The Tuttle Twins and the Case of the Really Bad Libertarian Propaganda

[ZiprHead]

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/09/the-tuttle-twins-and-the-case-of-the-really-bad-libertarian-propaganda?fbclid=IwAR1FKCufsJ0yI7qgoDnKebgusb3cyC2JVXIiZP0D2MlNcEvVgXBheE9LhWY

Anyone with kids in their family knows that one of the great things about them is their bottomless gullibility. Until critical thinking abilities (sometimes) develop in later life, children will believe any hilariously phony lie you tell them, for example that a minor deity is so excited to get their disgusting baby teeth that they leave printed American currency for it, with the Treasury Secretary’s name on it. It’s the dumbest thing in the world, but I and probably you believed it for years.

Sadly, some would abuse this adorable nature of kids for sleazy purposes. There’s a whole genre of apocryphal quotations by leaders of authoritarian movements, saying some version of “Give me the child for seven years and I’ll give you the man,” meaning those formative early years can shape beliefs that endure through adulthood. Jesuit leaders, Lenin and others are alleged to have said similar lines, but regardless of the exact provenance, the point is clear enough.

But Church and State are far from the only authoritarians seeing value in indoctrinating guileless kids. I learned this recently when the unscrupulous editor of a popular leftist magazine, let’s call it Present Developments, mailed me a large box of libertarian children’s lit known as the Tuttle Twins series, a series of illustrated stories and workbooks designed to teach youngsters the wonders of the free market. (You may have seen ads for it on Facebook.) Having now perused all 11 books in the special “Tuttle Twins combo pack,” I can confirm that it’s exactly as bad as you think it is.

The first book in the series, The Tuttle Twins Learn About the Law, is based on the work of Frederic Bastiat. The twins themselves are a pair of earnest, curious kids, whose teacher assigns them to “ask a wise person to teach them about something very important,” which as an educator I can tell you is a great pedagogical technique. They go to their neighbor Fred, who takes them to his home library, with an incongruously lovingly rendered bookshelf with many recognizable libertarian titles, from Murray Rothbard to Ron Paul’s End the Fed to, somehow, Jeremy Scahill’s Dirty Wars.

Fred gives them Bastiat’s book The Law and summarizes the highlights, starting with “We have rights,” things we’re allowed to do “and nobody else is allowed to stop me.” “Like playing with my own toys?” asks a twin in incredibly natural dialogue. You can probably see where that’s going—in the minds of libertarians “my own toys” becomes large-scale property, like palm oil plantations and plastics factories. (POP QUIZ: What’s the difference between the relationship of a child to their toys and the relationship of a capitalist to a giant factory? ANSWER: big productive property confers economic power on its owners, to hire and fire people, and to shape market outcomes. If your toys were sentient beings and you could give them orders, your claim that nobody could tell you what to do with them would seem much less compelling!)

But the twins soon learn that their rights can be violated by “bad guys,” and some of these “bad guys” can be in government, doing things “a lot of people like” but that are bad. Stepping into his tomato garden, Fred observes that it would be wrong for a neighbor to take his tomatoes without asking, and then says it’s just as wrong for the government to take them and give them to the neighbor against Fred’s will, which is illustrated with a masked cop stealing a bag of produce for the poor, providing a valuable window into the feverish libertarian imagination. “Stealing is always wrong,” the kids write in their notebook, letting someone’s raised produce beds stand in for the tens of billions of dollars Mike Bloomberg hoards for vanity presidential campaigns while kids drink lead-tainted water in school and do KickStarters for their insulin. (The way libertarians make their reasoning persuasive is to always use examples that are completely different in scale; so “Would it be wrong for the government to tell you how to run your lemonade stand?” is treated as identical to “Would it be wrong for the government to tell you how to run your giant sulfur mine?” “Property” is used generically to describe both apples and factories, with the buried assumption that there are no relevant qualitative differences between these two types of things that affect the legitimacy of the state regulating them.)

