A Boring Dystopia

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Sociology textbooks made illegal by a board that has no educators on it. Schools will become propaganda machines. (truthout.org)

submitted 1 month ago by Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/aboringdystopia@lemmy.world

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/64975432

But this isn’t just about professors; it’s about all of us. This is the most flagrant attack on higher education in my lifetime. Why are politicians reducing public colleges and universities to vehicles of state propaganda? Why are self-proclaimed proponents of free speech turning around and using state repression to enforce speech codes on our campuses? Why can’t we speak openly about our social world in sociology classes? Why are unqualified appointees from the business world dictating to Ph.D.-holding academics how they should teach and which textbooks they must use?

What we really need are people beyond the university itself — the general public — speaking out about how ludicrous this all is. We are now living through an era of state censorship, politically motivated firings, and state-produced propaganda materials. If this isn’t authoritarianism in higher education, I don’t know what is.

Opinion piece by Zachary Levenson is associate professor of sociology at Florida International University.

EDITED TO ADD (in case some miss my comment)

Imagine the following scenario: You’re teaching Introduction to Sociology at a community college in Florida, and today, you’re trying to explain the well-documented pay gap between men and women in the United States. You check the guidance you just received from your dean, who received instructions via email from the executive vice chancellor of the Florida College System. The instructions state explicitly that explaining “unequal outcomes between men and women” in terms of “institutional sexism” would violate state law.

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[–] dk841143@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago

Yes, its different in that's its a change in propaganda. As you said. But that's nothing new. The propaganda changes as the agendas change. What's not new under the sun is institutions compelled to propagandize. That's was my point.

Any system of power or influence, state, corporate, etc. will eventually veer towards the slipping in/introducing of propagandas. If they don't from the jump, which they often do. That's another of my points.

It's a comment fueled by the OPs post with a title ending with "Schools will become propaganda machines." As if they weren't already. Which I obviously think they are / have been for a long time. Some just don't like the changes in propaganda or amount of propagandas. Hence why I say maybe best we generally can do is argue which propaganda may be useful and which are not. For instancd, maybe we feel having children pledge allegiance to a state through the symbol of a flag is useful for the cohesion of a populous via fostering national unity, patriotism, and loyalty to the republic (for U.S). Or maybe we find it to be gross indoctrination, too religion/coded, and fundamentally un-american in original spirit.

And I don't think propaganda is define as simply a "slanted perspective". Propaganda is communication of info/ideas/etc that is deliberately and primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda. And it'd often very systemic. I may have a bias or slant towards an opinion, but doesn't make it propaganda. I think there are more characteristics needed.