If you’re a parent and you think you should have much of a say in your children’s public education curriculum…
Let’s hear from “scholar of education history and policy” Jack Schneider and education podcaster Jennifer Berkshire, who you may remember from her passionate argument against “parents’ rights”. This is good stuff, people:
“Yet what’s actually radical here is the assertion of parental powers that have never previously existed. This is not to say that parents should have no influence over how their children are taught. But common law and case law in the United States have long supported the idea that education should prepare young people to think for themselves, even if that runs counter to the wishes of parents. In the words of legal scholar Jeff Shulman, ‘This effort may well divide child from parent, not because socialist educators want to indoctrinate children, but because learning to think for oneself is what children do.’”
You see, you’re wrong to think they’re indoctrinating children in leftist thought. It couldn’t be further from the truth. They’re just teaching them to think, to have an open mind, and those troglodyte parents who want to stop them are the ones who would like to end all exposure to ideas other than their own narrow views.
It’s beautifully Orwellian, isn’t it?
Puts me in mind of something Allan Bloom wrote over thirty years ago in his magnum opus The Closing of the American Mind:
Every educational system has a moral goal that it tries to attain and that informs its curriculum. It wants to produce a certain kind of human being. This intention is more or less explicit, more or less a result of reflection,; but even the neutral subject, like reading and writing and arithmetic, take their place in a vision of the educated person…Over the history of our republic, there have obviously been changes of opinion as to what kind of man is best for our regime…A powerful attachment to the letter and spirit of the Declaration of Independence gently conveyed, appealing to each man’s reason, was the goal of the education of democratic man…
But openness…eventually won out over natural rights, partly through a theoretical critique, partly because of a political rebellion against nature’s last constraints. Civic education turned away from concentrating on the Founding to concentrating on openness based on history and social science. There was even a general tendency to debunk the Founding, to prove the beginnings were flawed in order to license a greater openness to the new. What began in Charles Beard’s Marxism and Carl Becker’s historicism became routine. We are used to hearing the Founders being charged with being racists, murderers of Indians, representatives of class interests. I asked my first history professor in the university, a very famous scholar, whether the picture he gave us of George Washington did not have the effect of making us despise our regime. “Not at all,” he said, “it doesn’t depend on individuals but on our having good democratic values.” To which I rejoined, “But you just showed us that Washington was only using those values to further the class interests of the Virginia squirearchy.” He got angry, and that was the end of it. He was comforted by a gentle assurance that the values of democracy are part of the movement of history and did not require his elucidation or defense. He could carry on his historical studies with the moral certitude that they would lead to greater openness and hence more democracy. The lessons of fascism and the vulnerability of democracy, which we had all just experienced, had no effect on him.
Bloom went to university in the mid-1940s, so the trends were already well under way back then.
I ran across this quote from one of Hitler’s speeches just yesterday:
“[W]hen an opponent says ‘I will not come over to your side,’ I calmly say, ‘Your child belongs to us already…You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing but this new community.'”
Every department in this entire illegitimate administration (along with the vast Deep State, the whole bureaucratic apparatus) has, in effect, declared war on the tens of millions of ordinary citizens who refuse to accept the incessant lying and the brazen propaganda of the Democrats and of their willing accomplices, the MSM. Of all these instruments of oppression, none is more nakedly Stalinist than the Department of (In)Justice, nor can one easily determine who is the worst, Garland or Monaco or Gupta or Clarke. One hopes that the truly ghastly and mendacious McAuliffe will be defeated next week because of his support for the attacks on concerned parents in Virginia.
“…Virginia.”
A new development in the “Parents=Terrorists” scandal—no, make that “abomination”—
‘THE PLOT THICKENS: NSBA president Viola Garcia conspired with the Biden Administration to label parents “domestic terrorists,” then was rewarded with a prestigious appointment. It’s time for an investigation.’
https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1452726609119612928
https://twitter.com/ChuckRossDC/status/1452721154620264448
H/T Jeff Carlson twitter feed.
At this point “guilty until proven innocent” is a reasonable approach to people associated with university education departments.
Of course it’s the people who make a big deal about having an “open mind” that tend to be the most closed minded. More often than not they’re the ones who have a very structured, reductive view of the world, the relationships between human beings, and the ideal function of governments.
Parents calling out the Righteous One…
“Virginia parents slam Obama’s ‘tone-deaf’ dismissal of education issues amid alleged sexual assault”:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/virginia-parents-slam-obamas-tone-deaf-dismissal-of-education-issues-in-governor-race
(Don’t miss the Youngkin video in the article…)
Sowell confronts Obama on the latter’s venomous Virginia remarks:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/10/sowell-v-obama.php
From the Powerline post—
Key grafs (quoting Sowell):
“…This is one battle in a much bigger war, and the stakes are far higher than the governorship of Virginia or the Democrats and Republicans. The stakes are the future of this nation.
“…When school propaganda teaches black kids to hate white people, that is a danger to all Americans of every race. Anyone at all familiar with the history of group-identity politics in other countries knows that it has often ended up producing sickening atrocities that have torn whole societies apart….”
