103 thoughts on “Overheard”

  1. Maybe the last one without the presumption that you’re right to think what you do on the question (or in any case the obscenity)?Report

    1. Heh… FTR, this teacher has little say over these sorts of curricular choices. He is an assistant teacher and 2nd grade has taught the Revolution for years (though my hunch is this particular piece came from him). Being fully honest, I appreciate any effort to present kids with nuance and not oversimplifying… Especially when that oversimplification can (eventually) lead/contribute to things such as American Exceptionalism, which I find highly problematic.

      But young children are limited in their ability to understand nuance. And taxation as a general topic — with at least semi-logical arguments ranging from “Tax = theft” to “No, you really didn’t build ANY of that” — requires far too much nuance to fully understand and form an opinion on at 7. Not to mention the complexities of the Revolution (or war in general and, ohbytheway, the head teacher forbids the mere mention of guns in class).

      So, yes, there is a certain presumptuous to #3 but it is grounded in my understanding of child development. And I wouldn’t actually present the argument that way.

      What I’m really curious is to hear more generally what people think about such a lesson. Which I perhaps should have been more explicit about.Report

      1. @michael-drew

        I fear my response here came off more flippant than intended. I appreciate your comment and the very well-justified (especially for me!) call to check one’s presumptuousness.Report

      3. What I’m really curious is to hear more generally what people think about such a lesson. Which I perhaps should have been more explicit about.

        Do you mean taking age-appropriateness out of the question? I.e. assuming it’s being presented at whatever the ideal age to present such a lesson might be?Report

      4. I’d say all of the above…

        How should we teach taxes, AmRev, and 7-year-olds…
        In isolation or in relation to one another. Pick whichever of that interests you most!

        I am much more qualified to speak on some of those than others… (We won AmRev, right?)Report

      5. Well, I would certainly say that teaching 7-year-olds in general is a very different question from teaching the American Revolution or taxes. Not only that, but I don’t really have much insight into any of them. But I would think if you’re going to attempt to combine all of them, you had better keep it pretty basic on the content side.Report

      9. the head teacher forbids the mere mention of guns in class

        That should, I think, serve as the clearest possible indication that wars, even wars in that predate the invention of guns, should not be on the curriculum.

        Or at least, that the school is going to have to do some work to come up with a consistent position – I do strongly feel that until you can discuss the fact that wars are a horrible process in which people with no personal quarrel inflict death and all manner of terrible suffering on one another, you can’t teach about wars in a way that does more good than harm.Report

      11. @dragonfrog

        Don’t get me started on that nonsense.

        I can understand (though don’t agree with) the idea behind restricting or forbidding weapon and war play.

        But to say that a child can’t journal about a hunting trip with his dad or visiting a museum and enjoying looking at the historic guns? Seriously? What the F man???

        And, no, we’re not a public school. Meaning we came up with this set of rules entirely on our own.Report

    2. No worries. I probably should have indicated being a bit short of fully serious in that response anyway, @kazzy . I wouldn’t think you would ask him in that way. But I did kind of wonder whether it was really him who decided on the material. And though I have the same curiosity as you about that choice, it’s not at all at a WTF level for me.Report

      1. …I was also going to say, as you say, that I figured that your understanding of child development probably justified in your mind a shocked response. But it seems like a textbook situation calling at least provisionally for respect for a colleague’s judgement before proceeding to WTF stage.Report

  3. American souls aren’t born, they’re made!

    Or,

    No true patriot lost sleep over indoctrinating kids too early.

    Or,

    See, the entire concept of no taxation without representation seems pretty solid on the surface, but to fully understand it you have to dig into various theories of democracy and the social contract and consent of the governed coupled with theories of justice in an egalitarian society and property rights, which brings us to Locke, at least, if not Rawls and Nozick too, so …Report

      1. …of course, the stationary bandit theory of governance needs to be considered as well, as do various theories of political economy under which taxation doesn’t actually require representation but rather is justified on an economic calculus whereby benefits exceed costs for those so taxed, which is itself – it should be noted – a slippery slope leading to Methodoligical Totalitarianist Collectivism, evidenced in its early stages by the degradation of traditional institutions and incipient cultural decay similar to certain liberal policies enacted in the last, oh, 7 years, and which, if left unchecked, will inevitably lead to the collapse of freedom into a political-space-time singularity triggering the destruction of everything beautiful and holy. This can only be countered by educating 2nd graders of the principles upon the American Revolution was engaged. Thanks Obama!Report

      2. certain liberal policies enacted in the last, oh, 7 years, and which, if left unchecked, will inevitably lead to the collapse of freedom into a political-space-time singularity triggering the destruction of everything beautiful and holy

        Criticizing police?Report

      1. @damon

        Do you benefit from having courts of law where you can go to seek your rights enforced in contract disputes, tort disputes, or other disputes?

