial move, one that many observers at the time felt would never happen, was her defense of the Falkland Islands.  While she is often criticized for the defense of British sovereignty and its citizens, it was the action of a military Argentinian junta that made this an issue and she, in classic form, finished it.  Her government was a constant target by the Irish Republican Army and though it managed to kill many close friends and colleagues during the Brighton bombing in 1984, she refused to back down.  She reminded her fellow citizens that the Russians were people to observe and combat.  So strident were her attacks on the Soviet government, as part of a larger Cold War democratic sortie, it was an article in a Russian paper that first gave her the sobriquet most associated with her – “the iron lady.”  During Europe’s discussions on the budget for the European Economic Community’s financial affairs, Mrs. Thatcher’s obdurate and fierce nature led French President Francois Mitterrand to declare her has having the lips of Marilyn Monroe and the eyes of Caligula. 

Economically, she challenged her people to see the long view and tried to teach them the importance of their participation in the economy rather than allowing for government control.  She turned around rampant inflation and labor unrest.  She was an unabashed champion of Victorian values like hard work, self-reliance, patriotism and frugality.  She was a fierce international figure that world leaders ignored or dismissed at their own peril.  However, the most shocking thing about Mrs. Thatcher’s legacy is the fact that American conservatives have not chosen to follow her lead. 

Conservative thinker Bill Kristol mentioned that her greatest achievement was her role in opposition prior to ascending to 10 Downing Street.  She gave a rudderless Tory party direction and cleared a path towards stability and prosperity by first shining a light on the depravity and ultimate failure of statism.  The departure from such governance by former communist eastern European countries validates Mrs. Thatcher’s actions.  Only the United States moves toward it with our new nationalized health care system.  As we distance from the vitriolic and ad hominem attacks of modern European liberals, old unionists and Argentinians, perhaps we can learn the true greatness of Margaret Thatcher.       

The Threat of the Hermit Kingdom

Toward the end of World War II, Adolf Hitler had quite obviously gone mad.  It was a process that began years ago.  Some of his generals remarked that he was moving around units on a large map that no longer existed.  He was screaming out orders to destroy enemy units and resources but no longer had the manpower to do so.  Generals were afraid to tell him otherwise and merely affirmed his orders and left.  Since those last days of that horrible war, a singular man controlled the northern part of the Korean peninsula – Kim Il-sung.  Today, his grandson, Kim Jung-un, has continued the tradition of global provocateur that has further isolated a nuclear pariah. 

Over his time as sole dictator and quasi-deity, the father of what would later be termed the “hermit kingdom” worked as an agitator.  As an extension of the Cold War maneuvering, Il-sung enjoyed the protection of Russia and China and therefore, his reckless behavior culminating with the Korean War was supported and his image at home reinforced.  His regime was also responsible for, conservatively, over one million killings.  His death in 1994 brought to power his son, Kim Jung-il.  While his time in control of North Korea contained gestures towards its southern neighbor and even talk of re-unification, it was difficult to take these overtures seriously.  As party secretary prior to 1994, South Korea blamed him for ordering a bombing in Rangoon, Myanmar and the downing of Korean Air Flight 858 in 1987.  Now, his son is playing a dangerous game with nuclear weapons.  His nearby enemies (namely South Korea and Japan) are nervous, as are his “friends” (namely China).   

On one level, there is no evidence that North Korea has the technology to strike the United States.  However, the U.S. has long standing alliances with South Korea and Japan and because of this relationship, we are obliged to help in the event of a North Korean attack.  The president has wisely ordered various maneuverings in South Korea using stealth bombers and it is assumed that enhanced missile shields are forthcoming.  All of these are defensive and reactionary in nature.  There will be a time when the president will be forced to consider a pre-emptive strike upon intelligence that North Korea is prepared to do something.  If Jung-un appears to be ready to act upon his countless threats, the U.S. will need to decide if it should truncate the threat potential.  Japan’s military is defensive in nature and not equipped for a pre-emptive strike.  South Korea possesses a large military with plenty of weapons to destroy its northern neighbor but history has not shown that it is willing to take chances.   

It is uncertain what explains this recent round of saber-rattling.  Perhaps it was Dennis Rodman’s fault.  However, Pyongyang has made a habit of this over the last couple of decades – threaten nuclear war or missile attack, pleas from the West asking him to relax and donate supplies and food to make the point, North Korea backs off…for a while.  What generally helps the United States and a president decide how to address a crisis is an underlying trust that the opposite leader will not do certain things.  Those types of assumptions are dangerously played with regards to North Korea.  Israel, faced with a similar threat, took the initiative to destroy nuclear power plants in Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007.  Israel is not in a position to allow for diplomacy to run its course – its existence lies upon the blade of the sword.  If Japan or South Korea is not willing to do it, it would be a safer option for the U.S. to strike first than to respond.   

China has lost control of its younger, demented communist brother and even it and Russia have supported increased sanctions by the United Nations.  However, the combination of North Korea’s dangerous abilities and the unknown factor of the newly appointed Kim Jung-un is a bad combination.  North Korea is more dangerous than even a country like Iran.  Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is countered by the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.  Where Iran has that religious check on secular power, North Korea’s cult of personality combines the political with the religious.  The hold that this type of government has on its people is dangerous and only increases the volatility and danger of a country.