The left wants to be sure we do not take injustices in our society for granted—that we see the ways in which the strong oppress the weak, that we take them seriously, that we never walk by them and pretend they don’t exist. . .
The right, on the other hand, wants to be sure we do not take social order for granted—that we see the ways in which our civilization protects us, enriches us, and elevates us, that we never imagine that this is all easy or natural, and never forget that, if we fail to sustain this achievement, we will all suffer for it.
He does explicitly cite The Three Languages of Politics.
The topic of the essay is education policy, and I recommend the entire essay–it is probably the best essay I have read this year. I could have selected many passages to quote.
My inadequate attempt at a summary:
1. For the past 30 years, conservatives have focused on ways to strenthen incentives for K-12 schools to improve test scores.
2. Meanwhile, the left has taken over the culture of education. Conservatives need to fight to reverse this trend.
I think that these are valid points. But the song that runs through my head comes from Carole King. “It’s too late baby, now it’s too late.”
The left takes the social justice mission of education as given. The cultural values that Levin views as important are treated as relics of a racist patriarchy that must be purged from schools.
I would say that conservatives face an uphill battle, with an emphasis on the word battle. Even the ordinarily mild-mannered and moderate Levin concludes,
this adds up to a controversial understanding of the purpose of primary and secondary education, and one that will tend to fan the flames of our culture wars. Whether we like it or not, the next phase of conservative education-policy thinking will need to be willing to do that
There is a bit of a contradiction of what conservative education wants here:
1) We need to shape the whole individual to fit into society instead of just get focused on test scores, achievement and going to college. (Or say the military which is big deal in my kids High School.) Living in competitive society why shouldn’t this be the main goal?
2) I really don’t understand where public schools are making children mistrust local institutions. I have not seen this at all at my kids High School (yes one example) and I wish conservative looked elsewhere why young people don’t trust local institutions.
3) I know conservatives are upset young kids are not going to church as public school teachers are the teacher of values outside the family.
4) For all these complaints about High Schools today, teenagers are behaving better than ever. So I don’t see the last 20 years as failures in High School in general especially compared to 1970s & 1980s.
5) I still hold the prime issue for conservatives on why young people are identity and leftist politics is they are slow to set identity in career, family, religion and parenthood. Maybe conservatives need to focus more attention on how local institutions can help in 18 – 30 year old.
The left takes the social justice mission of education as given. The cultural values that Levin views as important are treated as relics of a racist patriarchy that must be purged from schools.
A couple years at my kids High School there were some gun activist leading a 10 minute get together against gun violence, which set off a local parent endlessly posting on Facebook how awful this was for the school to allow. It turned out neither of my kids heard about this until the day before and it turned out only about 30 students showed up. (1% of the student population)
Also I see that Bernie Primary Campaign made the true McGovern 1972 mistake which is the young people will carry me to victory mistake. It turned out the candidate that induced the highest Primary election turnouts was Old Joe Biden.
Simply put maybe Levin needs to more effort into understanding why young people don’t trust (or probably care) about local institutions versus endlessly whining on public education.
Vouchers are the best way to fight back.
I have long thought this, and don’t understand why more Reps don’t realize it as a huge culture war priority.
But even with vouchers, I don’t think parent choice will reverse this trend, because the textbook makers, like the 1619 project folk from NYT, are all on board with the anti-injustice mission.
Don’t textbook publishers respond to demand? They produce left-leaning books because that’s what California government monopoly schools want. Vouchers will allow formation of different kinds of schools that will demand different kinds of texts.
School choice begins to address this. Parents have more choice in buying a can of beans than they have for their children’s education. If they don’t like what their kids are experiencing or learning they should have a choice of schools. I have heard the defense of non-choice education from powerful interests, and none of the arguments hold for me. For the poor, the need for choice is even more pronounced because their public schools are largely failing.
Levin’s final ending:
Character formation, civics, and the inculcation of the best of our traditions are inseparable from any meaningful idea of education. Conservatives will now have to press that case—and to help our fellow citizens see its promise.
Character formation. Doing the right thing, not “your own thing”.
Conservatives have finally noticed that Dems have been lying about “your own thing”, just like they lie about diversity. If your thing is “pro-life”, or anti-racism by opposing all racial quotas, you are shamed into obedience or exile.
Republicans in Congress should be defining “diversity”, for legal purposes, to include different political opinions. And college graduates, possibly even students, should be suing their colleges for False Advertising, when they claim to support diversity but are secretly discriminating against Republicans.