The National Review slams McAuliffe:
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/its-all-projection-mcauliffe-smears-youngkin-as-2020-truther-while-embracing-his-own-election-conspiracy/
Should have added this bulls-eye quote from Sowell to the 4:46 comment, above:
“…Parents who protest the arrogant abuse of a captive audience of children are performing an important public service. They deserve something better than having the Biden administration’s Attorney General threatening them…”
Do you think these folks would feel the same if students were getting right wing indoctrination in school? I don’t think so.
I am a senior, so I have no children or grandkids in the school. BUT, I do own a home in the district so I do have a say in what happens in the schools. The quality of the schools impact my property appraisal and taxes.
In the last election,I paid attention to the people who were running for the school board. I pay attention to all local elections since many people will start small, and then use the name recognition to move up the ladder. There was one person who attempted to do this upward movement, but she made the huge mistake of never finishing a position before running for the next one. She was eventually shot down once enough people realized what she was doing. So, pay attention to who is running for offices.
“It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.”
Pro-Choice is a many selective religion. Women, in particular, your rights ended with reproductive rites (i.e. one-child, delegated). Take a knee…
Kind of silly when Iserbyte and the author revealed a hell of a lot…
its WAY too late to do a thing about this process now… it has to go to its end
Sadly, even Putin is pointing out that this insanity came before..
10-15 years ago, i thought we would have a chance..
and was very annoying trying real hard to ring the bell
Resisting at the end is kind of like buying stock at high prices and selling low…
Every time I read a profile that has “educator” or “principal” or “teacher” anymore my mind just automatically thinks: “so, basically a failure”. Weird that they don’t see themselves that way. The whole system needs to be scrapped. They suck
This theory of “openness” as the most preeminent of all human values, is an interesting one.
But, its development is almost always in the context of a social polemic.
I have never seen it defended axiomatically; though I suppose it might be.
However, axiomatic or deduced moral schemes are in part what progressivism does away with; as it logically must when doing away with the fixed human natures, causes, and the ends which were capable of providing the constant points of reference and development necessary for such deductive schemes.
Instead, we are left with an “evolving” something, possibly headed, or maybe not, somewhere.
With neither the evolving nor the something which is doing the evolving, being clearly and definitely defined, much less where exactly this evolving something is headed, such an effort would be futile. Just as the more intelligent of the progressives realize.
So where is all this openness heading?
Some place good and ” tasty” we are assured. And if that place does not taste good to you – as in the instance of say, the Adult Male Fairy Queen dress up and exposure hour held for toddlers at the local library – it is because you are not evolved enough to appreciate its yummy goodness.
It is a closed loop system. A pointlessly throbbing, cosmic egg, with a nothing outside and a meaningless inside.
This is the worldview, at base of the progressive-thing.
It is in view of that, that John Lennon’s recently discussed “Imagine’ resonates so powerfully with a certain class of emotionally susceptible progressive.
Why they don’t just kill themselves and end their lives, is anyone’s guess. Probably having too much fun screwing with yours. All part of evolution … as they “Imagine”, it.
}}} back in the 40s…
As i have observed more than once…
PostModern Liberalism is a social cancer… Literally, not figuratively.
It developed out of Classical Liberalism following WW*I*, when, all those CLs, so proud of what Western Civ had wrought before WWI, saw that mankind’s propensity for folly and evil had not disappeared.
They turned on Western Civ with the vengeance of a woman scorned, and have generally sought to destroy Western Civ ever since…
It does not matter to them that the alternatives are far far worse, by any rational metric.
They HATE the West, and want it destroyed.
That this prof was saying things like that only shows that the vanguard was already starting to poison the well, even then.
They make considerably more money than they used to. They are protected by a powerful union(s), and can publicly despise and scoff at those who pay their wages.
I asked my first history professor in the university, a very famous scholar, whether the picture he gave us of George Washington did not have the effect of making us despise our regime. –Bloom
___________________________________
I’ve never been comfortable with Bloom’s argument against openness. Openness is a value for me.
Do we not discuss slavery in American history because it might have “the effect of making us despise our regime”?
The Federalist has an article out by a law professor who begs to differ.
https://thefederalist.com/2021/10/25/columbia-law-professor-explains-why-public-schools-are-tearing-america-apart/
Well said, Obloodyhell. I have encountered a couple of these people along the way. Both well educated, intelligent people. Yet, the cancerous ideology that Western Civ is guilty of murder, theft, and worse seems to have gotten deep in their souls. A burning hatred of the institutions and norms of our culture goes along with it. Also, deep envy of those who have achieved economic success. Though well educated they seem to have little grasp of what makes the system work. How does food get to the market, what a miracle electric lights are, why garbage collection is important, how a house gets built, why a plumber is so necessary to civilization, no appreciation for the internal combustion engine/jet engine, and so on. I don’t get why people become that way. It’s like a mental illness. Maybe everyone should have to spend some time with Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs Guy) to understand what drives the engine of our civilization.
Gadabouts asks and opines, “Do you think these folks would feel the same if students were getting right wing indoctrination in school? I don’t think so.”
Your question reveals your bias. Many of those parents are liberals. More significantly, conservatives don’t object to students being taught about America’s historical wrongs. It’s the exclusion of the rest of history resulting in a highly imbalancd ‘education’ i.e. leftist indoctrination to which they object.
