Anachronistic Children’s Literature

Even though I am an educator I rarely read children’s books—I rarely read them because I generally find them boring and filled with rubbish. I had heard a lot of good things about the Magic Tree House series and had been recommended books from this series a number of times. What is more, both my children and my students regularly read from this series, so I thought I should check them out.

I only read two titles: Night of the Ninjas and Hour of the Olympics, so my knowledge of the series is significantly limited. Yet after reading these works I have no intention of reading any others; to say that I found them lacking would be an understatement.

To begin with, Hour of the Olympics repeatedly emphasizes the fact that women were not allowed to compete in or view the ancient Grecian Olympics. Over and over this is stated along with a running editorial about how unfair this fact is. The problem with this assertion is that half of it is false and the other half is misleading. Unmarried women, while unable to compete in the Olympics, were allowed to attend the games; the Priestess of Demeter actually sat in a place of honor. A huge section of the plot of this book revolves around keeping Annie hidden at the games. We are told in no uncertain terms that if she, being a girl, is discovered there will be serious consequences; in reality this fear is completely unfounded, being based on false premises.

Hour of the Olympics likewise fails to explain that the women of Ancient Greece did not compete in the Olympic Games because they instead competed in the Heraean Games, a separate athletic event dedicated to Hera.* The Greeks had separate events for men and women because women then, as is still the case today, lacked the physical ability to compete with men in most athletic contests. We enlightened moderns who loudly proclaim that men and women are completely equal are no different than the Ancient Greeks in that we still have separate events for men and women—we simply combine our athletic events in one great contest whereas they had parallel events that took place near one another.  

There is also no discussion about the purpose of the Olympics , which is something one would expect to find in a book that markets itself as teaching children history. The Olympics developed to give the warlike Greeks an opportunity to show off their prowess without actually having to go to war. Think about the various events the Greek competed in: the javelin throw, wrestling, boxing, sprinting, chariot racing—these are all the skills a Hellenic warrior would need. As will be discussed later, women in a pre-industrial, pre-contraception world did not participate in warfare, so why would they devote themselves to preparation for warfare?

In contrast to this, when the Magic Tree House kids go back to ancient Japan in Night of the Ninjas they meet a woman samurai, which is of course a historical falsehood. The contrast between these two books, judged by modern standards, paints Ancient Greece, one of the two main sources of our civilization, in a bad light while painting ancient Japan in a positive light. I have no problem whatsoever painting Japan in a positive light, but it is perverse to make an unduly positive judgment of another’s cultural heritage while unreasonably disparaging one’s own.  

The second ignorant anachronism in Hour of the Olympics deals with education in the ancient world. The author repeatedly states how unfair it is that girls did not go to school, but fails to communicate any knowledge of the historical context. First off, what percentage of boys went to school? A very low percentage—most boys, as well as girls, did most of their learning in the home as did most children in most ages. Second, we must ask: what was the purpose of education? Was it not to prepare children for adulthood? What was the primary thing a man needed to prepare for? War. What was the primary thing a woman needed to prepare for? Motherhood.

But wait, isn’t that sexist! Can’t women, some women at least, make good warriors? Yes. But in an age without birth control nearly all women were pregnant or nursing the majority of their lives. But isn’t this unfair? Why should women have to do this? Given high mortality rates, this is the only way to keep a community in existence.

The ancient Greeks, like all pre-modern men, lived in an age of scarcity. Societies therefore did not organizes themselves around giving every individual the liberty to pursue his or her dreams, a luxury that only a society of super-abundance like our own can provide, but around policies and principles that would best stave off extinction. You see, human beings have an aversion to extinction and will put up with high degrees of misery in order to keep it at bay. Most men did not want to incessantly march and campaign and  die in an alien land, far from their hearth and loved ones; most women did not want to perpetually devote their time, energy, and bodies to giving birth to children that died at alarming rates. But they did and they did this because it was what needed to be done. For those of us that live in industrial societies of plenty it is impossible to appreciate just how difficult life was for our ancestors. To daftly condemn them without any reference to the differing nature of their environment is not to display their immorality, but our own ignorance.

