Suppressing Knowledge

CONSERVATIVE EFFORTS to reshape America by reshaping by legislation what is taught in America's public schools are ongoing efforts in about half the united states. They can be classified in two or three categories. History, especially racial history, and sexual orientation, and science, including evolution and climate change. Censorship of books constitutes a separate category, all of which create a pattern by sharing in common the following characteristic: they are all attempts to suppress, to stifle knowledge. It is reasonable to ask whether there is ever any good reason for stifling knowledge or censoring books. Laws prohibiting any mention of or reference to various sexual orientations, including gay and transgender, in grades K-12 are being passed in several states, and many of the books being banned by school districts are being censored precisely because they present a favorable viewpoint towards acceptance of diverse sexual orientations. How shocking and scandalous, to actually allow books encouraging tolerance to enter our nation's public schools! Political conservatism in America has for decades if not centuries tried to limit learning in schools in service to traditionsl religious beliefs. Human evolution by natural selection, a scientific fact, has been atacked as unacceptable and kept out of American schools since Darwin's book was pubisehd in 1859, because it isn't mentioned in the Bible. The essentially same crowd, the far right religious, is currently engaged in a nationwide project to keep climate change from being taught in public schools, or to teach it merely as a matter of opinion. As obvious as it already is that climate change is real, it will only become much more obvious over the next few years; how much longer can we keep it secret from school shildren? Thus is the impact religious conservatism has on learning, knowledge, education. The great twentieth century philosopher and writer Bertrand Russell famously believed that no person should ever be prevented from learning anything he or she wishes to learn, for any reason. Many of the most respected scholars in the field of education agree. The actual extent of diversity in sexual orientation ia only in recent times becoming fully known, as some western cultures, American included, have become more tolerant of sexual diversity, and gay and transgender people generally are more willing to reveal their sexual orientation. Regarding gays and transagenders, the cow, so to speak, is out of the barn, and long gone. Whether or not school children learn about all this in school or elsewhere, they are going to learn about it, and are going to live in a world more accepting of it. History, of all subjects, must be taught completely and truthfully, even if there are delicate and sensitive white kids who might, once they know the real extent of their ancestors actions, feel just a tinge of shame...