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Secondary Problems: why idiots with no historical background threaten to drag us backwards
I've been thinking a lot lately that many of the fights that we have with regressives have to do with people who have grown up in a world where many of the largest problems have already been solved with government intervention. And it is the "secondary problems" that arise from those solutions that has our backwards friends and family so upset. Without the knowledge that history provides, they can't picture a time when the primary problems were meaningful.
Here's an example: Welfare. Social welfare programs provide ways for people continue to eat, live, and survive when they become orphaned, widowed, too old to work, injured or unemployed. They don't become desperate to survive, or have to sell their organs or anything else horrible. Primary problem: solved. The secondary problem arises that people are stingy and don't like to give money to other people they feel are unworthy, which they call "dependency". Their solution? End social welfare programs, "dependency" goes away. Never mind that we will be socked by the huge primary problem yet again.
Another one: abortion. Making abortion legal solved the problem of women, in the prime of their lives after society had invested huge amounts of time feeding, clothing, educating, and caring for them, dying from back alley abortions. Secondary problem? Women who don't want or aren't ready for children are not punished sufficiently for having sex (they call this concern for THE BABIES!). Wingnut solution? Make abortion illegal, and we are back to the original problem.
Unions. Unions make it possible for working class people to enjoy some of the fruits of their labor and not have to be wage slaves. The secondary problem? This gives capitalists a sad because they are (or wish to become) addicted to slave labor. They rail on and on about how unions ruin everything. Their solution? Chloroform the unions, and we all go back to the good old days with no protection on the job, no weekends, low wages, no benefits, etc.
If we could teach better history, show how government (and collective) action has already solved huge societal problems (and how horrible it would be to have them back), maybe our population wouldn't be so ignorant about the stupidity of destroying the gains we have already made.
20 replies
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The whole "get the govt out of my medicare" thing is a textbook example. Most govt functions work so well that too many people no longer even notice the benefits they are getting. Like fish in water.
Unfortunately, this kind of failure is sort of baked into human nature, and so we are headed into a kondratieff winter.
that I see or hear are put forth by people who are basically clueless about history.
They have almost no clue about the events that happened in the past, events that led the world to be the way that it is today
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.
Karl Marx
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
Thomas Jefferson
We are not makers of history. We are made by history.
Martin Luther king
Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.
Winston Churchill
A New Blueprint for History Education
History education is being sidelined throughout the country, especially at the K–12 level. The recurrent standards controversy over what part of our national history should be taught and when (as in the cases of Texas and North Carolina) should not overshadow a larger cause for concern. Over the past few years, counties, districts, and schools have begun to implement plans to reduce or eliminate history courses in the lower grades. When districts decide to drop history from their curriculum, administrators assert that they must do so because their students read and write far below grade level. To address and remedy this lack of proficiency, districts direct teachers to focus exclusively on English-Language Arts instruction, a focus that will almost surely intensify with the near national adoption of the Common Core State Standards.
Improving student literacy certainly merits attention. However, dropping history instruction from the curriculum will not ensure that reading comprehension and writing ability improve. Indeed, history must be part of the curriculum if the goal is to improve student literacy: research as well as educators' empirical experience suggest that studying history improves a student's ability to read analytically, think critically, and write effectively. Moreover, the discipline of history prepares students to take part in a pluralistic democracy by requiring them to consider multiple perspectives, analyze and interpret information, and draw conclusions from evidence.1
....Many other states evaluate schools through similar federal/state accountability systems. In general, these scores focus on two NCLB measures: reading and mathematics. Schools with student test scores that do not meet goals established under these systems risk losing funds and autonomy. To improve school ranking, schools therefore focus heavily on these two disciplines, with the result that administrators often eliminate history from the curriculum entirely, or reduce it to as little as 30 minutes per week.2 While the United States Department of Education is currently reviewing state applications to the NCLB law, few view these waivers as a serious challenge to our discipline's marginalization.
History education is being sidelined throughout the country, especially at the K–12 level. The recurrent standards controversy over what part of our national history should be taught and when (as in the cases of Texas and North Carolina) should not overshadow a larger cause for concern. Over the past few years, counties, districts, and schools have begun to implement plans to reduce or eliminate history courses in the lower grades. When districts decide to drop history from their curriculum, administrators assert that they must do so because their students read and write far below grade level. To address and remedy this lack of proficiency, districts direct teachers to focus exclusively on English-Language Arts instruction, a focus that will almost surely intensify with the near national adoption of the Common Core State Standards.
Improving student literacy certainly merits attention. However, dropping history instruction from the curriculum will not ensure that reading comprehension and writing ability improve. Indeed, history must be part of the curriculum if the goal is to improve student literacy: research as well as educators' empirical experience suggest that studying history improves a student's ability to read analytically, think critically, and write effectively. Moreover, the discipline of history prepares students to take part in a pluralistic democracy by requiring them to consider multiple perspectives, analyze and interpret information, and draw conclusions from evidence.1
....Many other states evaluate schools through similar federal/state accountability systems. In general, these scores focus on two NCLB measures: reading and mathematics. Schools with student test scores that do not meet goals established under these systems risk losing funds and autonomy. To improve school ranking, schools therefore focus heavily on these two disciplines, with the result that administrators often eliminate history from the curriculum entirely, or reduce it to as little as 30 minutes per week.2 While the United States Department of Education is currently reviewing state applications to the NCLB law, few view these waivers as a serious challenge to our discipline's marginalization.
