Should History Class Not Stress That Our Culture Is Dominated By Western Civilization Values

It should present a well rounded examination of events and facts. For instance Columbus was not the first European to hit our hemisphere but he's stressed because his landing started the first pattern of settlements.

But we should also portray and teach the events of enslaving, torturing, and beginning of the genocide of native populations.

If we are going to emphasize the western culture aspect, we should thoroughly examine the positives and negatives of it. We should absolutely focus on how that western culture was responsible for genocide, the worst forms of slavery, prejudice, descrimation, attempts to preclude and minimize contributions by non-whites.

Are you okay with that?

 

@pgabriel owns Jaggy

 

How are western civilization values opposite of critical race theory?

 

Those are not even close to the only two options, especially in school districts and university systems where half the damn campuses are named after Confederate Veterans and Alamo Rememberers. You know libraries and syllabi can discuss multiple opposing topics and ideas, rigfht? You can show Cry Freedom, the Sam Elliot Sam Houston movie and the Sam Elliot Chief Joseph movie in the same seventh grade social studies class, hypothetically speaking.

 

This.

Students are not stupid and can comprehend that history is the study of people, and people tend to be "good" and "bad" and everywhere in between in relative standards. A group of people can establish the most powerful nation on the planet and also enslave and exploit people along the way.

 

The tl;dr version is that Western values are seated in the value and sovereignty of the individual, while CRT is tilted more toward Group identity being paramount (which I'm guessing is more Eastern aka Communist).

 

Also, what are these "western civilization values" you speak of?

 

Its a lot more nuanced than that and certainly can't be taught in a watered down history text book for kids. We shouldn't be focusing on whitey is bad for abusing minorities, and instead focus on what happens when society lets the powerful and influential people abuse those who are at a detriment.

 

In simple terms, would it be accurate to say that one of the tenets of Western Civilation is that people are treated equally and a tenet of CRT is that they aren't?

 

I'd say that's a natural conclusion/outcome, yes.

 

I am all in favor of all the nuance available. It's just that some of the things that thread starter goes out of his way to downplay and ignore would by definition be a part of a history course that examined the dominance of Western civilization culture. That would also include the countless contributions by other cultures to our culture.

 

Lordy!

History already does that and it's the reason you have stuff like CRT.

 

This.

It's the point I was trying to make in the CRT thread History should be about facts not opinions and not theories.

Talk about history the way it is good and bad.

 

history is the study of past events - the who, what, when, where, how and why.

values have nothing to do with it. its about critical analysis of events and facts.

i would also say that on an educational level you dont want to teach a 7th grade texas history class the same way you would teach texas history at the university level. a 13 year old should learn about the basic facts and history - the deeper dive and real critical analysis should happen at an older age, when people minds are more fully developed. the types of discussions a teacher would have with 13 year olds vs. 20 year olds should be vastly different. "values" should not come into play at all, but i think the level of critical thinking and analysis should depending on your audience (kids vs. adults).

i do think its odd that high school american history totally skips the civil war though. its been 30 years, but i remember that the fall semester goes right up to the civil war and the spring semester starts right after. in a general sense, i think public school system does gloss over a lot and could do a better job of teaching more "sensitive" subjects. does that mean i hate "western civilization values" - of course not. i simply believe in teaching the real story.

 

i would also add that its always problematic to apply 21st century "values" to the past. things even lincoln said would be considered horribly racist today, but in the mid-1800's he was a radical liberal.

i recently read the memoirs of an early texas pioneer named noah smithwick - for the standards of his time he was actually pretty enlightened when it came to racial attitudes, but by our standards he would also be considered horribly racist.

 

Nice. He's a distant relative.

 

noah smithwick? thats awesome dude - youre OG texas!

if you have any interest in early texas history you should definitely check out his book - "evolution of a state"

 

to follow up further on my previous post...

im not interested in these buzz word terms and phrases that people are hung up on right now. what the heck does "western civilization values" even mean? especially in the context of a history class. history is not the study of "values". that sounds like something more for a philsophy or ethics class.

i do strongly believe that the public school system could and should do a better job of telling the full story. native american history and how european immigration and culture impacted them. slavery - the history of slavery in america and how it has impacted our country - the civil war, post civil war jim crow era, civil rights. for texas in particular, acknowledging the influence of spain and mexico on the area and the treatment of hispanics after texas independence. the treatment of indians here too. im 30 years out of school so the history of the civil rights movement was maybe too fresh to be part of a history curriculum at that time, but if its not being taught now it absolutely should be. does advocating for those things make one anti-"western values"?

those who dont know their history are doomed to repeat it and i think now more than ever we need to be aware of our FULL past history and not try to whitewash (pun intended) over the uglier aspects of it. thats one way to combat what seems to be a reemergence in this country of attitudes that many of us thought were dying out.