Collectivism 134, Part 1: 19 Errors and Counting (Maaaybe Some Antisemitism...)
PACE revised 2020
Hey all! Welcome back to Safe White Space,
Today, we are doing another PACE review. If you need context for what PACEs are, you can check out Part 1 of Collectivism 133, where I give a more general overview of an Accelerated Christian Education Learning Center, and explain how PACEs work:
Collectivism 133, Part 1: Lucifer, the Son of the Morning Wood
Donald Howard, the author of ACE and the Collectivism course we are reviewing, wrote this PACE like it was a filler episode. There are many PACEs like it throughout the curriculum, and fortunately for us, there is quite a bit we can learn about the quality of ACE from this PACE. I’m going to split this guy into two parts to keep ‘em quick n’ clean. In this post, I’m just going to summarize this PACE throughout the post, as we document the factual errors found, and briefly touch on the “antisemitic Jew” rhetoric that appears in Collectivism 134.
In Part 2, we’ll learn how a handful of frothing fascists managed to write an entire K-12 curriculum without any qualifications in education of any kind (Hint: they copied someone else’s work).
As a tradition, starting now, I’m gonna paste Exhibit 100 at the top of every PACE review post. This Exhibit is from Donald’s manifesto Teen Turmoil, and it reads like a Freudian slip every time I review a PACE:
Exhibit 100
Teen Turmoil, page 173
*education, my man. Of all the rakes to step on, that one has teeth.
Off the top, Collectivism 134 was revised in 2020. That means all of the following errors either survived editing and reprinting, or they were added in during that process. Either way, this sort of disqualifies your “superior Christian educatgion.” Check em out:
Exhibit 126
In
18181817, Comte met Saint-Simon and soon became the latter’s secretary and disciple. [Page 2]A string of illicit affairs culminated in his marriage to Caroline
MarsinMassin— an illegitimate Parisian woman of ill repute. [Page 3]Collectivism 134, pages 2, 3
So far pretty harmless errors. Two errors in three pages isn’t glorifying to God, but who am I to judge? It’s important to note that, once again, this PACE covers exclusively straight white men. The only mention of a specific woman is the above “illegitimate Parisian woman of ill repute.” At one point he leaves out Beatrice Webb, but talks about her husband, Sidney. Sidney could not have accomplished what he did without his equally qualified life partner. Just another instance of Donald ignoring the contributions of women.
Anyway:
Exhibit 127
Georges Sorel (
18461847-1922), was born in Cherbourg, France… [Page 15]In
16491647, a comprehensive Leveller document was drawn up which was entitled Agreement of the People. [Page 21]Collectivism 134, pages 15, 21
The above document was presented to Parliament in 1649. It was written in 1647. Still small, but you’ll notice the standard Donald pattern of starting off (sort of) alright, and then he gets a liiiittle bored with rewording Britannica articles (oh yea, baby), so he starts making tons of unforced errors. Errors the supposed “team of writers” over at Accelerated Christian Education failed to catch:
Exhibit 128
In
AugustApril, 1649, approximately twenty poor men… [Page 22]On January 4,
18441884, a small group of young men, socialists who had rejected Marxian communism… [Page 32]
Edward R. Pease, who was the first secretary of the Fabian Society (
1884-1912)(1890-1913) and wrote History of the Fabian Society(1915)(1916)… [Page 32]Collectivism 134, pages 22, 32
Sheeeesh!