Racism, native Americans, the Founding Fathers, the WWII internment of Japanese Americans and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are some of the more prominent issues that students receive only the leftist indoctrinator’s skillful lies about.
huxley:
If I recall correctly from previous discussions of Bloom, you were against his 1980s critique of rock music However, as I read Bloom, he was not against “openness” itself. He was against the jettisoning of the teaching of natural rights, and against the elevation of openness as the highest (and perhaps even only) value worth having.
Geoffrey Britain, you may have missed my point, which was that the authors mentioned at the top of Neo’s piece who think parents should just butt out would NOT think the same thing if students were going to schools and getting indoctrinated in, say, Catholicism. It’s Alan Dershowitz’s test for hypocrisy…put the shoe on the other foot,
“But openness…eventually won out over natural rights, partly through a theoretical critique, partly because of a political rebellion against nature’s last constraints.” Allan Bloom
If “natural rights” don’t exist, then the only basis for governance is some form of tyranny. Whether totalitarian, a dictatorship, an oligarchy or the tyranny of a minority or majority, changes that resultant reality not in the least.
A “political rebellion against nature’s last constraints” is essentially a rebellious rejection of reality itself.
In a nutshell, that encapsulates all of the left’s premises and panaceas. Most of all, the rejection of reality is its motivation.
Gadabouts,
I did miss your meaning. My apologies.
But isn’t this the wrong argument, in a way? Parents aren’t up in arms because they want to exercise day-to-day control over what their kids are taught. I think parents would easily buy into standard curriculums that teach basic educational skills and teach their kids how to learn, and they wouldn’t be micromanaging this. They would be content to use standardized metrics that evaluate performance for both students and teachers.
So it’s a false argument on the part of the ‘outraged’ educators. What parents are furious about is what they don’t want their kids being taught: Hating their country and being taught highly biased versions of history, being made ashamed or given a false superiority on the basis of their race, learning to trade off their identity rather than their natural talents, having standards lowered and cheating the students out of an education. These are not just parents butting in. These are parents taking control of their child’s upbringing and defending tender souls from being twisted by agenda-driven politicized educators who don’t have their best interests in mind. They are right.
But common law and case law in the United States have long supported the idea that education should prepare young people to think for themselves, — Jennifer B.
Where does the law speak to the goals and ideals of education? Especially centuries old common law. I don’t doubt that mention of such things can be found somewhere. Family court? Neo knows the law much better than I, so please comment if you feel like it.
I could be wrong, but this sounds like a rhetorical deception to me.
neo:
If you like, we can rehash my dissatisfaction with Bloom’s criticism of rock music. However, I have a specific concern about Bloom’s stance on openness here.
In the quote you provide, Bloom questions his first history professor for painting a picture of George Washington which has the effect of “making [students] despise our American regime.”
I’m wondering what sort of openness Bloom supports if he seems to oppose openness should it lead students to despise the American regime.
I liked the new Thomas Sowell article. Especially:
“When they graduate, and go on to higher education that could prepare them for professional careers, hating white people is not likely to do them nearly as much good as knowing math and English.”
I mean, hello??? That’s why there are plenty of black people who hate this CRT crap, too.
“Of course it’s the people who make a big deal about having an “open mind” that tend to be the most closed minded. More often than not they’re the ones who have a very structured, reductive view of the world, the relationships between human beings, and the ideal function of governments.”
Liberals are always telling us to open our minds; to hear them out on one of their arguments, to get information from a new source. It’d be nice if they’d take their own advice sometime. /s
@Huxley:
Well, Huxley… You see all about you the effects of Openness. All it means is that the most slippery manipulative sociopaths get to muscle and bull the discourse over into their dark corner where they proceed to beat the crap out of any dissenters — all in the name of Openness.
There is this naive believe that in a Marketplace of Ideas, the best ideas will win. This is nonsense. In the Marketplace of Ideas the Strong, the Devious, the Vicious, the Flatterer, and the Corrupter will ensure that their ideas push out the rest. And anything left over… well Bezos and Musk will buy enough of the aforementioned to get their say in, too.
So… we’re back to Who? Whom?
We always come back to this because we’re human. i.e. recalcitrant shits on an average day, total assholes on bad days… and Socrates one day in 500.
Mitigation is desirable and achievable, but cannot be approached from the idealistic angle. Must be grounded in who and what we are. If we want our educational system to be non-toxic for our children.. why then we’re going to have to put some pretty severe restrictions on what can and cannot be taught and by whom.
Random thought I just had on the topic of Sainted and Hallowed Openness.
Anyone who propounds Agora / Marketplace of Ideas / Public Square is likely a person who knows in his bones that he has better than average entrepreneurial / selling skills. Such a person is not disinterested. Such a person stands to *gain* by having things more his way.
Of course the Salesman sees a spot to spruik his Pitch as a Public Good. Knock me down with a feather.
Call me cynical. Call me a misanthrope. Sure! 🙂
There are no absolute goods in politics. I don’t know that I’d want to outlaw the Lagrangian, Tensors, and Orbital Mechanics.. so I’m not quite for bringing back the Inquisition… but the Okhrana might be a nice fit!
Zaphod:
So if Openness is bad, then that means thoughts and ideas must be controlled lest people deviate into ThoughtCrime?
huxley:
What makes you think that Bloom was arguing for not airing other points of view, such as that of his professor? I don’t see that he says anything of the sort anywhere. In the quote I gave, he says this following (my emphasis):
His objection was – as I wrote earlier – not to discussing these things, but to the elevation of openness to a sort of cult and a simultaneous ignoring of the Founders and natural rights and even a debunking of those things.
