We’ve had “alternative facts”, get ready for its way more pernicious cousin “alternative history”
this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
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The way that history is thought to kids is already romanticized to the point of bordering "alternative history" - and I'm not talking just about the US I don't know any country where history classes outside of universities aren't an exercise on building at least some level of civil religion. What Republicans want to move it to the realm of fairy tales.
Are there any fascist traits that the Republican party isn’t embracing?
Well, the party isn't officially calling for the extermination of "woke" people. Not yet, anyhow.
Ah but it's so far just one (realistically probably a few) of them doing that in public. I give them a few years/months before it's actually official party policy
Seems like in the future there's going to be two groups with very different ideas of history.
That is true now. The propaganda isn't to teach something new, it's to teach something people already believe harder.
I could see a purpose for it:
"This is 'propaganda' kids. It's designed to teach you things that aren't true. Here's how to learn it isn't true, and here's how to learn who is behind it and why they want you to be taught things that aren't true."
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” —George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-four
I really need to buy that book and read it again. It was one the hardest reads in my teens.
That book, along with Brave New World have shaped me so deeply. I’ve read 1984 periodically and each reading reveals so much more than the last because I have new mental lenses each time.
Definitely pick it up again and give it a punt.
Those two should be read as a pair.
- RATM - Orwell
It isn't the first time propaganda has been taught in our public schools. At all.
Sure, but it is perhaps the most blatant.
But you can see why this is a bit alarming though, right?
This is the first time privately funded, far-right disinformation has been taught in public schools.