(Missed the September 16th episode? You can stream “Real Time With Bill Maher” on HBO Max) His comment at the end of the “New Rules” segment on HBO’s Sept. 16 show was another example of Maher criticizing what he called the tendency of the “woke” left to judge the past by the standards of the present. “How we teach our children history has become a big controversy,” Maher said, “with liberals accusing conservatives of wanting to erase the past, and sometimes that’s true. Sometimes they do. But many liberals also want to abuse history to control the present.” As an example, Maher pointed to an essay published by James H. Sweet, president of the American Historical Association, who, as the Washington Post reported, took the position that historians “succumb to the ‘presentative,’ the temptation to read all the story. through a contemporary lens — particularly, through an emphasis on contemporary issues of social justice.” The essay provoked much debate, and in a note that now precedes it, Sweet wrote that his column “has caused anger and frustration among many of our colleagues and members. I take full responsibility for it not conveying what I intended and for the damage it caused. I hoped to open a conversation about how we “do” history in our current politically charged environment. Instead, I blocked that conversation for many members, causing damage to colleagues, discipline and the Association.” Sweet went on to write, “I am truly sorry for the way I alienated some of my black colleagues and friends. I am deeply sorry. In my clumsy attempts to draw attention to methodological flaws in teleological presentism, I left the impression that the questions posed by absence, grief, memory, and resilience are somehow less powerful than those posed from positions of power. This is absolutely not true. It wasn’t my intention to leave that impression, but my challenge completely missed the mark.” Maher didn’t go into it in the “New Rules” section, but he did include a reference to Portland Public Schools engaging in what he described as “presentation”-influenced thinking. Portland Public Schools has a plan, Maher said, “to teach kids that the idea of gender, which is mostly binary, was brought here by white colonizers.” After a comically exaggerated breath, Maher said, “Not even ‘Star Trek’ would attempt this story.” During Maher’s commentary, an image of a column by Christopher F. Rufo, titled “In Portland, Sexual Revolution Begins in Kindergarten,” appeared in which Rufo says he received documents from a source inside his public schools. Portland that show the school system has “launched a war on the ‘gender binary’” and adopted a radical new curriculum that teaches students to reverse “white settler” sexuality and begin to explore “the infinite spectrum of genders.” Rufo, who lives in Gig Harbor, Washington, is a controversial figure who makes frequent appearances on the Fox News Channel and who, as the New York Times noted, is a conservative activist “who perhaps more than any other person has done critical theory race’s rallying cry on the right — and who has become, for some on the left, an agitator of intolerance.” In “Real Time,” Maher said of the Portland Pubiic Schools curriculum, “It’s like they finally discovered a unified field theory of vigilantism, incorporating all of their ideas about race, gay, gender, and colonization, like the New World was a great, big, diverse dance club, and the Pilgrims were the bridge and tunnel crowd that came in and ruined everything.” Maher continued, “Which is not to say there isn’t truth to the old rubric that history is written by the winner, and it’s subjective.” But, he added, much of the story is “undoubtedly documented” and “not everything is up in the air to change or delete or fix, based on what makes you feel better today.” On Twitter, Maher’s comments — including his argument that slavery as an institution was not limited to white people holding slaves — drew a variety of responses, including “Bill Maher jumped the shark.” “Bill Maher skewers extremism on both sides”. “Bill Maher is good at explaining the wake and its dangers.” and, addressing HBO and its chief content officer Casey Bloys, “your #1 bigot boy Bill Maher is trending again. Can you catch what everyone is saying this time?” — Kristi Turnquist 503-221-8227; [email protected]; @Kristiturnquist Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today at OregonLive.com/subscribe