In other words, he’s talking about a complete change of balance and a new point of view that tries to invalidate the other point of view that was traditional and had values that went along with it. What’s more:
In other words, he asked whether the professor was aware of the effect this dramatic change in emphasis and direction would have on his students. The professor denied any such effect, which is absurd. He somehow thought the values would continue on their own without any teaching, and in the face of teaching that would necessarily have the effect of undermining and even destroying those values.
I think that’s quite clear from the text what sort of openness Bloom was supporting. Bloom was not censoring the professors. He was calling for some wisdom and balance, and he was criticizing their naive lack of awareness of the effects of what they were doing.
What’s more, I think that those points of Bloom’s were correct. We are seeing the fruits of this education.
By the way, by “openness” Bloom not only did NOT mean something like “non-censorship” and “airing of different points of view.” He meant (as I already said) the debunking of natural rights in the founding of the US – while simultaneously pushing moral relativism. There is another relevant quote from Bloom that I included in a different earlier post; here it is:
And also – Bloom’s critique of “openness” has nothing in common with Zaphod’s. Zaphod is a strict Machiavellian and has no problem with fighting tyranny with tyranny. Nor does he understand the value of liberty.
There was even a general tendency to debunk the Founding, to prove the beginnings were flawed in order to license a greater openness to the new.
To take a stab at answering huxley: Openness here is something of a tagline or misnomer for biased misrepresentation. That’s for starters. And it is fair to note that our society and cultures have progressed greatly over a few centuries, so that judging an 18th century world by 21st century standards is an easy hit job.
Moving from the openness smearing phase to the next phase which is structural churn that leads to structural chaos. The openness people have a cornucopia of new structural ideas that you must be open to trying out. When one fails there is always another even newer idea which will also be bad.
Finally, when the chaos and destruction gets really bad people will be ready for a muscular authoritarian solution. And when that solution is installed, the openness will cease, as planned.
To oversimplify, I think people have to decide for themselves whether the 2 to 3 thousands years of developing western civilization has been a great accomplishment or some huge perverted mistake. Were societies building one advancement on top of another for thousands of years or not? Middle grounds are possible of course.
______
Real openness is good. Phony openness is bad. Yes, it can be hard to tell the difference. Dishonesty is a “tell” if one can figure out who and where the lies and/or misinformation is.
Respect for what has worked reasonable well in the past is a good starting point. Radical wholesale change is usually a bad idea.
There’s a lawn sign in Virginia that says,
“Keep Parents Out of the Classroom
VOTE MCAULIFFE
Keep Virginia Blue”
neo:
There is something accusatory about “What makes you think..?” constructions.
Mine was a sincere question and I thought my comment made my concern clear.
I’ll mull your lengthy response over.
I saw this comment somewhere, and regret that I didn’t retain the commenter’s name:
“I believe in the free expression of ideas because I believe that my views will prevail in a free and open debate. Those who seek to suppress free speech do so because they also believe that my views will prevail in a free debate and open debate.”
I can see, given the first Bloom quote, why Huxley would – seemingly- take “openness” as a willingness to entertain or examine foreign seeming ideas … and the like.
I took the term to be much broader, much more psychological at root, and having not that much at all to do with the marketplace of ideas … but rather with the anthropology and ends of man.
It is the “natural law” phrase that clues one into the fact that it is more than just about the edification or building of a particular type of sentiment and appreciation in the youth, that is being mooted.
The big, “openness” is about the nature of “man” and the legitimacy [in so far as that concept of legitimacy can still obtain in an anthropology of the deconstructed ] of setting boundaries against trespass or upholding ideals.
It is about not only whether there is or ought to be anything or anyone inviolate in any way, but right down to whether there is a real “you”, there.
Progressives, at root, align with the position that there is not.
Which is what makes their morally phrased claims of behalf of their own appetite satisfactions and self-expressions so comical.
The self-expression of an indefinable appetite thing, demanding that it be respected. What a joke.
Cap’n Rusty,
That’s good, but I’d add something about learning, like this:
I believe in the free expression of ideas because I believe that my views will prevail in a free and open debate, or, if they do not then I will learn why my ideas are flawed and come away smarter. Those who seek to suppress free speech do so because they are afraid my views will prevail in a free and open debate and they do not wish to learn and change.
huxley:
“What makes you think such and such?” means that I don’t see the ambiguity that would lead that person to think such and such, and I’m curious what led that person there. It’s a question, not an accusation.
I think what Bloom was saying was clear, but obviously we disagreed on what he was saying. So I offered a further quote from Bloom that I thought might make it even more clear.
@Neo:
I absolutely understand the value of Liberty. However history and the affairs of men are cyclical and tidal and that thing isn’t coming around again for a while. There is no way to get from here to there directly via Openness or Liberty.
Kudos for the almost fair characterization of my position. I’m certainly a Machiavellian. I fail to see how any student of human affairs could be otherwise.
@Huxley:
Of course thoughts and ideas must be patrolled. Imagine for the sake of argument that you have grandchildren aged 6. What is your position on Drag Queen Story Hour?
