Category: Culture

Who had it worst during the corona virus pandemic, or ended up worse off as a result? First off, let’s exclude the millions of people who died. Some were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, some just had terrible genetic luck (the virus seemed to target them directly regardless of their overall health), some had comorbidities that made them especailly vulnerable, and some fell victim to overcrowded hospitals or treatments which ultimately proved counter-productive. They weren’t “losers,” they were victims. I like the way comedian Norm MacDonald (who died from cancer last year) corrected the phrase that someone “lost a battle with cancer.” He said that was BS; you die, but so does your cancer. “That, to me, is not a loss. That’s a draw,” and he was right!

So here’s my list of corona virus losers:

(1) #1 with a bullet, as they say, is Donald Trump. This is a no-brainer. Whatever yout think of the man or of his presidency, he was riding a wave toward re-election. Yes, he continued to tweet and do outrageous things. But the economy was humming, the working poor were registering unprecedented gains in income relative to the wealthy, the long-running refugee flow across the southwest border had been slowed to a trickle (albeit by brutal methods), and even his forays into international policy hadn’t stumbled America into any new wars. A non-pandemic match-up against Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden would have been a lopsided win for Trump. Now the pandemic didn’t have to be a disaster for Trump, but it played on all his worst traits and exaggerated his worst tendencies. Having to rely on experts? Being told exactly what to say and when to say it? Throttling the economy with health restrictions? Sitting quietly through long public answers by people who work for him? Not being the center of attention? Avoiding going off half-cocked on new treatments or drugs? Trump was singularly unprepared for such a role and failed miserably, still almost eking out a win against a weak opponent.

(2) American Media. Perhaps this is related to the Biggest Loser, above, but the US media served horribly during the pandemic. They often fed the counternarrative battle that raged over everything Tump said or did, blindly going to the opposite extreme. Media in general were already held in low regard, but media performance during the pandemic only solidified their low position. The US media routinely understated the uncertainty involved in scientific efforts (vaccine efficacy, side effects, mortality rates, etc.,) and emphasized negative news, at least until the political situation changed. Foreign media sources were far more balanced and did a better job of handling uncertainty and avoiding politicization.

(3) Bureaucrats. Bureaucracy developed to bring standards and norms to the everyday operations of large organizations and governments. So it might be unfair to grade bureaucracy poorly for how it responded to an abnormal situation. But it still remains the case that during a crisis like a pandemic, the public requires some sense of normalcy and some level of competence despite the uncertainty; here is where the bureaucrats failed. The European Union couldn’t bring itself to indemnify vaccine manufacturers and ended up last in line for the drugs. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) completely mucked up the initial covid tests then failed to quickly fix them, leaving the country without a critical tool at a critical moment. Much of their messaging was also weak and featured walk-backs, reversals, and flat out denials. It was so bad that Dr. Rachel Wallensky, the CDC director, has initiated a review to fix “some pretty dramatic, pretty public mistakes.”

(4) Expert Opinion Leaders. You might think a fast-moving pandemic would be the kind of situation where experts and talking heads would tread carefully; you would be wrong. Time and again, opinion leaders got out ahead of the science or the policy or the facts and got into trouble. Some like Dr. Anthony Fauci just got too much exposure. It is a rule of public appearance that you cannot get that level of exposure over time without making mistakes. He started to opine on things like shutting down airlines or closing schools that were complex matters beyond the science or medical realm, yet he felt comfortable giving an opinion. He is an expert, but became over-exposed, then responded to off-base critics by increasing his exposure. A pandemic requires understated, calm expertise . . . with an emphasis on understated. In policy matters (and the pandemic in the end was a policy matter), you should never become the story.

(5) Teachers’ Unions. Wait just a minute, put down those rulers and listen to my argument! I am only calling out the unions here. They have always held that public education is not only a right, it is essential to our nation. Then the pandemic hit, and scrambled our education system. After a short while, data became evident that schools weren’t the cause of outbreaks (in general) and could operate safely with social-distancing rules. But the unions dug in, refusing to cooperate and making a series of demands on pay, facilities, and student-teacher ratios among other things, effectively refusing to reopen some schools for two years. It wasn’t that some of their demands weren’t legitimate; they were. It wasn’t that conservatives hadn’t been complaining about the teachers and the curriculum for years; they had. It wasn’t that some students and some teachers would get sick; they did. It was an “in-your-face” refusal despite the science and the parents and even the local governments’ cries to reopen. Nothing would get back to normal without normal schools. Unions stood in the way of that, and it brought about a sustained drop in public school rolls, greater parental activism, and a general disdain. Imagine you’re a trashman who gets told he has to work because he is “essential,” but also gets told to find care for his kids since schools are “unsafe.” All the while, schools in other countries and private schools in America kept running. So much for “essential to our nation.”

