At 09:07 14/10/09 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: >http://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee262 >Intellectual Affairs >New Civil Rights Movement >October 14, 2009 >By Scott McLemee
I sort of liked this essay but won't expound on the various issues. As usual, I will just jump to where I disagree: ...... >In her book, Schulman offers a strategy for dealing with homophobic >trauma: Homophobia should be identified as a sickness, with families >court-ordered into treatment programs...... > The cure >sounds as bad as the disease ... >The law, he said, defines permissible action but not the content of >anyones heart. A court can never oblige you to love your neighbors. ..... >Full equality for LGBT people is not a matter of eventually forcing >bigots into group therapy for good. Well I'm also against forcing people into "re-education camps" if they haven't broken any law. And surely forcing someone into "treatment" for their bigotry isn't going to eliminate their prejudices or their expression of that bigotry in private. However McLemee doesn't address one key sector. Something like 1/5 of the population is enrolled in public schools, in which the state already -- and inevitably -- defines social standards (and thus ideology) that become internalized in the students. There is no question of "neutrality" in public education for its very purpose is learning, and the educators control the content that is taught. Of course the learning doesn't just (or even mainly) consist of the syllabus but results from the entire school experience over which the school administrators have ultimate control, including behavior involved in peer pressure. Unquestionably homophobia (and other bigotry) is learned at a young age and can be countered through active intervention of the school system. And positive values can be learned that will help the future adults counter antisocial behavior and ideologies which they will surely encounter. In the long run it is the initial positive experience in the (pre-) school room that will change the "hearts" of the population, not sending middle aged bigots to re-education camp or to jail. And you can be sure that the right-wing appreciates that too! No wonder they fought to ban "Heather Has Two Mommies" from the classroom. The homo-friendly values in such a book should rather become widespread in the curriculum, and not relegated to a book on the very subject or to "sensitivity training." Only because of the widespread presence of bigotry (and resulting oppression) in society is special attention warranted in relation to fighting it. And the likelihood that a child might be subject to such indoctrination at home requires positive pressure so that students are strengthened against their (possibly bigoted) parents. But that can become less and less needed after a generation or so. - Jeff P.S. Of course the above doesn't address the problem of parents who (often for these reasons alone!) send their children to private/religious schools or home schooling. I think that public education should be universal, and that this promotes society's interests in protecting the rights of children against indoctrination (= abuse) by their parents. But that's a whole 'nother issue....
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