Suggested Answers - First Short Quiz

[johnkarls]

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Question 1

Was “The Assault on American Excellence” published 8/20/2019?

Answer 1

Yes.

Question 2

Accordingly, was it written long before the hundreds of race riots during the Summer of 2020 triggered by the 5/25/2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers?

Answer 2

Yes.

Question 3

And well before the current demonstrations in the wake of the 11/7/2023 attack by Hamas on Israel?

Answer 3

Yes.

Question 4

BTW, do you think there is a relationship between the 2020 race riots triggered by George Floyd’s murder and the pro-Hamas demonstrations following the 11/7/2023 attack by Hamas?

Answer 4

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Though please read on Q&A-5 in formulating your opinion.

Question 5

In considering Question-4, do you think it is relevant that the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the de facto “right-hand man” of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., ran for U.S. President in 1984 and 1988 AND BOTH TIMES CALLED NEW YORK CITY “HYMIETOWN”???

Answer 5

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Yes, it is true that NYC's Jewish population both then and now is the largest of any city in the world (NYC currently has 1.6 million Jews while Tel Aviv, for example, has only half a million).

[“Wise acres” may be tempted to say that the Tel Aviv - Yafo METROPOLITAN AREA now has a population of 4.2 million of whom 89% are Jewish – but NYC has a METROPOLITAN AREA of more than 20 million and “God only knows” how many of them are Jewish.]

*****
A few personal observations to consider in formulating your own opinion about Question 5 itself re Rev. Jesse Jackson calling NYC Hymietown --

When Yours Truly was young in the 1960’s, young Americans were “taking to the streets” protesting the Vietnam War.

Cynics, of course, were fond of pointing out that their supposed idealism was motivated by fear that they would be drafted and sent off to die in Vietnam.

For children of the wealthy, it was easy to get a student deferment (2-S vs. 1-A) for college and graduate school. And once you reached the magic age of 26, you became an “old man” – none of whom were drafted during the Vietnam War.

However, 3-years of law school (vs. 4 years for a PhD) meant graduation at age 25 – a “sitting duck.”

[Yours Truly served as a U.S. Naval Officer 1967-1970 following law school graduation in 1967. BTW, both of my two younger brothers also served as U.S. Naval Officers, one of whom served as Gunnery Officer on a U.S. Navy Destroyer tasked with blowing up Vietnamese coastal villages which generated ulcers for him and death for the villagers.]

Because of such widespread civil unrest, Congress instituted a draft lottery in 1970 so that anyone whose birthday had a high number in the annual lottery could rest easy if his number was not reached during his first year of draft eligibility.

[Which led to "games" being played by children of the wealthy who would hide behind a 2-S student deferment until a year when the number their birthday had received in the applicable lottery was high enough that being drafted was highly unlikely, whereupon they would surrender their 2-S student deferments despite remaining in school, to "expose" themselves to 1-A and thereby achieve a de facto permanent exemption from the draft.]

[BTW, my birthday is Feb 26 which was no. 365 in the first lottery in 1970 (which contained 366 dates because it covered all pre-1970 years), but I was already finishing my U.S. Navy active duty at that point.]

And in the wake of the Vietnam War, America has gone to “an all-volunteer force” even though, technically, young males still have to register for the draft.

*****
THE REASON FOR THIS HISTORY LESSON???

An old proverb – “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

So what segment of American society has always disproportionately fought America’s wars NO MATTER WHAT THE RULES WERE???

During the Vietnam War, it was the poor of America’s inner-city ghettos.

They couldn’t afford to go to college to get their 2-S draft deferments.

AND WHAT ABOUT THE SO-CALLED “ALL-VOLUNTEER FORCE”???

Most of our 229 weekly e-mail recipients have heard more times than they care to remember my background serving the less fortunate – (1) summer of 1966 on the first US Gov task force assembled to dismantle the de jure dual-school system of the 11 states of the old confederacy and the 6 slave states that remained in the Union, (2) 1970’s – co-founder of the first homeless shelter in Fairfield County CT, (3) 1990’s – founder and chief benefactor of the “I Have A Dream”® Program of Stamford CT which, following the example of Eugene Lang, provided tutors and mentors for 200 housing-project children from third grade through high-school graduation with a guarantee of college tuition, and (4) 1990’s – served as Gene Lang’s volunteer national treasurer of IHAD-National which oversaw 178 IHAD programs in 51 American inner-cities and/or housing projects.

And most of our 229 weekly e-mail recipients have heard more times than they care to remember that the IHAD programs of the 1990’s (post-2000 they were radically different) typically transformed SINGLE-DIGIT HIGH-SCHOOL GRADUATION RATES to more than 90%.

The reason why the class just ahead and class just behind each “Dreamer class” typically had SINGLE-DIGIT HIGH-SCHOOL GRADUATION RATES???

The only realistic career objectives in America’s ghettos were (and still are – I remain in contact with many colleagues in the 51 American inner-cities that I visited as volunteer national IHAD treasurer) --

(1) pimp or pusher; or
(2) girl friend of a pimp or pusher graduating to whore.

And neither requires a high-school degree!!!

A THIRD WAY???

They can “volunteer” to fight America’s wars and, perhaps, die.

BTW, “identical-twin studies” always show that our inner-city children who are orphaned before their first birthdays where one identical twin is adopted by another inner-city person(s) while the other is adopted by a suburban family – the identical twins adopted by other inner-city residents develop by adulthood average inner-city “measured IQ’s” while their identical twins who are adopted by suburban families develop by adulthood average suburban “measured IQ’s.”

