A lot is happening in Florida education. These are some of the changes kids will see
A lot is happening in Florida education. These are some of the changes kids will see
The headline should read something more like "Florida students to return to schools after fascist-overhaul of the curriculum" but that wouldn't be "objective" enough for NPR.
Students will literally be watching Prager U Kids videos, require parental permission for a nickname, and be forcibly misgendered by even their closest, favorite, teacher as a matter of State Law.
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I have a question. If not having diversity and inclusion training is a ‘fascist overhaul of the curriculum’ …. Assuming that’s true ….
Does that mean that I grew up in a fascist west? Before diversity and inclusion were a thing anyone talked about?
I don’t understand how fascism just POPS into the discussion. Am I considered fascist, educated and born into a fascist regime?
I’m from the 80’s. It didn’t feel fascist to not grow up with diversity and inclusion classes
Does that mean that I grew up in a fascist west? Before diversity and inclusion were a thing anyone talked about?
No, because the political context of the 80s was different – there wasn't a ban on it in your childhood because there was no such thing, even if some of the ideas and policies existed, they wouldn't have been labelled "EDI" or "DEI". The current move to explicitly ban these policies and offices from schools (and punish corporations for having it) is in reaction to a shift in mainstream American political discourse.
I don’t understand how fascism just POPS into the discussion
It doesn't – the DeSantis Administration has continually built up a reputation of authoritarian governing methods combined with right-wing economic and social policies. IE: Fascism, or at the least, overt right-wing authoritarianism.
He governs Florida the way Erdogan governs Turkey, or Viktor Orban governs Hungary, attacking political opposition and consolidating power. He has removed 2 democratically elected District Attorneys and appointed his political allies in their place, including one who lost the election to the removed official. His political appointees are currently reshaping a public college into a "Hillsdale of the South", after the private Christian college in Pennsylvania or somewhere. That college was previously a haven for trans and gay people. The Florida State Guard is shaping up to be a 21st-century version of Brownshirts, answerable only to the Governor.
I’m from the 80’s. It didn’t feel fascist to not grow up with diversity and inclusion classes You also grew up in a far less polarised time, which isn't to say you grew up in a time when "racism was defeated" or something, just that more openly violent bigotry wasn't tolerated. While I don't exactly think that US presidents of the 80s were egalitarians who honoured the Civil Rights movement, they said all the correct things publically, condemning right-wing violence unequivocally.
Also, there aren't "classes". I believe you're conflating things like critical race theory and EDI. Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are more of an institutional outlook that tries to consciously account for the fact that people hold certain prejudices that might lead them to pass up someone more qualified for the role. Most American corporations have DEI initiatives, even though most American corporations are still run by white men. It's just that those white men are now thinking "Well, what other perspectives can we bring to the company to make us more competitive, and what are we taking for granted that might be impacting our business?" It's not ideological, in fact, most of these corporations donate to business-friendly candidates of both parties. Public organizations can have these initiatives too, which is why you hear about it in schools and universities, but it's still more about the teachers and workers of the school and not the classes.
Thank you for this insight. It really is frightening what he is doing, especially with that military force
Because the state is forcing schools to not do those things which modern society has deemed valuable and important enough to have implemented. And the state is doing it in order to punish the "other"- in this case, transgender students, or really anything the state deems to be "woke", a term that could and has been used to encompass anything the policital right doesn't like.
The reason you grew up without diversity and inclusion classes isn't because the state banned them for political reasons. Thats the difference.
Fascism is the integration of business and state.
ANY decision to educate based on commercial platform interests vs student knowledge is a step in the direction of fascism.
Bigotry is the hate and prejudice of a class of people based on physical qualities vs quality of character.
Most children are, by their very nature, loving and shy away from the modes of hate. Hate comes later, in adulthood. The world is scary to a child - love and empathy are natural.
The trick isn’t to teach children to love one another. The trick is to remind adults that they need to as well.
You have your definitions mixed up. The integration of business and state is authoritarianism, and that has many forms, such as socialism (the means of production is business) and fascism.
Fascism is better defined as putting "the nation" above the people, and the definition of "the nation" changes as needed to maintain control. In essence, it finds some enemy to blame for failures and attacks that enemy, and repeat ad infinitum. For Nazi Germany, that was Jews and other minorities, for Franco in Spain that was communists and trade unions, and so on.
I don't think DeSantis rises to that standard. I guess you could say trans people are the target, but there's no focused energy here, it's just a general fight against "woke," whatever that means. So I think it's just normal conservative activism, not fascism. The goal doesn't seem to assert control, the goal seems to be to roll back progressive changes.
So no, I don't think the term fascist applies, but I guess we'll see how his rhetoric changes in the upcoming election.
Key to fascism is deep integration of business and state.
The mere one way road of socialist integration does not approach the deep rooted unification of corporate enterprise and government interest that defines fascism. That, and the complete eradication of liberal individualism.
A lot of people yell fascist at things they don’t like. And there is nothing to like about fascism.
We probably agree and I am not sure Desantis has it in him to be fascist. At worst you could say he was conservative, which … well … he has not claimed to be anything but.
Socialism is a complete unification of state and economy. That's what "social ownership of the means of production" means. The government controls the economy in most scenarios (though libertarian socialism is a thing).
Facism is similar, but it usually has a market economy to some extent with the government only seizing what it needs to accomplish its goals. It'll likely eventually seize pretty much everything, but that's not the end goal. For example, in Nazi Germany, the government seized the car dealerships to make tanks and whatnot, but probably didn't seize the local bakeries and whatnot because there was no need to (unless it was run by an enemy of the state, like Jews or whatever the flavor of the week is).
The goal with facism is to pursue the goals of the state, which is usually to subjugate enemies. The goal for Nazi Germany was to become the most powerful country in the world, and to get the necessary power, they blamed all of their problems on "undesirables" (in this case Jews, homosexuals, and other minorities), arguing that if they eliminate those enemies, Germany would be greater. Once those enemies are exhausted, they'd find a new minority to blame their problems on.
The goal of socialism is equality for its people. To enforce that, it needs control over the economy.
They use similar tools to meet their goals, but that doesn't mean either is defined by a union of business and the state, it just means that's a common tactic they use.
Facism is defined by hate against some minority in order to get power to unify some definition of "the state." That's it. If it can do it without controlling the economy, fine, it's just another tool in its toolbox.