Blue Notes from a Red Zone

Straw Men

One of the most irritating talking point strategies for right wing leaders is the way they ground their defenses of ill-advised policies in attacks on imaginary straw men. For instance, whenever the president wishes to make further illegal intrusions into Constitutional rights and liberties, he blithely states that those who are against him "want the terrorists to win." One would think that it is obvious that no one, left wing or right wing, American or French, wants the "terrorists to win." Yet our local paper is filled with letters from people who assume that if the president said it, it must be true, and faithfully equate anyone who disagrees with the president as being pro-terrorist.

Straw men are very useful devices whenever the real issue is uncomfortable and difficult to defend. Sadly, liberals are wont to prop up the scarecrows on occasion also, particularly when the issue involves sexism, and to a lesser extent, racism.

Ironically, the issue most commonly used to deflect conversation from unpleasant topics is that of free speech. When Don Imus was fired for his comments about "nappy-headed hos," a large number of the liberal media, and many of my own friends, got fired up about censorship and the Constitutionally-guaranteed rights of free expression.

This was complete nonsense, of course. The Constitution guarantees that everyone has the right to speak freely, but does not guarantee that everyone have an audience. Censorship is only illegal when mandated by the government. For a sponsor to withdraw advertising because an entertainer no longer has an audience is not censorship, it's the free market at work. For that matter, the sponsor's right to choose which programs to support is also a liberty guaranteed under the free speech clause.

The thorniest issue, however, comes when there is clearly a huge market for not just offensive speech, but speech that has horrific consequences for large portions of the population. Clearly, capitalism often aides and abets the escalation of destructive, yet protected, speech. This mass acceptance of disturbing speech, film and photographic records puts liberals in a bind. They don't want to be seen as supporting hate-filled media, but at the same time, they don't want to be seen as suppressing individual rights. So they set up the smokescreen of defending the First Amendment above all as a way of avoiding the topic completely.

I'm talking, of course, about pornography. The majority of women have very little exposure to pornography, beyond the occasional glance at soft-core publications such as Playboy. A large number of men have similarly limited exposure also. Thus, they do not take accusations of pornography's destructive influence seriously. Those who object to it are considered Victorian prudes, who seek to impose their narrow morality on others. They dismiss allegations that pornographers abuse the women in their films by saying that these women made a free choice to embrace that lifestyle.

However, there is a $10 billion per year industry that says that attitude is naive (mainstream Hollywood studio films bring in $9 billion per year). In this world, cruelty and degradation of women and children is the driving force for film and Internet sales. In this world, the most common "plot line" is for men to slap and physically abuse women, who then beg to be raped in painful ways.

To say this has a destructive effect on society is an understatement. To know that millions of men take pleasure in the vicarious debasement and rape of women and children is painful. It becomes almost unbearable when coupled with research indicating that sexual offenders are strongly influenced by pornography, and frequently use it as justification for real life attacks on real people.

Acknowledging the effect pornography has in undermining society is not to advocate for governmental suppression of any form of literature or film, other than those films created through the exploitation and rape of minors. For one thing, no sane person would believe that such suppression would do anything but inflame the market. For another, driving pornography even further underground would mask, but not eliminate, the root cause of its popularity. Government censorship is not only a violation of the First Amendment, but completely ineffective.

Shrugging the issue under the rug of protected speech and assuming nothing can be done, though, is completely unacceptable. There are many precedents for societal response to allowable, but hateful, practices. The courts established the legitimacy of slander and libel laws from the beginning. Oliver Wendell Holmes famously ruled that free speech does not extend to yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. Speech that poses danger may be curtailed.

Similarly, offensive behavior and advertising is also subject to limitations. Tobacco companies still sell cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco, and make huge profits. Society allows this, but protects itself by imposing large taxes on tobacco products, and using the proceeds for what has been a highly effective campaign to educate the public on the negative consequences of smoking. Governments impose bans on smoking in restaurants and public places, and reduces the risks of second-hand smoke to non-smokers. Tobacco companies may advertise in magazines, but not on TV. Children's movies and TV are smoke-free zones. Liquor companies may advertise, but must also balance their sales pitch with messages about underage drinking, drinking and driving, and the effects of alcohol on pregnancy.

