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What Should a Left-ish but Open-Minded Teacher Read?
A friend asks a very good question:
I have a very close relative (elementary teacher) who is on the left end of the political spectrum, who has a book club largely inhabited by dedicated and talented teachers of similar persuasion, who would like her group to branch out a little and read some books from more conservative authors and academics. In this case, she would be interested in a book about conservative ideas and thoughts about education, and in particular, the intersection of education and race (she teaches in a majority minority school). She recognizes that I am no longer in retail politics but I might have some contacts with some recommendations for her group to consider.
This is a very thoughtful person and I would like to be able to give a couple of suggestions. I’m wondering if you have some suggestions? I see that Professor Sowell has a book out this year that appears to be a collection of papers on on education and I would put that on the list (Thomas Sowell is a tremendous resource, in my very humble opinion). I am not looking for anything of the “scorched earth” type; what I am looking for is something readable that isn’t 800 pages long and could open the door to some dialogue between groups that perhaps haven’t had much opportunity to do so.
If you have any thoughts on this topic, I’m interested in your opinion.
Thomas Sowell always represents a good place to start, of course, but do the Ricochetti have additional suggestions? Especially those of you who teach?
Published in General
To learn how and why the elites maintain poverty in Latin America all Lefties should read these two books:
Manual del Perfecto Idiota Latinoanmericano
and the sequel to Manual de Perfecto Idiota:
Fabricantes de Miseria
There may be English versions of both books by now. I have not read the third book in the series titled: El Regreso del Idiota
Neat article, but the GOP is effectively against it.
Please, if you have the time and money to do so, homeschool your kids and keep them out of the liberal indoctrination camps.
This sounds like a really good idea. Every angle helps.
On a related note I can not recommend listening to this enough. Two Austrians from Venezuela. Riveting.
One of the first books that started my transformation from moderate lefty to conservative was Nicaragua: Revolution In The Family by Shirley Christian. Anyone interested in American involvement in Latin America, and the prevailing dogma about imperialism, would be educated by this book.
Comrades Harkin and Kerry!
Voy a estar buscando las versiones en inglés, creo que, Sñr. Caballéro….No hay traducciones inglesas de éstos (por lo menos no en Amazon) ?Qué hay del Sñr. Codevilla, en lugar de los, por favor y gracias? :-)
Maybe suggest she listen to NPR’s portrait of Our current secretary of education as well as read a book?
I mean… lots of these books suggested here are wonderful for learning about conservatives, but it seems she wants to venture into work specific to education?????
Read a book about that but pull in Betsy so that current policy might be considered from the right. Plus NPR would feel like a good source… a reliable place to go.
Please Stop Helping Us by Jason L. Riley and False Black Power by Jason L. Riley & John McWhorter.
Darkness at Noon, by Arthur Koestler–himself a former Communist
This is supposed to be one hell of a book. I read it in college but I didn’t appreciate it at the time.
This is good.
I just finished Ross Douthat’s Bad Religion and it’s also a great resource. Somewhat similar to Sowell’s A Conflict of Visions insofar as it seeks to explain the cultural sources of the left/right divide in this nation, rather than argue specific issues. In Douthat’s case, he explains it in terms of differing Christian heresies.
I haven’t read this, but I have a feeling that Keynesianism and the level of centralized government that we have makes ordinary arguments for conservatism pretty useless. The dynamic causes social difficulties that plays into the left’s hands and nothing is stopping it until the bond market collapses. We need a libertarian Fed and financial system, yesterday, for ordinary conservatism to sell.
If I felt confident that they’d listen to Goldberg’s argument, I’d do so in a heartbeat. Alas, the title — however otherwise well- justified — is a stumbling block many people can’t get around.
Ward Connerly is the man behind California Proposition 209. His gripping story is Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race Preferences.
In the course of the memoir, Connerly explains how he thought things through, afresh.
She teaches in a Majority-Minority district: I would suggest Life At The Bottom by Theodore Dalrymple. Dr. Dalrymple is a Brit which gives enough distance to allow the lessons to go down.
