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-..-- Our Common Culture: A Poisonous Pedagogy DonøIdo Macedo Reporter: Mr. Ghandi, what do you think of modern civilization? Ghandi: That would be a good idea. What All Americans Need to Know our "common cultural" background knowledge. \¡Vhat Hirsch fails to recognize is that h-is treatment of r than an- thropological and political. past, and its essence is that it provides th ierent for "dismisses the notion that culture has any determinate relation to the politics an on- history, mean- one's te 988, p. What is more pernicious than Hirsch's fossilized encyclopedia of "our common cultural" background knowledge is his seiective omis- 777 118 Donaldo Macedo - Our Common Culture 719 sion of cultural facts that all Americans also need to know but are pre- vented from knowing. This is part of the ongoing "poisonous peda- gory" designed "to irnpart . from the beginning false information and beliefs that have been passed on from generation to generation and dutifully accepted by the young even though they are not only un- proved but are demonstrably false" (Miller, 7990, p.54). According to Alice Miller, to ensure that the received belief and value system is con- tinually reproduced, the recipients "shall never be aware for their own Obedience is ion is actually good" of the mechanisms inherent in "poisonous pedagogy," which nothing other than learning recognized involve "layíng traps, lying, duplicity, subterfuge, manipulation, principle thut p"r- sons of high € ¡¡¡hole nations must learnthe 'scare' tactics, withdrawal of love, isolation, distrust, humiliation . ' - art of governance by way of fust learning obedience. eui nescit obedire, and coercion even to the point of torture" (ibid.). scorn, ridicule, t obedience teaches a person to be Although Alice Miller's work focuses mostly on child-rearing prac- the fi¡st quality of a ruler. Thus, tices, the mechanisms of poisonous pedagogy also i¡form our educa- a result of one's first labors with tion and even our governrnent. We do not have to look further than childrerç the chief goal of one's further labors must be obedience. (Miller, our newspaper headlines to identify explicit mechanisms of poisonous 1990, pp.72-13) pedagogy in the behavior of our politicians. For instance, in an investi- gation of corrupt politicians in the Massachusetts legislature, the Bos- obedience, however is not easily institled in individuars. It requires ton Globe (May 27,1993) concluded that "the Beacon Hill system often a sophisticated implementation of the ingredients of poisonous peda- seems designed to obfuscate the truth, hinder public scrutiny and con- gogy, which include the use of scare tactics, lies, manipulation, and ceal the identity of special interests and their agents." The prevalent other means designed to get individuals to submit to tñe rule of law cul- lying and concealment of truth are part and parcel of our political and to accept what has been presented as sacred. All this must take ture and are best measured by the public's resignation to such lies. place in a carefully crafted manner so that the individual "won't notice that Anyone who followed the Iran--contra investigation can attest and will therefore not be able" to expose the lies. Hitler was fully and Bush were less than truthful to the public, and Presidents Reagan aware of this fact: "rt aiso gives us a very special, secret pleasure to see the they were no less deceitful about U.S. complicity in concealing how unaware the people around us are of what is really happening to against committed by truth about the carnage and crimes humanity them" (quoted in Miller, 7990, p.63). I would argue that many of óur El Mozote in 1981, the vi- the El Salvadoran army in the massacre of own educators and politicians enjoy a "very special special, seciet plea- murder four cious murders of six ]esuit priests, and the rape and of sure" in viewing how anesthetized we have become and how unaware American churchwomen. Yet, public resignation to such lies is so com- we are of what is really happening to us. (lll4arch 18, plete that there was little uproar when tlne Boston Globe obedience imposed through lies is accomplished not only through a US War." The same 1993) headtined, "The Truth Comes on Dirty received but false cultural information but also through the omission deceit by our public officials was evident public resignation to lies and of cultural facts, such as the horrendous crimes that the westem heri- Bush pardoned Caspar Weinberger, who was accused when President tage committed against humanity in order to prevent the possibility of affair. The same public resigna- of lying to Congress in the lran--contra keeping dangerous memories alive. It is, then, not accidental that Hir- tion allows the former secretary of state, Alexander M. Haig to not Jr., sch's "shopping mall" (Gannaway, 1994) cultural literacy gives rise to