dagblog - Comments for "It's time to stop calling slavery America's 'original sin'"

Education, loans, value of

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 18:18:01 +0000

Education, loans, value of degree, opportunity -
I pointed out the somewhat absurdity of a woman running up $160k in debt for a Bachelors in Divinity and a Masters in Social Work, and another in Education, and then going to be an adoption counselor for welfare recipients. Obviously it's her choice, except concerns about debt forgiveness and the social harm of too many people shouldering too much debt.
But thinking of MLK's comments - they were made back when college especially for blacks was more an intellectual finishing school, rather than the huge expansion into more of trade & vocational schools, even if studying engineering or business or medicine. "Thinking how to think" is a bit off may of the curricula, aside from the need to synthesize your field's information. There's a bit of ethics needed in many fields. But the idea that a college is going to teach people how to be citizens is frankly naive and certainly not what most will pony for as tuitions go sky-high. We used to think as well that much of this would be done at home or in Kindergarten or in elementary school... Maybe they'll get it from the internet if lucky?
But the problem I see with debt forgiveness or just the approaches to education is simply abandoning metrics by which people would choose a degree program (or alternative form of education), and the default subsidy of the education system that's made itself a cash cow rather than the more not-for-(much)-profit we think of in education (note that most educators receive below market salaries or per-class contracts, so if even those professionals are taking a hit, why should government pay to bump up private education investors, some like Trump running scam schools, others just running extortionate facilities. With the big lies of what students can expect getting out, rather than say more focus on newly structured coursework-plus-internships, or a way to recognize & support all the programmers who get jobs with just a little bit of college, or if health jobs are growing but not paying, a way to ease new workers into this fairly...

I should add that Annette no

artappraiser — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 04:32:18 +0000

In reply to I posted that MLK quote

I should add that I suspect Annette no doubt recommended the essay because she has spent a considerable amount of her career in history studying Thos. Jefferson, including his relationship with Sally Hemings (to Pulitzer-winning effect), and other related founders, trying to delve into their psychology and way of thinking as much as is humanly possible from written records. She's definitely the kind that thinks you don't judge history and historic people without first getting an accurate picture of how life was for them and how they thought. The history comes first and is separate from the judging. And note her statement that she has some quibbles with it.

I posted that MLK quote

artappraiser — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 04:23:58 +0000

In reply to So a comment MLK made 74

I posted that MLK quote thinking in another sort of direction. King was a preacher and scholar of the Christian gospels. He knew how many ways to Sunday that "the bible" could be twisted in many different ways from the way he saw it by others, both scholars and ordinary users. To fit a narrative about the world.

In the quote, to me he's very specifically talking instead of getting an old fashioned secular education, things that supposedly can't be twisted to ideology, like math and science. I think he was warning that some things should be basics of education that we all agree on, before someone is allowed to spin ideological or emotional interpretation of texts. (I would add ironically: including MLK quotes, which are like a "holy text" to spin nowadays.) I thought this one somewhat special and related for that reason. As it also goes to the topic of spinning history every which way, according to current ideologies instead of trying your best to simply understand how it was for people living in that historical time.

That is exactly what James Goodman is talking about, too, with history, you don't judge that topic with out standards, you judge it by theirs. You don't do history by using it for the preferable propaganda of the day, you just do history. He's not saying anything bad about propaganda of the day,-or preaching your view of the gospels, as it were, he's just saying it's not practicing the field of history. Not to confuse the two. Maybe we have progressed, maybe we haven't, how can you even tell if you don't have an accurate picture of then and now and instead mix them together? He's seeing that we are adding another religious layer of interpretation, the one that it's "the original sin" on top of the religious and moral beliefs of people of the time, which were different.

Both seeing there's got to be some standard things that everyone agrees to for studying any kind of shit to even work.

I don't think it is that. The

moat — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 01:05:51 +0000

In reply to Devil"s Bargain

I don't think it is that. The more terrible option is that commonly received ideas only are contested if they are contested. The worse that we think about ourselves is accepted by some perverse default. The idea does not have to be proved but has to not be disproved for it to be viable.

The result is not even a concept.

Devil"s Bargain

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 00:49:23 +0000

In reply to I am not persuaded by Goodman

Devil"s Bargain

I am not persuaded by Goodman

moat — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 22:07:30 +0000

In reply to It's time to stop calling slavery America's 'original sin'

I am not persuaded by Goodman's argument that the use of "original" in describing the sin of slavery means the crime was presented as equivalent to the myths of Genesis that attempt to describe the human condition as a development of Creation. Goodman himself argues that it should be taken seriously as forming the contours of our polity. I am not sure where the difference between the secular and the religious is advanced by the distinction.

I think Lincoln came closer to the theology of the idea in his Second Inaugural speech where the cost of the crime is meted out upon all, including former slaves. Nobody rides free.