Jim Kenyon’s May 3 column (“Scaling the stone wall”), about the Hartford Selectboard, caught my attention for reasons other than its main subject — that Simon Dennis, the board’s current vice chairman, suggested to other members of the board and the town manager that they not discuss the “Welcoming Hartford” ordinance issue with the Valley News, or the media in general.
On this point alone, it is understandable how once people are in a position of relative power, a kingship quality can easily become attached to their thinking. What struck my sensibilities more was the comment by Alicia Barrow, who joined the Hartford Selectboard in March: “There’s no need to cause alarm on things that people are not properly educated on until we can find a way to properly educate people on it.”
Granted, to speak off the cuff, and succinctly, is not a simple exercise. Oratorical proficiency requires a considerably elevated level of performance and skill.
However, for me, and certainly for others who share an interest in political world history, to hear a public official use the term “properly educate” in reference to a recalcitrant public quickly brings to mind rulers of eras past, such as Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, the Castro brothers and others.
These rulers were viewed not just as revolutionaries, but progressive revolutionaries, damning capitalism, the wealthy, the bourgeoisie in general, non-revolutionary intellectuals, religion and most anything to do with the status quo.
Once these rulers were able to gain control of the machinery of state, institutionally established forms of “education” or, more literally and accurately, state indoctrination, were set in place.
Often, a separate category of “re-education” was established in the lexicon of state — a term used to forcibly dispel a person’s previously learned perceptions of life and the world that were found to be in conflict with the views of the ruling class.
The sole purpose of this “education” and “re-education” was to establish a universal, totalitarian conformity in terms of the society’s value and belief systems. “Education” can easily be transformed into a reality of conformity selected specifically by people in positions of authority and their adherents, largely manifested through sociopolitical manifestos, which in turn would dictate the people’s actions in public, if not in private as well, creating an idyllic republic of just, highly socially integrated citizen comrades.
One mindset served all.
Obviously, the scale of influence and enforcement powers available to a Mao Zedong and a local selectboard member are vastly disproportionate. However, the mindset is, in ways, comparable. Those who voted against the Hartford ordinance are likely very well informed — very well “educated” — as to precisely why they voted as they did, in addition to having an acute awareness of the political bent and motivations harbored by the board.
In no way do these “Welcoming” ordinances attend to the nuts-and-bolts issues of residents or municipal affairs. They are simply a battle cry by activists who intend to force entire communities to symbolically join their selective, entirely political cause. This is indeed a most sensitive issue for many municipalities, including Hanover, Norwich and the city of Lebanon.
These ordinances have nothing to do with the unification or the betterment of a community. In fact, they’ve created much the opposite. They are merely the latest salvo by local activists in their “Resist, Resist, Resist” campaign.
Richard Bircher lives in Lebanon.