And remember that Socrates was judicially murdered by a Democracy. By the products of the Marketplace of Ideas.
R.T. Firefly,
Thanks! Your version is ever so much better. Proving itself.
I’ll be giving you credit as I quote you. To whom should I send the royalties?
The very last thing those on the left want is a free and open debate. They’re not interested in facts, logic and reason. They’re interested in only one thing, control and the power it brings.
It doesn’t matter whether they tell themselves that it’s for the greater good. When assertions as to “the greater good” are challenged with fact based logic and reason and the objecting rationale is rejected without direct, fact based rebuttal, the rejection is an admission of an inability to respond appropriately. It is also either an indication of an unwillingness to examine the veracity of one’s position or to be knowingly promoting a falsity.
The willingness to lie to themselves and/or to others reveals their inner motivation to be insincere.
The willingness to justify whatever means are necessary to achieve what we think is best for everyone, reveals a broken moral compass.
There’s a great deal of difference between the willingness to use force to compel others and the willingness to use force to resist compulsion.
Those who support compulsion without a clear, logically defensible, fact based rationale, reveal themselves to be supporters of tyranny.
Zaphod:
Obviously I’m not omniscient, but I’ve read a huge number of your comments here and it is my very strong impression that you do not value liberty. Does that mean you don’t value it at all? No. But what I see you indicating here, over and over again, is that you don’t value it much and that it’s very low down on your list of priorities.
Of course, Machiavelli was a keen observer of human traits and failings, and the way power works. But he didn’t balance his realism with idealism.
As for Socrates, of course the marketplace of ideas doesn’t preclude injustice of various kinds. It’s one of those situations where the marketplace of ideas is the worst possible system except for all the others. However, wasn’t Socrates executed for introducing too many unacceptable ideas into the marketplace, and for “corrupting the youth” by asking too many “politico-philosophic questions” of them?
Re being a Machiavellian and having nothing against a bit of more or less enlightened Tyranny:
Most of us just want to be left alone and to not be forced to praise or participate in that which we find intolerable. Ask yourself which form of government gives you the most of that for the longest? Hint: the answer is not a Democracy or a Constitutional Republic — these invariably devolve rapidly into something which will get in your face, like it or no.
@neo:
It’s more likely Socrates was killed as part of the aftermath of the debacle at the end of the Peloponnesian War — especially the Syracuse Expedition… and then what happened later during the Spartan-imposed reign of the Thirty/Critias.
The whole thing was a pig’s breakfast, but he was a convenient scapegoat for a lot of stuff he didn’t do. I can’t see him as being responsible for Alcibiades or even Critias. Simple truth is that an Alcibiades could only flourish as a demagogue in a dysfunctional democracy… and Critias whilst a nasty piece of work was in the moment the only alternative to the entire population being treated like Melos by the victorious Spartans (which would have been only fair turn about Justice).
The People as a whole were guilty. They had to blame someone. Socrates was the Pharmakos… with a Pharmaceutical Twist.
‘Corrupting the Youth’ was a fig-leaf.
Besides… he was just engaging in the Culture of Critique.. What’s not to like? 😀
Aggie on October 25, 2021 at 7:48 pm
Very well stated. Thanks.
Socrates killed himself.
He preferred to die rather than not make himself obnoxious.
Plato eventually outgrew him. Compare “The Laws” to the earlier “Republic”.
I don’t know whether I.F. Stone’s ‘The Trial of Socrates’ stands the test of time; but it convinced me back when.
But then I might not have needed much convincing to shrug off the required pieties at the name of Socrates, having actually seen a bust of that bald headed pug nosed pederast; and having read the ancient accounts of his trial as well as Plato’s Republic and the principal dialogues. You however can read “Rival Lovers” for me.
Anyway, speaking of censorship and the Stalin shill and KGB funded pamphleteer I.F. Stone, try this experiment.
Enter, “I.F. Stone from communist funded subversive, to civil libertarian” first in Google. Then try it in Duck Duck Go.
The first, Google, brings you – or did me at least three tries – a list of ACLU plaudits. The second actually presents – or did me, twice – the links and synopses you would expect if you already had the information in outline.
This 1989 review is nothing special but touches the main points of “The Trial of Socrates” by Stone. I don’t even know who Welty is. Could even be an undergrad. Worth a glance to get the lay of the land.
http://www.wright.edu/~gordon.welty/Socrates_89.htm
Will give this suspiciously-monikered Stone a read if can find his original later. But first, the obligatory Early Life Check:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._F._Stone
Just gave Welty’s precis a skim. Basically what Isidor FeinSTEIN is accusing Socrates of is exactly what Kevin MacDonald would accuse him and his co-ethnics of doing: engaging in a relentless corrosive critique which white-ants the foundations of the polity.
Hmmm… Now which way should I jump?
*scratching mah haii-ed*
Better ask a Buryat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u5iHzag120&t=37s
OK… I’ve decided. Time to sell out and cash in! I’m going on the Grift and founding Judaeo Christians for Socrates. Off to hit up the Cabal for some seed capital.
The fact that the Greeks indulged in a spot of pederasty won’t hurt — should get me an endorsement from TPUSA. Every little bit counts!
Not The Bee’s take on the WaPo article, by “Jesse James.”
https://notthebee.com/article/dear-americans-they-believe-they-own-your-children
I don’t think he approved.