In the example just below, capitalizing “Fledgling” makes it part of the proper noun “Socialist Labor Party.” By Donald’s elitist standards for the English language, this is a foul:
Exhibit 129
Daniel De Leon joined the
Fledglingfledgling Socialist Labor Party and launched American socialism into a new era. [Page 36]In 1920, however, while still in prison, Debs polled over
90,000915,000 votes. [Page 38]Morris Hillquirt (
18701869-1933)…In
18881886, he joined the Socialist Party of America.. [Page 38]Collectivism 134, pages 36, 38
They just keep coming, right up until the end of the PACE:
Exhibit 130
In
19121917, the I.W.W. reached its peak strength with a membership of nearly100,000150,000 persons. [Page 40]In 1875, farmers from the Middle West and South formed the
Greenback PartyGreenback-Labour Party…The
Greenback PartyGreenback-Labour Partysurvived only two yearsdissipated around 1880… [Page 42]In
18911892, member’s of the National Grange met.. and formed the People’s Party. [Page 42]Collectivism 134, pages 40, 42
Whew. 18 extremely basic errors in this “superior Christian educagtion,” makes me think it isn’t.. And that’s just unforced errors.
You have other errors in the form of egregious editorializing, or the omissions of huge historical figures on the basis of them being, say, a woman. It’s important to note that I spent a weekend combing over this PACE and looking up a lot of very basic things. If someone who knew these figures and had specific knowledge of this history, I can’t imagine what they’d find.
Nothing good. Errors like this next one are harder to catch when you’re not familiar with the topic at hand (like me):
Exhibit 131
Caroline Comte eventually left her husband, and he never saw her again. In 1829, the lonely Comte began anew his series of lectures on “positive philosophy.” Collectivism, 134 Page 3
The two separated in 1842. This is either very poor wording or false, and both mislead the student, bringing the error count to 19.
Switching Gears
Donald was an antisemite who believed the world was run by a cabal of rich Jews, and he used ACE to spread this message:
Exhibit 132
Sunday Telegraph Jul 16, 1995 Page 32
I haven’t touched on it much yet, but Donald was the epitome of the ‘ambivalent antisemite.’ I’m using this term in the same way you’d label someone an ambivalent sexist. They reward the “good ones” and very eagerly punish the “bad ones.” Specifically, according to Donald (and subsequently ACE), Jews who reject Judaism and embrace capitalism, well those are God’s chosen people. Those “good” Jews are spent like tokens to deflect from accusations of racism. “See? Since we like a few Jews, we can’t be racist.” It’s the same way the far-right fawns over Candace Owens or the Hodge Twins. The few black folks saying the thing they like totally disproves the millions of black authors with extensive qualifications who don’t say the things they like.
By using Candace as a meat-shield, you never have to examine your own racism.
Per Donald and ACE, any Jew who has not explicitly rejected Judaism and embraced capitalism is a socialist and an antisemitic, self-hating Jew who has been possessed by the literal Devil. Why else would they murder Jesus?? They’re God’s chosen people only when they subscribe to Donald’s worldview, not because the Bible says so.
Again, Donald’s philosophy of total “Absolutes” crumbles like the Twin Towers under the weight of minimal analysis [Ex. 3]. Relativity is all there is, which in itself is an Absolute, which Absolutely decimates Donald’s religion and worldview (philosophy is fun and I cannot wait to cover Hegel soon). The truth about Jews is that they are just like everyone else. SURPRISE! They are just as capitalist, socialist, Zionist, anti-imperialist, racist, anti-fascist, and “self-hating,” as everyone else, and they come in just as many skin colors. This game ACE is playing is utterly stupid, and there isn’t even a stupid prize to win. At a minimum, this rhetoric exposes non-Christian Jews to an increased risk of hostility and harassment from frothing anti-communists, now on the basis of their inherent “antisemitism.”
Disinformation like this creates more barriers to communication and compromise, not less. And it certainly doesn’t honor the God you claim to believe in.
The last thing to note is that Donald never misses a chance to point out a Jew when he sees one. It’s just weird. So here it is:
Exhibit 133
The fact that Lassalle was a Jew was studiously ignored by the Nazis.
Collectivism 134, pages 7, 8
Yea, well, now I’m bored. I don’t know how to further parse out this Exhibit. If anyone has more insight into where this specific type of semitic tokenizing comes from, let me know in the comments below. It may help me identify other contributors to the PACEs.
Stay tuned for Part 2. It too should be short and sweet. As always, thanks for reading, and watch out for those damn millstones!
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
Matthew 18:6