Monday, December 17, 2012

You Can Count Me as "Anti-David Coleman"

Cedar Riener:

None of these points are tangential, they get to the core of the philosophical disputes in these cases. The reason Michelle Rhee was so despised in DC was that she openly and bluntly dismissed the value of dialogue, diplomacy and consensus. (“I think if there is one thing I have learned over the last 15 months, it’s that cooperation, collaboration and consensus-building are way overrated.”) Part and parcel of this attitude is maintaining tha tyou have nothing ot learn from understanding The reason David Coleman is so despised is that his language indicates a disgust with his opponents. To me, this represents not just a disconnect between sides of an emotional issue, but a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of your own job. David Coleman, if you treat teachers who use Huck Finn as an entrance to modern racial identity as if they are training shallow navel-gazers, they will stop listening to you. I am not anti-David Coleman, and neither is Rachel, we are probably natural allies if you look at our support of Core Knowledge and the role of background factual knowledge in critical thinking. but the cursing in this case says “I am not taking people who disagree with me seriously.”

2 comments:

matthewboh said...

Does everyone who disagrees with you deserve to be taken seriously?

Tom Hoffman said...

I'm just a blogger, so if I don't take my opponents seriously, it hardly matters.

On the other hand, David Coleman is the front man for, if not literally the author of, a major piece of public policy, which he has barely been bothered to actually explain beyond some self-serving rhetoric.