Tea at Trianon: When Marxism Replaces History

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, December 15, 2022

When Marxism Replaces History

From The Federalist:

APAAS features readings from scholar Robin D. G. Kelley, who argues that authentic black studies requires revolutionary study and activism outside of academics. Kelley posits that norms of objectivity must be rejected in favor of Marx’s call for “a ruthless criticism of everything existing” and a subsequent struggle against power structures. Though the topics in the curriculum sound neutral, Kurtz observes that “the readings almost uniformly consist of neo-Marxist agitation — pleas for a socialist transformation of America.” That includes the anti-American Frantz Fanon, who called the United States “a monster, in which the taints, the sickness, and the inhumanity of Europe have grown to appalling dimensions.” Critical race theory (CRT) advocates Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Patricia Hill Collins are also on the reading list.

We also know that APAAS’s curriculum “content writing team” is staffed by leftist racial ideologues such as Joshua M. Myers of Howard University, who believes that “Black radical tradition” should be synonymous with black studies. Moreover, a significantly large portion of the APAAS curriculum is devoted to the history of black studies, vice the history of black people (imagine, by comparison, an AP European History course that focused on the history of European historical scholarship). “This seems oddly self-referential, until you realize it’s a strategy for teaching about radicalism without quite seeming to do so,” writes Kurtz.

“I don’t teach theory. I teach facts,” Patrice Frasier, a Baltimore-based APAAS teacher, told The Washington Post. “The purpose is not to indoctrinate them or guide them in some kind of political philosophy. … The story is so much more complex than simply White people versus Black people,” Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, a professor of African American Studies at Harvard University, told the Post.

Yet plenty of reporting on the APAAS curriculum indicates that’s hardly the case. APAAS content, according to a Time article, includes “the significance of the Marvel Black Panther movie” and an opportunity to study “the reparations movement and Black Lives Matter activism.” Intersectionality is reportedly “a key tenet of the class,” according to the Smithsonian Magazine. “Students will learn how to advocate for Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) — in and outside of postsecondary environments,” notes a report from Best Colleges. (Read more.)