Forget “cancel culture.” Ignorance is bliss, the right-wing mantra

Remember when conservatives criticized so-called “cancel culture.” That’s gone.

Now, there is a fundamental belief (no pun intended) in right-wing circles that exposing children to unpleasant facts (i.e., “woke”) injures their little brains. Keeping children ignorant of certain realities helps them in some unknown way.

These beliefs are based not on scientific research but on religious and political interpretations and intuition.

So, young children should not be told about sex, sexuality, bigotry, crime, war, slavery, vaccination, or anything else that some parents don’t want their children to know.

Never mind that other parents may want their children to have this information. Keeping children ignorant takes precedence over providing them with “dangerous, irreligious, or just plain icky” information.

Also, never mind that children will receive twisted versions of the facts from their peers, and having no contrary factual information, they’ll believe the lies.

As the right-wing will tell you, learning the playground versions of sex, bigotry, crime, war, slavery, etc., is good. Learning actual facts in school is bad.

Thus, gay people either do not exist or should be bullied, unprotected sex is OK, so long as it’s done in ignorance, and slavery either never happened or was benign or even beneficial because that’s what all the little playground friends and Tucker Carlson say.

I was reminded of our return to the dark ages when I saw excerpts from an article in the local Sun-Sentinel, a Florida newspaper.

Some topics in AP African American Studies dropped.
New curriculum gives DeSantis a few wins but still has the potential for another showdown.
By Sommer Brugal and Ana Ceballos Miami Herald

MIAMI — The organization in charge of Advanced Placement courses offered in high schools across the country released the final version of its new African American Studies course, notably leaving out some lessons. Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Department of Education called out earlier this year for what they said was an effort to “push an agenda” on students.

The “agenda” has to do with slavery facts that might embarrass some white students. Presumably, it also has to do with queer facts that might embarrass some straight students.

And some other facts that might embarrass certain Christian denominations. Seemingly, embarrassment is the test of education in right-wing minds.

A review of the 300-page course shows the College Board decided to exclude topics on the Black queer experience— a case DeSantis has singled out in his criticism — and only include the Black Lives Matter movement and the reparations debate as optional, meaning they won’t be required or contained on the final AP exam.

As every right-winger knows, there are no black gay people, and if there are they should be ignored because being gay is a choice – a wrong choice – and those gay people simply should just straighten up (again, no pun intended)

I can’t remember when I first made the decision to be straight, but it must have happened before I read any gay-oriented books, or I might have been convinced to be gay. Or so the right wing tells us.

However, the course includes Black authors and scholars flagged as inappropriate by Florida education officials, such as Kimberlé Crenshaw and Angela Davis. Ideas rejected by the DeSantis administration, such as intersectionality and race-related concepts, remained in the curriculum.

It’s easy to understand why thought leaders like Ron DeSantis would object to Kimberle Crenshaw because, as Wikipedia says:

She is a leading scholar of critical race theory (CRT), an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analyzing how social and political laws and media shape (and are shaped by) social conceptions of race and ethnicity.

CRT also considers racism to be systemic in various laws and rules and not only based on individuals’ prejudices. The word critical in the name is an academic reference to critical thinking, critical theory, and scholarly criticism rather than criticizing or blaming individuals. 

So clearly, her ideas are subversive because if there is one thing we wish to avoid, it is having our children think critically about race. It is much better to pick up bigotry from their parents and other kids.

And as for Angela Davis:

She is an American revolutionary Marxist and feminist political activist, philosopher, academic, author, and professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Davis was a longtime member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and a founding member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS). 

Here, the theory is the fewer kids know about Communism, the greater their ability to resist the siren song of communism (although being a revolutionary, she should be welcomed by Donald Trump, who attempted a coup. There’s nothing more revolutionary than a coup.)

In January, DeSantis argued against the inclusion of critical race theory and an attempt to use Black history for “political purposes.”

“Political purposes” is a bit mysterious. Perhaps it means telling kids that slavery was evil, which could reflect poorly on any Southerners who still fly the revolutionary rebel flag.

DeSantis and the Florida Department of Education are willing to prohibit content they deem “liberal indoctrination” in schools.

(As opposed to conservative indoctrination?)

Despite being challenged by the DeSantis administration and state reviewers of the coursework, ideas such as intersectionality — a concept that refers to how racism, sexism, and classism can overlap and affect people — and the plight of African Americans throughout history are highlighted as “essential knowledge” for students, meaning they must demonstrate mastery of the topic for the exam.