As if the dust-up over CRT wasn’t enough, here’s another reason parents are peacefully protesting at school board meetings.
https://freebeacon.com/campus/virginia-public-school-books-contain-images-too-pornographic-for-tv/
@ Barry > Here’s the Free Beacon story that underlies your twitter links; I read it earlier today. I’m sure they already had her name ready before the fan started distributing feces, but they made the announcement very shortly AFTER the brouhaha started.
Which means they are either fools (clueless about optics) or knaves (don’t care what the people think about their tyranny).
https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/school-board-association-president-got-federal-post-after-infamous-letter/
Zaphod,
Re: “Most of us just want to be left alone and to not be forced to praise or participate in that which we find intolerable. Ask yourself which form of government gives you the most of that for the longest? Hint: the answer is not a Democracy or a Constitutional Republic…”
Please, disabuse me of the notion that a Constitutional Republic is indeed the foremost form of government that allows us to be left alone and not be forced to praise or participate in that which we find intolerable. I really can’t think of one that is superior to it. Help me out here.
@ Barry > This is the Sowell post discussed at Powerline.
Need I point out that the Professor retired from public punditry not too long ago.
It takes something very important to get him back in print.
https://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell102521.php3
@ Gerard > Powerline has a good picture of that yard sign in this post.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/10/all-eyes-on-virgina.php
Steven thinks it’s a false flag, and it probably is.
One of the best.
https://i1.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-25-at-2.07.32-PM.png?w=1006&ssl=1
@GB:
The thing with Constitutional Republics is that they are demonstrably historically UNSTABLE. Getting into that state carries a significant butcher’s bill and then you have just managed to get yourself sitting balanced on top of a very tall spikey-looking local maximum in the political state space — and the slightest jiggle knocks you off of it and into various forms of chaos, tyranny, bloodshed. Rinse. Repeat.
There’ll never be another one in your lifetime or mine. Your Great-great grandchildren might live in one. Their grandchildren will be kicked off the spike and back into some kind of trough. Rinse. Repeat.
Do you really think it is worth it? Being able to rhapsodise about GW and the Cherry Tree and the Federalist Papers and Henry Adams and all that guff? It’s like you’ve got Sulla and Marius proscibing you from both ends and you’re going Muh Cincinnatus, Muh Scipio… Muh Cato the Elder… I mean if it helps you feel good and all..
@ Barry > in re the National Review post.
I suppose Youngkin is the best we can do in Virginia. Sigh.
The post was a Roundup, and included this relevant observation & a Tweet:
pic.twitter.com/YMZCHPGK3s
@Aesop:
Brilliant! At least some people are beginning to grasp how the game should be played (if at all).
The false-flag yard sign in Virginia cries out for a matching billboard.
https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2021/10/25/sign-me-up-terry-mcauliffe-stacey-abrams-have-delivered-quite-the-endorsement-of-glenn-youngkin/
Mocking ensues.
Jump away from tu quoque and “everybody’s doin it” patterns of thought.
As forms of criticism they are to valid impeachment as the 1, stupid if popularly misconstrued version of “argumentum ad absurdum” [sometimes even “reductio”], is to the 2. genuine, valid, reductio.
1. Idiot version: http://www2.humboldt.edu/act/HTML/tests/fallacy6/6.8a.html
2. Real version: https://iep.utm.edu/reductio/
But as a computer programmer, you know enough about logic to know this already.
By the way, smartass,
I have some work in mind for you to do in the way of critiquing the subject of an old 1980 BBC Everyman episode covering a once notorious early 1960’s phenomenon in the mountains of Spain. An event which I have mentioned in passing here before to a Catholic commenter. She, didn’t know what to make of it.
You have the right combination of skepticism – not to say cynicism, perception and cleverness to possibly offer a useful take on whether the woman interviewed is consciously fabricating or whether she herself believes what she is saying.
But alas I think that you might be too frivolous to undertake the serious analysis which you might be capable of. And I frankly doubt you could get through the first 5 minute intro featuring a bus load of miracle chasers, and make it to the actual interview and old film stock.
Observers seem divided between religious believers and religious debunkers with no neutral analyses of the “phenomenon”. I don’t think we in the West know what to make of these things, or even what to look at. You are not of the West. Now at least. And you are completely, raucously, cynically secular.
Even though the ultimate predictions involved seem to be a dead letter [if not the outrageously correct one re the fate of the RC Church prelature], and one of the 4 so-called “seers” has died, there is something that makes simple hysteria seem implausible as the precipitating factor in these weird events.
It bugs me man. LOL I cannot come up with a satisfying and convincing psychological explanation. Nor can I find anyone offering one.
We here, have many times at least alluded to observations of the somewhat “unique” mentality of some, I say some, females. What is going on with the particular girls in this instance is an example of that kind of mystery.
Someone mentioned “The Devils of Loudon” the other day. So an event like this is not in principle a topic that far afield.
Someone sharp, has to be able to do better with the matter than a shrug. Apparently I don’t know anyone sharp enough.
I’ve got to think about whether or not to dump the link here for you.
[What I would really like to see is a stop action analysis and breakdown offered by a clinical psychologist and maybe a human forensic lie detector.]
