Average American = extremist German?
Another German reader takes issue with my support for asylum for a German homeschooling family. He writes:
In Germany we do not tolerate any kind of extremists – neither left nor right nor religious ones. As traditional christian schools seem to actually not be christian enough for this family, my only guess is that they want to indoctrinate their children with stong xenophobic values.
I am happy that our judges forbade this. We don’t allow fundamentlistic muslims to indoctrinate their children either so why should we allow Christians? Parallel societies never led to anything good in our history – so why should we help those who want to start them? If it was only about Christian values then I must say it is something the parents could have taught their children after the normal school as well (which ends at around noon in the first grades).
And just because the law was written when the Nazis were ruling our country (which it was) it doesn’t mean that the law itself may not make sense. Nobody is arguing whether it makes sense to have motorways either despite them having been built mostly to enable the war machinery to go quickly from east to west.
It seems clear to me that Germans have a much different view of extremism, schooling and freedom than (most) Americans do. A few specific points:
Why assume these people are “extremists”? He seems to define them as extremists simply because they want to homeschool. That makes millions of American families and countless other families throughout the world through the ages “extremists”. Extremism as a descriptive term is completely subjective: it simply means someone who significantly disagrees with you. Perhaps they think you are an extremist: should they be able to tell you how to raise your children?
Our German friend further states that because this family wants to homeschool “my only guess is that they want to indoctrinate their children with stong xenophobic values”. That is quite an illogical leap. Many, many people in this country who are non-religious (or, as he would say, “non-extremist”) choose to homeschool simply because they find it is a superior educational method to institutional schools. One may disagree with this assessment (although many studies would support it), but one cannot dismiss it outright, considering homeschooling has been with us since the beginning of time and has produced some of the world’s greatest intellects. Assuming homeschooling=indoctrination is simply a coded way of saying that you don’t agree with what these parents believe and you want to prevent them from teaching it to their children. This is one very small step from just taking children away from their parents who don’t support the beliefs of the majority mob.
Finally, a point about freedom. In a truly free society, you must allow a wide multitude of beliefs and practices. Some you may find distasteful, but that is the cost of freedom. Unless they are advocating a truly criminal behavior (such as assassination or other types of violence), they should be allowed. And yes, this means practicing Christians, Muslims and other religious people. But perhaps that is too “extreme” for modern Germany.
Having lived in Germany for five years (I taught English as a Second Language there), I believe I have some insight into our German friend’s comments.
It is not uncommon in Germany for the courts to rule against “extremist behavior.” I recall my surprise while living in Germany at hearing that a court had decided against parents who had chosen some really off-the-wall name for their child. The ruling was seen as being in the best interests of the child, protecting him from parents who had simply gone too far at his expense. As an American, I was appalled that “the state” had any say at all in the naming of a child!
Of course, when I heard recently of a woman in this country who won a radio contest by promising to give the call letters of the radio station to her newborn (“Q-97″ or some such nonsense) as his middle name, the German court’s ruling came to mind, and I was forced to ask myself if that court might have been onto something….
Consider this: I was blessed by being able to live in Taiwan for six years (also teaching English) and noticed a cultural phenomenon in the same vein. My Chinese friends thought nothing of, for example, calling at 3 a.m. to chat if they happened to be awake at that time. I learned that the correct response to such behavior was not a surly American “Don’t you know what time it is???” but rather a gracious “No, no, of course I wasn’t sleeping….” We Americans as a society have an unwritten rule that one does not call others in the middle of the night. This rule exists for the protection of all concerned – we all benefit from getting a good night’s sleep! However, my Chinese friends looked at this from a different perspective – in Taiwan anyone afflicted with insomnia knows that he may call others without being told off. In this case, the rights of the insomniac minority are protected. Odd from our perspective, but really just another way of trying to preserve the social fabric.
Contrast this with our understanding of the homeschooling issue. As Americans, we generally tend to be very concerned with minority rights. It is for a very good reason that conservatives and liberals are interested in defending the right of free speech. We will go so far as to protect the right of neo-Nazis to march down the street, even though we know the evil that they stand for, because we feel it essential to protect our own right to march down the street proclaiming what we believe in.
Germans tend to take a different approach. The “state” has more say in what individuals may and may not do. As Americans, we tend to find that frightening, but to most Germans this approach is a bulwark against extremism. Seen against the background of the rise of the extremist Nazi party, this makes some sense. Of course, when used to prevent parents from homeschooling, this approach appears to us to be unnecessarily concerned with limiting the rights of individuals. Again, it is an attempt to preserve the social fabric.
Our German friend’s comment that “my only guess is that they want to indoctrinate their children with strong xenophobic values” may have some truth to it. There is a vocal minority in Germany which is strongly racist, and it could be that the family involved has unfortunately mixed some of that in with their Christian beliefs. Not enough reason to ban home-schooling, in my American opinion, but we need to understand that the situation in Germany (or in any other part of the world, for that matter) is certainly not the same one we are familiar with here in the States. As Americans we tend to be ignorant of foreign cultures, current events, history, social and religious perspectives, etc., and I am for that reason glad to see this being discussed here!