That’s OK, people only pay tens of thousands of dollars to attend Harvard.
29 thoughts on “The Important Subject You’re Not Being Taught In College”
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That’s OK, people only pay tens of thousands of dollars to attend Harvard.
Comments are closed.
Well if they taught history then the IRS might audit their endowment funds. They couldn’t risk it.
He starts out well, but I’d argue that some of his conclusions went off the deep end (such as comparing the AUMF to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution).
A lot of people need to relearn recent history, too.
Harvard used to have an expert on colonial America and the revolution. But as Matt Damon expressed in Good Will Hunting, you don’t need to go to Harvard to get a good survey of American History, you just need a library card (and hopefully better taste in history books than Damon’s).
Ironically, the thing that college is supposed to give you that a book can’t is debate (iron sharpens iron) but in the movie it’s clear the character Damon confronts in the bar hasn’t seen much of that in his classes apparently. …or perhaps we’re too believe he just doesn’t expect it in a bar.
Most teachers don’t encourage being confronted I’ve noticed. Law seams one of the few exceptions but other topics really need it.
Rodney Dangerfield and Sam Kinison (two now dead guys, I’m too old) in back to school actually represented it well, but perhaps with less (I’ve been to hell. I was married) screaming.
My favorite professor in college was the one I first had for Political Thought. He took the subject matter seriously and wanted all of his students to write persuasively well regardless of what position they took.
It’s possible he was my favorite professor because my first paper was the one he wanted everyone else in the class to read before they wrote their second — but in that class and the others I took with him I never got better than an A-minus.
When I noticed that after the second class I asked him, “Is that the best grade you give?”
He smiled and replied, “It was the best grade I gave.”
“Most teachers don’t encourage being confronted I’ve noticed.”
It’s probably not a coincidence that some of my best teachers did.
To not teach American History is to deprive the little snowflakes of a deep understanding of why the country was so phenomenally successful (up until the last 20 years or so):
We didn’t have more natural resources
We didn’t have smarter people
We didn’t have better weather
We had freedom.
You learn stuff like that in a decent class on American History. You also learn about failed Utopias starting with Sparta and ending with the Soviet Union, in other history classes. And you learned why they failed……the very same reason we are, now, failing.
We had freedom.
And, um, a lot of slaves.
Not after 1864 and we were still phenomenally prosperous.
And you aren’t REALLY going to be a nitwit and play the “the US only prospered up til the Civil War because we had slaves” are you?
Are you? Really?
The two largest categories of U.S. capital assets in 1861 were land (taken from Native Americans) and slaves. We built an economy that could export cotton to feed the textile mills of England, and fund the birth of U.S. industry, by literally stripping millions of Americans of their freedom. Attributing the success of this effort to “freedom” is an extreme example of looking at one’s own country’s history through rose-colored glasses.
Are you implying that we should ignore everything else about our past?
No, he is just saying that if you bring up anything good about the past that you are a racist. Did you watch Leave it to Beaver and sometimes feel nostalgic for it? Do you like the way old cars look? Miss the family values that were a part of your culture? Well, in those days black people were not treated very well so you are a racist.
The people who always want you to acknowledge the bad with the good never acknowledge the good themselves and only the bad.
Are you implying that we should ignore everything else about our past?
I’m implying that it’s Orwellian to credit freedom for the accomplishments of un-freedom.
We are all quite aware of the horrible injustices done to black people in this country.
Can you, for once, admit that our founding documents were a great boon to the freedom and prosperity of the people of the world?
“The two largest categories of U.S. capital assets in 1861 were land (taken from Native Americans) and slaves. ”
The Native Americans were waging wars of conquest on each other with a brutality that ISIS would envy. Conquest was the norm at the time and it was a universal human trait. IMO, the sin in regard to the native Americans was breaking the treaties we signed with them but that also was a two way street. Have wars of conquest stopped? They have for a time thanks to the Pax Americana but it looks like the world is returning to its historical script thanks to Americans who hate America.
Slavery was terrible but claiming that our country owes its success to slaves is an insult to the free men and women that worked as hard as slaves and fought for the freedom of slaves. No one is ignoring our past. Without a doubt black people were better off after the end of the Civil War when they could prosper from the same freedoms that allowed other Americans to enjoy.
And if you want to bring up how black people couldn’t enjoy all of these freedoms, I will agree and will point out why they couldn’t, which you already know well as a Democrat.
” Attributing the success of this effort to “freedom” is an extreme example of looking at one’s own country’s history through rose-colored glasses.”
Well that asnwers that question:
Yes you are going to be a nitwit.
That’s a rhetorical question, right?
The two largest categories of U.S. capital assets in 1861
A lot of stuff happened since 1861.
Attributing the success of this effort to “freedom” is an extreme example of looking at one’s own country’s history through rose-colored glasses.
Are you claiming that we’d be wealthier collectively, if slavery and land seizures were still the dominant forms of capital in the US?
And here we go, politicizing every G&*_ D*& thread.
Um, we ended slavery because of our founding principles. Just because freedom for blacks didn’t happen immediately the very second of the signing of the Constitution doesn’t mean everything in our founding period is wrong. 80 years is a short period compared to thousands of years of legalized slavery.
Not only that, but you missed Gregg’s point (as usual). Do you wish to ignore the fact that freedom is an integral part of our success because you wish to end it?
You may wish to flog yourself over the mistakes of our ancestors, but I will celebrate our successes.
politicizing every G&*_ D*& thread</i
If you read the linked article, I think you'll find that it was politicized to start with.
we ended slavery because of our founding principles
We ended slavery because the alternative was losing the Civil War.
Now you are just silly.
You can always tell how serious a Democrat is on the topic of slavery by whether or not they own an Apple product.
Are you under the impression that Apple products are built by slaves, or that non-Apple products are built under better conditions than Apple products?
“Are you under the impression that Apple products are built by slaves”
Anytime people commit suicide because of the work conditions it is pretty dang close. By Democrat standards, the workers are slaves working for less than slave wages. Democrats always rant about outsourcing jobs and taking advantage of foreign workers. Yet somehow, despite all of the rhetoric, they are often Apple fanbois. It just illustrates how you guys don’t really believe in any of the things you claim to.
Apple is cool so you overlook the manufacturing process. Electric cars are cool so you overlook their toxic waste batteries. Windmills are cool so you overlook how many birds they kill. Obama is cool so you overlook…
Ah .. we had 3 million square miles of resources for free. You could homestead and get 160 acres and all the timber, mineral and water rights, for free. You couldn’t do that in europe and britian.
Look at how much land Penn got. The king was giving out huge state size land grants. America had literally thousands of resources that could be had for free or pennies on the dollar. A lot of our success came from that. MILLIONS of homesteaders getting free farms.
The only thing preventing the free use of the free millions of acres stuffed with resources and minerals in Russia or China, during the same time period was…..
the government.
I’m implying that it’s Orwellian to credit freedom for the accomplishments of un-freedom.
Then it is also Orwellian to ignore the positive side of history. Were you taught by Howard Zinn?
It’s always interesting to me that the people who always bring up the issue of antebellum slavery (you know, like they value liberty SO much) in almost any discussion of American history are almost always the biggest State-shtuppers and liberty-phobes. Not that I’m talking about anyone here, mind you. Just saying.
Maybe it’s a well hidden case of envy? Just think, you could be a capital asset working productively for Massa’ Jim rather than some dude on the internet.