It should be a requirement of all tax-exempt organizations and other recipients of federal loans or guarantees that there is no discrimination based on politics. I’m fairly sure the college presidents, like at Harvard, would claim there is none.
But the truth is, there is, and long has been. Acceptance of discrimination in college has led to the polarization of America, and the almost hysterical demonization of Trump. And Kavanaugh. And Sara Palin, Bush, and Reagan. And Clarence Thomas and Robert Bork. Even of Nixon, who was a bit nasty in many ways, but unfairly demonized, and even blamed for Vietnam.
The Dems have been going thru a Gramscian march thru the institutions, and destroying their integrity from the inside. Quite likely with Dems who, in lying to themselves, believe their dishonest and illegal actions are worthy, because they are against having “the strong oppress the weak”.
The Three Languages of Politics will be increasingly important in the near future — I hope more pundits refer to it.
Arnold, please try to publicize it again. Even more than before. A new revision including Trump and TDS might even sell, again, and allow you more options on the talk show circuit.
Best policy: separate testing/certification from coaching/teaching at higher ed. prestige/status goes to adults that earn top scores of skill/achievement rather the facility/location of study. Strictly non-political. Geographically diverse; allow knowledge work to thrive outside of expensive boom cities. open border style admission: anyone who wants to buy coaching or pay a basic fee to take tests is allowed.
Last week I visited a micro school in Phoenix. 8 kids, 1 Mom teacher (called a guide).
It’s tuition-free. I think the kids are technically enrolled in traditional brick-and-mortar charters, but the regular charter is permitted to allow to keep the micro school students on their books.
The culture was great. Kids were pleasant, liked school. Mom did a solid job as kids mostly worked on their own – online learning like Lexia and Dreambox. The social studies curriculum is probably something Yuval Levin would approve of.
The character development focus was self-efficacy, self-agency. Essentially: “Hey kid, you do the learning. Get up and go teach yourself. I can help out but it’s gotta come from you.” Small “c” conservatism, no?
“Character formation, civics, and the inculcation of the best of our traditions…”
What does this mean?
If it just means teaching how to participate with basic discipline, work habits, civility and respect, then great. Otherwise, it would be nice to hear what he is talking about, because anything else from either side is a problem. We don’t need yet another front in the culture wars. We need a mutual withdrawal agreement.
Yuval Levin does a great job of addressing Right-Left differences in attitudes and how they affect their approaches to education, however, this appears: “Regardless of how much intellectual and material progress a society may make, every new child entering that society will still join it with essentially the same native intellectual and biological equipment as any other child born in any other society at any other time in the history of the human race.”
This is the sadly familiar blank slate theory of human nature. Steven Pinker showed how untenable it was in his The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. Levin who says he is a conservative evidently subscribes to this extreme version of human universalism (all men the same in all times and places) which is a core commitment of the Left. In reality, people are born with very different qualities and traits.
I can see how you can read a Blank Slate interpretation of that quote but, quite honestly, I don’t think that is the likely interpretation nor the intent. I think the point Levin is trying to make is that the 50% Nature side of the Nature-AND-Nurture system (vs Nuture-ONLY) is not improving quickly. Natural Selection is not in play when it comes to intellectual nor social advancement.
Yuval has now clarified that he was only talking about a basic human nature, which of course involves innate differences. He was by no means adopting any blank slate theory.
Ironically Thucydides believed in the universality of human motives, thus also of the motives leading to war.
“The left takes the social justice mission of education as given. The cultural values that Levin views as important are treated as relics of a racist patriarchy that must be purged from schools.”
Not so sure. Oppressor-oppressed language can actually be applied to anything, which is why social justice warriors are able to label anything, and its opposite, as racist patriarchy. The best example would be that ignoring minority cultures is exclusionary while its opposite, including those cultures, constitutes “cultural appropriation”.
Whatever cultural values Levin views as important, I’m sure that there is a way to put them in an oppressor-oppressed, social justice framework, if desired. For example, affluent liberals are often accused of not “preaching what they practice”: raising children in traditional households with two married parents. If one wanted to promote those traditional family values to a social justice warrior, one could frame the issue as minority and poor children deserve to have two married parents as much as affluent whites do and society should take proactive steps to counter stereotypes that such traditional values are the exclusive domain of the affluent.