Fresh from the National Catholic Register, recommendations from Francis X. Maier, Ed. (1978-1993). His excellent article is titled, If You Want to Understand the Times We’re Living In, Read This:
Maier’s Mental Bootcamp:
Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler
The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene
Politics and the English Language, George Orwell
Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis
Understanding the Emerging (post-Christian) Culture:
Strangers in a Strange Land, Archbishop Charles Chaput
Faith and the Future, Joseph Ratzinger’s radio talks from 1969-1970
The Abolition of Man (again), C.S. Lewis
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, Ernest Hemingway
Fiction
C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy
Leaf by Niggle, J.R.R. Tolkein
Biography
Intellectuals (1989 edition), Paul Johnson
Social Commentary
The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy (1994), Christopher Lasch
Amusing Ourselves to Death and Technopoly by Neil Postman
These are liberals. I think we need to engage them beyond their rational minds.
Clearly these don’t all fit your intent but since I can read their spines from where I sit, it makes for easy listing:
I could go on for a while but this is as good a place to stop as any.
The Secret Knowledge, by David Mamet.
Ben Sasse’s recent book The Vanishing American Adult is very good and has a lot to say about education.
Climbing Parnassus by Tracy Lee Simmons. Now with helpful Hillsdale College Lecture on YouTube.
I second this nomination. I also don’t think a polemic would work well as an introduction to conservatism. Stories as more powerful, and the book club members may relate to Horowitz in his earlier years as a leftist. I would also suggest “Witness” by Chambers for the same reasons. “Witness” may be the more apt selection if the book club members already know of Horowitz and take a dim view of him.
Here’s a suggestion that is a little different. I suspect few teachers have any concept of what business is all about, except for various stereotypes. American Steel, by Richard Preston, is the very readable story of the creation of Nucor Corporation and the very difficult installation of their continuous-casting mill.
Another Arthur Koestler suggestion, this one not very-well-known. His 1950 novel The Age of Longing is about the West’s loss of cultural self-confidence, and is very relevant to our current situation.
The story is set in Paris, “sometime in the 1950s,” in a world in which France–indeed all of western Europe–is facing the very real possibility of a Soviet invasion. The protagonist is a young American woman living in Paris with her father, a military attache. She is not attracted to the European or American men she meets, but falls hard for a committed Russian Communist.
It is a deep and thought-provoking book. I reviewed it here: Sleeping with the Enemy.
The Conservative Heart by Arthur Brooks, the president of AEI. Wonderful book. Not angry, condescending, or preachy.
Hillbilly Elegy and Chinese Girl in the Ghetto are both books that demonstrate the most important insight of conservatism; that character and and culture matters. In one book, a guy defies much of his culture to succeed and in another, a Chinese girl succeeds because Confucian culture is great at enabling people to succeed. Both tell a non-preachy story to show and not tell conservative truths.
Free to Choose, by Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman. It has the benefit of having the multiple episodes available on You tube.
Agree, the only economist we get is AEI macro economist who is Keynesian at heart and the opposite of an Austrian school economist. In my view he’s wrong about everything. Russ Roberts Econ talk, his podcasts deal with everything and he doesn’t thrust his personal Hayekian views on his guests or his listeners, but he’s the best thing on the web. Epstein is basically Austrian but he’s not an economist, just smarter then most economists.
There are english versions. The perfect Latin American idiot uses the Book Chavez gave Obama as the perfect example of the idiocy. If we’re looking South, I recommend the Other Path or the Miracle of Capital by Fernando De Soto. Since all of these books do not treat US partisan politics knowledge might seep in before liberal defense mechanisms rise to protect.
I can’t help notice that we all like the same books and that there are a lot of basic economics recommended confirming my own bias that the biggest deficit is in understanding of basic economics. And yet economics will still be lost on liberals as per one of the books we all like, Sowell’s conflict of visions. With others here I’d start there and with Hayek’s Nobel Speech on the Pretense of knowledge. These are basics divorced from the language of partisan politics or economics and do not require any interest in or knowledge of economics, Visions also provides insights for us of why liberals and conservatives always disagree on everything.
Are there books we might read that explain in liberal’s terms what they would want us to read? Something that doesn’t just repeat the false narratives they live by.