Educating Citizens, Not Activists
For FAIR’s Substack, David Ferrero writes about restoring civil dialogue, pluralism, and critical thinking to public education.
So when asked to join the talented team of writers creating FAIR’s American Experience Curriculum, I saw an opportunity to return to the kind of instruction that inspired me as a young teacher while helping restore some sanity to my profession. The curriculum supports healthy student individuation while equipping them with the tools they’ll need to contribute to a vigorous civil society. Whether one considers it an alternative to Ethnic Studies with a civics focus, or a civics course with an emphasis on the experiences of ethnic groups, it is a curriculum grounded in American founding principles, respect for pluralism, and commitment to the pursuit of common ground through robust and respectful civil dialogue. These features animate every course unit and lesson in the curriculum.
How the Gay Rights Movement Radicalized, and Lost Its Way
For the New York Times, FAIR Advisor Andrew Sullivan writes about how the gay rights movement lost its way.
The gay rights movement, especially in the marriage years, had long asked for simple liberal equality and mutual respect — live and let live. Reform, not revolution. No one’s straight marriage would change if gay marriage arrived, we pledged. You can bring up your children however you like. We will leave you alone. We will leave your children alone.
But in the wake of victory, L.G.B.T.Q.+ groups reneged on that pledge. They demanded that the entire society change in a fundamental way so that the sex binary no longer counted. Elementary school children were taught that being a boy or a girl might not have anything to do with their bodies, and that their parents had merely guessed whether they were a boy or a girl when they were born. In fact, sex was no longer to be recognized at birth — it was now merely assigned, penciled in. We got new terms like “chest-feeding” for “breastfeeding” and “birthing parent” for “mother."
Class Struggle Meets Game Night
For Quillette, FAIR Advisor Jonathan Kay writes about the board game Hegemony, examining how it turns class struggle into an engaging asymmetric strategy experience that reflects real-world economic tensions.
“In Hegemony, each participant represents an entire swathe of a society referred to generically as ‘The Nation.’ [...] Those swathes are: Working Class, Capitalist Class, Middle Class, and State. Each gets its own distinct menu of action options and victory objectives. [...] If you’re playing the Working Class in Hegemony, the in-game economy rewards you for getting your little wooden meeple figurines into entry-level jobs at companies and government agencies [...]; successfully promoting redistributionist government policies; and, if possible, creating labour unions. By contrast, the Capitalist player doesn’t have any meeples. His available actions are instead dedicated to creating and running corporations; and lobbying the state for low taxes, lean budgets, and laissez-faire policies more generally.”
FSF Ep. 30: Free Speech & Taking Your Ideas to the Gym
Chris and Joia from the Institute for Liberal Values meet with Angel Eduardo, an artist, writer, and advocate of Free Speech who works with FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression). This episode delves into critical free speech arguments, such as the Weimar Fallacy and consideration of 2nd Order consequences, exploring why free speech is the “eternally radical idea”.
Let's get real about free speech
"Too many people believe in something closer to freedom from speech rather than freedom of speech," says attorney Greg Lukianoff. In a timely talk, he warns against the rise of "mob censorship" — and reminds us why free speech is the best check on power ever invented.
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