What one book contains the most valuable lessons on government that every citizen of the country should become familiar with? The Federalist Papers? Plato’s Democracy? Seems to me that some of this stuff would be a lot more valuable than Romeo and Juliet or anne frankly’s diary or whatever passes for a civics class these days
Inb4 Starship Troopers
Atlas Shrugged
1984
Animal Farm
Lord of the Flies
A novelized and well-translated version of Legend of the Galactic Heros
We read animal farm and lord of the flies In my school, but this was done in the context of “English” as opposed to really digging into what those books were saying about government.
Never read 1984 but Brave New World instead…
What’s kind of fucked is it almost feels like they made these books required reading not to serve as a warning but more to serve as a “this is where we’re going to drag you kicking and screaming” lol
yeah, they are presented by shitlib teachers as a dive into literary culture and history for the most part. There was hardly any emphasis on what the author was trying to warn us about.
For me, Animal Farm was purposefully assigned in parallel with our unit on the russian revolution, so that was good.
animal farm was better than 1984 in my opinion. somehow it's more approachable, and gives a better feel for how socialism makes things incrementally worse while pretending it's making things better.
I had to read a couple of those in school. I'm sure the message taken was very dependent on the age and sex of the teachers. I had a lot of teachers that are likely dead today. I specifically remember my paper on Animal Farm was not well received though, I can't remember exactly why, but I did and wrote what the hell I wanted in high school too without concern for conformity.
curious, what was your take on animal farm?
I can't remember totally, it's been a long time. I'm sure it was counter to the teachers point. I never got along with English teachers. Honestly, with a few exceptions I never got along with female teachers if I really think of it. I do remember not discussing communism at all, I wasn't aware of much of anything about communism until I was older. We had a lot of "plight of the negro" teaching in those days, but less than a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union it wasn't quite allowed yet for them to openly preach communism.
Far too many female teachers view boys as defective girls.
Fewer male teachers seem to, but nowadays it's still the majority.
The only possible good that could come of making Atlas Shrugged mandatory reading in public schools is kids might pick up on the fact that the English teachers teaching it act a lot like the bad guys in the book.
Otherwise it's just going to be wasted by it being taught by the worst people in the world.