OT: Schools Drop Holocaust Lessons to Avoid Offence

April 3, 2007

Hey y'all,

Back on the subject of Political Correctness and the tendency to go to

extremes to avoid insulting or offending folks who would probably not

feel insulted or offended if they looked at the subject discussed in

the entire context of a presentation .. especially (and in this case)

when the context is a History Lesson.

Below is a news article from the Times Online .. from the UK. It is

going to blow your mind .. I think.

As I wrote yesterday, Political Correctness is a barrier to discussion

and it precludes dealing with problems that should be discussed.

The article below is about ..

> Teachers are dropping controversial subjects such as the Holocaust

and the Crusades

> from history lessons because they do not want to offend children

from certain races

> or religions, a report claims.

If we must consider such things when teaching history and sociology ..

and geography, to name but a few disciplines that require discussion

of various religions .. then we will have one heckuva tough row to hoe

because I can't recall many historical events that have not upset some

group.

Unless I knew better .. I would assume that avoidance of the

particular " controversial " subjects above .. by teachers in the UK ..

is driven by fear of reprisal by groups that take offense to most any

discussion from the West .. the same groups that get upset over cartoons.

In any case .. I think it is ridiculous .. totally ridiculous!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article1600686.ece

Y'all keep smiling. :-) Butch

April 3, 2007

and see, that just drive ME nutz!

I've been avoiding the political discussions because I'm an " in your face "

type person and without being able to read the person I'm talking to and

vice versa, it can cause unintenended miscommunication/impressions.

However this just pisses me off. I hate censorship and " burying " history so

as not to offend is not only offensive, it's stupid. It's not just the brits

that do it either. Do you think I learned in school about the roundup of the

japanese in the United States during world war 2? Nope. It wasn't school

that taught me the expanse of cruelty and nastiness that we perpetrated

upon the American Indians either. Though we learned about Slavery in school

it was the good Northern Folk who had never condoned it nor ever owned

slaves, fighing the injustice and cruelty of the bad folks in the south and

there was very little if any mention of any of the flip side.

If folk start burying certain pieces of history so as not to upset folk, you

might as well banish the subject completely. The good as well as the bad

because there isn't going to be anything left to write about, There is not

one group of people that hasn't been, cold, cruel, viscious, intolerant,

merciless to someone at some point.

History is supposed to teach us something, and if we hide certain parts of

it, how can we learn to not only how to avoid such inhumanity?

There was a piece in the news here a few weeks ago. A man who had been in

the concentration camps and was lecturing here in the SF bay area was

cornered by some fruit cake who attempted to kidnap him because he wanted

this man to confess that the holocaust had never happened. That it was just

a lie. >sigh< Just because a truth is uncomfortable doesn't mean it doesn't

have something to teach us or that it's invalid and denying history does not

have anything to do with Political Correctness, just plain old fear of

oneself being made uncomfortable.

Now I'm going to shut up, tend to my headache and prolly go beat up " The cat

who lives under the bed " , who doesn't any more (much). And before anyone can

get upset about me beating up my cat, He likes it. He's not a very social

cat, but he seems to love me and likes it when I roll him upside down and in

general thump on him. He's a little tank of a cat, very solid and amazingly,

gentle. When he slaps at me, he never uses claws, but he's so powerful he

doesn't need to. You KNOW when you've been smacked by that cat! ;-)

K

On 4/3/07, Butch Owen <butchbsi wrote:

> .

>

--

Cheers!

Kathleen Petrides

The Woobey Queen

Http://www.woobeyworld.com

April 3, 2007

Dear Kathleen,

Awesome reply! Keep up the political incorrectness. There needs to be

a lot more of it where history is concerned. When my brother and I were

little my father would tell us about the problems that the Bulgarians had

living under the Turkish Yoke for over 1500 years. We thought that he was

just telling us bad stories. He left when he was 14 years old to avoid be

drafted into World War I. Then when I made my first trip to Bulgaria I

found out that everything he said was true. Yes, we do learn from history

and we always need to be truthful even if the truth does hurt.

Love,

Rhavda

Scents of Success

Arlington, Texas

Original Message:

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Woobey Queen WoobeyQueen

Tue, 3 Apr 2007 11:53:54 -0700

Re: OT: Schools Drop Holocaust Lessons to Avoid

Offence