Re: Judge Bork on Ebonics

[nobody@huge.cajones.com (Huge Cajones Remailer)]

At 6:37 PM 1/4/1997, Steve Schear wrote:
>The following is from pages 300-307 of Robert Bork's brilliant
>book, "Slouching Towards Gomorrah".  This is a book which should
>be read by everyone--and especially by liberals.
>
>Here are Judge Bork's thoughts on multiculturalism, bilingual
>education, and "Black English", otherwise known as "Ebonics".

Thank you for taking the trouble to type in Bork's thoughts.  You
might enjoy reading the introduction to his book on antitrust law.  He
eloquently demonstrates how antitrust law is designed and implemented
to undermine the rule of law.  The participants are fully aware of
their actions and Bork documents it.

Nonetheless, I have some disagreements with Judge Bork.  I believe he
is too eager to lump "multi-culturalists" and "revisionists" into one
coherent mass.  He also seems to ignore the many substantive and
interesting points raised by the revisionists.

>Bernstein took a two-year leave of absence from the New York
>Times to gather the facts of the multicultural ideology and its
>opponents. His is not an impressionistic book or one based on an
>ideological predisposition; it is a report of empirical findings. He
>points, for example, to the remarkable change in attitude towards
>Christopher Columbus between 1892 and 1992. Though not a
>single new fact about Columbus's life and exploits had been
>uncovered, the country's mood swung from one of uncritical adu-
>lation to one of loathing and condemnation, at least among the
>members of the "intellectual" class. The change was accomplished
>by the aggressive ideology of multiculturalism. The Columbus
>turnaround is merely a specific instance of more general alter-
>ations in our moral landscape.

If it is the case that no new facts are known about Columbus, which
probably isn't true anyway, then we have to seriously question what
people were thinking in 1892.  See "Lies My Teacher Told Me:
Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong" by James W.
Loewen for a full treatment.

The summary: Columbus was a bad man who lead the Spanish government in
causing the deaths of about 8 million people.  How can we rever such a
monster?  Why did people in 1892 do so?

Less dramatically, Columbus's visionary belief in a round world was
not as visionary as claimed.  Many people were aware of this fact at
the time.  There are many similar examples of mythmaking.

What has changed since 1892 is intellectual integrity and it has
changed for the better.  Of course, in 1892 the United States was just
completing one of the most successful land grabs in history.  One can
either concede a strong belief in the right of conquest or one can lie
about it.  In 1892 they lied about it.

>That was the meaning of the radicals' attack on Stanford's Western
>Culture program in which students were required to sample the
>writings of men who had helped shape Western culture-Shakespeare,
>Dante, Locke, etc. A black student who objected to the program said
>its message was "Nigger, go home."

If Universities were run like businesses serving customers, this
question would not even have to be raised.  Students may study
whatever they are willing to pay for.

>That exclusionary inter- pretation is precisely the opposite of the
>real message of the pro- gram, which was "Let us study what we have
>in common as inheritors of a tradition."

This I disagree with.  There is nothing magical about promoting
"tradition".  I much prefer to study the most worthwhile literature
and philosophical ideas available regardless of their source.  While
Shakespeare is certainly worth studying, Sun Tzu is at least as
worthwhile, depending on one's goals.

>The insistence on separate ethnic identities means that persons in
>each group can study their own culture, often in highly flattering
>and historically inaccurate form.

But this is exactly what the Universities and other "educational"
institutions in the United States have been doing for years.

>Multiculturalism then means not the study of others but of oneself.

This is simply false.  When people argue about the curriculum at
Stanford University, they are arguing about the education of a group
composed primarily of young wealthy European-Americans.

>In education at all levels, the substance of the curriculum
>changes to accommodate multiculturalist pressures. We have
>already seen this in feminist and Afrocentric studies, but it is
>everywhere. In New York state it is official educational doctrine
>that the United States Constitution was heavily influenced by the
>political arrangements of the Iroquois Confederacy.  The official
>promulgation of this idea was not due to any research that dis-
>closed its truth. Nor has any other state adopted this nonsensical
>idea.

I am very skeptical of Bork's claim.  For example, the method of
admitting states to the Union and granting them nearly equal status
with the existing states does not, I believe, have precedent in
European history.  However, this is how the Five Nation Iroquois
functioned.  At first glance, it seems reasonable to suggest that the
authors of the Constitution got this idea from the Iroquois.  If
anybody knows otherwise, I would be most interested to hear about it.

"Lies My Teacher Told Me" had this fascinating passage on page 103:
"In the 1740s the Iroquois wearied of dealing with several often
bickering English colonies and suggested that the colonies form a
union similar to the league [i.e., the Iroquois -ed.].  In 1754
Benjamin Franklin, who had spent much time among the Iroquois
observing their deliberations, pleaded with colonial leaders to
consider the Albany Plan of Union: "It would be a strange thing if six
nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming a scheme for
such a union and be able to execute it in such a manner as that it has
subsisted ages and appears insoluble; and yet that a like union should
be impracticable for ten or a dozen English colonies.'"

Consider this excerpt from page 104: "For a hundred years after our
Revolution, Americans credited Native Americans as a source of their
democratic institutions.  Revolutionary-era cartoonists used images of
Indians to represent the colonies against Britain.  Virginia's patriot
rifle companies wore Indian clothes and moccasins as they fought the
redcoats.  When colonists took action to oppose unjust authority, as
in the Boston Tea Party or the anti-rent protests against Dutch
plantations in the Hudson River Valley during the 1840s, they chose to
dress as Indians, not to blame Indians for the demonstrations but to
appropriate a symbol identified with liberty."

Or consider this, also from page 104: "As a symbol of the new United
States, Americans chose the eagle clutching a bundle of arrows.  They
knew that both the eagle and the arrows were symbols of the Iroquois
League.  Although one arrow is easily broken, no one can break six (or
thirteen) at once."

The truth is, many revisionists have many interesting things to say.
Disturbingly, I have noticed that the anti-revisionists have a marked
tendency towards ad hominem attack and seldom address the specific
points raised.  My belief is that many established historians see
themselves as promoting a "tradition" and not as searchers for truth.
I would like to hear opposing points of view if backed up by evidence.

(Lowewen, for instance, has some squirrelly values and there are a
number of errors in his book.)

>This sort of thing is happening across the country as various ethnic
>groups and feminists demand that history be rewritten according to
>their party lines. This not only debases history but pits the various
>groups against one another as they struggle for space in the
>textbooks. New York's "interest in history is not as an intellectual
>discipline," Schlesinger writes, "but rather as social and
>psychological therapy whose primary purpose is to raise the self-
>esteem of children from minority groups."

Loewen claims that Schlesinger wrote an entire book on the Jackson
administration in which he omitted any reference to the forcible
relocation of the Cherokees from Georgia to Oklahoma.  Regardless of
whether one cares about such crimes - and one should - this episode is
worth studying for its Constitutional implications alone.

The Cherokees had a treaty with the United States Government.  They
took their case to the Supreme Court.  Chief Justice of the United
States John Marshall ordered that the Cherokees be left alone.  Andrew
Jackson replied "I'd like to see John Marshall stop me."  Jackson, a
former general, was presumably popular with the Army.

I haven't verified Loewen's claim, but I have read an essay by
Schlesinger in which he attacks historical revisionism without
actually addressing any claim by the revisionists.

Red Rackham