Posted on 04/02/2017 5:00:49 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Archer Shurtliff and Jordan April, both 17, felt “weird” when in February they received an assignment asking students to argue for the extermination of Jewish people.
The words “TOP SECRET” were stamped across the top in red. The “memorandum,” first posted online and addressed to senior Nazi party members, asked students to put themselves in the shoes of Adolf Hitler’s top aides.
Archer and Jordan, who are not Jewish, wondered if they understood the assignment correctly. Did their teacher, Michael DeNobile, really mean for his students to argue in favor of the “Final Solution,” the Nazis’ justification for genocide?
During class the next day, DeNobile randomly assigned half the students to argue for, and half to argue against the extermination of Jews. Archer was assigned to be in favor of the Final Solution, and Jordan was picked to be against.
The students were “disturbed” by the assignment, which they viewed as encouraging anti-Semitism and fascist speech. …
(Excerpt) Read more at syracuse.com ...
Simple mind-stretching exercise.
They are going after the teacher and demanding an apology.
In other words, they are acting like NAZIs.
I’m of two minds about this. However, one positive educational outcome could be that students would recognize Nazi arguments for Jewish genocide when they are found in other contexts, such as in arguments for eugenic abortion and euthanasia.
Pointing out that the concepts could be taught by other methods is reasonable, but the demand for an apology is creepy.
So why not argue against the 13th Amendment or the 19th, then?
The assignment transcends creepy.
The argument “for” genocide, aggressive war, terrorism, rape, murder, and so forth, is essentially that there is no right or wrong. All morality is not only arbitrary, but bourgeois and under suspicion.
All property is theft.
Gender is fluid.
Science is political.
To go beyond this, the argument that the Jews in particular are to be exterminated is that Jews have an identity that transcends the State. The State, therefore, cannot control them. The same argument applies to many others. Basically, to anybody who thinks or can think for himself.
Pol Pot, in Cambodia, extended this logic to all people who wore eyeglasses.
Basically, the masses are to consist of sheeple to be ruled by a self-perpetuating elite.
The smoking out of antisemitism?
Learning to recognize the ways in which people argue for the “inconceivable,” including the extermination of Jewish people, is not a waste of time. There is nothing new under the sun, and these things always come up again, whether with the same targets or new ones.
Whether this method of teaching is particularly effective is a different question.
If they had been told to argue in favor of Communism taking over in the United States, would we be reading about it?
What I’d rather see in schools is an exercise where students are required to write various essays from a conservative perspective.
Progressive leftists have been relying on ad hominem (is that sexist?) attacks for decades — to the point where there are virtually no leftists who understand, are familiar with, or can explain the conservative viewpoint on any issue.
The Orwellian trend to completely silence conservative thought on U.S. college campuses speaks volumes about the Progressive worldview, and its utter separation from any sort of rational thought process.
How about schools assign essays on things like why globalism and the UN need to be abandoned, or why the income tax should be eliminated, or why government redistribution of wealth is counterproductive at best, and outright evil at worst?
Putting your name on a paper defending the holocaust could easily destroy your life. Even if is was just a class exercise, this was beyond stupid.
I cannot see how this assignment can in any way be justified or excused.
They would work as well.
We see arguments for Satan all the time.
Her college thesis on how to destroy society (There's Only the Fight) didn't seem to hinder Cankles. Other things did, but not specifically the thesis.
It’s actually a good study in tyrannical groupthink. Why would good people so willingly acquiesce to such evil?
Good idea. I have no problem with this. MILLIONS of people agreed with it at the time, maybe understanding the thinking behind it could help prevent such a thing from happening in the future. Never say never.
“The moment you think you got it figured, you’re wrong.”
(Shooter)
Accepting this as an appropriate assignment requires one to believe that a) There is no true evil; B)Evil does not contaminate you if you dally with it and C)The ends justifies the means.
The professor should apologize absolutely. He used his authority to strong arm people to violate their consciences about strongly held cornerstones of their belief systems. Setting up that kind of stress for students is battery.
Arguing for genocide sullies a person. I could never utter such words. What do you do to people when you take away their right to stand for good. I would have grave reservations as to whether such a teacher however gifted should be allowed to teach. No one should be forced to speak words that violate their deeply held beliefs even if someone tells them its just an exercise. That this teacher would consider such behavior just an exercise speaks to his own moral bankrupcy.
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