Fighting the Whig Narrative in the Classroom: A Modest Proposal

When we last talked about the Whig narrative, I said that attacking the Whig narrative could be useful as a way to fight secularism. I offer, here, a possible way to go about this.

Since the Whig narrative is a historical issue, the first and most obvious place to go after it is within the confines of history and how it is taught to the public, particularly in classrooms. Judging from my experience of talking to non-historians, the fact that historians as a whole have rejected the Whig narrative is not something most people are aware of. On the contrary, they take it as a given that the history that constitutes the Whig narrative is a fact. The blame for this must be placed on the doorstep of grade school history teachers and textbooks, the source of most people’s knowledge of history. When I was in school my teachers taught what essentially amounted to the Whig narrative and I went to religious schools. I remember one teacher in high school, and this was an otherwise excellent history teacher, openly connecting what she was teaching to her being a deist. I take it as an operational assumption that the situation in public schools is if anything worse; particularly considering the demand to teach multiculturalism and tolerance for which the Whig narrative and its whole line of reasoning are quite suitable.

This situation is analogous to that of evolution. Despite the fact that evolution is an accepted fact by the scientific community, including those scientists who are theists, evolution is not accepted by the general public to the same degree. One can still reject evolution in polite company without having one's sanity questioned. This situation was made manifest in the recent courtroom battle over Intelligent Design. The scientific community has made an effort to reach out and make its case to the public. I suggest that historians and those interested in history make a similar effort.

Secularists, joined by many people of faith, rightfully and successfully challenged the teaching of Creationism and Intelligent Design as a means of selling a religious ideology. I suggest that all people of faith follow this example and challenge the direct or indirect use of the Whig narrative in the teaching of history. The Whig narrative amounts to nothing more than the teaching of secular ideology and passing it off as history.

To give an example: when I was in fifth grade my teacher opened up her discussion of the Middle Ages by telling us: during the Middle Ages people decided that the Greeks had discovered everything that there was to know about the world and that no further study was needed; people, during the Middle Ages, were therefore content to simply study the works of the Greeks. At age eleven I was quite well-read in history and knew enough to realize that this teacher was not particularly qualified to teach history. I did not yet know enough, though, to challenge her on this particular issue.

As a parent, you could call such a teacher and, in a polite and friendly manner, ask her to explain how she could say such a thing in light of all the various attempts by the Church to crack down on Greek thought. What about the 1210 ban on various teachings of Aristotle, or Pope Gregory IX’s attempt to curtail the Aristotelian curriculum taught at the University of Paris? How about Bishop Etienne Tempier, who, in 1277, issued a condemnation of 219 Aristotelian theses? (We will deal with this in greater detail later.) You could then offer the teacher a way out by giving her the chance to correct herself in front of her students. Hopefully, you could leave this conversation on friendly terms. The teacher could acknowledge that she is ill-equipped to teach history. You could tell her that you do not hold it against her, considering all the other subjects she has to teach as well, and recommend a decent medievalist for her to read; maybe someone like Norman Cantor, whose work is quite accessible for a lay audience.

If the teacher chooses to be obstinate then the fun begins and we drag this teacher in front of a board and if that fails a courtroom, to have her fired. Contact a professional medieval historian; you should have no trouble finding someone willing and able to explain to a lay audience why this teacher is incompetent to teach history. Gather a large collection of statements by the teacher that are Whig in nature and historically incorrect. Hopefully, you will also manage to catch her pontificating to her students about her secular beliefs, which would allow you to place them side by side with her Whig statements. The most obvious way to do this would be to have your child take good notes and record her classes.

If, and this is quite likely, she was teaching based on a specific curriculum then we go after the curriculum. This is, of course, the real goal of such an exercise. While going after individual teachers may be fun, it is inefficient. The goal must be to change how history is taught right at the source, the curriculum. The Whig narrative can stand only through bureaucratic inertia. The moment the Whig narrative is hauled out to stand on its own merits it falls apart like rotten timber and not even the most ardent secularist can defend it.

SB's Response to Haredi Generation Gap

SB, who was one of the people I talked about in my post, Haredi Generation Gap, responded to me via email, which he was kind enough to allow me to publish here. I think it demonstrates my point wonderfully. Last I checked Yeshiva Torah Vodaath has no interest in producing graduates who have read Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.


First, the nomenclature … of the word “haredi.” I don’t believe I heard the word until my late adolescence. The word is an Israeli term and indicates Israeli influence. We referred to ourselves as “yeshivish” or “litvish.” There was no term encompassing Chasidim and yeshivish people. This is not just a nitpicking point, since arguably yeshivish people moved to the right because it became de rigueur for guys to learn in Israel after high school.