(6) Of course, the other related group which lost even more was students. The preliminary data are in, and they’re all bad. Students did not advance during the remote learning phase, and in many cases they regressed. The psychological development of an entire generation was deformed, and little can be done to fix that as it is a delay in development. Teachers at all levels point to increased truancy, inattentiveness, lack of motivation, and loss of social skills. We will be paying for this mistake for decades to come.

(7) Enthusiasts for globalist economics, like those who cheered for sending manufacturing jobs to China or Southeast Asia, or the streamlining (to the extreme) of the supply chains. Among economists, there has always been the understanding that there are some national security issues where you just don’t rely on the market for solutions (one doesn’t hire up a Seal Team on demand). Over time, those exceptions got whittled down to the bare bones: mostly the military hardware you use to kill people and break things. The pandemic was a reminder that even the computer chips we needed were at risk, as was much else. I trust we will reinvigorate domestic or regional agreements which give us greater resilience across the full spectrum of national security (e.g., public health).

(8) Bosses. First they had to deal with shutdowns. Then they had to figure how to manage “work from home.” I contend it was easier to figure out how to “work from home” then it was to manage someone who is “working from home” but I am open to counterarguments. Then they faced resistance to resuming office operations, because who wants to go back to the water cooler when you can be comfy in a dress shirt-and-shorts for your Zoom meeting? Now they are bombarded with demands for raises and more flexible work environments, with seasoned employees quite willing to take their skills out on the market. Some of these trends were already underway, but mostly bosses were resisting them rather than adapting to them (in my opinion). Then they faced a massive transition in a short time. Tough-sledding, but that’s why they get paid the big bucks, right?

(9) I am going out on a limb here and putting China in the losers’ camp. Some may think “wait, I thought they beat this thing early and often.” That is true in that that is what they say, and what they want you to think. It is also what the Chinese government wants its people to think. The problem is, the truth is out there, as they used to say on the X-Files, and the Chinese people know it. They got lied to. People who spoke up are missing. People died from Covid without being accounted for. The pandemic is still recurring in China due to low vaccination rates, poor vaccine efficacy, and low herd immunity. And the Chinese government continues to lockdown entire megacities as its main tactic. Worst of all, China’s leadership crows about their superior performance and how much better their authoritative system did. Which is to say they learned nothing from their many, disastrous mistakes. Meanwhile, the pandemic caused the roaring growth they rely on to placate the masses to falter, the health system failed, they clamped down on their golden goose technology firms (Alibaba, Tencent, Didi, which may not be household names in the West, but rival Apple, Meta, Amazon, etc.) for political control, the overbuilt real estate market remains a tilting house of cards, and they just figured out their population is already decreasing with only an accelerating decline in sight. China’s claimed Covid success is already one of the biggest shams of the 21st Century.

Next up, who are the winners coming out of the pandemic?

First in a four-part series.

The corona virus, and the COVID pandemic it spawned, have rapidly faded from view. There are some government health officials still trying to sound the alarm, as each new variant is much more infectious but seemingly less deadly. The danger of overwhelmed hospitals remains, but as the global herd gains immunity, the danger wanes. We might still have another wave, or a variant of concern; who knows? Eventually the virus will take its place alongside seasonal flu viruses, and one-hundred years from now somebody will write a story about the common corona virus and how it upended your great-grandmother’s life. And so it goes.

Since we now have Covid in the rearview mirror, I want to spend a few posts reviewing, in order, (1) What we learned, (2) Losers, (3) Winners, and (4) What happens next?. Staring with what we learned. Or perhaps I should say what we re-learned. Most of what follows is disturbingly of a piece: read any good history book about pandemics (especially John Barry’s The Great Influenza or Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs & Steel) and you will be distressed to learn that humanity (even modern, technologically-advanced society) is always surprised by disease outbreaks, and always learns (and then forgets) the same lessons.