Of course, the right has to recognize that to its regret, a social safety net is widely popular. People don’t wish to live in a society where the weak are left to die. So, as usual, personal charity is invoked as an effective substitute for government aid. We learn that Fred will “make meals for families when the dad loses his job.” How nice! But sadly “the government forces me to help people, too,” as in paying cruel taxes for Social Security and food stamps. Who knows why we’re made to do that! Maybe because the average length of unemployment in the US in January 2020 was 22 weeks, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which comes out to 462 missed meals per person, or 2,772 meals for the depicted family of six. Better get cooking, Fred! Or just pay your fucking taxes.

The kids learn this evil tax-funded social safety net is called “legal plunder,” and having read their Bastiat well, they give a jar of tomatoes to a neighbor (who is lightly implied to be poor), declaring “We wanted to share with you, and nobody else made us do it.” Take that, stupid Children’s Health Insurance Program!

In The Tuttle Twins and the Road to Surfdom, dedicated to little-known selfless philanthropist Charles Koch, the Tuttle family is dismayed to find the road to their beach house is highly congested, and the stores nearby are closing down. “Ethan and Emily like playing at the beach, but they loved shopping at La Playa Lane.” The displeased vacationing white family soon learns that “a few years ago, voters approved a Master Transportation Plan,” which in addition to building a new road to another beach town nearby, bizarrely closed off the existing road. This is the kind of contrived parody of public planning that market fundamentalists imagine is to blame for capitalism’s problems.

Further adventures take the twins to the circus, where they become guest clowns and are soon caught up looking for the star attraction, a strongman predictably named Atlas, who has quit (shrugged). The tyrannical ringmaster had cut the strongman’s pay, and thinks the circus can carry on without him. Soon the kids discover being a clown “was actually pretty easy,” while Atlas labored hard working out, and indeed the entire circus also relies on him to build the tents, hang the tightropes and feed the animals—this apparently being a carnival without carnies.

There are many more books in the series, I would estimate about nine hundred thousand more, but I will conclude this review by saying the Tuttle Twins series is among the most wretchedly contrived, grotesquely unethically indoctrinating, cliché-ridden heaps of steaming garbage I’ve ever had the misfortune to read. Written to bring young people into one of the most disgraceful political tendencies in the world before they have the critical thinking skills to recognize it, it is a hideous fraud and an ugly twisted farce.

 

[bigfield]

A few years ago I read a high fantasy series called "The Sword of Truth" by Terry Goodkind. It started off as fairly standard sword and sorcery story, and then a few books in it veered straight into a Objectivist morality story, the Chosen One taking on the role of tireless rebel entrepreneur deep in the heart of the tyrannical welfare state where everyone wants a handout and no-one wants to work.

It doesn't matter whether these stories are aimed at children or adults, because either way it comes off as bizarre and cringey. I can maintain willing suspension of disbelief in a story where people fly around and shoot magic at each other because it's still a story about believable characters, but the libertarian portrayal of human nature is just too unbelievable.

 

[Jarhyn]

A few years ago I read a high fantasy series called "The Sword of Truth" by Terry Goodkind. It started off as fairly standard sword and sorcery story, and then a few books in it veered straight into a Objectivist morality story, the Chosen One taking on the role of tireless rebel entrepreneur deep in the heart of the tyrannical welfare state where everyone wants a handout and no-one wants to work.

It doesn't matter whether these stories are aimed at children or adults, because either way it comes off as bizarre and cringey. I can maintain willing suspension of disbelief in a story where people fly around and shoot magic at each other because it's still a story about believable characters, but the libertarian portrayal of human nature is just too unbelievable.

Man, and here I just hated Goodkind's shite because it's shoveled runaway Mary-Sue schlock, where they use gay pedophilia as the way of driving the viewer to hate the antagonists (rather than, you know, actual good writing).

 

[Rhea]

Well, that was a useful review. I always appreciate it when someone saves me from having to vomit on a book.

 

[Jarhyn]

Well, that was a useful review. I always appreciate it when someone saves me from having to vomit on a book.

Yeah. I wish someone had shared such with me some time ago, before I did so myself