Jack, thanks for bringing Douthat's article to our attention. Opinion | The French and Indian War and U.S. History's Complexities - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Usually, I find fault with Douthat's too ardent convert-Catholicism, but in this instance Ross has written a fine piece about the French and Indian War, and how it might contribute to a richly-contextualized, fundamentally dialectical educational method.
Canadian theologian Dr. Donald A. Carson's observation has never been more pertinent than now when Trump Cult ballyhoos Patriotic Education to the exclusion of latitudinarian viewpoints and full-spectrum findings. Said Carson: "Every text, without a context, is a pretext."
In the end, our educational method will either teach deep contextualization, or, legions of aggressively ignorant, gun-toting yahoos will take over. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/theres-word-what-trumpism-becoming/619418/
For example...
I have come to believe that embarking the American Revolution was a tragic decision, largely responsible for Uncle Sam's persistent belligerence. https://en.
In effect, the Revolutionary War polluted the political wellspring of the United States with needless, bloody combat, launched by wealthy, tax-resistant white men who devised a Constitution that has proven more oligarchic than democratic. (Consider Mitch McCnnell's all powerful - but paralytic - Senate.)
If American colonists had remained part of the British Empire (as Canadians did), we would have been more likely to evolve into a civilized country rather than The United States of Barbaria.
The fact that we still refuse to provide national healthcare for all our people is, in my mind, emblematic of the cruelty that never fails to rally Americans around their platitudes.
And now, the chickens are coming home to roost as our ever-present "underbelly" comes into clear view with real danger that The Autocrat Party will win the Oval Office in just three years.
If that happens, there will be no turning back.
"Life-Long Republican Steve Schmidt - Who Served As John McCain's Campaign Manager - Has An Unusually Firm Grip On What Is At Stake"
Concerning Ross Douthat's praise for the roots of The American Experiment...
Having lived my childhood and adolescence in Seneca Indian country, I have come to hold George Washington in contempt.
Washington and his factotum, General John Sullivan -- whose historic marker stood within walking distance of my childhood home -- deliberately strategized the "total destruction and devastation" of all Iroquois settlements in upstate New York, villages that were mostly occupied by the women, children and old men of this civilized, settled, agricultural tribe.
In my view, Washington and Sullivan's fundamentally murderous campaign was beyond bestial. It was outside the scope of rudimentary humanity, even taking into account the mores of the time. https://en.wikipedia.
The Whiskey Rebellion, George Washingtonm And Seneca Indian Genocide...
Thanks again for the heads up on Douthat's thoughtful article.
Alan
On Tue, Jul 13, 2021 at 12:48 PM Michelle and Jack Person <mmpjwp@comcast.net> wrote:
On Tue, Jul 13, 2021 at 12:48 PM Michelle and Jack P wrote:
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