“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.” — Jack Kerouac
There is a place five miles from the American River where I find myself this evening. The American River, the main water source for Sacramento. Gold was discovered up in these parts at Sutter’s Mill in 1848. California would never be the same. Now, we Americans near the American River come together to lament dogma and slogan words in the land.
It is always a strange sensation to be among non-conformers, writers and scholars and intellectuals. I am amongst those of my tribe, those who question and those who listen. Do you want to know the things that caught my attention over the last 24 hours? Where shall I start?
I fell into writing mode the moment a panelist said some teaching materials depict the universe as a big Venn diagram for external locus of control and a small Venn diagram representing internal locus of control. It was as if the world I knew, and lived in, was turned upside down. In my world, the internal locus of control should be as large as all get out.
And then I heard more words of troubled classrooms today—the objective of teachers is to destroy systems of oppression ergo destroy society, the prime directive of a teacher is to convince students they are oppressors or the oppressed, the Cuban model is to be followed, the young must be told everything needs to be destroyed, there is no place for agency.
I felt like maybe these were outlier words. And then I met someone in her 20s who lived through politics in the classroom.
It was late and the third glass of red wine was in my hand. I was off my low-carb regime just for the evening. As always, I was enthralled in conversation with someone also on her third glass of wine—a fellow dissident in this crazy world.
I looked up and this tall, thin reed of a woman was recounting classroom experiences alien to me.
She stood in front of us like the Oracle of Delphi, a spokeswoman for her generation. We asked innocent questions as parents and she “raved” and we translated her ravings. The Oracle as she stood in her understated splendor said she could not comprehend how adults let things happen after George Floyd. Where were the adults?
We asked more questions.
The Oracle said people were doing something, it was boots on the ground and she was a part of it.
We pressed the Oracle for more. How did the adults let down her generation? No professor gave an alternative to the oppression narrative in the classroom. Not one professor. The Oracle raved “this is the way to think…as truth…no other way!!!”
We of a certain age were chilled to our wine relaxed souls.
It was like we were transfixed by the Oracle. She allowed Apollo (of truth telling) “to possess her spirit. In this she prophesied” and we clung to our wine glasses for dear life.
The mindset in classrooms was to shut up and listen to Brown people. Thought terminating cliches were abundant. People really believed we were living under a facist government. Students truly believed a genocide was going on. The Oracle proclaimed that, in her adolescence, anyone could have told her anything. It was mental programming in the extreme.
By this point, my inner New South child of the 1970s was horrified. We asked more questions of the Oracle. We could not stop ourselves.
The Oracle said she was trained to be judgmental and racist. Oftentimes, private events would charge whites one price and people of color a different price. It was like living in the 1870s as I sipped my red wine. The Oracle said charging different races different prices was common in her experience.
We could not turn away from the Oracle. We asked more questions out of demoralization and fascination and the seduction of wine.
The Oracle raved more.
She felt like a sinner when she watched a Ben Shapiro video. Friendships were toxic which led to mental health illnesses. “I needed to get away from these people,” the Oracle proclaimed.
We were all enraptured by the Oracle. Time lost all meaning.
The Oracle found her way out to the other side. She looked inside and discovered a non conformer, an independent thinker, a dissident.
The Oracle concluded her tale with a prophecy for us all. There is original sin in dogma and slogan words. There is no redemption. There is only monitoring for any sin or offense.
As the effects of the wine settled in, we remained mystified as to why students didn’t see commonalities among classmates. The Oracle observed professors trained students to not see similarities, only differences.
Conclusion: This morning, the Oracle made my day. She had watched my appearance on the Glenn Loury podcast earlier this year. I was flattered that a total stranger would take the time to watch my conversation and offer kind words. That said, the Oracle is to believed about politics in the classroom. It makes me sad that her generation has been taught racism and prejudice but thus is the world.
Thus have we made the world.
Tomorrow, I will conclude with another report from the front lines of non-conforming thought in Sacramento.
Good evening!