I just find it hilarious that a Usual Suspect had the Chutzpah to point the finger at Socrates for doing what Usual Suspects do. I think I provided enough context to imply that I found this both amusing and food for self-reflective thought given my at least moderate enthusiasm for Socrates cf. my less than fervent admiration of Jewish Intellectual Critique of pretty much everything that made Western Civ what it once was.
Tu Quoque sure. I’m too shameless to be shamed with that one!
So what were those Mad Spanish Bitches doing back when?
Frankly, the fact that it’s pretty much always women (off the top of my head can only dredge up Padre Pio) getting up to some religio-hysterical nonsense tells us all we need to know.
I’m not a dyed in the wool skeptic when it comes to the numinous, but I think it’s mostly that we humans are a damn sight madder than we like to admit to ourselves. Been around enough people in SE Asia who are highly suggestible and impressionable given their cultural milieus. Been around enough Whiteys who have convinced themselves that the oceans are going to rise and that they need to sacrifice less well-born whiteys to prevent it. Or that boys are girls. Show me the givens and I’ll show you the visions.
@ Gadabouts > “The Federalist has an article out by a law professor who begs to differ.”
Excellent post; thanks for the link.
Some of Professor Hamburger’s observations, from the original post (not behind the paywall), other than those quoted at Federalist:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/public-school-system-constitutional-private-mcauliffe-free-speech-11634928722?st=h8triss1ljq43uc&reflink=article_email_share
Is the Public School System Constitutional?
Education consists mostly in speech, and parents have a right under the First Amendment to exercise authority over what their children hear.
I don’t completely agree with that part about taxpayers being compelled to pay for government speech (NPR, PBS anyone?), but he’s probably referring to government policy pronouncements, which we have the alleged ability to affect through elections.
Those WaPo type folks DID get involved when “students were getting right wing indoctrination in school” – insofar as Christian religion seems to now be an exclusively right wing value.
And Hamburger points out the relevance of that decision.
And more.
“I think it’s mostly that we humans are a damn sight madder than we like to admit to ourselves.” — Thanks, Various C19/20 Jews, for that insight. Credit where due.
Plus Julian Jaynes for his Bicameral Mind theory. Obviously speculative but mucho entertaining and thought-provoking.
@AesopFan:
All very nice, but Leviathan will just make mincemeat of Hamburger.
Would you like fries with that?
AF, absolutely agree regarding Sowell.
What made him get back into the ring? (As you intimate, no small decision on his part.)
Seems to me that Obama’s latest demagogic exhortation—reeking with dishonesty and excessive even for him—together with McAuliffe’s, Abrams’s and Harris’s arrant and obvious disregard for the truth (augmented by the latter group’s shameless decision to target Black churchgoers as the preferred audience for their sordid and tendentious—even “unholy”—claims) pushed him “over the edge”.
Might one conclude that consumed, as it were, with the anger of the righteous, the nonagenarian warrior felt simply that he had to roll up his sleeves, gird his loins and do battle with the enemies of Truth?…
An amazing event, really, when one considers with whom he has decided to contend.
To be sure, he destroys them (even if the blind believers will fail to be so persuaded…).
Meandering even further off topic… re Julian Jaynes: The old Queensland Museum in Brisbane, Australia used to have two papuan (IIRC) mummies on display. Needless to say they’re not there anymore in the newer, woker premises.
These individuals began their long and varied post-life post-like careers tied to centre posts in their families huts or long houses. Why? Because obviously the dead are minor tutelary deities and are to be listened to. And how can you do that if they’re not gently smoked to a fine leathery consistency by your cooking fire?
Some mountain-dwelling Visigothic Bints still share 99.x% of the same DNA as Man Bilong Biltong. The rest is just Données & Weltanschauungen.
Be thankful I don’t wander off into the wilds of the Jesuits and the Rites Controversy… Who Really Lost China.
@BarryMeislin, @AesopFan:
More parsimonious answer is that Jewish World Review made him an offer he couldn’t refuse :P.
Mirthful fun aside, it’s good he stuck his neck out and said what he said. As good as if any other White intellectual of similar standing had said the same things. The fact that they cannot and dare not is really all there is to it, though.
Unmentioned in the whole K-12 uproar is why the provision of educational services has to be done by a government bureaucracy. Why not move to a free market.
Creating an educational endowment for each person and paying out annually when students attain an agreed level of mastery, using tests like the Texas STAAR, would change everything in a hugely positive way.
There has never been a better time to introduce competition into the K-12 educational system.
I propose creating an educational endowment for each student, with the money paid out only when that student achieves a specified annual level based on tests like the STAAR.
.
Education funds are currently paid in at the top and are expected to be used properly to educate the students. That is often not the case. The worst failures are in poor areas where a good basic education is most needed. Our current system also leaves dropouts to fend for themselves.
Students should be seen as customers for educational services, not inmates in a government factory school system.
We should change all state level funding to an endowment at the individual student level. The money stays in the student account until each level is met, making poor students much more valuable to educators who can catch them up. For example, bringing a fifteen year old at the sixth grade level up to sophomore level would pay four years of compensation to the successful educator.
Instead of leaving dropouts to fend for themselves, the funds would remain on deposit indefinitely, allowing those who got their act together after some time in the adult world to get an education.
