from Robert Murphy, posted on Wednesday, December 7, 2022.
This was a Harvard class taught exclusively for labor activists. pic.twitter.com/JCRzY0964J
— Robert P. Murphy (@BobMurphyEcon) December 7, 2022
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Lessons from TED, TED-Ed. It’s a cornucopia of lessons.
VOCABULARY LESSONS here.
LESSON #1: PUBLIC v. PRIVATE OWNERSHIP
1. Tragedy of the Commons.
2. Anatomy of the State, Murray Rothbard, 1974.
3. The Trouble with Public Accommodations, Ryan McMaken, June 3, 2016.
4. Of Private, Common, and Public Property and the Rationale for Total Privatization, Hans Hermann-Hoppe.
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10 Common Objections to Capitalism, Henry Hazlitt.
“It’s for the Children!” and Other Progressive Shibboleths
1. Progressivism: A Primer on the Idea Destroying America, James Ostrowski, 2014. On the author, here is his Amazon bio:
James Ostrowski is a trial and appellate lawyer and author from Buffalo, New York. He graduated from St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute in 1975 and obtained a degree in philosophy from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1980. He graduated from Brooklyn Law School in 1983. In law school, he was writing assistant to Dean David G. Trager, later a federal judge in the Eastern District of New York. He was a member of the Moot Court Honor Society and the International Law Moot Court Team. He served as vice-chairman of the law reform committee of the New York County Lawyers Association (1986-88) and wrote two widely quoted reports critical of the law enforcement approach to the drug problem. He was chair of the human rights committee, Erie County Bar Association (1997-1999). He has written a number of scholarly articles on the law on subjects ranging from drug policy to the commerce clause of the constitution. His articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Buffalo News, Cleveland Plain Dealer and Legislative Gazette. His policy studies have been published by the Hoover Institution, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. His articles have been used as course materials at numerous colleges including Brown, Rutgers, and Stanford. He is the author of Political Class Dismissed (2004), Government Schools Are Bad for Your Kids (2009) and Direct Citizen Action (2010). Presently, he is an adjunct scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and a columnist for LewRockwell.com. He and his wife Amy live in North Buffalo with their two children, Anna, and Will. He is a long-time youth baseball and basketball coach.
The real American enemy: Progressivism.
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How to Be a Better Teacher, Gary North, August 17, 2011.
FAMOUS SPEECHES
Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century by Rank.
1. “Christianity and Wealth,” Margaret Thatcher, May 21, 1988. Here is Dr. Gary North’s assessment of her speech.
2. “I Have a Dream,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., August 28, 1963. Another version of it. Some analysis of King’s speech.
At the start, King evokes the official civil rights act, Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, an Executive Order enacted on January 1, 1863, that freed the slaves in certain states. King’s “Five score years ago” simultaneously refers to the Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863, a very different ceremony and message.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
King uses Direct Address frequently,
The speaker addresses his audience directly several times with the purpose of motivating them and inspiring them to take positive actions to promote equal rights in American society: “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom . . . .
What image does the use of the alliterated s build in this passage?
But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.
Find a list of King’s speeches here. Here are 33 speeches of his.
3. “Ich bin ein Berliner,” President John F. Kennedy, June 26, 1963.
4. President JFK’s Inaugural Speech, “Ask Not What Your Country Can Do for You; Ask What You Can Do for Your Country,” President John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1961. Find some school lessons for the speech here. And a video of the speech and inauguration here.
5. “Gettysburg Address,” Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1963. What did his speech achieve? Here is Gary North’s interpretation of Lincoln’s address. How Lincoln forged a civil religion of American nationalism.
6. JFK’s Commencement Address at American University, June 10, 1963.
7. “George Washington’s Farewell Address,” President George Washington, 1796.
8. “Eisenhower’s Farewell Address,” President Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961. BTW, Eisenhower defended the honor of Robert E. Lee.
9. Harry Browne’s 1997 Hillsdale College’s Speech. Notes on Harry Browne, 1933-2006.
10. “Kennedy’s 6 Powerful Secrets of Rhetorical Persuasion,” thanks to John Forde and Gary North
What also made a big difference, according to Sorensen and many others, was that Kennedy and his writing team mastered six powerful secrets of rhetorical persuasion–all 6 of which seem worthy of using in your sales copywriting, too.
Which six? Per the BBC, Kennedy’s secret sauce drew largely from the following list…
1.) The Power of Contrasts, as in Kennedy’s famous line, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
2) The Power of Threes, especially in lists, like in the Kennedy line, “Where the strong are just, and the weak secure and the peace preserved.”
