Asymmetrical Information

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

'Is our children' learning history? and reading and political correctness and....?

Today's fresh air featured an interview with Diane Ravitch, author of The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn. Ravitch describes how the Texas and California rules govern what is in textbooks all over the country (through essentially monopsonistic practices), and how all history and literature in textbooks has been purged of just about anything that can be offensive to anyone.

What's been banned? Harry Potter; "extremist"; "senile"; references to poverty; truthful depictions of islamic attitudes towards women; African-Americans in ghettos or "white houses with picket fences" (I guess that still allows posh townhouses in Brooklyn Heights); emphasis on certain regions of the country; slavery; earthquakes; fires; "creepy animals"; cancer; losing a job, etc.

The result is Really boring textbooks. Amazingly enough, these brainwashed textbooks manage to be simultaneously appalling and soporific.

Geoff Nunberg also honors us with a short segment described as follows:

Linguist Geoff Nunberg on the stylistic differences between writers on the political left and right.

Terry Gross and Nunberg himself echo that idea of "comparing the rhetoric of left and right". I was excited to hear it.

Failing to keep this promise, Nunberg only talks about Peggy Noonan's and a few other conservatives. He also nastily deconstructs Noonan's rhetorical flourish of polysyndeton (putting "and" or another conjunction between every item on a list for emphasis). Displaying his leftistpundit mindreading skills, he demonstrates that she picked up this technique from It's a Wonderful Life, but in her hands it turns to "kitsch". [Cough] nice balance, Geoff!

He does toss a dart at Molly Ivins, and I suppose he might do "The Left" at a later date.

Posted by Mindles H. Dreck at April 29, 2003 9:58 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links"); ?>