Wilfred (Bill) McClay

speaker

209 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 2 Jul

Wilfred (Bill) McClay’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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Radio Atlantic · American History as Rorschach Test · 2 Jul 2026 podcast

He didn't do it in a mean way.

I mean, to shut down discussion.

But you always have to think about...

I'm not sure I'm understanding you.

I mean, if you're talking about exposing your children to the history of lynching, the fact that lynching occurred—

And it really wasn't until the Republican Party in the 1920s got on their high horse about it.

And of course, the South was still solidly democratic.

But to do that at the exclusion of other things is the reverse form of whatever the reverse of sanitization is.

It's lacking balance.

I think that's pretty hopeless.

I think you can write articles in the New Yorker about this to be read by people of education and a certain age.

I think teaching of children is just going to be hopelessly confusing.

Now, there are extreme situations growing up.

in Germany in the 30s, or in Soviet Union or Soviet-controlled regimes, as I think Masha Gessen did.

Those are extreme situations.

But I think it's in a clearly extreme situation, the notion that your duty as a citizen lies in unquestioning obedience to the dictates of your government.

It's a very bad thing to be teaching them.

You have to give them a version of a kind of what's called the talk, you know, about how to make your way with integrity in a system that is being administered by people who are petty, sinful, selfish, malicious commissars.

And to...

Not to kind of flame out in a blaze of righteous glory, but also not to submit.

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