Still, it could be argued, war is one thing, why were women prohibited from playing any part in politics? How is that fair? After all, history clearly shows that women often make fine political leaders. This begs the question: what main issue did Hellenic politicians deal with? War. They asked whether or not to go to war, how to wage war, on what terms would peace be acceptable, etc. When aristocrats alone fought, poleis were aristocratic; as the middle class began to fight in the phalanx, poleis introduced democratic reforms; when the lower classes finally became involved, as was the case with the Athenian navy, poleis became radically democratic. Historically speaking, it is nearly always the case that those that fight in wars get to decide issues of war making. As shown above, women were unable to fight and for that reason they were not involved in politics. Only in the modern age with mass mobilization did women participate in war making in large numbers by sewing uniforms, manufacturing munitions, etc. and it is therefore no coincidence that women all over the Western world were given suffrage rights following the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. All of this is by no means a justification of any past political practice, but all history, including history for kids, must not begin with judgment, but rather clear explanation.

To judge from our historical point of view is not necessarily wrong (though God’s point of view is infinitely superior), but passing judgment without clear context and explanation is antithetical and anathema to a historian’s work. This is true whether one is writing for academics or toddlers. Moralistic pseudo-historical works like the Magic Tree House are so keen to judge that they fail to contextualize. By this they do nothing more than provide kids with the illusion of knowledge, a thing far worse than simple ignorance.  

At the end of the day readers of Hour of the Olympics will have learned absolutely nothing about Ancient Greece but will be left with the impression that Ancient Greece, the fountainhead of their civilization, is somehow bad. Again, I have only a small sample size but Hour of the Olympics was unduly harsh and Night of the Ninjas simply false. As an educator devoted to passing on historical knowledge, I was quite disappointed by these so-called historical books.

*Though to be fair this fact is mentioned in the companion Magic Tree House Fact Tracker.

Progress, Privilege, and Post-Modernism

Walk down any high school hallway or through any university campus and you are likely to hear discussions about various sorts of “privilege”. Many of the people having these conversations would style themselves “progressive”. However, many of those that both support and oppose progressive policies fail to understand the philosophical underpinnings of progressivism. My purpose here is not to argue for or against progressivism or to investigate to what degree privilege exists and what should be done about it. Rather, I want to give a brief “genealogy of morals”—I want to discuss the philosophical presuppositions that inform these distinct, though often overlapping, movements.

The modern progressive movement has its roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau rejected the traditional Christian dogma of an Edenic fall and instead imputed all of man’s misery on society and education. This resulted in the theoretical possibility of perfecting man. To wit, if man is the product of his environment and education, then a perfect environment and education would create a perfect man. From this it followed, not logically, but emotionally, that if governments can create perfect men, then governments should create perfect men. But existing states and institutions like the church and family desire their own flawed preservation and thereby hinder man’s progress; worse still, they continue to create imperfect men incapable of seeing their true good. In order for man to reach his potential all the old institutions that have created imperfect men must be done away with. As a result of these convictions Rousseau’s progressive heirs have tended to favor revolutionary change.  

Traditional Christian teaching rejected these utopian impulses—if man was born with a sinful condition no perfection could ever be reached upon this earth. Instead of rushing to pull down all existing institutions, Christians have sought to improve existing institutions. For example, anarchists believe that men can live peacefully without government while communists believe men can live happily without the traditional family structure. What is more, these co-heirs of Rousseau believe that the state and family actually make life worse, not better, and for that reason they must be completely done away with. Christians on the other hand know that since men are sinners government will always be needed and that since the family was instituted by God we should not attempt to abolish it. As a result Christians, instead of seeking revolutionary change, have sought to reform institutions—to move existing structures toward their original purpose, knowing full well that, given man’s sinful condition, all the things men create will constantly be moving away from their God-ordained purpose.

