Comments on: “We Live in Hope”

By: kd

kd — Tue, 08 May 2007 03:18:58 +0000

For what it’s worth: Eclipse, an offshoot of Criterion, just came out with a DVD boxset of Louis Malle’s documentaries which includes his rarely seen 7 hour “Phantom India.” Filmed in 1968, it remains an astonishing, clear-eyed portrait — despite Malle’s leftist leanings and the passage of nearly forty years. It was reviled by India’s anglicized community for not focusing on economic achievements and the growing middle class — even though most of them never saw the film.

By: kd

kd — Tue, 08 May 2007 03:02:09 +0000

There are differing views about the quality of Indian education. The public schools are dominated by rote memorization and corporal punishment. Textbooks are badly written and out-of-date.
Private schools are much better, though they are usually boarding schools — excellent for older children, but (in my opinion) not always good for the very young. Overall, an Indian private school offers a far better education than most American schools, I daresay.
India is an extremely vast and complex country — talk about multiculturalism! During the course of single day, one feels as though having moved through multiple layers or strata of history.

By: Andrew Cusack

Andrew Cusack — Tue, 08 May 2007 00:42:45 +0000

My comment was, of course, tongue-in-cheek, but it was not far wrong. Very little history is required in most British state schools.

I imagine that Indian schools are modelled on how British schools used to be, when British schools offered a quality education. As we shall see in the upcoming decades, this will be why India succeeds while Britain falters.

By: kd

kd — Mon, 07 May 2007 21:26:17 +0000

Beautifully put, Andrew.
I much agree.

My reference to “irrational” had nothing to do with your concern about bias (indeed, it IS widespread, and, as I tried to point out, surely not limited to American schools alone), but with your response to my wondering what exactly you meant my “modernists.”

At any rate, I’d like to leave aside that subject for now, and say that I fully agree with your comments on American exceptionalism — & with your last sentence. Indeed, history should not be about patriotism, ideology, or indoctrination, but about what happened.

PS: Surprised to hear history is not taught in British schools! Interesting. It certainly is taught in Indian schools (and I had the impression they were modeled, to a great degree, after British schools.)

Thanks for the comments.

By: Andrew Cusack

Andrew Cusack — Mon, 07 May 2007 20:36:00 +0000

I don’t see what is irrational about what I said; if anything, it is merely observational. Rather, it seems irrational to attempt to justify bias by citing how widespread it is.

Regarding the teaching of history, there is nothing which requires the teaching of American history in public schools to lean towards the various exceptionalist schools of thought (to name one of the more widespread biases in American education). What is most interesting, however, is how exceptionalism has continued despite the cultural revolution of the 1960s and onwards. In the beginning of the republican era, American exceptionalism was based upon the need to legitimize the illegitimate (ie: the revolution and its aftermath). Following that, exceptionalism continued along an American nationalistic line, legitimizing the expulsion of native tribes from their lands or the institution of slavery or massacres in the Phillipines. Then, finally, exceptionalism is transformed into a legitimation of liberalism, e.g. we must export democracy to the world or observe a slavish devotion to capitalist ways or we must destroy traditional “gender roles” because we are America and damn the consequences. So American exceptionalism has remained, but the nefarious ideas it has sought to defend have shifted. My personal theory is that this is a symptom of the New Englandization of America which took place over the 19th century; a theory which I would like to explore in greater detail at a later moment.

But nonetheless, while a completely objective history is probably impossible, I still believe that historians have a duty to aim for the greatest amount of objectivity possible. We should leave “patriotic” readings of history to the Norman Rockwell paintings and the D.A.R. essay contests. Real history should be about what happened.

By: Andrew Cusack

Andrew Cusack — Mon, 07 May 2007 20:21:15 +0000

Actually, British schools don’t teach history at all!

By: kd

kd — Mon, 07 May 2007 18:33:27 +0000

An oddly vague, even irrational response, Andrew. A surprise coming from you!

By: kd

kd — Mon, 07 May 2007 18:24:24 +0000

Moreover, I would posit the notion that British schools teach British history in a “biased and ideological fashion” — as do schools in France, Denmark, all the way to India, etc, etc. — indeed, all countries teach their national history in pariotically biased and ideological fashion.

By: Andrew Cusack

Andrew Cusack — Mon, 07 May 2007 18:14:58 +0000

I meant modernists in the general sense of “enemies of all that is good and holy” not in any of its specific senses such as the artistic movement called modernism or the heresy of modernism or architectural modernism, etc.

I could just as well have said multiculturalists, levellers, leftists, cultural revolutionaries, or whatnot, but I was averse to creating such a list.

By: kd

kd — Mon, 07 May 2007 17:58:09 +0000

Andrew, I’m not sure I get the gist of your comment. What exactly do you mean by “attacks of the modernists”? Modernism was an international cultural movement that began after WWI. Are you saying that, until the end of WWI, America followed Britain as a cultural “model”?