        Do you use post offices? Do you use roads? Have you ever taken a book out of the library? Gotten a passport? Needed the fire department or know someone who did?

        There is your social contractReport

      3. There is no social contract.

        Sure there is. Call it a contract, or compact or whatever you want, but if you wanna argue that certain rights can be legitimately enforced against competing interests or claims, then your talking about a social construct of some sort that reasonable people agree to for rationally defensible reasons. The general prohibition against murder is just one example. There are others.Report

      6. Jay,
        I was more thinking child prostitution, general bribery, and some of the more bizarre fetishes that involve torturing someone.

        But, yeah, we could go with police too. They wouldn’t dare touch a Rooney (not that the Rooneys are bad folks, as far as rich sobs go).Report

      7. A regime of rights and the creation of institutions whereby rights are enforced is a social convention. If appealing to rights has any force whatsoever it’s only because of a general agreement that they do. That they expand over time to include other individuals results from extending the circle of agreement to include previously excluded folks.

        We’ve been down this road a bunch of times before, Jaybird. You disagree with this view, which is fine.Report

      8. So because I believe there is a right to free speech, I must also accept that sometimes there isn’t because social contracts expand over time, and if she weighs the same as a duck then she’s made of wood and therefore a witch.Report

      10. @saul-degraw

        Let’s break this down shall we? A contract is an agreement between two or more parties spelling out rights, responsibilities, duties, etc. between those parties. ALL terms are detailed out very specifically. Any change in the contract requires mutual consent-unless the parties agreed to unilateral changes by one party.

        While those things you listed MIGHT have near universal consensus, they do not have 100%, because I object to at least several of them. Now, let’s talk about other “disagreements between the parties”. Fifty years ago, there was a consensus that homosexuality and SSM was unacceptable. Now, the consensus is moving towards full acceptance. Before, abortion was a crime. Now, whatever status it is. I could go on and on how the consensus has changed.

        But it’s NOT a contract unless EVERYONE agrees to be bound by the terms of the contract, which we clearly do not have. So what do we have? Tyranny of the majority. That ain’t no contract.Report

      12. Damon,
        a handshake agreement still counts as a contract, and people sign vague as all hell contracts every day. They also sign illegal contracts every single day.

        What the “social contract” is is kinda fuzzy. But I think you have assented to it, in so far as you recognize that doing otherwise is likely to get you punished/killed. You may be advocating for changing it, in broad or particular ways.

        If you play by society’s rules, you get society’s benefits.Report

      16. The sometimes amusing, but more often frustrating thing about these discussions about the existence or nonexistence, or at least the agreement or non-agreement to, a “social contract” is that the people who want to argue it doesn’t exist, or that they have not agreed to it, often assume the most basic version of the contract in the course of doing so. Heffman and Jaybird both do it here. (I assumed Damon was joking around, until it was clear he’d probably never read any social contract theory.)

        As Jaybird might say, once they’ve done that, all that’s left is the quibbling about the details.Report

      17. Social contracts are for the weak.
        Nobody here is That Rich, That Powerful, or That Stupid (I find those three tend to come in one package, often enough).Report

      18. You can call it anything but a “contract”. That’s my main gripe, cause it ain’t. Don’t try to tell me I agreed to it.

        @kimmi
        One cannot conclude that because I “go along” that I assented. When you “comply” to the demands of a mugger and give over your money, can I conclude you endorse theft? No. The only conclusion you can make is that one goes along to prevent violence being inflicted upon them.Report

  4. I’m going to disagree with B. AmRev was justified. Stipulated that colonial taxes were in fact low, both by our standards and the standards of the stay. Further stipulated that by the time they got around to complaining about it, the last thing the colonists really wanted was representation in Parliament. Taxes and representation were a pastiche on the motivations that made AmRev a rich man’s war.

