I had inwardly resolved not to comment, but you're very interesting. Brett, great job, you deserve a comment, even though I?m a bit busy :). Allow me to look a little deeper at your thought.

I believe people focus too much on public schools economic task of making sure everyone has certain skills, rather than on their social task of making sure everyone has certain beliefs. Public schools were first widely adopted when the United States was in the midst of our first great wave of immigration. One of their major purposes was assimilate those immigrants, providing a kind of "social glue" to American society by ensuring that everyone shared certain experiences and certain beliefs, encouraging conformity. However recently, public schools have stopped acting as social glue because they have adopted post-modernism. They choose to emphasize race, gender, and sexual preference rather than American history at least in part because of this ideology; history emphasizes the unity of America, while they would emphasize its diversity.

But this new emphasis harms America because it reduces our ?social capital? in academic jargon. Basically, this new emphasis on diversity has the social cost of making people less able to trust one another. We trust that which we understand; it is difficult to trust those who are substantially different from us, at least until we get to know them. That's human nature and moderate mush about "tolerance" is incapable of changing it. Encouraging people to see their differences is not a recipe for concord. Two impacts:

Politically, this undermines democracy, at least in theory. Democracy has to be founded on a degree of social altruism. Politics is war by other means, and to prevent escalation, conflict must be moderate. America's democracy has been stable because there the people of America were AMERICANS, not Southerners, not Hoosiers, not Mexicans, not Asians, not Caucasians, not conservatives, not homosexuals, or homeschoolers - AMERICANS first and foremost. This motivated them to vote (What "logical" reason is there other than a sense of duty?) and to respect the votes of others, because ?the common good? had real meaning. People trusted others to look after everyone's interests, because everyone's interests were reasonably similar. By undermining this consensus, postmodernism has encouraged the rise of special interests and the polarization of America. When people do not trust people, THE people are not trusted to rule.

Economically, this increases transaction costs. If I have do not trust you, then I will create barriers to ensure that you cannot hurt me. In the economic realm, this takes the form of contracts thicker than my history book and mechanisms to enforce them. These cost money to create and maintain, draining resources from more productive ends. The rise of litigation and regulation in America is at least in part the result of the decline of social trust.

~Abraham
Grotius | 08.10.05 - 8:37 pm | #

http://www.slate.com/id/2124163

This is a rather interesting article somewhat pertaining to what we've been discussing over the last few days. It outlines, first, how the scores recieved on the NAEP aren't necessarily accurate, and, second, the reason behind that, or American students' inherent laziness towards work that doesn't directly benefit them.

That isn't to say I disagree with the statistics you've cited, Brett. It is a shocking fact that many American students know less about America than the rest of the world. This is due, in large part, to what is being taught in our schools today, as Abraham stated. And, as he stated, one of the major problems is the switching of beliefs - from unity to diversity.

But I'd like to throw in a caveat. It is important to study the different people groups, the different cultures and the different beliefs that are both in America now and have been in America in the past. Our diversity is part of what makes us America. We're "The Great Melting Pot." If we forget that, and ignore the diversity we do have, we risk losing even more of our identity than we have already. Perhaps the problem with history classes today is they place too much emphasis on 'what goes into the pot' and not enough on 'what comes out of the pot.' But that doesn't change the fact that we need to look and both the 'ingredients' and the 'cake.'

Our diversity, when kept in its proper place, makes us stronger as a nation. It allows us to see things from various view points, seek out unique and novel solutions, and gives us our identity in the world - because there is no other nation made up of so many diverse people groups.
Nqoire | 08.10.05 - 8:37 pm | #

I would like to take this opportunity to mention that Abraham (Grotius) is a regular contributor on the Legal Redux weblog which exists to discuss changes in society, current legal issues and decisions, to help you form opinions about societal and current issues and become more knowledgeable about these important events. If that description interests you at all I would encourage you to visit www.ledux.blogspot.com.

In Christ,
Brett Harris
Brett Harris | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 8:38 pm | #

Nqoire, I agree with almost all of the article you cited; though I have a few reservations. I'll post them later this afternoon. Thank you for your contribution the discussion! You comments are coveted.
Brett Harris | Homepage | 08.10.05 - 8:38 pm | #