tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post2614574103454112563..comments2024-03-12T22:31:46.500-04:00Comments on What Would Phoebe Do?: Out of one's comfort zonePhoebe Maltz Bovyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-52956999887679900492013-04-15T14:21:24.917-04:002013-04-15T14:21:24.917-04:00What I might have added, but what I hinted at re: ...What I might have added, but what I hinted at re: the teacher's suggestion that students look for examples (of what?) from their own lives, is that it <i>isn't</i> entirely clear that this was a poorly-thought-through exercise in demonstrating the banality of evil, or that history's bad guys were normal people. It does seem mighty possible that this teacher would have had <i>no trouble whatsoever</i> imagining a case against Jews. It's just tough to explain this. It's just not as unambiguous as some well-meaning sorts responding to the story would like it to be.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-67187080297560909202013-04-15T13:53:52.257-04:002013-04-15T13:53:52.257-04:00Thanks for this Phoebe, which has helped resolve s...Thanks for this Phoebe, which has helped resolve some of the uneasiness that I felt about this story.<br /><br />It's obviously a stupid assignment. However, I haven't been able to condemn it as thoroughly as some commenters, because it seems (albeit in a misguided way) potentially to respond to some things that frustrate <i>me</i> about teaching certain topics. I do find that, in the case of the pre-Civil Rights era in the south and in the case of the Holocaust, students tend to be ready to rest in a comfortable condemnation: all those people (white Southerners who resisted civil rights, Germans who didn't actively protest the Holocaust) were just evil and cowardly and <i>we</i> would never behave as they do! And that's a frustrating and unnuanced understanding of human nature that also really lets us off the hook: making an issue in the past seem so black-and-white means we don't have to investigate how complicated our own feelings toward marginalized groups can be--gay people, illegal immigrants, ex-cons, or whatever.<br /><br />But I think you're exactly right that this assignment doesn't address that problem, both because it pretends there's something rational and understandable about anti-Semitism--something that you can make an argument for, even in a debate-team, devil's-advocate-y way!--and because it basically still allows students to stay in their comfort zones, where discrimination is something that happened long ago and far away.Flaviahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17832765671541392835noreply@blogger.com