    But.

    Government twelve weeks away (on a good voyage) really wasn’t responsive enough. Disbanding local legislatures really was bullshit.

    General warrants were, in fact, bullshit.

    Hauling people from Massachusetts to stand trial in Newfoundland or London really was bullshit.

    Quartering troops in private homes, especially with no compensation from the Crown as insult to injury, really was bullshit.

    Shutting down Boston Harbor because vandals and political activists dared to question Lord North’s authoritaii really was bullshit.

    And very little of that was even remotely likely to stop, with or without repeal of the Stamp Act, with or without Parliamentary boroughs in the colonies, with or without the Navigation Act.Report

    2. …And come to think of it, Kings holding actual, effective, everyday power is kinda bullshit too. I guess I don’t mind so much if royalty exists and cuts ribbons at shopping centers and does PSAs about recycling and shit. But I much prefer having a president to having a king.Report

      1. I mind it. I mind it as much as I mind certain other individuals behaving like immoral [expletive deleted] who never, ever have to abide by a law if they don’t want to.
        **not related to the incident where the lady got her face eaten off by squirrels.

        [From Kazzy: Watch it, Kim. I know you get a long leash here but I’m not going to tolerate that sort of language.]Report

    3. Not surprisingly, and pace @burt-likko , I choose B. I do agree that most of what he describes is bullshit. I don’t, however, believe that by themselves they amounted to a just casus belli, especially when we consider the collateral damage to loyalists and Indians (and non-collateral but still damages to “enemy” soldiers, and my brother Sam).

      I suppose it depends on how much, for example, general warrants were used and on how many convictions really were extrajurisdictional, and there may be a point where such abuses become so pervasive that revolution is justified. I’m on the side of saying we weren’t there yet by 1776, but we were much closer then, than in 1773. And the Coercive Acts put a dent in my argument, although they were in response to a protest that in my opinion was unjustified. I can respect, even if I don’t agree, with the claim that they were a game changer.Report

    5. I am right now reading a book on the American Revolution, this one: http://www.amazon.com/Radicalism-American-Revolution-Gordon-Wood/dp/0679736883

      I am just into it, but the thesis is shaping up to be that the American Revolution was more radical than we generally think. The idea so far is that a certain Republican spirit took hold in the colonies, one that came from England, but that could only go so far in England because of the crown and because of the nobility’s ownership of most of the land.

      A civil society began to develop in America that was incompatible with the aristocratic nature of English rule and the Revolution was the result. At least that is where I think the book is going.Report

      1. History is probably my weakest area, but what little I’ve read recently about the Revolution tells me it was not nearly what most of us were taught. “Immoral and unjustified” were intentionally hyperbolic*, but the idea that the Founding Fathers were perfectly noble and virtuous defenders of freedom and liberty is… simply wrong. Many of them pursued the Revolution for largely self-serving reasons. And no war is ever a simple battle between good and evil.

        So, I’ll defer to the smarter people than I if they tell me that the war was justified, righteous, or what-have-you. But I’ll probably look side-eyed if they describe it as if it were without flaw or downside.

        * Oy, @vikram-bath . I must be losing my edge. I thought all three options were sufficiently tongue-in-cheek.Report

      2. The American Revolution got rid of a lot of ideas that were accepted in the Western mind for centuries like monarchy, a hereditary aristocracy, primogeniture, and the fee tail. These ideas were weakening because of the Enlightenment but still very strong. As late as the 1760s, many of the people who would go to lead the American Revolution wrote gushingly and reverently about their King with real sincerity. By the 1776, no more. Many of the German revolutionaries that immigrated to the United States after the failed 1848 revolutions did so because “no konig da” or in English, no king there.Report

      4. …the idea that the Founding Fathers were perfectly noble and virtuous defenders of freedom and liberty is… simply wrong. Many of them pursued the Revolution for largely self-serving reasons.

        I don’t see anything contradictory about these two things. Imagine a black man fighting for the Union in the Civil War. He is fighting for freedom and liberty and also fighting for self-serving reasons.

