Inside Sources has distributed my op-ed titled” Smithsonian Should Not Propagate Ideology” as a counterpoint to an op-ed titled “Yes, President Trump is Censoring History,” by law professors Joseph Toman and Sidney Shapiro. The op-eds are appearing in daily newspapers or on their websites around the country.
From mine:
President Trump is right. The Smithsonian is “out of control.” And it should be a concern to all Americans, whether you agree with Trump on other issues or not. It is the heritage of us all that is under assault.
The Smithsonian’s 19 museums and galleries in the Washington, DC area are gems. But in recent years they have peddled a relentlessly negative vision of American history that prioritizes grievance politics over historical accuracy.
Let’s consider some specifics.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s “The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture” asserts that “societies including the United States have used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement,” dismissing race as a mere “human invention” while promoting the idea that sculpture itself advanced “scientific racism.”
This narrative is based on what’s called critical theory, a form of analysis that was developed in the 1920s and 1930s at the Frankfurt School in Germany. Its proponents like Herbert Marcuse blended Marxist ideas with concepts from philosophy and psychiatry to produce an ideological stew that might confuse Karl Marx himself. Critical theory is sure to fester in academia for years to come, but this wackiness has no place in our national museums.
Click here to read the rest.