In one unit, “Freedom, Enslavement, and Resistance,” the College Board considers it essential for students to know how slavery prevented Black people from building wealth and has led to present-day wealth disparities along racial lines — a concept reviewers in Florida previously said could violate state laws and rules because it “supposes that no slaves or their descendants accumulated any wealth.”

Seed, it’s like this. If we can show that at least one slave or slave descendent accumulated at least a little wealth, then there is no reason for Florida students to understand how slavery prevented Black people from building wealth. Sounds reasonable — to conservatives.

The state Board of Education earlier this year approved new academic standards for instruction about African American history that include teachings about how enslaved people benefited from their bondage.

As every conservative knows, slavery was great for the slaves, and indeed, we all wish we had been slaves so we could have “benefitted from our bondage.”

Another unit, “The Black Feminist Movement, Womanism, and Intersectionality,” addresses the framework for understanding Black women’s “distinct experiences through the interactions of their social, economic, and political identities with systems of inequality and privilege.”

Themes such as migration and the African diaspora; intersections of identity; creativity, expression, and the arts; and resistance and resilience run throughout the course.

However, one of the most significant changes featured in the final work is the “Further explorations week,” said College Board officials.

The section, which would be taught during the final week of lessons, includes a list of optional topics, such as the Black Lives Matter movement and the reparations debate. Incarceration and abolition, Black women writers and filmmakers, African-American art, and culinary traditions are other topics that can be taught.

Conservatives don’t want our children to learn any of that stuff. It’s much better to claim it never happened, put up statues of traitors, wave rebel flags along with American flags, and deny elections.

And then there’s this article, also in the Sun Sentinel:

Sanitizing public school libraries
Moody

If you thought the purpose of a public school library was to enrich a student’s education, you’re wrong, according to Attorney General Ashley Moody.

As she sees it, it’s to promote the government’s points of view. Only.

That’s the gist of her breathtaking argument in a federal court lawsuit over how Escambia County bans books.

Public school libraries “are a forum for government, not private speech,” she has told the court. That is authoritarianism on steroids.

The case involves a well-known children’s book, “And Tango Makes Three,” about two male penguins who raised a chick at New York’s Central Park Zoo.

The book banners and burners have attacked it since it was published eight years ago. They claim it promotes homosexuality.

This all is based on the utter nonsense that talking about homosexuality is something kids decide to do rather than it being inborn.

Apparently, in a conservative world, there is a time when you make a conscious decision to be gay, and if you read or hear anything positive about gay couples, it will sound so wonderful you’ll make the “wrong” decision.

I’m trying to remember the time when I made the conscious decision to be straight.

I do recall that in my college fraternity, we had at least one openly gay guy, and it was all I could do to keep from turning gay. I mean, who could resist the taunts, bigotry, and ignorant hatred being gay engenders.

Of course, it’s non-scientific idiocy. People may make a conscious decision to come out of the closet, but having homosexual feelings is not a decision.

So, relax; reading about male penguins raising a chick will not turn your children gay.

So why are the conservatives so terrified?

My guess is that conservatives live in fear of everything. To begin, they fear change. That is the basic rule of conservatism: To conserve the past.

They fear blacks, browns, yellows, reds, Jews, Muslims, gays, and even women. That is why they exhibit so much bigotry toward these groups. Fear is the basis for hatred, and hatred is the basis for today’s Republican Party. They even hate each other.

They carry guns because they fear strangers. They fear “the deep state” and “woke,” though they have no idea what these are. And in their fear, they follow a “strong” (i.e., loud) leader who promises to destroy all whom they fear.

Escambia banned a range of books at the prompting of a teacher whom the suit claims was influenced by Moms for Liberty. This Florida-based censorship lobby goes after books touching on Black and LBGTQ issues in particular. That teacher and others have challenged 218 books, according to the litigation.

In the conservative world, “Liberty” means constraining your kids from learning what conservatives fear. (Also, “patriotism” means attempting a coup and threatening to hang the Vice-President for not overturning an election.)

George Orwell revisited
Moody’s argument in favor of the Escambia School Board is as extreme and dangerous as it could possibly be. It echoes the “Big Brother” dystopia of George Orwell’s prophetic fiction, “1984.”

