[wolverine876]

> indoctrination and propaganda happening in US education

What evidence do you have that it is happening and on what scale?

My teachers, all that I recall, never presented any opinion or perspective as truth. It was always about thinking critically for ourselves. If, for example, they presented a well-established view on the sinking of the Maine, it was as material for our analysis and evaluation.

[seertaak]

There are slides circulating on Twitter, apparently snapped during presentations given to educators in the context of diversity training, exhorting viewers to understand, say, punctuality as a manifestation of white supremacy.

Set aside for a moment the very fair questions one can ask about the trustworthiness of these images. Ignore for now whether this was shown to 5 or 5000 eductors, etc.

Let's just assume such instructions were in fact given to educators on some non-negligible scale.

Would that be evidence enough for you?

[wolverine876]

> Let's just assume such instructions were in fact given to educators on some non-negligible scale.

IMHO, and pertinent to the OP: That is out of textbook of how mis- and disinformation impacts human thinking: Observe something emotionally provocative and follow the urge to dive in, regardless of the reality: 'What if it's true???" I've trained myself not to do it.

I'm always interested in valuable, credible information. (And to be clear, it's not your job to educate me - that's my job - but it is your job to backup what you say.)

> slides circulating on Twitter

Is there any place where amount of propaganda is greater, in the history of the world, than on social media such as Twitter? It must be orders of magnitude beyond anything ever. Serious question: Why are you reading it? It's like digging through a garbage dump for coins.

[nescioquid]

You seem to deny there is any propaganda or indoctrination happening in U.S. education.

A commenter asked what it would take to change your mind, and offers a hypothetical scenario as a test (which may have some basis in reality, but excludes that from consideration), and you refused to consider it.

Do you think there is any sort of evidence, if demonstrated adequately, that would change your mind? What sort of evidence would be sufficient?

[CRConrad]

> You seem to deny there is any propaganda or indoctrination happening in U.S. education.

Heck no, everybody knows American schools have been indoctrinating kids into robber-baron capitalism, "Manifest Destiny" imperialism, trickle-down economics, Christianity and other stupid shit like that for ages.

Wait, what -- that wasn't the propaganda or indoctrination you meant?

[wolverine876]

I'm not defending myself against baseless allegations, if that's what you are seeking.

They made a claim, not me. Let's see some evidence or it's just, effectively, propaganda. Anybody can say anything without evidence.

[nescioquid]

You challenged the notion of "indoctrination and propaganda happening in US education" (from the parent comment). You simply made a counter-claim to the parent commenter, to the effect that you know none of your teachers ever presented opinion as truth.

Another commenter asks you whether, hypothetically, a certain kind of training were given to teachers would change your opinion.

Who is making a claim here?

[esyir]

Man, if you're trying to defend teachers, you're doing a sufficiently terrible job that I'd almost think you were deliberately strawmanning.

You've effectively responded to a hypothetical "if teachers were converted to propaganda machines, would that be propaganda" with evasion that makes you sound like you have something to hide.

[wolverine876]

It's interesting that people are taking the approach of attacking me personally, which violates HN's guidelines.

They made a claim of something happening in reality, not hypothetically.

[akomtu]

That's a real thing, though. In fact, some legislatures are so concerned that they've started passing laws prohibiting propaganda. Example is the recent HB3979 bill:

https://legiscan.com/TX/text/HB3979/id/2339637

[dragonwriter]

> In fact, some legislatures are so concerned that they've started passing laws prohibiting propaganda. Example is the recent HB3979 bill

But that law:

(1) Nowhere prohibits propaganda, by name or in effect,

(2) mandates teaching propaganda, and specifically teaching various propaganda documents, opinion/analysis works, and campaign presentations (the Federalist Papers, Democracy in America, the first Lincoln-Douglas debate) ahistorically as “founding documents of the United States” rather than as propaganda, controversial opinion, etc.

It does explicitly prohibit policies mandating teaching current events, though. But not propaganda.

[jollybean]

So I would disagree with both of those points.

For part 2) it says they 'must teach those foundational concepts and supporting documents' (i.e. Constitution) but it doesn't say how. I'm not sure if that counts as 'must teach propaganda'.

For part 1) The Boards are prohibited from requiring teachers to teach current events via an ideological nature, but it does not prohibit teachers from teaching anything - rather they must teach the subject from a variety of viewpoints without taking sides.

"(2) teachers who choose to discuss current events or widely debated and currently controversial issues of public policy or social affairs shall, to the best of their ability, strive to explore such issues from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective;"

And prohibiting things like giving credit for activist projects etc.. If parents want to get their kids involved in activism, that's perfectly fine but I don't think that's the school's job.

Honestly, I don't like that we feel such a document needs to exist, but I think it's pretty fair, neutral and civic.