While the bases of progressivism and traditional Christian teaching are radically different, their aims have often overlapped. For example, a reformer and a revolutionary may both desire higher wages, more humane prisons, improved schools, and abolition. As they have shared common cause these groups have indeed worked together. However, their final and ultimate goals—creating a perfect society as opposed to improving a fallen one—do differ and that is why a distinction between Christian reform and progressivism must be made. A Christian can support a number of progressive causes and even call himself a progressive, but he cannot ultimately be a progressive in the way I have described without denying traditional Christian dogma (i.e. sin).

Post-modernism is a loose “philosophy” and for that reason it is alternatively and often ill defined. To the extent that we can find a core to this nebulous worldview it is the belief that the subject always puts a part of him or herself into the object and therefore cannot have any independent, objective knowledge. For example, when I read the news I don’t do so dispassionately, but as a member of a certain generation, class, race, religion, etc. and I project these and other aspects of myself into the object of my study. As I cannot separate myself from the various facets of my identity, I cannot look at anything beyond myself without myself clouding the object I seek to know. As a result I am incapable of any full and certain, objective knowledge of anything beyond myself. In theory, there may be objective truth, but in practice it is unknowable.  

This philosophical outlook begs a further question: if everyone projects various features of themselves into the objects they study, which aspects predominate? According to Karl Marx, “it’s the economy stupid.” Marx believed that the economic substructure that people inhabit determines their thought. For example, a man living in a feudal economy would have different ideas of politics, religion, family, etc. than a man living in a capitalist economy and that there is nothing either of those men could do to change their outlooks apart from changing their economies, as he recommended. Most scholars today have rejected this claim, but neo-Marxists have picked up on this idea and adapted it to contemporary pluralistic Western societies. Instead of economies determining all, neo-Marxists believe that our gender, race, and sexuality determine the content of our thought.

Now it is important to note that neo-Marxist/post-modern thinkers don’t think that race, class, and sexuality influence thought. That is obvious and nearly everyone agrees with that. Rather, they argue that these factors determine thought. However, if everyone’s race or gender determine the content of their thought, then there is no such thing as objective, knowable truth. The only thing one can “know” is one’s own internal experience and this is of course completely unique to every individual. This epistemology has huge implications for human communication.  

If there is no knowable truth, then there is no point in debating policy for there is no truth, no resolution to come to. What is more, if the characteristics of a person determine their beliefs, then it follows that all attacks must be against the characteristics of a person as opposed to their beliefs. Anyone with an eye to perceive can recognize this happening all around. The majority of what passes as “political debate” is ad hominem attack. “Of course you would say that [thing about race, sexuality, or gender], you’re a member of that specific group! How dare you think that you know anything about [the pay gap, the achievement gap, bathroom rights] when you haven’t experienced what I have!” When there is no common, objective truth the only thing left to appeal to is power. When all that remains is power we get the type of broken political system that we have as politics becomes increasingly brutal and society becomes “poore, nasty, and brutish.”      

The connection between post-modernism and the privilege movement is fairly clear. If everyone perceives a different “truth” based on their gender, race, and sexuality, if certain classes of people have historically suffered discrimination while other groups have benefited, and if a core, common goal of politics is to liberate people from oppression, then many good-natured people will naturally want to distance themselves from the oppressing class. Combine with this Marx’s view that the proletariat, i.e. the oppressed, are always correct and you will have members of some groups rushing to admit their privilege and embrace the narratives/worldviews of various oppressed classes of people.

It is not my purpose to discuss whether or not the desire to confess one’s privilege is good or bad, wise or unwise, but simply to show the philosophical roots of this movement. Though I will add in passing that, practically speaking, words alone don’t bring change. Declaring one’s “white privilege” won’t improve inner-city schools; mourning one’s male privilege does nothing to undermine the multi-billion dollar semi and fully pornographic industries that objectify and exploit women.  

Our words must be connected with real action if we want tangible change, but before we can have meaningful action we must have meaningful words and words can only have meaning if there is an objective, knowable truth for them to point to. Actual problems have been successfully reformed in the past and we can continue to have efficacious reforms in the future. But to do that we must reject the poison of post-modernism and accept the reality of a knowable and communicative truth beyond ourselves.