It isn’t the silly names for the school that bother me

It’s that the school system, which is supposed to be about education, is jumping on the PC call for anti-racist blacklists that does nothing so much as dumb down the national conversation about race. The fact is, Robert E. Lee’s views on slavery were, in the day, more liberal than many around him. Though his writings indicate the common notion of the day that blacks were inferior and that they were better off in America than Africa, he also made it clear that slavery was not something with the moral stones to keep going where goodness and righteousness were concerned.

But enough of that.  He was white.  He fought for the Confederacy.  His views on race were not ours today (whatever they may be), thus: EVIL!  Erase his name from the obelisks and the monuments. Pull down the statues.  Do just what the Soviets used to do when they decided someone once venerated is now anathema.  We might as well, that seems to be our societal goal.

Of course we do this because we, just like Lee and anyone else at that time, believe there are some people who are inherently better than other people over there.  And we base this notion on beliefs, religion, even race.  Since we spend so much of our time focused on mercilessly and self-righteously judging and condemning the past, we tend to blind ourselves to our own foibles, whether deliberately or not.

But in doing so, we are dumbing down the national debate about almost anything:  Race.  Gender. Sex.  Human life.  Rights.  Religion.  Philosophy.  History.  Liberty.  You name it.  Most today basically speak some gibberish, declare it fact, and then proceed to insist anyone who disagrees is nothing more than someone who is hate or stupid or this or that wing, and thus no longer worthy of my rights and privileges. If those who thus protest are part of a demographic that matters, then it’s the McCarthy solution with media and pop culture support all the way.

When I look at the struggles that someone like Robert E. Lee had when he reflected on the moral controversies of his time, and then look at the boorish, vapid and neanderthal approach we take to the various debates in our age, I can’t help but think the ones who should be condemned is us.  At least the people back then were struggling with ending an institution that had existed since the dawn of time.  Today, we have their examples and promptly go out of our way to ignore it.

And it isn’t as if we don’t have slavery today.   Note that human trafficking, largely in service of the international, multi-billion dollar sex industries, went largely unnoticed until recently.  Sure it was there.  Sure nobody would say it was good.  But where was the outcry?  Why did it take almost dragging the media and the institutions of international leadership to finally step out and call it what it is?  I’ve been of the opinion that since liberalism uses Sex as the ultimate carrot, it didn’t want to admit that the Sextopia the Left has always promised could have a dark side.  So those who promote the sacrament of our libidos preferred sweeping it under the carpet.

Perhaps I’m wrong.  But something kept the blight of modern slavery that has existed for decades off the radar of our elites and our leading institutions.  It’s not like we didn’t know it was there.  But only recently has it become an issue.  Why?  You’ve seen my guess.  But before we start our next wave of self-righteous PC inquisitions against everyone yesterday and before, it might be worth it to eat a piece of humble pie when we think of all the similarly horrible moral affronts we ignore, pardon or even condone when we ought to know better (next up: continuing to promote our sex and drugs culture in the wake of 30 million dead from AIDS).  Or maybe it’s because we’ve been educated by schools like the above case, that prefer bumper-sticker witch hunts over actual education.  Given the generations that have been educated by them, maybe I should give our current age a pass.