Ok, so maybe generalizations like your original ones aren’t great then?
If people are trying to ban books, that sucks, but it does highlight that the problem you’re trying to highlight isn’t as big as you’re suggesting.
It could be bad, but it isn’t, because people push back.
Now Internet propaganda? Tv propaganda? Media propaganda? Oh hell yeah, that shit is bad. I wish I didn’t have to try to find three different sources before I could trust a news article.
It could be bad, but it isn’t, because people push back.
In some districts. Some of the time. Plenty of other districts uphold their book bans. But that’s only talking about novels in English classes anyway. The more insidious one is the first part of what I mentioned: history textbooks.
School boards basically buy the version of a textbook that supports their values. They’re not trying to buy the most accurate or unbiased; they are buying propaganda that colors history in whatever way they favor. And that is true in every school district in the country. Very few teachers have the knowledge, resources, and support to counter what is in the textbooks their district provides, so kids just get taught a narrow scope that is often extremely suspect or a politician’s preferred description of events.
When McGraw-Hill makes a textbook, they’re tailoring the content within because ultimately they’re a company trying to make money. Schools will always be rife with propaganda as long as that is the model. If textbooks were provided by not-for-profit educational institutes and didn’t need local Karens to approve of every paragraph, maybe things would be different. But right now, propaganda in schools is bad.
Ok, so maybe generalizations like your original ones aren’t great then?
If people are trying to ban books, that sucks, but it does highlight that the problem you’re trying to highlight isn’t as big as you’re suggesting.
It could be bad, but it isn’t, because people push back.
Now Internet propaganda? Tv propaganda? Media propaganda? Oh hell yeah, that shit is bad. I wish I didn’t have to try to find three different sources before I could trust a news article.
In some districts. Some of the time. Plenty of other districts uphold their book bans. But that’s only talking about novels in English classes anyway. The more insidious one is the first part of what I mentioned: history textbooks.
School boards basically buy the version of a textbook that supports their values. They’re not trying to buy the most accurate or unbiased; they are buying propaganda that colors history in whatever way they favor. And that is true in every school district in the country. Very few teachers have the knowledge, resources, and support to counter what is in the textbooks their district provides, so kids just get taught a narrow scope that is often extremely suspect or a politician’s preferred description of events.
When McGraw-Hill makes a textbook, they’re tailoring the content within because ultimately they’re a company trying to make money. Schools will always be rife with propaganda as long as that is the model. If textbooks were provided by not-for-profit educational institutes and didn’t need local Karens to approve of every paragraph, maybe things would be different. But right now, propaganda in schools is bad.
I don’t disagree with that at all.
Literature though, not sure how you could paint the entire category as propaganda.