Why authoritarian political liberalism fails its promises

Comment published on New York Times blog in response to opinion essay by Dana Goldstein, “Push for ethnic studies in schools faces a dilemma: Whose stories to tell?” August 15, 2019:

The problem here is not the political character of the pedagogy. It is the authoritarian ideas of teaching and learning involved. These ideas are deeply rooted in American society and culture today, and they have long predominated in our public schools.

Consider: "Discuss a recent instance of police brutality in your community. ... Compare and contrast border conditions in the Palestinian territories and Mexico." Such discussion prompts do not ask for an opinion supported by arguments, but for a confirmatory illustrative avowal of experience or belief that accords with what students have been informed is true or important, in what can only be called knowledge by authority.

The problem spans left and right, or conservative and "progressivism." Consider the evolution "debate" waged by the religious right. They say Darwinian evolutionary theory contradicts the Bible, which is a source of "knowledge." The liberals typically retort that it is "science" which "tells us" what is true.

In this way, the liberals mimic the same cognitive strategies as the right. Science is not knowledge, but inquiry. Much of science is not data but interpretation and theory-construction. Acquiring knowledge (as a set of facts presumed true) is not learning. Learning is thinking, which is making sense of experience. Unlike the essay exam, multiple choice questions travesty it. American moralistic intolerance is sustained by this. Politics is less a content than a style.