Thanks for this. I didn’t realize this was a thing (I’ll admit to living in the Chicago bubble) until I was at my in-laws house for Easter and they told me that they were part of a group headed to a school board meeting later in the week so the “books” committee could present. I’m so appalled that they are attending a school board meeting in an attempt to ban books (at least I assume) in a district that they don’t even have kids in (I like my in-laws ok but their politics are dreadful!!). Agree 100% on the banned books front. Commenting because you need another comment besides Richard!
Thanks, Jessica. Bubbles have their pros and cons. For instance, my governor rolled out her marquee education reform with a kid in a Moms for Liberty shirt front and center.
I think what’s frightening about the spread of extremism at the local level is that it’s easy to not notice or realize how far it’s spread or how it’s spreading until it arrives in your town or school district
Alan, this is such a good essay! Love how you weave in the history and provide meaningful perspective. Humans have done this so many times, this hatefulness, almost as if it’s a contagious virus. Does this kind of negative force collapse into itself? I know the best thing i can all do is stand up for creative expression, for inclusion, for pluralism. It’s how we survive.
I am sort of inclined to think a lot of movements eventually exhaust themselves or reach a kind of end of life. But I think that goes for good ones, too. Part of the problem right now seems to be that for many liberalism has been, or at least has appeared to be, exhausted of energy and ideas. And so a lot of illiberal forces have swept people along.
I don’t think we can afford to wait it out, though. So I’m glad for places like Arc and readers like you who want to resist it.
Alan, thank you. I often wonder if something new is waiting to emerge beyond the liberal/enlightenment structure of consciousness. In many ways, in my small corner of the universe, my cohorts seek to connect in community in a less defensive and more vulnerable and authentic way. I often wonder if this was what it felt like during the time before the renaissance? And for my part, I seek to meet these fascist trends with less anger and more dispassionately. They are life-denying but being rage filled doesn’t serve me.
As pleasant as your comment is, I’m not sure “serious author” just means “person I agree with.” While I think authors like Hymowitz exaggerate the phenomena of referent and de-transitioning, nothing I wrote in this piece has anything to do with medical care for trans children. It’s about Moms for Liberty’s campaigns against books and curriculum, which I think is a threat to how education should operate in an open, liberal democratic society.
Well see I think this is projection. It’s the people trying to dictate what books should and shouldn’t be on the shelves and what teachers can and can’t discuss, running pressure campaigns and calling for firings to get their way, who have fashioned themselves as the arbiters of all that’s good and holy.
Richard, you may have strong disagreements with Alan's overall perspective. That's totally fine, of course, and welcomed! But you should also take a second to consider whether you'd like to put your stamp of approval on a movement that, even if you think has good intentions, could be guilty of overreach in a way that is really not good for the free speech and the pro-book cause. Like, do you think "Martin Luther King Jr. and the March to Washington" sounds like a book that has to be objected to?
Thanks for this. I didn’t realize this was a thing (I’ll admit to living in the Chicago bubble) until I was at my in-laws house for Easter and they told me that they were part of a group headed to a school board meeting later in the week so the “books” committee could present. I’m so appalled that they are attending a school board meeting in an attempt to ban books (at least I assume) in a district that they don’t even have kids in (I like my in-laws ok but their politics are dreadful!!). Agree 100% on the banned books front. Commenting because you need another comment besides Richard!
Thanks, Jessica. Bubbles have their pros and cons. For instance, my governor rolled out her marquee education reform with a kid in a Moms for Liberty shirt front and center.
Agree! Usually I’m happy to live in a bubble but the big downside is that sometimes I’m uninformed or even worse, quite naive.
I think what’s frightening about the spread of extremism at the local level is that it’s easy to not notice or realize how far it’s spread or how it’s spreading until it arrives in your town or school district
Alan, this is such a good essay! Love how you weave in the history and provide meaningful perspective. Humans have done this so many times, this hatefulness, almost as if it’s a contagious virus. Does this kind of negative force collapse into itself? I know the best thing i can all do is stand up for creative expression, for inclusion, for pluralism. It’s how we survive.
Thanks, Nancy! That’s very kind of you to say.
I am sort of inclined to think a lot of movements eventually exhaust themselves or reach a kind of end of life. But I think that goes for good ones, too. Part of the problem right now seems to be that for many liberalism has been, or at least has appeared to be, exhausted of energy and ideas. And so a lot of illiberal forces have swept people along.
I don’t think we can afford to wait it out, though. So I’m glad for places like Arc and readers like you who want to resist it.
Alan, thank you. I often wonder if something new is waiting to emerge beyond the liberal/enlightenment structure of consciousness. In many ways, in my small corner of the universe, my cohorts seek to connect in community in a less defensive and more vulnerable and authentic way. I often wonder if this was what it felt like during the time before the renaissance? And for my part, I seek to meet these fascist trends with less anger and more dispassionately. They are life-denying but being rage filled doesn’t serve me.
As pleasant as your comment is, I’m not sure “serious author” just means “person I agree with.” While I think authors like Hymowitz exaggerate the phenomena of referent and de-transitioning, nothing I wrote in this piece has anything to do with medical care for trans children. It’s about Moms for Liberty’s campaigns against books and curriculum, which I think is a threat to how education should operate in an open, liberal democratic society.
Well see I think this is projection. It’s the people trying to dictate what books should and shouldn’t be on the shelves and what teachers can and can’t discuss, running pressure campaigns and calling for firings to get their way, who have fashioned themselves as the arbiters of all that’s good and holy.
Richard, you may have strong disagreements with Alan's overall perspective. That's totally fine, of course, and welcomed! But you should also take a second to consider whether you'd like to put your stamp of approval on a movement that, even if you think has good intentions, could be guilty of overreach in a way that is really not good for the free speech and the pro-book cause. Like, do you think "Martin Luther King Jr. and the March to Washington" sounds like a book that has to be objected to?