Why fascists love teachers

The idea that fascists fear teachers is an outright lie being actively promoted by liberal propagandist Randi Weingarten. She wrote a book specifically to promote this lie.

When people think of fascism, there are two people who people are likely to think of. Benito Mussolini, widely considered the founder of fascism, and Adolf Hitler, leader of the related national socialists around the same time. Mussolini expanded the age range for mandatory attendance in schools. Hitler embraced and even expanded on a homeschooling ban. If fascists fear teachers, why would they increase their influence? The reality is simple. Fascists don't fear teachers. They love teachers.

I wasn't about to put money in Weingarten's pockets. I have not ordered her book. She has released an excerpt. Despite knowing she was dishonest, I went ahead and read that excerpt.

Weingarten wrote about Norwegian teachers resisting a demand of loyalty to national socialism. Then, she went on a wild tangent and made the absurd claim without evidence that decentralization of education is fascist. This includes attempts to dismantle the department of education and a push for vouchers. Does anyone honestly believe that fascists want to give citizens a pathway to learn free from their control? Apparently, Weingarten thinks that she can sway opinions with an unrelated story about Norwegian teachers.

The reason that fascists love teachers is because they are a valuable tool to maintain power. If they are in a position to control and restrict education, they can manipulate citizens to support their cause. Schools become an important tool to promote fascist propaganda.

Even a lot of Weingarten's own arguments back what I'm saying. Does her explanation of what happened in Norway show more of a fear of the profession or a desire to control the profession to maintain power? In fact, Weingarten has frequently mentioned that fascists try to control curriculum. I agree with that, but it appears to contradict the claim that fascists fear teachers.

In all fairness, an argument can be made that fascists hate teachers who they can't control. Looking more broadly, fascist views on teaching can't be reduced to just the outliers of Norway. It's undeniable that fascists love teachers when they are on their side. The number of teachers who resisted in Norway doesn't come close to the number of teachers who have helped fascists. Overall, fascists have been successful in controlling the profession, and fascists definitely love teachers.

When describing her book, Weingarten insists that one of the reasons fascists fear teachers is because teachers help people push past propaganda. Again, pay attention to the evidence provided by Weingarten. Is she showing that schools are used to fight propaganda, or are they being used to promote propaganda? Additionally, are we seriously supposed to believe that an over-the-top propagandist such as Weingarten really wants us to see past propaganda?

There are other potential reasons for fascists to love teachers that I have not seen cited. I could go back to my school years. My teachers were clearly in a position of authority over students. They actively threatened our futures to force us to obey. Obedience is one of the biggest requirements for success in a conventional schooling environment. Simply put, the government is training citizens to obey authoritarian figures from a young age. This is perhaps why people with more schooling are more likely to support the highly authoritarian Democratic party.

Weingarten appears to be embracing the same tactic we see with racism. Democrats insist that views other than theirs are racist, regardless of validity. Nobody wants to be labeled as a racist, so people mindlessly turn to Democrats to dictate their views. Nobody likes to be called a fascist, so Weingarten is using the label improperly to try to manipulate people to mindlessly accept her views.

I'm openly critical of the left-right political spectrum. Not everything is properly captured by the spectrum, and we are leading people to bizarre conclusions. Many Americans believe that the extreme version of big government is no government, and the extreme version of small government is total government control. Because we tend to define fascism as right-wing extremism, we tend to link fascism to policies similar to what we see from Republicans regardless of what fascists actually believe. By contrast, I prefer to define fascism in terms of what fascists actually believe.

When it comes to education, fascists believe in centralization. They believe in closing pathways to leave government control. They believe in using schools to push a political agenda. They strongly believe in so-called public education. Again, fascists love teachers.

What does Weingarten believe? She actively opposes pathways away from government control. She defends teachers who provide skewed liberal narratives and fights any efforts to bring an alternative perspective to the schools. She clearly embraces schools as a way to promote an agenda. She wants to strengthen the government-controlled model of schooling.

Weingarten's educational views are almost point for point the same as fascists. To put it another way, Weingarten's views are a lot closer to fascism than the people she's trying to label as fascists.