Pornography has operated under some of these limitations, although the Internet has made restrictions on sales of pornography to minors rather useless. But more needs to be done. In the same way that major retailers have refused to carry recordings with profanity-laced lyrics, or lyrics that promote violence, major video chains should refuse to carry movies that depict violent and abusive sex acts. Consumers should withdraw their support of companies that aid and abet the production and distribution of films and movies. And most of all, we all need to recognize that destructive pornography is not an inevitable fringe side effect of an otherwise pleasant diversion, but that it is central to a major industry. And we should exercise our right to free speech, and condemn it for the horror it is, and the dangerous attitudes it promotes.

posted by Lenore Wilson @ 8:50 PM 0 comments

Education, Writing, Formulas and Other Things That Don't Fit

Now that we are well into the scholastic year, I am once again completely frustrated with the educational system. Much of what passes for sound educational technique is nothing less than a sin against humanity.

To put this into historical perspective, some of the worst offenses in our educational system were created by attempts to correct some of our worst offenses in society. For centuries, the United States and every other developed country restricted public education to a sliver of the public (undeveloped countries didn't educate anyone). Children working in factories, on farms, as migrant workers, who had the wrong skin color or whose parents were too newly arrived from the wrong place, were not part of the universal education movement.

Some 10-15 years after Brown vs. Topeka established that separate "but equal" schooling was unconstitutional, the country began looking at expanding educational opportunities for all children. First in the South, following court orders overturning legislated school segregation, then in the North, following riots and shame, schools began to realize that they had to grapple with a multitude of races, cultures, socioeconomic levels, languages and faiths.

The first efforts were very haphazard and random. Some schools continued to enforce the same curriculum, geared to middle-class families filled with Janes, Dicks and Spots. Other schools tried to set different expectations and goals for different groups of children. No one had a clue as to what they were doing, and schools began their much heralded descent into mediocrity and incompetence.

Eventually, the public caught on to the fact that schools systems nationwide were groping in the dark without a flashlight. Books with catchy titles like "Why Johnny Can't Read," started becoming best sellers. William Bennet began publishing books establishing baselines of what each child should know in each grade, and parents were frantic when they realized their children didn't know a third of that material.

Educational specialists stepped in to halt the parental uproar, and hopefully, the decline in SAT scores. They determined to take a "systems approach" to scholastic reform, and break teaching and learning into scientific units, to be measured, studied, and re-measured again. The qualitative disparity between teachers could be erased by reducing all instruction to formulas.

This may have worked in math, but it has decimated the study of English, history, geography or any other subject based on the written language. Literature and composition are not amenable to formulaic instruction. Nor can we grade literary interpretations or creative writing assignments by a computer-generated answer key.

But, thanks to programs like No Child Left Behind, and standardized tests administered constantly throughout the school year, we try. As a result, even the best and brightest of our students haven't a clue about how to read or write.

The latest tipping point for me came as one of my daughters was reading the instructions from her GRE (graduate school admissions test) preparation book. When writing an essay for the GRE, the manual noted, it was best to copy the introduction and paste it in the space for the conclusion. Any deviation from the introduction would be counted against you.

This drives me nuts, because I have heard it constantly since my oldest daughter hit middle school (although I didn't really believe it was widespread until my children starting attending universities). ALL essays and writing assignments, every single one, must conform to the following formula: an introduction which sets out what you are going to say; three (not two, not five, three) body paragraphs which say what you mean to say; and a conclusion, which repeats the introduction. Papers are graded on the number of words and the ability to repeat yourself endlessly.

I have spent the last 15 years helping my children and all their friends and their friends' relations learn to write. These students are the AP, IB and gifted students of their class. This is what they bring me:

1) run-on sentences;
2) paragraphs that extend for pages;
3) constant repetition in order to make that word count goal;
4) sloppy punctuation (no one grades on this);
5) absence of original thought (if noticed, it is graded down);
6) no transitions between one paragraph and another;
7) organization forced, and not based on content;
8) the first paragraph repeated at the end.

What are these formulaic teachers thinking?

Is there a successful writer any where in the world who copies and pastes his/her introduction and inserts it as his/her conclusion? When students were asssigned to read essays, did the essay authors limit themselves to an introduction, a conclusion, and three body paragraphs? Did Thoreau do this? Did Emerson? Thomas Paine? Thomas Jefferson? Do our modern day essayists (generally found in magazines and newspapers) limit themselves to such a rigid structure? Would anyone read George Will or Paul Krugman if they couldn't produce a well-crafted sentence or an original thought from time to time?

Teaching children to research, synthesize and analyze information, and clearly communicate the results of their study, is time intensive. It takes skill and talent, and is not susceptible to computer models.

It is, however, critical.

Students who learn to read by rote, and write by formula, do not access critical thinking skills. They cannot tell the difference between a scientific theory and an opinion tossed out at the dinner table. They can't distinguish between facts and lies. They will not be able to meet the challenges of climate change, and nuclear non-proliferation, or global poverty, not even to save their lives.

posted by Lenore Wilson @ 11:32 AM 1 comments