1. Has there ever been a more hackneyed, ill-advised, or useless motto than “Follow the science” ? Spawned in response to skeptics who denied damn-near everything, this phrase responded not with simplicity but with simple-mindedness. Yes, indeed science points a way forward, but it does nothing to answer the philosophical and moral questions which a pandemic poses. Here’s a hypothetical: at any point, the corona virus could have been completely eradicated by a simple two-week, full-on quarantine by all humanity. Nobody leaves their home/apartment for two weeks. No transmission=end of virus. This was what science indicated. Yet tens or hundreds of millions would have died when they had no water, or food, or heat, or medicine, or emergency services or . . . you get the point. What was scientifically obvious was morally opprobious. Science can inform policy, but policy must go beyond science to make difficult choices.
2. Science, especially medical science, takes time. And studies, often the kinds that don’t have proper controls when done in real time. It’s hard to get people to sign up to be in the control group to study how long one can go without treatment for a disease (think about it). Did you know that medical science found some volunteers who signed up for Covid challenge trials? That is, they were confirmed to have not had the virus, but volunteered to have it shot up the nose. Brave souls indeed! In the meantime, medical research looks at a variety of incomplete data and makes SWAGs: scientific wild-assed guesses (a term we used in military intelligence). They do it because they have to, because government officials are asking “what the hell do we do now?” and “wait until . . .” is not an acceptable answer. So you get guidance like “no, masks are not useful” later changed to “yes, masks are essential.” This is not evidence of incompetence, nor or conspiracy, just science and medicine seeking truth, a little at a time. Once upon a time, we put leeches on wounds and cut holes in skulls to let out bad spirits. Later we got so much more advanced and stopped doing such barbaric things. Later still we realized that leeches do stop the bleeding and opening the skull can prevent brain injury from swelling. Science marches on!
3. You will be shocked to learn that during a global pandemic, being an island is an advantage. Also, having authoritarian leaders who will ruthlessly suppress the people is an advantage. And being an out-of-the-way place or one no-one-wants-to-visit is an advantage. Finally, having a society that is high-trust (i.e., people believe the government) or highly compliant (i.e., with strong social norms to act like others) is an advantage. Countries with any of these advantages performed better for a time during the pandemic. Not because they were smarter, or had better policies, or any other reason. All these advantages proved temporary. China delayed its pandemic by more than a year; now they are dealing with regional outbreaks that keep stalling the economy and infuriating a pandemic-weay public. In the end, different is just different, not better.
4. Speaking of China, we will not know how the pandemic started until the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is gone. I am sure you know the competing scientific hypotheses: a natural evolution starting from the wet market in Wuhan, and some kind of leak from the Wuhan virology center (I won’t include the intentional release of a manufactured virus, as there is no evidence for it). You may have seen some recent news releases by various groups claiming they have reviewed the data and proven it was a natural evolution, not a lab leak. They are being economical with the truth. The only available data on what happened during the Wuhan epidemic phase comes from China, and was released over a year after the pandemic phase began. They have released no new data, and prohibit any independent study effort to gather data. Reviewing that data will only confirm what the Chinese government has said all along: naturally-occuring disease. Once the CCP is gone, someone will be able to gather the actual data and piece together what really happened. Remember, we didn’t isolate the virus that caused the Spanish Flu (1918) until the late 1990s.
5. The pandemic revealed social media in all its glory and gore-y. My dear wife and I wanted to get vaccinated. Mexico was only offering a Chinese vaccine: good enough, but who ever said they wanted a medical treatment that was “good enough?” We were willing to fly back to the States, but didn’t want to spend three weeks (minimum) waiting between the first and second doses of the mRNA vaccines. So we wanted the one-shot Jansen (aka Johnson & Johnson) vaccine. But how to find it? I found some vaccine-hunting FaceBook groups, and within hours of landing in Cincinnatti, we had appointments for our shots! Simply amazing, and impossible without social media. On the other hand, social media allowed every crackpot to fill the gap left by the evolving science with hare-brained schemes. Helpful hint: no scientific or medical research has EVER begun with the phrase “I know a friend who takes . . . “. Likewise, it is not legitimate to criticize potential treatments by exaggeration, like those who called Ivermectin a treatment for parasites in horses. Yes, it is that, and it is also used by humans. Nearly all antibiotics used by humans are also used for animals, so perhaps you want to stop using them, too? Being superstitious and unscientific is bad; being ridiculous in response is no better. And social media put all this nonsense on display worldwide, twenty-four hours a day.
6. There is no such thing as a harmless comorbidity. Since modern medicine has made many serious conditions chronic, that is, conditions that you can live with and don’t kill you outright (but are still dangerous), people have started treating them as harmless. AIDS is now something people just take drugs for, and go on living as they had before. Ditto heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and a raft of other conditions. But, when some new pandemic comes around, all these conditions make you far more likely to (1) get sick, (2) be hospitalized, and (3) die. Covid was a wake-up call that medicine’s amazing ability to pull people up just short of the the ledge is just that: they are still on the ledge, and all it takes is a small change in the environment like a new disease to push them over. Don’t think the ledge isn’t there; it is.
7. It is called force majeure for a reason. If the phrase looks oddly familiar, it is because you have read it in every contract you’ve ever signed. It is Latin for Acts of God or literally unforeseen circumstances, and it invalidates the contract and relieves one party of liability. Pandemics are a classic force majeure. All kinds of trips, plans, weddings, sporting events, surgeries and parties got left in the dust. Sometimes people lost money, sometimes they just forever lost an opportunity. Plans are just the basis we make for the changes that will inevitably happen.
8. Efficient supply chains only work in a perfect world. “Just in Time” delivery and concentrating supply providers makes great economic sense when the system as a whole operates normally. Throw a wrench into the system, and it collapses, since there is no slack. No local inventory means no way to respond to surge demand for low demand items (masks). Off-shoring most of your manufacturing to low-cost, high-volume producers in a single region in China works great until they have a lockdown. Maximized trade flows don’t work when all your shipping containers end up empty in the same port. These things were all obvious, but it took a little virus to remind us. Methinks we will accept a little more cost and a little less convenience in order to have a little more resiliency. Or at least me-prays!
9. I have written on this before, but Covid was a great trial run for the end of the antibiotic era. Everybody reading this post grew up in a world where wonder-drugs called antibiotics meant every scratch or trip to the hospital was not a potential visit to the morgue. All of human history was like that until the mid-twentieth century. Now our antibiotics are gradually losing the battle with evolution against the deadly bacteria. Science is fighting back, but it seems we might revert to the distant past at least for a time. Public hygenic acts (masks, avoiding unnecessary physical contact, washing hands frequently) may be the norm in the near future.
10. Finally, politics IS your reality. Some of the craziest things I mentioned above came out because one side or the other only saw things through a political lens. Oddly enough, this often resulted in the other side using a similarly political lens. “China must be the culprit.” “No, China must be totally innocent.” “Masks are necessary.” “No, masks are useless.” “Don’t gather in large groups” versus “unless you’re protesting the right thing.” “children are not at special risk” yet “schools must stay closed.” And on and on. Science, medicine, culture, education, international relations and even interpersonal relations all took a back seat to politics. Politics is supposed to be the art of compromising for a common good. I don’t think that word means what it used to.

