On his New York-based The Mike Gallagher Show, eighth in the nation in audience size, Gallagher criticized Goshen in a Nov. 7 broadcast, then invited Bill Born, dean of students, to speak on the show Nov. 10.What Gallagher means, of course, is that pacifist history professors can't be trusted to represent war as useful or necessary. And frankly, he's right. In eight years of Mennonite private-school education, I took a lot of history classes, and I can't say I ever got the impression that war was worthwhile. But that wasn't because my teachers were teaching propaganda - it was because they fully represented the costs and consequences of armed conflict.
In that broadcast, Gallagher said he appreciated “the Christian nature of the Mennonite church,” but was concerned about whether Goshen was teaching against war in U.S. history.
“How would any student get an honest assessment of war at the Goshen College environment?” Gallagher said.
My question to Gallagher is, how can a history teacher honestly tell her students that war is useful or necessary?
No comments:
Post a Comment