As a parent, I would be happy if this were already the 'policy' at my school board.

[wolverine876]

> some legislatures are so concerned that they've started passing laws prohibiting propaganda. Example is the recent HB3979 bill:

> https://legiscan.com/TX/text/HB3979/id/2339637

If you are aware of that bill, you know that it's potentially a product of the conservative reactionary movement, which demonizes anything liberal and attacks with everything they've got.

That doesn't mean propaganda doesn't exist in education, but isn't it a bit disingenuous to present the bill only as a product of 'concern' and omit political movement with which it's widely associated? Isn't that disninformation?

I'm asking a genuine question, given the context.

[akomtu]

The bill's language is very simple and reasonable, e.g. "members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex." I don't really see where this bill attempts to demonize anything.

[wolverine876]

It's telling, perhaps, that the parent comment doesn't address the question, misrepresents what I wrote, and continues to misrepresent the bill.

[akomtu]

Is there a particular statement in the bill you deem wrong?

[_ivvf]

The evidence that radicals have already successfully overtaken Western universities is overwhelming, and the evidence that these radicals are in the process of taking over secondary education is also readily available for anyone who is interested.

If you are actually looking for some eyewitness accounts, Jordan Peterson has many podcasts where he interviews specific people that have experienced the ideological takeover themselves, including:

* Yeonmi Park: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yqa-SdJtT4

* Dr. Rima Azar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIw8mH7ZpFY

* Bret Weinstein: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O_gW4VWZ5c

He has also interviewed one person who lost his job fighting the takeover in high school:

* Paul Rossi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysQBegyQP8A

He's also interviewed a self-identified liberal and former employee of New York Times that witnessed the takeover at the Times. Starting at minute 8 the conversation diverges into talking about her experience at University.

* Bari Weiss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFTA9MJZ4KY&t=12s

Bari Weiss says it herself in this podcast, loosely quoted since I don't remember it exactly: If you as a liberal can't see the danger in what is happening, then you have your blinders on.

I would say the same holds true of people who can't see the takeover in education, which is already mostly complete.

Edit: I found the Bari Weiss quote at 43:06: "I have to be honest. At this point, if one can't see the way that this language has been hijacked and used as a kind of trojan horse strategy to smuggle in a hardened, zero-sum identity politics view of the world, to smuggle in a view of the world in which we have collective guilt or collective innocence literally based on the circumstances of our birth, that smuggle in a deeply anti-capitalist position, to smuggle in essentially a leftist illiberalism, then, I'm sorry. You have blinders on! The evidence is so overwhelming at this point.... I think it's because admitting that's true, is extremely psychologically scary, and socially scary, if you are a liberal."

[wolverine876]

There's no evidence in the parent, just the opinions of a few political actors.

> radicals have already successfully overtaken Western universities

Ironically, this uses techniques from the OP. It's an emotional appeal - calling people radicals, catastrophizing, etc. - but there's no evidence and really no information. Hyperbole eliminates information; it's like screaming 'we're all going to die!'.

[blindmute]

If eyewitness accounts are not evidence, what would pass as evidence to you? Anyone with children in public school has seen this. Do you really need a peer reviewed study on every piece of information to form a worldview?

[wolverine876]

> If eyewitness accounts are not evidence

What a few people in the whole country say is necessarily credible and is evidence of a widespread trend? Wow. Do you know what you can find people saying, especially on the Internet?

It's surprising that people, especially on HN where evidence is commonplace, and especially in a discussion on propaganda, are so triggered by that. Note that almost nobody in this thread is discussing the facts of the original claim, they all are trying to change the subject to me.

> Anyone with children in public school has seen this.

What I read is, 'I'm so sure that I haven't even looked for or at evidence.' It's not a good sign.

Fact and reason are the difference between burning witches at the stake on one hand, and justice, fairness, truth, law, and science on the other.

[blindmute]

> What I read is, 'I'm so sure that I haven't even looked for or at evidence.' It's not a good sign.

What you should read is that there is so much obvious evidence, easily available, that asking for more of it can only be interpreted as bad faith. I am certain that there is no evidence that fits your standard, because short of "Study: Schools taken over by radicals" you would not accept it. A scientific study like this would never be funded, even if this were a question for science (it isn't), for many reasons.

A google search of the relevant terms would turn up dozens of egregious instances. Have you looked?

[ttctciyf]

Jordan Peterson is the worst kind of bloviating bullshitter pushing divisive bad faith talking points designed to muddy and degrade debate, in my ever so humble opinion.

[sreque]

I don't agree with everything Jordan says. In fact, as a religious person, I find his attempts to redefine religion as a form of atheism with psychology-based respect for religious instinct to be offensive. But, I don't believe a single thing you just said. I believe Jordan has and continues to do more good than I ever will in 100 of my own lifetimes, despite his flaws.