Next up, Covid’s biggest losers.

Older fans will immediately recognize John Cleese as one of the comic geniuses behind Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Younger ones know him from A Fish Called Wanda and his short stints in several James Bond and Harry Potter films. His biting satire and sharp wit are never in question, although at times not well received. His send-up of Christianity (and Judaism) called Life of Brian was reviled by Catholics, Protestants, and Jews alike, leading Cleese to ad lib it was ‘the first time in millenia they had agreed on anything.’ After one divorce decree came out particularly bad for him, he said “think what I’d have had to pay (her) if she had contributed anything to the relationship—such as children, or a conversation.” Ouch!

Cleese clearly has an enquiring mind, and this book–better to call it a booklet or a pamphlet–brings together the results of his thinking and research. I hesitate to call it a book only because it is exceedingly short; so short, I digested it fully with lunch one day, and it barely outlasted my chicken & rice bowl! There’s no need to summarize the work, but here are some tidbits I found interesting:

• Creativity is not simply being different; it is also being good or better. Modern definitions of creativity emphasize difference, but difference without improvement is not creative, just a matter of taste. I would add that newcomers often believe they are creative and being “stifled” by the existing organization, when they simply don’t know enough to know what has already been tried and failed.
• Creativity starts after mastery. You have to be good at something first, otherwise you won’t be doing something new or “creative.” This is why creativity is so hard in fields like medicine and science, because mastery there requires much hard work first.
• Creativity lies primarily in the subconscious (Cleese refers to it as the unconscious). Think hard about something and eventually you’ll get stuck (“what was the name of that guy?”). Leave it alone, that is, leave it to your subconscious, and eventually your subconscious brain creatively unlocks the information you could not consciously get to! This tracks with my experience. If I faced a hard challenge at work, and seemed stuck, I knew a good long run in the hot DC sun would do the trick. I would consciously forget all about the problem (focusing on not falling down, getting run over, or just breathing), but upon returing to my office, suddenly the challenge appreared in a different and solvable light.
• How powerful is the subconscious? Cleese refers to studies on the “Mere-Exposure effect,” which shows that people exposed to random Chinese characters (漢 字) but who do not speak Chinese, could not consciously remember them when asked. Duh. But when later shown a second set of characters, the subjects “liked” certain characters better, and the ones they liked (none of which had any meaning to them, remember) were the ones they had been previously shown!
• Interruption may be the greatest threat to creativity. During creative thought, you imagine complex structures and stories which completely collapse the moment the real world intervenes. Getting back to the furthest, most creative point takes re-building those structures in your mind from the ground up.

