Discussion for article #238957
“the idea of “American exceptionalism””
Another fucking disease.
Yes, I’ve decided to call things diseases today haha
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That he’s satisfied tells you all you need to know about how history has been dummied down even more and distorted even farther to placate the christianist booboisie.
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If only conservatives and evangelicals would be so considerate when they pursue their anti-intellectual pogroms.
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Krieger, a well known Visigoth fanboy, was also very satisfied that, at his request, “the sack of Rome” as described in AP Western Civ. has been changed to “Alaric I Spends a fulfilling August of fun and frolic in the ‘Eternal City’”.
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The College Board says it accepted public feedback, which it used to update the standards.
So…history is based on popularity.
Cool.
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“The first document, I would say, was an aberration,” Krieger told TPM on Friday. “It went to far. I think they’re back in line.”
“History is about what I think, not about what happened! Bow your head! Toe the line!”
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Think of how much better this country would be if AP History assigned “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn as required reading along with the City Upon the Hill crap…
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Krieger said he wished the standards included “strong examples” of “American exceptionalism,” such as John Winthrop’s “City Upon a Hill” sermon and Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America.”
Really? There are many strong examples of American Exceptionalism including Japanese Internment Camps, Slavery, and the mass killing of native Americans. Were they not strong enough?
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Most of the noise and bother was about the course framework, more specifically, about the examples mentioned in the course framework. The authors of the first framework committed the great sin of using lesser-known examples instead of sticking to the names and events we learn in our initial exposure to history in elementary school. The noise machine then made ridiculous claims like “George Washington is almost totally ignored in the new AP History course”.
It was a sad, sad example of our politics today, where a major party deliberately sows misinformation and ignorance, then harvests it for political power.
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Krieger said that College Board addressed his concerns by adding the
names of some Founding Fathers, mentioning the Holocaust, and revising the definition of Manifest Destiny.
Wait a minute - is Krieger saying that prior to his grand conservative success the names of the Founding Fathers weren’t included in the exam and there was no mention of the Holocaust at all? Really? If that is the case, then I think those reasonably minor points are pretty innocuous. However, revising the definition of Manifest Destiny to reflect some insane Rethug delusion about how great America is when it forces other nations/people to do what it wants is ridiculous.
The sermon, City Upon a Hill, wasn’t some tangible program that was actually enacted; just more delusion from a Puritan who tried to get others to confirm to his morality.
EDIT TO ADD: ottnott answered my question. Thanks
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After the 2016 presidential election, AP History curriculum will need some yoooge and classsy revisions.
…another layer of the concerted effort to dumb down dummies…
The NeoCons have led the masses to believe that intelligence is a disease…
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Get thee behind me, Satan!
It’s time to start calling the stupid and ignorant by those labels, to hell with political correctness.
“Back in line” pretty much sums it up.
Larry Kreiger is an example of what he preachers – he’s quite the exceptional idiot and outstanding jackass. I don;t think I’ve seen someone bloviate on bullshit quite the way he has.
Not sure what that has to do with being an American or a citizen of the United States, but let him prove it.
Fascists like Kreiger know that if you can control the way the people see the past you can control the way that they see the present. It’s plain and simple.
TPM was overly generous in attributing the honored term of “history teacher” (a thankless job under the best of circumstances) to Mr. Kreiger and the rest of the wingnut academia who joined the criticism of the College Board. Mr. Kreiger and his ilk deserve no better title than propagandist.
The College Board deserve a heaping helping of scorn for its spineless cave in this idiocy…
It’s funny how the “strong examples of American exceptionalism” on Krieger’s wishlist don’t have anything to do with Americans actually being exceptional.
As I recall, the “city on a hill” speech was merely about how John Winthrop hoped America would be exceptional. I guess I just don’t understand how a speech delivered in 1630 by a guy who had never been to America can be an “example” of “American exceptionalism.” Merely saying that you want to be exceptional is not, in itself, exceptional … lots of people do that.
At least Democracy in America was written by someone who had actually visited America, though wasn’t its thesis pretty narrow in scope? I thought de Tocqueville’s main point was just that United States was better at democracy than France (which, at the time, was a pretty low bar).