Posted on 08/24/2018 9:01:31 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Hitler once said, "He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future." Totalitarians like Hitler and Lenin knew that any opposition by the population to their policies would be erased in a couple of generations if they could capture the minds of young people.
Hitler had the Hitler Youth. Lenin, the Young Communist League. In the case of the Hitler Youth, membership was eventually made mandatory. The Young Communist League was seen as a vital stepping stone to the good life for children in the Soviet Union.
I bring this up because while conservatives were busy making tons of money in the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s, liberals were busy taking over the entire educational establishment. The fruits of their labors? A couple of generations of kids who are clueless about the complete history of the country they grew up in.
There's nothing wrong with teaching about slavery, about Jim Crow, about the denial of equality and opportunity to many millions of Americans in the past -- and the present. But, as was made clear by Campus Reform's Cabot Phillips when he interviewed young people in New York about Governor Andrew Cuomo's "America was never that great" remark, millennials are ignorant of the real accomplishments and achievements of all Americans, of many colors and ethnicities, through the centuries.
When asked if there was ever a time in America’s history when we were great, the majority of the people I spoke with made it clear: they were siding with Governor Cuomo. “I don’t believe America has been great for all folks, ever. Even today,” said one respondent, while another added simply, “I would have to agree with Governor Cuomo.”
One person elaborated on their reasoning for saying America was never great, saying, “The idea that there was this once great America is pointing towards this false sense of nationalism…What, it’s talking about white America? Yeah, it’s not great.”
Another respondent cited similar points, declaring that “America has been great…for straight white men.”
Wondering if this thought process stemmed from what was being taught in the classroom, I followed up by asking if they’d ever been taught American Exceptionalism in school.
Just one person said it was a concept they’d been taught in class.
“I’ve never heard of it before,” conceded one, while another explained that “I personally wasn’t taught American Exceptionalism because I went to a very forward thinking liberal school…”
I never learned about American exceptionalism in school. I was able to figure it out for myself. The problem, as I see it, is how history is taught in schools, not so much what is taught.
A million years ago when I was in primary and secondary school, American history was taught as a narrative -- a broad, sweeping story with heroes and villains, famous events, and significant places. Names, places, and events were easy to memorize and it was easy to quantify the progress of the pupil in knowledge gained.
In truth, while narrative history is very entertaining, it doesn't tell the whole story. Too many things are happening at the same time to capture the essence, or "the truth" of history. The emphasis on the "Great Man" theory of events ignored the currents and eddies that drove history forward -- the movements, ideas, and beliefs of ordinary people that made "Great Men" captives to events.
So for all its value as a simple and expedient way to teach and read history, the narrative leaves much to be desired.
How do you write history that comes closer to the reality of what happened? Social history, which is nothing more than studying the lives of individuals in the context of the times they lived, offers an intriguing alternative to narrative history. But the value of social history has been subverted to serve a modern political agenda. The teaching of American "history" has been fashioned to undermine universal values of freedom and liberty, substituting the social history of oppressed and discriminated minorities as the main point of emphasis. This is no doubt important, but how much closer is the student to discovering the "truth" of what happened?
Lost in the telling are the overarching themes of progress, redemption, and change that make America an exceptional nation. It's not surprising that millennials would reject an exceptional America when they haven't been given the total picture -- the good, the bad, the ugly, and the sublime.
The left is winning the battle for the hearts and minds of young people and America is suffering as a result.
This nation is going to have to feel some real pain for people to appreciate what we have.
Millennials Don’t Think America Was Ever That Great
The premise is all wrong.
The millenials queried don’t think at all.
If many of them do feel that way, it’s mainly because this is what they are taught in schools, even pre-schools.
The indoctrination is reinforced with passing grades and ‘happy’ or approving teachers. Not all of them, thank God, but most of the teachers are this way.
These ‘kids’ are products of the liberal education complex... snowflakes who can’t read... or think.
Poor education has done its intent, brainwashing not only on kids but adults as well. Thank our government and media for this disaster.
“America has been great…for straight white men.”
____________________________________________________
Stupid is strong with this one...
Frankly, during the Obama Era, America really was not all that great.
Our job is to make them realize that it's no America that is not all that great, it was Obama and his polices that made America not all that great while he was President
People have been taught to be ashamed of being American, or white, or even “culturally Christian” (not actually being Christian, but having a society heavily influenced by Christianity) the poison pill Left.
No. It’s because of textbooks like Howard Zinn’s “A Peoples’ History of the United States” that was shoved down their throats.
they are products of public schools AND parents who have treated them like royalty, driving them to games or camps daily, never forcing them to get a PT job, buying them just about anything they wanted, never disciplining them, treating them as adult co-equals, in short, they have lived in a dream nervona and have never experienced a reality of hard work, accountability, sacrifice, and violence.
Exactly. Saw a quote from a pope one time that basically said, and I paraphrase, you really can’t see and understand divine goodness without seeing and encountering evil.
Millenials do not understand how good they have it because they have never seen truly bad times and circumstances. The fact that so many of them have a favorable view of socialism does not seem to consider the horrible conditions of places like North Korea, Venezuela or Cuba.
“Millenials do not understand how good they have it because they have never seen truly bad times and circumstances. The fact that so many of them have a favorable view of socialism does not seem to consider the horrible conditions of places like North Korea, Venezuela or Cuba.”
Well put post.
I'm a big fan of questioning those in authority. Unfortunately, millennials only want to question those they don't agree with.
The lack of understanding of history is a big problem IMO. That includes using current morality in viewing historical events.
Here's how bad it is: I was talking with a 20ish coworker the other day about the new Mission Impossible movie (I haven't seen it yet). I mentioned that I grew up watching the TV series religiously every week, it was one of my favorites.
He gave me a stunned look, and blurted "it was a TV series?" No wonder Hollywood gets away with rebooting everything good from the 60s and 70s...lol.
Another young man and I were talking about the bitcoin market. I said, I'd love to invest in it, but I lost all my money in the Dutch Tulip craze (400 years ago). He had no idea what I was talking about. Yes, history does repeat itself, over and over and over...
Crap, I'm so old my battalion in Germany was deactivated some 25 years ago.
That’s because most of them went to public school. ............................ Yes and they lost the incentive to learn and dropped out at 16. They end up being unskilled and unreliable. We have always had shot gun education, fire a a round with a dozen pellets, and a couple will hit the target. I went to public schools, but I had a solid parental background that reflected learn, earn, and succeed. Education starts at home. We are only taught to think in school, there is far more to learn outside of the books you are given. You have to expand your knowledge on your own. You only get one view in a text book. (Yeah, and its usually indoctrination depending on who controls the purview.)
If you are older than millennials, it’s likely/probable/possible that you think you are out of it, obsolete, passe, over the hill.
The only answer to this is to bludgeon these folks with your business and prosperity. Yeah, it’s hard. The market is waaaaay up and it seems like it should pull back.
I was not there. But I absolutely know that during the massive runup during the Reagan years, the market was loaded with doubters all the way up. That’s been the case for at least 5 years now. Yeah, the market is high and the media is full of stories that we MUST pull back at some point. There is every possibility that we are in the early innings of a dramatic multiyear runup in the economy. And one has to decide whether you wish to be in it or out of it. You do not have to leverage yourself tits-deep. But you’re massively better off being in it rather than out of it.
No one is forcing them to live here. Venezuela has a few openings.
Yes, that is the experience I have had. 80% of them agree with that Cuomo numbskull.
This was drilled into them by their teachers and professors, who are all devotees of Howard Zinn. Today their smart phone sends them daily reinforcement.
“A great country would pay off my student loans”. Heard it all before.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.