Silence is Violence?

   Over the past few weeks, I have see the following statement show up across social media:  Silence is Violence.  I had to step back and really think about it because my initial reaction was one of irritation and dismissal.  Whenever that happens it becomes necessary to reflect on why I would have such a reaction to something. To assist in my reflections I decided to think historically and find out how silence has become violence in the past or if it is just another platitude on a sign.

    My first thought was one of the Holocaust and how many stood by and watched as people were transported on trains to "work" camps. Due to the horror of accepting that people were really being sent to their deaths, some chose to ignore this reality and not step up to stop it. In such a case, I truly do believe that silence and inaction contributed to this devastation as it led to the deaths of millions of people. Some do not do anything because it is happening to some outsider or "other" and by the time they realize that they are next, it is too late. On the flip side, many people did stand up, suit up and fight to defeat Hitler's fascist regime and prevent the deaths of many others across the globe.

     To me, it was action that made the difference in this fight rather than just words, yelling, and carrying signs with slogans in the streets. This is not to say that we don't need to have discussions on various issues but yelling and protesting does very little to make a constructive change in our society, or in the world at large. In my opinion one reason it does very little is because it takes very little commitment to walk and yell with a sign whereas it takes a great deal of commitment to work in an area that needs change. For example, I can yell about poor educational opportunities in our poorest communities and then go home and feel good about myself in a very superficial way or I can get trained and teach in a poor community and have a real reason to feel good about my work. Which one of those options takes the most time, commitment, energy and dedication (and also has the best chance of making a difference)? You decide.

   So it closing, I don't think that it is silence that is violence, I think that it is a lack of constructive action that is violence. Being quiet or yelling from the rooftops does nothing but give you a sore throat, but putting in time and constructive action can make a real difference on a daily basis.

 

 

Socialism and the Ivory Tower

     In my doctoral program, all doctoral students were required to have a cognate area of study (known as a minor in undergraduate studies). This cognate needed to be in a different college and thus I selected Sociology as my additional area of study. Because I have a BA in Psychology and a minor in Sociology, it seemed like a good fit. Also I was excited to learn that the department had classes that studied the sociology of education and that sounded relevant and fascinating.

    As I progressed through my sociology coursework, I was introduced to the works of Marx and Lenin as well as the theory of social reproduction. As I was the only education major in the classes, I was often queried as to my views on these theories and how they related to K-12 education. At times I was a bit taken aback by the negative views of education and how many viewed socialism and Marxism as the answer to the class system in America.

   While I do see the value of the theory of social reproduction in as much as it shows how our institutions can reproduce social inequities (something for a longer discussion), what perplexed me was how socialism was seen as the means of equalizing society for the greater good. Not once did we look at socialist failures (Cuba, Venezuela, etc) but instead stayed in an idea state. By this I mean that practical applications were not as valued as the theories underlying them. This allowed my classmates (or comrades) to still fantasize that they could "do socialism right". Did they not think that Castro thought the same thing?

   Fast forward to today, July 1, 2020, and you are probably looking at my former classmates as the professors who are espousing socialism to the next generation of college students. In fact, many have been force feeding it to students for two decades. Is it any wonder that such chaos in taking place in the streets today? We (my academic peers, not me) have been waiting for this moment for a long time and because students do not know or understand history, and if fact devalue history, we may soon have our own Castro in the U.S. Something to ponder and to think about just how much higher education impacts the values our young people hold.