3) The double-punch you get by combining lists and contrasts together, as in the line, “Not because the communists are doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right.”
4) The Apt Application of Alliteration, as you see (and hear) in a line like Kennedy’s, “Let us go forth to lead the land we love.”
5) The Pull of Powerful Imagery, like he gave us in the simple phrase, “The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.”
6) The Simple, Sensible Secret of Knowing Your Audience. Kennedy’s was the first inaugural speech delivered to a global audience, in real time. And he (and Sorensen) made sure everybody knew it, with no fewer than six lines that directly addressed allies and enemies overseas.
11. Ron Paul: “What If the People Wake Up?” 2009.
12. Daniel Hannan, MEP: “The Devalued Prime Minister of a Devalued Government,” 2009.
13. Ronald Reagan: “The Myth of the Great Society, 1964.
14. Ronald Reagan: “A Time for Choosing,” October 27, 1964.
15. Ed Clark, a Libertarian candidate for President, 1980, gives a speech on nihilism in Los Angeles, 1979. He defends principles of liberty upon which the United States was founded. The speech, “Our Existential Crisis of Being,” 1979, came recommended by Charles Burris, who posted an excerpt of the speech @ LewRockwell.com. Find Charles Burris’s lessons here.
16. Malcolm X’s speeches. This chronology of events in Malcolm’s life is interesting.
17. “Cross of Gold” speech, delivered by William Jennings Bryant, on July 8, 1896, in closing the debate on the party platform at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago during the campaign for the presidential election of 1896.
18. Winston Churchill’s “The Sinews of Peace,” 1946. The speech that publicly acknowledged the United States as the world’s superpower.
“The Sinews of Peace,” the title Churchill himself gave his address, endures today as one of the statesman’s most significant speeches. It not only made the term “iron curtain” a household phrase, but it coined the term “special relationship,” describing the enduring alliance between the United States and Great Britain. It is a speech that offered a blueprint for the West to ultimately wage—and win—the Cold War.
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50 Essential Civil Rights Speeches:
MALCOLM X
Malcolm X’s “White Liberals and Conservatives,” 1963.
“The Ballot or the Bullet,” 1964.
“By Any Means Necessary,” 1964.
Lorraine Hansberry’s “The Black Revolution and the White Backlash.” 1964.
[9th Grade English Curriculum]
SHORT STORIES
1. “American History,” Judith Ortiz Cofer, 1993.
2. “Two Kinds,” Amy Tan, 1989. Here is a deconstructive analysis of the story, where the author assigns antagonist roles to characters in the story as though they were bitter enemies, even hostile countries fighting a hot for national identity.
3. “Scarlet Ibis,” James Hurst, 1960.
4. Background on Capote’s “A Christmas Memory.”
5. The “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” is a poem written by Goethe but animated by Disney in 1940. The tale has relevance in any culture, at any time since the risk of bad ideas getting out of hand is a constant, perhaps universal theme. This theme is criticized here in Sorcerers, Apprentices, and Hobgoblins. And the particular idea that the author refers to is cultural Marxism.
6. “Marigolds,” the 1969 short story by Eugenia Collier, is another short story that is anthologized in high-school textbooks across the country. It’s the story about a 14-going-on-15-year-old girl growing up in rural Maryland. Though the story is written really well, I do not like the message. The message is supposed to be some sort of right-of-passage tale that requires a young girl to let out her hurt pride over her father’s economic position by destroying a neighbor woman’s garden, the marigolds in her front yard that she’d worked at so diligently to make beautiful. And in a fit of rage, Lizabeth comes tearing down in the middle of the night, in some asymmetric revenge, to decapitate all of Miss Lottie’s marigolds, evocative of what Jeremy Finch did in Chapter 11 of the 1960 novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, to Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose’s camellias.
7. “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson, 1948.
8. Doris Lessing’s short stories.
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“The Scarlet Ibis,” by James Hurst, 1960.
“Cask of Amontillado,” Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), 1846. Since these platforms, like Blogger, seem so unreliable lately, I am going to set the URL for the Edgar Allan Poe page here [https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/?s=Edgar+Allan+Poe]
“Two Kinds,” by Amy Tan, 1989. This would be for grades 8-11. Different products you can make: Essay questions, reading comprehension exam, story arch, vocabulary test, background on Japanese coming to America. m%#
“The Necklace,” by Gut de Maupassant, 1888.
“The Washwoman,” by Isaac Bashevis Singer (1903-1991) 1963.
“The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaller,” by Gustave Flaubert, 1877. St. Julian is the patron saint of innkeepers, travelers, and boatmen. A review.
