Category: Knowledge and Politics

How History Classes Helped Create a ‘Post-Truth’ America The author of Lies My Teacher Told Me discusses how schools’ flawed approach to teaching the country’s past affects its civic health.

August 22, 2018

Textbooks should admit uncertainty. The very first thing that we teach in U.S.-history courses is when and how people first got to the Americas. The best answer is: We’re not sure. But the darned textbooks don’t say that—except for one of the 18 textbooks I studied intensively. Ironically, it’s the oldest one—it was published way back in the 1970s, and it says something like: The information in this section may be outdated by the time you read it. And by just saying that, it turns out to be the only textbook that is not outdated, even in 2018.

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/08/history-education-post-truth-america/566657/?

Which approaches to curbing gun violence are effective? How do we know?

May 27, 2018

Often, the conversation around gun violence becomes a conversation around political identities and ideologies rather than one about truth and how we arrive at it. This website is interesting in that it focuses on what we know through science. It uses appropriate, often cautious, language to come to its conclusions. The site is worth exploring. The table below summarizes the meta analysis of existing research done by the Rand Corporation. Click through the image to find the appropriate page. You can click in the table to see what research and evidence there is to support conclusions about efficacy.

Screen Shot 2018-05-27 at 1.03.35 PM.png

Here is a link to the main page. Worth exploring for those curious about gun policy but also as an interesting case study on the use of the scientific method to help us understand and evaluate a problem in society.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2088.html

 

‘Lone wolf’ or ‘terrorist’? How bias can shape news coverage

October 15, 2017

“Another decision: describing the attack that authorities say was committed by Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old white man, as a “mass shooting” rather than “domestic terrorism.” When a Muslim person mows down innocent victims and terrorizes a community, media and authorities are quick to declare it terrorism; when a white, non-Muslim attacker does the same, he is usually described as a disturbed loner in a freak incident. In both cases, journalists arrive at these conclusions early in the news cycle when information is incomplete. (Official statistics show far more terrorism in the U.S. is committed by white men than by Muslims).”

https://www.poynter.org/news/lone-wolf-or-terrorist-how-bias-can-shape-news-coverage

We cannot celebrate revolutionary Russian art – it is brutal propaganda

March 19, 2017

2000“We will never stop looking at the art of the Russian avant garde, nor should we. Yet we need to place it in its true context. It is a lazy, immoral lie to keep pretending there was anything glorious about the brutal experiment Lenin imposed on Russia – or anything innocent about its all-too-brilliant propaganda art. Perhaps the Royal Academy is about to open that very show, but its shallow title seems all too happy to cash in on revolutionary chic.”

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2017/feb/01/revolutionary-russian-art-brutal-propaganda-royal-academy

In divided America, history is weaponized to praise or condemn Trump

February 11, 2017

“On social networks and talk radio, in classrooms and at kitchen tables, the country’s past is suddenly inescapable. Many, many people — as President Trump would put it — are sharing stories about key moments and figures in American history to support or oppose one controversial White House executive order after another.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/in-divided-america-history-is-weaponized-to-praise-or-condemn-trump/2017/02/06/f94c4eb2-e991-11e6-b82f-687d6e6a3e7c_story.html?utm_term=.ad34db94a326

The New York Times’s false equivalency problem, in one paragraph

December 12, 2016

“Bias incidents on both sides have been reported. A student walking near campus was threatened with being lit on fire because she wore a hijab. Other students were accused of being racist for supporting Mr. Trump, according to a campuswide message from Mark Schlissel, the university’s president.”

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/12/8/13891648/new-york-times-false-equivalence

Should President Obama Pardon Edward Snowden?

September 17, 2016

Petition to have Edward Snowden pardoned along with white house response

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snowden

Pardon Edward Snowden

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/opinion/pardon-edward-snowden.html

Op-ed: Why President Obama won’t, and shouldn’t, pardon Snowden
A former US gov’t lawyer and current Harvard Law professor makes the case.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/09/op-ed-why-president-obama-wont-and-shouldnt-pardon-snowden/

Edward Snowden makes ‘moral’ case for presidential pardon

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/13/edward-snowden-why-barack-obama-should-grant-me-a-pardon

Why Obama Should Pardon Edward Snowden

https://www.lawfareblog.com/why-obama-should-pardon-edward-snowden

Three Years Later: How Snowden Helped the U.S. Intelligence Community

https://www.lawfareblog.com/three-years-later-how-snowden-helped-us-intelligence-community

No Pardon for Edward Snowden

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/440096/edward-snowden-pardon-opposition

Another Pardon Snowden website

https://www.pardonsnowden.org/

No pardon for Edward Snowden

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/edward-snowden-doesnt-deserve-a-pardon/2016/09/17/ec04d448-7c2e-11e6-ac8e-cf8e0dd91dc7_story.html?utm_term=.4349b5b7d06e&wpisrc=nl_draw2&wpmm=1

Why News Junkies Are So Glum About Politics, Economics, and Everything Else Stock-market crashes, terrorist attacks, and the dark side of “newsworthy” stories

September 17, 2016

“The rule is straightforward, but its implications are subtle. If journalists are encouraged to report extreme events, they guide both elite and public attitudes, leading many people, including experts, to feel like extreme events are more common than they actually are. By reporting on only the radically novel, the press can feed a popular illusion that the world is more terrible than it actually is.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/why-news-junkies-get-are-so-glum-about-politics-economics-and-everything-else/492989/?mc_cid=374abf3cdb&mc_eid=34e2887073

Why Democrats and Republicans Literally Speak Different Languages

September 17, 2016

“The Republican National Convention proved yet again that the GOP talks about America and U.S. policy with an entire unique vocabulary. It hasn’t always been this way.”

“For several decades now, Republicans and Democrats have become more polarized. There are plenty of reasons for that, including the demise of the Southern Dixiecrats and the geographic sorting of the country into ideologically homogenous neighborhoods. But the two major parties are now divided by a common language: Democrats discuss “comprehensive health reform,” “estate taxes,” “undocumented workers,” and “tax breaks for the wealthy,” while Republicans insist on a “Washington takeover of health care,” “death taxes,” “illegal aliens,” and “tax reform.” When did the two major political parties create their own vocabularies?”

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/why-democrats-and-republicans-literally-speak-different-languages/492539/?mc_cid=374abf3cdb&mc_eid=34e2887073