        The sense I am getting is that the righteousness of the American Revolution is beside the point. The colonies simply outgrow England and separation was inevitable, as was the case with most of England’s colonies.

        I think what @leeesq says is correct. The colonists had, right up until the eve of the Revolution, a sense of political liberty that was robust, but that was perfectly compatible with being subjects of the English crown. Eventually those two things came into conflict and the colonists were unwilling to roll back the political liberty.Report

      5. @vikram-bath

        I can’t decide if @dhex should never watch this video because he hates LCD, or if he should watch it every day so he can see James Murphy slapped repeatedly ad infinitum.Report

      6. A fair point, @j-r . But my hunch is that if you stood up and said, “Ya know, George Washington stood to benefit a great deal if the Revolution was successful,” you’d be shouted down in many quarters. Perhaps it is the very idea that these premises are mutually exclusive is itself part of the problem… part of our tendency to oversimplify narratives.

        As to @leeesq , far be it from me to argue with him. I’m really not trying to argue that the Revolution was good or bad. Simply that it was neither all good nor all bad. And that our tendency to build historical myths is problematic and at least someone the result of our insistence on teaching complex historical happenings to children developmentally unready to understand such complexity.Report

      7. @chris

        Re: Music in the Late 1990s

        If You are Feeling Sinister came out in 1997 as did Sleater-Kinney’s first album. 69 Love Songs is from 1998. This is Hardcore by Pulp came out in 1998. Different Class is from 1994.Report

      9. @kazzy

        Part of what I am picking up from this book is that the whole idea of the separation of public vs. private authority and public vs. private advantage are modern conceptions that did not quite exist in 18th century Europe and America. This was a society of personal power enforced through an overlapping series of patronage relationships, relying ultimately on the patronage of the King.

        If there are problems with how me popularly imagine the Revolution, it likely stems from not being able to access the nature of how our conceptions of political power have changed.Report

      10. If there are problems with how me popularly imagine the Revolution, it likely stems from not being able to access the nature of how our conceptions of political power have changed.

        The last time I said something like this I got accused of radical relativism. 😉Report

      11. Which led to an interesting discussion about whether and how (and why…) the meanings of constitutional provisions are fixed in conceptual space, as I recall. If I’m thinking of the right thread, anyway.Report

      14. @j-r

        I’m familiar with Wood’s “Radicalism” book, but it’s been several years since I’ve read it. I think it’s decent as such arguments go, and I don’t think it’s inconsistent with what I take to be @kazzy ‘s point that at least some of those traitors were doing things for self-serving, venal reasons.

        To the extent that Wood is describing broad secular trends, and attributing them to the Revolution, my only real criticism is how to measure the extent of the change and how much it’s attributable to the Revolution. He has a lot of qualifiers (“except the South” or “at least in the North” appear quite a lot, as one reviewer, whose name/cite I forget now, has said). But I think he makes as good a case as one can in one book. It’s the kind of thing that needs to be examined on several levels, with several studies, to flesh out. Not that the Revolution has been wanting for such studies. And what studies I have read (and I’m not an expert in the American Revolution) suggests there’s a case for it.

        I do think Wood’s argument depends a bit (whether or not he concedes the point, I don’t remember) on serendipity. The happy end result (part III of the book, if I recall) is not necessarily what most of the Revolutionaries, except for hot heads like Paine, wanted or predicted. To me, that suggests that end was too remote from the initial means implemented that brought it about, although something is to be said about the almost immediate move to commence emancipation in many of the northern colonies/states, which is some grist for the Revolution apologist’s mill.

        In other words, Wood’s argument may be valid, but that by itself is not an excuse for the Revolution. And to be fair, I’m not sure whether Wood insists it is.Report

      15. @gabriel-conroy

        I guess what I don’t understand is why the Revolution would need an excuse, unless you think that the English monarch had some objectively justified claim to rule over the English colonies.Report

      21. @j-r

        I guess what I don’t understand is why the Revolution would need an excuse, unless you think that the English monarch had some objectively justified claim to rule over the English colonies.

        Sorry, I’ve been away most of the day and haven’t been able to answer until now.

        I think it needs an excuse because war causes suffering, and it’s sometimes better to tolerate some injustices rather than submit to the suffering war causes. In that sense, all wars need an excuse.