• Finally, Cleese holds special contempt for the “inner voice” that tells you “you can’t think that!” since it prevents creativity. Inside your creative thought pattern, you must let your mind wander to forbidden areas and say forbidden things. Note he’s not saying you stay there or repeat them out loud, just don’t self-censor. By the way, this also accounts for his dislike for woke-ism (not just cancel culture), as it becomes a chorus of self-righteous internal voices saying “don’t think or say that!” which is disastrous for creativity.

This work on creativity is engaging and easy-to-read. Get thee to a library and borrow a copy for lunch soon!

Packaging, or branding in modern usage, is everything. Slap an attractive slogan on something and people will buy (or buy into) it with abandon. Tag something else with negative connotation and sayonara!

If I called this post “rules for a good life” you might have stopped at the word “rules.” Who likes rules? Plus a “good life” has a vaguely religious flavor to it. “How to” attracts people; they like being in charge of themselves and practical advice to accomplish things. And the “best life?” Nothing is more internet-savvy than that. Plus, five steps is easy enough to memorize: no need for a to-do app or summary sheet.

If I was ever going to write a post about “How to Have the Best Life,” it would go like this:

1. Decide for yourself what is most important and keep that always first in all you do. Otherwise you will squander your limited resources on less important things.
2. Respect legitimate authority. Regardless of your wealth, education, popularity, or power, there will always be those with authority over you: parents, teachers, police officers, sergeants, bosses, tax assessors, and so on. Some will have brief and limited authority (the clerk who gives you your driver’s license), others will have a lasting effect (your drill sergeant). To the extent they act legally and honorably, give them the respect they are due. Be careful not to place yourself in judgment over them: you know not what they do.
3. Harm no one. Certainly defend yourself and those around you. But always seek to defuse, de-escalate, and disarm rather than go nuclear. Violence in word or deed begets more violence, and once the cycle is started (and remember, the cycle only starts with the second act, not the first), all will suffer.
4. There are no victimless lies, cheats, or steals. We have an endless ability to rationalize and are quick to use it. But even if your offense is never discovered, you know what you did, and that affects you, so you (and the truth) are the first victim.
5. If you renounce only one thing in life, make it jealousy. There will always be people “better off” than you: richer, more attractive, luckier, more powerful, more popular. In most cases, they will not be more deserving than you in any sense. They will simply be “better off.” The more that bothers you, the worse your situation will be. It is truly wise to consider how much “better off” you are than others, especially in comparison to those whom you consider more worthy than you are!

These are not easy concepts to put into practice; if they were, everybody would do them. But they are a reliable guide to being happy. And what makes for the best life I cited in the title? How happy you are! Perhaps you recall the quote that “what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul” (Mark 8:36). This was everyday wisdom once-upon-a-time, but lost nowadays.

In fact I am sure some of you noticed that all my five points for your best life are simply a restatement of the Ten Commandments. Their original branding was excellent: brought down from Mount Sinai by Moses, written by God himself and etched in stone (which became a metaphor for permanence). But today some hear “commandments” and think “rules” and immediately rebel. Others see rules and start to lawyer them (what about double effect? “Who is my neighbor?” “what if . . . ?” and so on). But read them again, in your Bible or my summary above. What is really objectionable? What would fail to make you happier?

One of the retirement seminars I went to early on in my career had a session called the rules for a successful retirement. It was all about starting saving early, having goals, making plans for your time. Nobody stood up and asked “who are you to make rules for me?” No one objected to the concepts because there was no guarantee. No one asked “can we get by saving less and having more fun now?” Why not? Because the answer was obvious. The path to good (even early) retirement was well-trod: not easy, but well enough understood to elicit a set of rules that, like a recipe, reliably turn out.