It’s only a short, logical step away from saying that state university libraries and classrooms also can be purged of anything the government does not approve.

In fact, Florida is already halfway there. Laws promoted by the state’s other leading authoritarian, Gov. Ron DeSantis, forbid schools to teach about critical race theory or encourage diversity.

Anything about sexual orientation is taboo since the law depends on someone’s interpretation of what is age-appropriate.

That’s in what’s better known as DeSantis’ so-called “Don’t say gay” law, which was initially sold as applying only to kindergarten through third grade, then swiftly expanded through eighth grade by the Legislature the following year, and through 12th grade by the Florida Board of Education.

In the conservative world, 18-year-olds are too young to learn about sex, though old enough to marry, be executed for murder, or to kill and witness killing people in the military.

Once censorship and bigotry blend, there is no limit to the books that can be burned. A case always can be made that any book is inappropriate for mass consumption, depending on the blueness of one’s nose.

How about books about communism, for fear they will turn children into communists? Should DeSantis ban books about slavery that will make our children want to be slaves or slaveholders, and books about murder that will turn all our kids into murderers? It’s ridiculous.

There is no limit to what the ignorance promoters can find to ban. Consider the following Hitlerian proposal. Read it slowly and imagine it being promoted in China or Russia:

A pending policy by the Board of Governors forbids Florida universities from fostering “Any activity organized with a purpose of effecting or preventing change to a government policy, action or function, or any activity intended to achieve a desired result related to social issues, where the university endorses or promotes a position in communications, advertisements, programs or campus activities.”

“Any activity” (including writing, talking, thinking, even doing nothing) . . .

“effecting or preventing change” (for or against change; both would be illegal) . . .

“government policy, action or function”” (say nothing about the government, for or against) . . .

“desired result” (do not express any desire for anything to happen) . . .

“social issues” (every issue can be construed as a social issue). . .

“where the university endorses or promotes a position in communications, advertisements, programs or campus activities” (which covers everything the university does).

I challenge you to name one thing a Florida university can do that does not run afoul of some interpretation of this policy. It forbids Florida universities from doing anything at all, including teaching. 

And this is all in the name of “Liberty.” Is that your interpretation of “liberty”?

That will spark more lawsuits in which Florida’s attorney general will oppose, rather than defend, freedom of speech and inquiry.

Moody wrote, “Viewpoint-based educational choices are constitutionally permissible because public-school systems, including their libraries, convey the government’s message, and, when the government speaks, it may ‘regulate the content…of its own message,’” 

This is from the party that rails against the “deep state” controlling our lives.

Rebutting the student plaintiffs in the Escambia case, she argues: “The government has no constitutional obligation to present educational material with which it disagrees.”

In short, teachers must parrot the government’s message, and no disagreement is allowed.

Without limits on that chilling thought, a Republican state could bar Democratic authors from its school libraries. Or vice versa.

Hers is a prescription for education bleached of anything even remotely controversial. A school board controlled by religious fundamentalists could ban Darwin’s “Origin of Species.” Or, indeed, Orwell’s “1984.”

An uneducated population is the raw material from which dictatorships are made.

That is why Donald Trump said, “I love the poorly educated.” And, in fact, Trump, with his dictatorial bent, has done exceptionally well among poorly educated voters. The less you know, the more likely you are to vote for a conservative.

It’s not Moody’s first deep dive into right-wing extremism, however.

Attacking abortion rights, she claims Florida’s constitutional privacy provision applies only to information, not to keeping the government out of your bedroom.

She seizes on any pretext to ask the Florida Supreme Court to bar from the ballot any voter initiative she doesn’t like — specifically, gun control, legalizing marijuana, or abortion rights.

She supports DeSantis’ claim, in a court case, that he has “executive privilege” to keep secret any document he wishes.

The best thing about Moody is that she’s term-limited. Someone else will be elected attorney general in 2026. We can only hope it is someone who better values a well-rounded education as a cornerstone of democracy.

Sadly, in Florida, that “someone else” probably will be another right-winger who will spout off about ‘Freedom” as a vague concept. Then they will do everything possible to eliminate the free discussion of racial bigotry, slavery, sex and sexual orientation, guns, voting rights, gerrymandering, immigration, and any government policy.

To a right-winger, “freedom” means “freedom to do exactly as they want you to do.”

Ignorance is bliss in the world of MAGA. So burn more books or let the Republicans burn them for you.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty
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