        As you might point out, the problems are where do we draw the line and how do we quantify or rank “suffering” and “injustice”? I can certainly imagine situations in which war might cause greater suffering than non-war, and yet it’s “worth it” because the injustice is so grave. I can also imagine situations where the current injustice is small, but if tolerated will grow too extreme, and all the more difficult to eradicate.

        I don’t see Anglo-American relations pre-Coercive Acts to be revolt-worthy. And for me, even post-Coercive Acts I don’t see it, although it’s a much closer case at that point, in my opinion. And while I don’t accept the legitimacy of monarchy, the monarchy of the 18th century already operated under significant checks, at least in England. Even so, I admit there were problems. Those who were doing the checking were not the colonists, but the Parliament, which was not only representative of the colonies, but wasn’t even representative of England by any standard of fairness you or I would recognize.Report

    6. @burt-likko

      Further stipulated that by the time they got around to complaining about it, the last thing the colonists really wanted was representation in Parliament.

      This. Last year, I read a book on the Webster-Hayne debate, and there was a lengthy chapter devoted to a couple of ideas that were developed in the period leading up to the Revolution: 1) sovereignty could be divided and 2) sovereignty rests in the people. If all the colonists wanted was representation, they would not have had to develop these ideas. These were developed to counter the then predominant opinion that sovereignty can rest in only one ruler (the position of the British and, ironically, the southern states in the years leading up to the Civil War).Report

      4. I actually tangled recently on another site with some yoots who were romanticizing the 70s whilst simultaneously calling the 80s ‘bleak’.

        The 70s were aesthetically hideous, the UK was literally buried in giant piles of garbage, NYC was a dangerous s**thole, and we thought we were going to need Dirty Harry and Snake Plissken to save us all from the coming superpredator crime-tsunami. The 80s were an improvement on almost every level.Report

      6. The 70s had a lot going for them: feminism, sexual revolution, disco, mustaches, an almost complete absence of hair products… but they weren’t any easier than pretty much any other decade.Report

      7. @chris

        Wasn’t the sexual revolution a 1960s thing?

        Also the 1970s can never be forgiven for inflicting polyester upon the world.

        And you forgot to mention CBGBs!!!Report

      12. The music was sooo much better, though.

        “You kids don’t know Grand Funk? The wild shirtless lyrics of Mark Farner? The bong-rattling bass of Mel Schacher? The competent drumwork of Don Brewer? Oh, man!”Report

      13. I was going to say something about how everyone thinks their pet decade had better music, while really there’s good music all the time, but then I remembered the late 90s.Report

      16. I don’t know what @chris is smoking, but assuming that 1997 is “late ’90’s”, you had, in that year alone:

        OK Computer Homogenic Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space Perfect From Now On I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One Lonesome Crowded West Dig Your Own Hole Mogwai Young Team Dig Me Out F# A# Infinity Dots And Loops Brighten The Corners Supa Dupa Fly

        (In fairness, 1998 and 1999 do look a bit weaker to my eye, though there’s still gems there. But boy did the album art get hideous).Report

      17. I’m being silly, of course. The late 90s are easy to make fun of.

        Man, I remember watching “Paranoid Android” debut on MTV. Thinking about it being 17 years ago makes me feel really old.Report

      24. ’87 ruled!

        Joshua Tree
        Appetite for Destruction
        Strangeways Here We Come
        Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me
        You’re Living All Over Me
        Document
        Music for the Masses
        The Lion and the CobraReport

      27. Ooh, and Pleased to Meet Me!

        Actually, some of my favorite artists of the 80’s peaked then started their decline right there in 1987. The ‘Mats went downhill steeply with their remaining two records, Smiths broke up, The Cure made just one more solidly-good record (Disintegration), and R.E.M. left IRS for the big leagues, with mixed results.Report

      28. @aaron-david – Even before I got tired of Radiohead (and I am so very, very tired of them) I always thought OK Computer was a snoozer (“Let Down” excepted, and I have a “Climbing Up The Walls” remix that’s OK).Report

  6. We thought we were going to need Dirty Harry and Snake Plissken to save us all from the coming superpredator crime-tsunami.

    I’d watch that movie.Report

Comments are closed.

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