be accountable for his irresponsible assertion that the four church- a type of education based on the accumulation of selected cultural facts and murdered by the El Salvadoran army in 1980 may women raped that are disconnected from the sociocultural worrd that generated have been killed as they tried to run a roadblock. these facts in the first place. Educators who adhere to Hirschã perspec- The mechanisms of poisonous pedagogy are also part and parcel of tive often contribute to the fragmentation of knowledge due to their which is designed to instill obedience so as to our educational system, reductionist view of the act of knowing. The acquisiti-on of what all require students to "1) willingly do as they are told, 2) willingly refrain Americans need to know in a fossilized encyclopedic manner prevents from doing what is forbidden, and 3) accept the rules for their sake" the learner from relating the flux of informátiori ,o u, to gain à critical -IF' Our Common Culture 721 720 Donaldo Macedo own people who succumbed to their savage ways of life. But you still did reading of the world. This implies, obviously, the ability of leamers to not grow much com. (Ztrn, 1990, p. 18a) critically understand how Hirsch's view of "widely accepted culhrral values" often equates Westem culture with civilization, while leaving u¡noted Westem culture's role in "civilizing" the "primitive others'" To execute its civilizing tasks, Western culture resorted to barbarism so as to save the "other" cultural subjects from their prirnitive selves. Ironically, Hirsch neglects to include in his dictionary information that would show how Western culture, in the name of civilization and reli- gion, subjugated, enslaved, and plundered Africa, Asia, and the Amer- icas. If this perspective of cultural literacy allowed readers to become critical, encouraging them to apply rigorous standards of science, intel- lectual honesty, and academic truth in their inquiry, they would arrive from the Dictionøry of CuIturøI Literacy: whøt Ezsery American Needs to at a much more complex response than is allowed for in the prevailing Know (Hirsch, Kett, and Tuefil, 1988). The column on the right elabo- version of our cultural literacy. rates historical facts to fill the gap of what is omitted from the dic- Critical readers would also question why the dictionary fails to in- tionary. form American readers that "Lrdian towns and villages were attacked and bumed, their i¡habitants murdered or sold into foreign slavery" What every American needs What every American needs to know (Ziîrr,1990, p.25). These often-omitted historical facts were described to know but is prevented from knowing by William Bradford, the govemor of Plymouth Colony: "It was a feat- Goaernment of the people, by the peo- These words were not meant for ful sight to see Úrdians] thus frying in the fire and the streams of [the ple, and for the people: Words from the African Americans, since Abraham and horrible was the stink and scent ,,I blood quenching the same, Getbysburg Address of Abraham Lin- LincoLn also once declared: will thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and [the settlers] gave colrt often quoted as a definition of say, then, that I am not, nor ever have the praise thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them" democracy. been in favor of ringing about in any (Starurard, 1992, p.430). Critical readers would also question why way the social and political equality Hirsch's cultural literacy conveniently fails to discuss how history of white and black races. I as much shows us convincingly and factually that the United States systemati- as any other man am in favor of hav- cally violated the Pledge of Allegiance f¡om the legalization of slavery, ing the superior position assigned to the white (Ztrm, the denial of women's rights, the near-genocide of Indians, to the con- race" 1990, p.1,84). temporary discriminatory practices against people who, by virtue of Indentured seraant: A person under Slaoery: Aìthough omitted from their race, ethnicity, class, or gender, are not treated with the digt ity contract to work for another person Hirsch's cultural list, slavery involved for a definite period of time, and respect called for in the pledge. If Hirsch, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., usually kidnapping Afücaru, breaking up without pay but in exchange for and others did not suffer from historical amnesia, they would include free families, and shipping Africans to the passage to a new cou¡try. During the Americas to be sold to white in our common cultural literacy the following observation: masters seventeenth century most of the white to perform forced labor under duress laborers in Maryland and Virginia and inhuman conditions, often in- If you were a colonist, you knew that your technology was superior to the came from England as indentured volving undignified and denigrating Indians'.