Thus has it always been.

We’re back in South Bend for our annual family get-together, which normally happens around July 4th. All that has me pondering life’s larger issues through the prism of a more familiar one: the family.

Families are, of course, where we are first civilized (if that ever happens, or for better or worse). Many of the larger problems America faces are ultimately originally based in the breakdown of the family. And I’m not talking only about the quintessential 1950s-style nuclear family, but even the more modern evolution of the term. As the privileges and even whims of the individual have become of greater importance, the rights and duties of the family have weakened. We seem to want the schools or work or the government to take on more and more responsibility for things that once were the prerogatives of the family. With predictable, less-than-optimal, results.

Not that families always do a great job. I know some of my friends out there were raised in terrible situations, and only succeeded despite family upbringing. Yet the family remains the core unit of society, and for all its warts and blemishes, it is generally a force for good and a worthwhile institution.

Which leads me to the concept of socialization. One first learns to share (or not) in the family. To be kind (or not). To be treated fairly (or not). To tell the truth (or not). All the things society relies on to function start with the family. But even the best families have those members who primarily provide examples of what not to do (to put it politely). Every family is like this, and every parent faces how to deal with the situation. It is a truly universal experience. Your children must be introduced to the larger family they have literally inherited.

Maw-Maw is a drunk. Uncle Ernie does drugs. Cousin George has a gambling problem. Auntie cheats on her husband. And so it goes.

What do the parents tell the six-year old?

“Maw-Maw didn’t mean to swear like that, she just wasn’t feeling well.” “Don’t accept any brownies from Uncle Ernie.” “If cousin George asks about how much money we have, come get me.” “Auntie and her husband are having an argument.” All of which are at least partially true, but are not in fact the whole story.

As that child matures, the level of honesty expands commensurate with that maturity. “Maw-Maw sure likes her beer.” “Uncle Ernie isn’t weird, he’s just stoned.””No, you can’t give George your baby-sitting money to buy lottery tickets, and call him ‘Cousin George’.” “Auntie did something that really hurt her husband’s feelings.”

Eventually the discussion becomes something more like: “Maw-Maw died so young because she was an alcoholic and couldn’t stop.” “Uncle Ernie never learned how to control himself, and that’s why he always shows up high.””George always has another get-rich quick scheme, and they always end the same way.””Remember all those fights Auntie and her husband had? Well . . .”

Why are the parents “economical with the truth?” Because for all the problems noted, they view the family as a good thing, a thing worth cherishing and sustaining. If they didn’t view it that way, they wouldn’t keep participating in it in the first place. Eventually we have to be more brutually honest, but that comes when we are mature enough to have those conversations.

Which is how we should also learn about our nation. Do you believe America is a worthwhile thing? Is it a force for good? Separate your immediate emotions (some suggested they would not celebrate independence this year): in total, across time, is the world better off for the fact of America, or not.

If the answer is “no,” really? Take a deep breath and listen to reason. If the answer is “yes,” continue.

How do we socialize our chidren about America, if we value it? We start with what’s good, what’s unique, what’s best. Why? First, because those things are true. They might not be the complete truth, but they are still true. As the children mature, we bring in more nuanced concepts. Yes, some of the Founders were slave-owners. Yes, segregation persisted well into modern times. True, women only achieved the right to vote in the last hundred years. But there is a time and place to introduce such concepts.

I disagree strongly with those who claim even mentioning such things is unpatriotic. I also disclaim those who suggest America is fundamentally flawed, systemically racist or a morally neutral force at best. Both these positions are wrong, and must be avoided.

To those who say “no one is bringing these concepts into the early childhood educational system” (say primary school): you’re wrong. The New York Times and Washington Post used to include a disclaimer that Critical Race Theory (CRT) is ‘an advanced academic concept introduced mainly at the university-level and not taught in primary education.’ They have changed that to say ‘it sometimes influences curriculum at those levels.’ Why the change? I spent a few hours one afternoon researching local news stories and found one example after another of CRT being used as early as pre-school classes. You cannot tell a child the nation is fundamentally racist and expect them to think later it is worthy of their respect, let alone their love. It gets the maturity learning model exactly backwards.

Start with the good. There’s plenty of it. Later introduce the neutral points; much to cover here, too. Finally,discuss the bad, especially those things which still linger today. All three need to be covered, but when and how are critically important.

That is, if you care about America more than scoring a meme point. Hope you had a happy Fourth of July!