Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler take issue with director Ken Burns’ assertion in his “American Revolution” documentary series that the Founding Fathers based their ideas for democracy on the Iroquois Nations.
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3 thoughts on “The Fallacy at the Heart of Ken Burns' 'American Revolution' Documentary”
Tom
Hansen mentions Obama promoting the use of “diversity” as a code word for favoring non-whites.
It had been used in that manner many years before that.
When I was working for a Large Corporation in the early 1990s the term “diversity” was used extensively ostensibly to promote wider acceptance and recognition of everyone’s experience and capabilities, i.e., on the merits.
In reality, the focus and emphasis was on promoting women and non-whites not on the merits but because they were women and non-white.
In one management meeting about staffing, the boss came right out and said “we need to hire more women.”
Granted, this was an engineering company and there were a lot fewer women and non-white engineers back then.
But the question is whether that justifies hiring women and non-whites instead of qualified white men solely because they were women and non-whites.
I worked with many qualified women engineers then, but the question was whether or not they were hired instead of a more qualified man just because they were female and /or non-white.
Another factor in this story is that the company had lots of Federal Government contracts and was highly regulated otherwise.
There was significant pressure from the government to hire more women and non-whites to create a “balanced” workforce.
Even though they did not use the term “quotas,” they kept close track of gender and race numbers in the workforce.
Bridgette Morrison
I was eager to watch this podcast episode because I just started watching the American Revolution documentary by Ken Burns and I noticed the emphasis being placed on the Indian tribes being democratic, but I’m not familiar with that part of history and I appreciate Mr. Hanson’s wisdom.
I have two questions- the first is about the books he mentioned- Cultural Literacy and The Closing of the American Mind. Is Mr. Hanson saying these are good books? or they were not?
Also, I’m disappointed in the recent documentaries available for our US history and wanted to know recommendations for good alternatives if the Ken Burns documentaries are not reliable? Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old” and The World at War was mentioned. Are there others?
John Weissenberger
Further to Dr. Hanson’s comment about the Granada TV documentary series “The World at War”. I would highly recommend the BBC series “The Great War” (1964) – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLucsO-7vMQ00twBJvRZKs1KNUKUVClo6C. It relied on lengthy interviews with veterans from both sides and is very fair in tone and content; less “charged” than subsequent books and films. Many of the interviews were used in Peter Jackson’s film. Good winter viewing.
Thanks for all your excellent work! JW
Hansen mentions Obama promoting the use of “diversity” as a code word for favoring non-whites.
It had been used in that manner many years before that.
When I was working for a Large Corporation in the early 1990s the term “diversity” was used extensively ostensibly to promote wider acceptance and recognition of everyone’s experience and capabilities, i.e., on the merits.
In reality, the focus and emphasis was on promoting women and non-whites not on the merits but because they were women and non-white.
In one management meeting about staffing, the boss came right out and said “we need to hire more women.”
Granted, this was an engineering company and there were a lot fewer women and non-white engineers back then.
But the question is whether that justifies hiring women and non-whites instead of qualified white men solely because they were women and non-whites.
I worked with many qualified women engineers then, but the question was whether or not they were hired instead of a more qualified man just because they were female and /or non-white.
Another factor in this story is that the company had lots of Federal Government contracts and was highly regulated otherwise.
There was significant pressure from the government to hire more women and non-whites to create a “balanced” workforce.
Even though they did not use the term “quotas,” they kept close track of gender and race numbers in the workforce.
I was eager to watch this podcast episode because I just started watching the American Revolution documentary by Ken Burns and I noticed the emphasis being placed on the Indian tribes being democratic, but I’m not familiar with that part of history and I appreciate Mr. Hanson’s wisdom.
I have two questions- the first is about the books he mentioned- Cultural Literacy and The Closing of the American Mind. Is Mr. Hanson saying these are good books? or they were not?
Also, I’m disappointed in the recent documentaries available for our US history and wanted to know recommendations for good alternatives if the Ken Burns documentaries are not reliable? Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old” and The World at War was mentioned. Are there others?
Further to Dr. Hanson’s comment about the Granada TV documentary series “The World at War”. I would highly recommend the BBC series “The Great War” (1964) – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLucsO-7vMQ00twBJvRZKs1KNUKUVClo6C. It relied on lengthy interviews with veterans from both sides and is very fair in tone and content; less “charged” than subsequent books and films. Many of the interviews were used in Peter Jackson’s film. Good winter viewing.
Thanks for all your excellent work! JW