Another review.
St. Julian was a French knight in the First Crusade. This exact match compelled me to search out the legend of this Saint. I was immediately struck by how St. Julian’s story is very similar to the ancient Celtic legend of Fionn mac Cumhill. Some believe the Highland legends of Finghael are the Scottish version of the Irish Fionn mac Cumhill. But the legends of Finghael are more likely about our ancestor Somhairlidh (Somerled). This striking similarity would have been obvious to his grandson, Donald of Islay.
It continues,
Julian became known for his fearless combat because he actually hoped to die and thereby avoid the curse (referred to in the Irish Annals as the curse of Fingal). When Julian returned from the Crusades he rescued, fell deeply in love with, and married a renowned, beautiful lady of means. Could they live “happily ever after?” Tragically, Julian’s fate was determined. He was an avid hunter and returned home late at night to find a man under the covers of his bed with who he assumed was his new bride. In a jealous rage, he ran his sword through them both. Still in a rage, he left his bed-chamber only to find his bride standing in the hall excitedly explaining his parents had come to visit! She had provided them with their very best accommodations, their own bed! There is no doubt why such a horrific tragedy became an enduring legend, but the hope provided by the Legend of St. Julian is that redemption, even Sainthood is possible through penitence.
La piece de resistance,
The struggle to escape a predetermined fate is a reoccurring Celtic theme through ages. What gave such moral value to this legend was how Julian and his bride responded to this fateful event. Julian and his wife first disposed of all their earthly possessions and gave to the poor
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NOVELS
1. The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien, 1990.
2. My Antonia, 1918.
3. To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960.
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DIARIES
1. Diary of Anne Frank, or the Diary of a Young Girl, 1945 [in English in 1952].
2. Escape from Sobibor, 1987. The script, by Reginald Rose, was based on Richard Rashke‘s 1983 book of the same name,[2] along with a manuscript by Thomas Blatt, “From the Ashes of Sobibor”, and a book by Stanisław Szmajzner, Inferno in Sobibor.
3. From the Ashes of Sobibor, Thomas Toivi Blatt, 1997. Co-written with Christopher R. Browning, author of several books on WWII atrocities.
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TIME-MANAGEMENT TOOLS
1. Toggl is a good way to track the amount of time you spend on a project, like a stopwatch.
2. Google Calendar is indispensable for keeping track of activities as well as prioritizing them.
3. Pomodoro Technique of time management. It’s a method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. These intervals are named pomodoros, the plural in English of the Italian word pomodoro (tomato), after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer that Cirillo used as a university student. The method is based on the idea that frequent breaks can improve mental agility.
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11th GRADE CURRICULUM
DRAMA
1. Contrast 12 Angry Men, by Reginald Rose, with 12 Ordinary Men, by John MacArthur, 1979. For the religious motif in 12 Angry Men, in so far that it conjures the Last Supper and how the 12 apostles forsook Christ, is unmistakable.
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NOVELS
1. The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien, 1990.
2. My Antonia, 1918.
3. To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960.
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MOVIES THAT MIGHT INSPIRE
Something the Lord Made, 2004. The story is “about the black cardiac pioneer Vivien Thomas (1910–1985) and his complex and volatile partnership with white surgeon Alfred Blalock (1899–1964), the “Blue Baby doctor” who pioneered modern heart surgery.”
This version comes in 2 parts. I posted this one because it’s clearer than the other, full version that is posted on YouTube. Gary North gave a speech where he connected this story to the Michael Oher story covered in Michael Lewis’ 2007 book, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game. Here is Dr. North’s speech.
10. William Masey in the 2002 salesmanship tenacity movie, Door to Door. Check it out. It is excellent.
11. And though this is not a specific entrepreneur movie, it is a great story, a great love story, called The Answer Man (2009), starring Jeff Daniels, co-starring Lauren Graham.
12. Pursuit of Happyness, Will Smith, 2006.
2. Door to Door, William Masey, 2002.
3. Flash of Genius, Greg Kinnear, 2008.
4. Other opinions on the subject.
SELL LESSONS TO TEACHERS
1. Share My Lesson.
2. Teachers Pay Teachers.
3. Sell courses that you’ve created.
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SHAKESPEARE
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar.
Mark Anthony and Cleopatra: Cleopatra’s Proxy War to Conquer Rome and Restore the Empire of the Greeks, Martin Armstrong, August 24, 2023. The book is $30 on Amazon.
Analysis of Brutus’s and Anthony’s speech.
San Gabriel Tutor 