History

I'm reading Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism right now. It's a pretty interesting book, and not quite the "right wing nuttery" that I'd expected of it. No offenses to Mr. Goldberg, but a book whose cover consists of a smiley face with a Hitleresque moustache might be assumed to be not quite as academic as it's turning out to be. While it's by no means (and by the author's own admission) an academic tome, it's a bit more academic than expected.

But this isn't meant to be a review of the book. One of the themes of the book is that "progressives" tend to ignore their own history and have rewritten history so that Mussolini, Hitler, et al., are seen as being right-wing when most of their policies were progressive, i.e., left-wing, policies.

This theme reminded me of a quote from my father-in-law: If you can destroy the history of a people, you can destroy that people. He was referring to the Jews and the Middle East conflict (specifically with respect to certain countries who won't allow archaeological research into Biblical places.) This quote reminds me of this segment by Bill Whittle, in which he discusses (a bit indirectly) the attack on American history in an attempt to destroy it and, as a result, the American way of life. (I would argue that there is not an American people in the same way that there is a Jewish people. This country was founded on a philosophy, and I'd argue that anyone who buys into that philosophy is essentially American. Thus "way of life" rather than "people".)

This also ties into the books I've been reading by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., about how progressive educational ideals have been slowly weakening this country by removing content (such as American history) from primary education. I've seen some overlap in the names mentioned in both books (like John Dewey.) It's also a bit depressing to see Columbia University mentioned in Hirsch's books (specifically Columbia Teacher's College) and Whittle's commentary (as the temporary home of the Institute for Marxism, er, the Institute for Social Research, aka the Frankfurt School.) But then, I should hardly be surprised that a liberal northeastern university has played such a large part in the progressive movement.