Books

What if we tried thinking instead of screaming?

It’s September 2020, and you’d have to be in black families. to think again, to converse with each other, living as an anchorite in the deserts of Though Rubin ended the interview feelto use reason and facts in our arguments, New Mexico if you are unaware of the ing as if his viewers, including the cameraand to agree to disagree civilly when no conturmoil in American society. The coronmen taping the show, had witnessed his sensus can be reached. avirus crisis, the riots in various American “intellectual execution,” he nonetheless Near the end of Don’t Burn This Book, cities, the daily bombardment of charges nobly insisted on the interview with Elder Rubin makes this most important observaand countercharges from candidates for being run without cuts. tion regarding our current cultural chaos: political office, members of the mainstream “As we have progressed in terms of freedom, media, bloggers, and anyone else with an ax rights, and tolerance, we have regressed in to grind: all provide evidence that we are as defense of what got us here in the first place. deeply divided a country as possible without Postmodernism, now the main school of actually engaging in civil war. thought at so many of our academic institu

Maybe it’s time we took a deep breath tions, has rejected objective truth in and stepped away exchange for subjective feelings.” from the circus of Don’t Burn This Book offers excellent shrieking voices and advice on how to bring some semblance of pointing fingers. peace to our culture wars. I didn’t agree with Maybe it’s time we everything Rubin wrote, but that’s exactly look to reason and his point. We don’t have to agree. But it does evidence for our salvation rather than sinking into a bog of emotions In Don’t Burn Jeff Minick Writer help if we’ll at least listen to one another and make rational arguments. Highly recommended. ••• This Book: Thinking For those parents teaching at home, or for Yourself in an Age of Unreason guiding students through distance learning, (Sentinel/Penguin Random House, 2020, a few reminders and reassurances: 224 pages), Dave Rubin urges readers to lisIf your children are learning to read, to ten to others with different viewpoints, to write, to do math, and to explore history ask questions, and perhaps most importantAnd from that point on, Rubin began to and science, then they’ll be fine academically, to bring facts and evidence to these regard himself as a classical liberal. Not a libly. With competence in those fields, students debates. Host of The Rubin Report, where eral like Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, or can master any subject whatsoever. he interviews guests from all manner of Lyndon Johnson, or Bill Clinton, but a classiFor grades K-6, let me again recommend political and cultural camps, Rubin tells us cal liberal of the nineteenth century who the E.D. Hirsch “The Core Knowledge how he moved away from the prejudices of believed in individual freedom and a very limSeries.” Hirsch, a professor emeritus of eduhis own beliefs to inquiry based on data and ited government. He also became a man huncation and humanities at the University of facts, and shows us how we can do the same. gry for facts and evidence in argumentation. Virginia-Charlottesville, produced books for

In what he describes as “the biggest definAfter recounting the circumstances of each of these grade levels: What Your ing moment of my professional life,” in this conversion, Rubin explores different hot Kindergartner Needs To Know, What Your January 2016 Rubin interviewed Larry Elder, button issues in American culture: gun conFirst Grader Needs To Know, and so on. Each an African American conservative radio host, trol (he supports the Second Amendment), volume is packed with myths, poetry, stories, columnist, and author. Rubin, who at that gay marriage (he’s married to his husband history, and lessons in science and math. You point still considered himself a progressive, David, but understands why some might can learn more about the Core Knowledge asked Elder about “‘systemic racism’ in disapprove), the war on women (“Western Foundation at coreknowledge.org. America — a social theory I presented as fact.” women are not oppressed. There, I said it”) Middle-school and high school students

“Give me an example,” Elder asked him. and other topics. As a classical liberal, he might want to follow some advice once “Tell me what you think the most systemic tries to approach each subject with facts and offered by C.S. Lewis: “It is a good rule after issue is.” reason, knowing all the while that others reading a new book, never to allow yourself

Throughout the rest of the interview, will disagree with him. another new one until you have read an old Elder tore him to pieces. And some of his friends, as he relates, one in between.” Old books, like some old

When Rubin brought up cops shooting disagreed vehemently, cutting off long-time people, are treasure houses of stories and blacks, Elder unleashed a barrage of facts relationships, accusing him of sexism and wisdom from the past, offering perspectives and statistics demonstrating Rubin’s false racism. Conservatives, too, will find some of different from our own. premises. Using these same weapons, Elder his ideas as disagreeable as do his progresHappy reading, everyone! discussed popular misconceptions about sive friends. (Jeff Minick is a writer and teacher. black life in the inner city and the problems But here’s the objective: Rubin wants us minick0301@gmail.com)

Clapsaddle reading at City Lights

There will be a special reading and signing by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle for her new novel, Even as We Breathe, at 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 10, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.

Starting at 6 p.m., she will address the passersby with selections from her book. After the reading, there will be an alfresco autographing on the patio at City Lights Cafe. Following the signing, those of us who are of age will progress next door to the lawn in front of The Paper Mill Lounge to hoist a glass in honor of Saunooke.

Her first novel manuscript, Going to Water is the winner of The Morning Star Award for Creative Writing from the Native American Literature Symposium (2012), a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction (2014). After serving as Executive Director of the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, Annette (National Board Certified since 2012) returned to teaching English and Cherokee Studies at Swain County High School.

She is the former co-editor of the Journal of Cherokee Studies and serves on the Board of Trustees for the North Carolina Writers Network. We are open

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