When you stayed with us, I tried to expose you to the ideas of Rodney Stark regarding the sociology of religion. (I know that he has written several bad books recently, but that doesn’t negate the quality of his good works.) I believe that Stark has dealt only briefly with changes in Jewish life and not at all with changes in the orthodox community, but I believe that you have to take an “economic approach,” i.e., thinking about changes by looking at the alternatives available at the time. For instance, the orthodox world was much smaller then. Yeshivos were more tolerant because they were expected to take everyone. In contrast, in the current world, yeshivas can exclude anyone who has a tv at home.

Another change involves the economic concept of making tradeoffs. In my day, people went to Brooklyn College; now they go to Touro. I cannot comment much about the education at Touro, but I had several professors who were radical Marxists; I don’t think a Touro student is likely to have that exposure. Assume that a parent who went to Brooklyn is choosing a college for his son. He is very likely to be aware of the advantages of sending the son to Brooklyn, yet choose Touro because it will be easier for him to learn in yeshiva while going to Touro.

I don’t want to go through many examples, but in each case we can look at individual choices based on the “market,” i.e., the options available. In any case, what I want to stress is that rather than blaming my generation, you might want to consider how we got from the situation, say in 1969, when I started Torah Vodaath high school. You may not agree with my economic approach. That is ok. You may want to use Toqueville’s concept of the Unlimited Power of the Majority. But the point is, as an aspiring historian, you should try to understand historical changes, not bemoan them. While I threw out a few ideas, I cannot give you a complete explanation of the changes. That would require a book length treatment that I have no desire to complete, but I certainly would appreciate reading if you were to do so.
Lastly, the Unlimited Power of the Majority usually is not manifested by tarring and feathering, but by simple disapproval. The only negative consequence that I have experienced personally is that my daughter Dasi was rejected by Bais Yaakov of Brooklyn. However, that probably was the result of her behavior, not mine.

I hope that this email does not offend you, but encourages you to study contemporary Judaism as a historian. After all, Haym Soloveitchik did write a seminal article about contemporary orthodoxy, although as you know, I disagree with his interpretation.

My response: I use the world Haredi because unlike ultra-orthodox it has no negative connotations. I admit that, as with all human categories, it is flawed.I don't think we are disagreeing here. I was describing the situation that we have gotten ourselves into. You deal with how we have gotten there. Your economic explanation makes a lot of sense. I would love to hear you elaborate on it. (I guess I have to come visit you next time I am in New York.) Personally, I tend to look at history more through the lens of intellectual history but that is just my personal taste. If I had to explain how we got here I would focus on 60's multiculturalism. Something for a future post, I guess.

A Response to a Critic of my Aspie Posts II

I admit that I have very mixed feelings in regard to the issue of Aspie rights and tolerance toward Aspies. I feel like a Democrat who denounces Republican tax cuts but then insists on getting his refund. There is nothing unreasonable about this. You may believe that such tax cuts are a mistake and even an absolute disaster but if they are being given out then what is wrong with getting on line and demanding your share. I oppose multiculturalism and diversity at least how they are practiced by the left today. I believe in protecting people’s physical well being. I do not care if people’s feelings get hurt or if they do not feel validated by the rest of society. The very notion that people should be protected from the emotional trauma of being exposed to beliefs they oppose strikes me as a mortal threat to the free society. If race, skin color and sexual orientation really do not matter then they should not matter. If no one can suffer for these things then no one should benefit from them either. If society is allowed to give benefits to people for these things then they should also be allowed to discriminate against those same people. For me, a free society is one in which everyone can say offensive things to everyone else and everyone has to learn to be tolerant of everyone else.
Of course, once we are going to be playing the diversity game then I want to get every possible benefit. If the government, schools, and businesses are, in the name of diversity, going to give certain preferences to people because of their race, skin color or sexual orientation and do everything to make them feel validated then I want those same preferences and validation for the type of diversity I bring. I am an Aspie I have my own unique perspective, therefore, I should be given preferences and made to feel validated.
I am not some sort of Aspie radical. I do not believe that Aspies should be allowed to do whatever they want without any societal interference. Man is a political animal, we are not autonomous beings living on desert islands. This applies to Aspies and to everyone else. Many people may find Aspie behavior offensive and I am not saying they are wrong. Many people may find homosexual behavior to be offensive and I am not saying that they are wrong. Everyone is entitled to their own tastes. When you say that Aspies have to listen to what other people tell them how are you different than the people who say that homosexuals have to listen to what other people tell them.

On a side note. I admit that I often lack due diligence in regards to my grammar. Feel free to point out any mistakes that I make.