AND THEIR INTELLIGENCE IS ALSO OBVIOUS BECAUSE ANY OLDER SIBLINGS WHO JOIN THE “ALL VOLUNTEER MILITARY” ARE BI-LINGUAL!!!

They speak “ghetto” and they speak “military.”

Two entirely-different languages because fluency in either has nothing to do with fluency in the other.

And it is almost comical if any of them attends an inner-city event with some of their friends, because they switch between “ghetto” and “military” without even thinking but depending on whom they are addressing.

*****
THE BOTTOM LINE???

Sorry for the long sermon!!!

But there is tremendous resentment in America’s inner-city ghettos that they are forced to fight the wars of America’s “Establishment”!!!

So IMHO it was no “slip of the tongue” for MLK’s “right hand man” – the Rev. Jesse Jackson – to call NYC “Hymietown” when running for U.S. President in both 1984 and 1988.

Doing so was a verbal signal to America’s less fortunate that he was their candidate.

And it was no “slip of the tongue” that he used an anti-Semitic term!!!

Even though the CIA’s World Factbook indicates Jews only comprise 1.9% of America’s population, they are closely associated in the minds of America’s less fortunate with America’s “Establishment.”

So IMHO it is no wonder that the participants in the 2020 post-Floyd racial riots turned out en masse for the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic demonstrations in the wake of the Oct 7 Hamas attack.

Question 6

Did our “The Assault on American Excellence” author – Anthony Kronman – earn a PhD in Philosophy from Yale in 1972 before earning a JD from Yale Law School in 1975?

Answer 6

Yes.

[If you are a cynic and have read Q&A-5, you might believe Prof. Kronman, who finished undergrad in 1968 (two years before the draft lottery), decided to do a PhD (4-year program) rather than law school (3-year program) to avoid being a "sitting duck" for the draft at age 25 following law school -- and then went to law school after he was safe from the draft.]

Question 7

Did Prof. Kronman once say he was heavily influenced by Aristotle and Baruch Spinoza as a result of which he called himself a “born-again pagan”?

Answer 7

Yes.

A confession – a “child of Hollywood”*** who earns a PhD in Philosophy before attending law school???

I couldn’t help but Google “Anthony Kronman religion” and discovered that on 10/25/2016, he had published (Yale U Press) an 1176-page book entitled “Confessions of a Born-Again Pagan” for which the Amazon.com description (which usually quotes the dust jacket of the book) says --

“We live in an age of disenchantment. The number of self-professed “atheists” continues to grow. Yet many still feel an intense spiritual longing for a connection to what Aristotle called the “eternal and divine.” For those who do, but demand a God that is compatible with their modern ideals, a new theology is required. This is what Anthony Kronman offers here, in a book that leads its readers away from the inscrutable Creator of the Abrahamic religions toward a God whose inexhaustible and everlasting presence is that of the world itself. Kronman defends an ancient conception of God, deepened and transformed by Christian belief—the born-again paganism on which modern science, art, and politics all vitally depend. Brilliantly surveying centuries of Western thought—from Plato to Augustine, Aquinas, and Kant, from Spinoza to Nietzsche, Darwin, and Freud—Kronman recovers and reclaims the God we need today.”

*****
***A “child of Hollywood”???”

His father, Harry Lincoln Kronman (1901-1979), was a well-known Hollywood movie producer and TV writer (e.g., 7 episodes of Gunsmoke, 4 of The Virginian, 11 of The Fugitive, 17 of The Untouchables – to name 4 of the 29 writer credits per IMDb).

Anthony Kronman’s mother was Rosella Towne (née Townsend) (1918-2014) who was widely touted as a future Hollywood star with 32 films to her credit before she retired to marry Harry Kronman in 1942.

Question – could Anthony Kronman’s father have condensed Anthony’s 1176-page “Confessions of a Born-Again Pagan” into a successful Hollywood movie???

My bet as a classic-movie lover –- a resounding “yes” especially if it had starred Anthony's mother!!!

Question 8

After 1975 law school graduation, did he then teach for a year at U/Minn Law School and 3 years at U/Chicago Law School before joining the Yale Law School faculty in 1979?

Answer 8

Yes.

Question 9

At age 78, is he still an active Yale Law School Professor after having served as its Dean 1994-2004?

Answer 9

Per Yale Law School’s website, Anthony Kronman is the Sterling Professor of Law, currently teaching Constitutional Law, Law and Religion, Philosophy of Law, and Contracts.

Question 10

Do law schools traditionally teach using “The Socratic Method” – constantly asking questions and then, based on student responses, asking more questions?

Answer 10

Yes.

Question 11

In doing so, do law schools traditionally pride themselves in NOT teaching students a myriad of rules and laws BUT RATHER IN TEACHING STUDENTS HOW TO THINK???

Answer 11

Yes.

Question 12

BTW, do intelligent students answer the questions of professors with questions of their own BECAUSE QUESTIONS CANNOT BY THEIR NATURE BE WRONG WHEREAS STATEMENTS CAN BE WRONG???

Answer 12

Yes.

Question 13

In railing against the prevailing view of educational institutions which resulted after publication of “The Assault on American Excellence” in the post-Floyd race riots and the post-11/7/2023 pro-Hamas riots, do you think Prof. Kronman is decrying the lack of thinking??? In other words, protesting “mob psychology” based on ignorance???

Answer 13

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 14

What do you think is Prof. Kronman’s basic philosophy as summed up in his title “The Assault on American Excellence” and in his Epilogue (pp. 214-217)?

Answer 14

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!