Troubled students would have teachers and mentors who had a financial stake in the outcome. The dramatic difference in quality based on differences in community income levels would end.
Opening educational services to the free market will see most students moving through material much faster than at present. This will allow for practical job related instruction, and college level courses, to be included as providers fight for market share.
Competition among educational providers will make full use of technology, will provide useful training for actual jobs, will deliver far more education for the same money, and will free the taxpayers from the grip of an incredibly corrupt and self-serving educational establishment.
Our factory government school system is a relic of the past. We need to insure that everyone is educated, but trying to reform the current system is a hopeless task. Without competition nothing will ever change.
I don’t know what an ideal system would look like, but we can all agree on the desired results, and competition operating in the free market will bring it into being. I have followed the educational system all my adult life, and what we have now is ridiculous. By focusing on the desired result, which is student mastery of the required material as measured by tests like STAAR, we can bring about immediate major improvement.
I have several associates in the Black Community, and the appeal of this idea to them transcends ideological boundaries.
If state level funds were used to set up student endowments, paid out only after educational accomplishment, if would start dramatic positive change.
These people believe that your rights come from Government. They are not from nature, not from God, not natural rights. They are made up, specified, listed (or delisted) by and only by Government.
They believe the same is true of your kids. They are not your kids. They belong ‘to the people’, to the State. And the education of these kids belongs to the State, not you. You do not teach them a path, the difference between right and wrong, how to think, and how to make good judgements. The State, in it’s infinite wisdom does that.
They further believe that your life is not your own. Your money belongs to them. They make claim on it daily these days as they discuss how to track, and remove your money from you. And make no mistake about this: your money equals your time of life. You put in the time, the risk, the work to earn that. Their claim on your money is their claim on your time of life.
The State believes it has power and precedence over every aspect of your life. We’ve allowed this to grow and become what it is. Only we can ‘remind’ them that they work for us. They are nothing without our consent to govern. It’s time we removed that consent and cleaned our house. From local to state to Federal. The time has come.
And before someone says the annual tests will be slanted toward CRT or other ideologies, I know that. But the big difference is that people can see the test contents.
What is being required to determine educational mastery will be there in black and white.
Public debate on the content of classes at this point is not possible because of the games played and dishonesty of the educational establishment.
The old refrain by lefties that it will just lead to “Teaching to the test” is nonsense. Everything is teaching to the test. Want to drive a big rig, pass a test. The test determines that a minimum level of mastery is present. That is what is being paid for.
What Mr. Illyes said.
neo:
I think my concern about Bloom was clear and cogent. Bloom’s words:
I asked my first history professor in the university, a very famous scholar, whether the picture he gave us of George Washington did not have the effect of making us despise our regime.
Which I paraphrased reasonably:
Bloom questions his first history professor for painting a picture of George Washington which has the effect of “making [students] despise our American regime.”
And posed my concern:
I’m wondering what sort of openness Bloom supports if he seems to oppose openness should it lead students to despise the American regime.
My point is not that Bloom opposes discussion necessarily but that he seems concerned discussion lead people to “despise our Amerian regime.”
This leads to his campaign against openness, which strikes me as a category error. Merriam-Webster defines “openness”:
openness –the free expression of one’s true feelings and opinions
As I understand openness, it is not about the questions one asks or the conclusions one reaches, but an openness to questions and answers.
It seems to me Bloom opposes not openness, but the single-minded determination to criticize America and the West.
Dick Illyes,
Excellent suggestion. The educational system has to be completely revamped.
newmanian,
“These people believe that your rights come from Government.”
Since they believe that any and all rights are revocable, that belief eliminates the very concept of rights. These people believe that your privileges come from Government. Privileges may be granted and revoked as the State sees fit.
Allan Bloom’s book title indicates his critique of modern positivist openness teaching (think, say, of the arrogant ignorance present in K. Popper’s “The Open Society and Its Enemies”, following whom, George Soros himself [funny world]): such “openness” results in closing off thought, hence, teaching as an enterprise.
Laughably sad (as Jesus was seen to weep and Socrates to laugh, but neither the contrary). Something of the human condition, one may suppose.
Zaphod,
“The thing with Constitutional Republics is that they are demonstrably historically UNSTABLE. Getting into that state carries a significant butcher’s bill and then you have just managed to get yourself sitting balanced on top of a very tall spikey-looking local maximum in the political state space — and the slightest jiggle knocks you off of it and into various forms of chaos, tyranny, bloodshed. Rinse. Repeat.”
First, list specifically what other forms of government are superior in their stablity.
Second, specify what form of governance you favor.
Thirdly,
Our Constitutional Republic is the oldest on the face of the Earth.
The Roman Republic lasted somewhere between 400-500 years.
Totalitarian forms of governance are an abomination, yes?
Monarchies inevitably devolve into tyranny. In the 500 year existence of the western Roman Empire, it had but 5 good emperors. The rest were either mediocre, incompetent or monsters.
I assert that an unjust governance is inherently unstable. That the instability is commonly put down through force doesn’t correct the instability, it merely temporarily ‘caps the volcano’.
China’s Middle Kingdom was historically rife with instability with violent transitions in who ruled. No communist governance has lasted even two centuries. And, they only last as long as they can impose terror upon their populace.
America and the West’s representative democracies have been undermined by external and internal sabotage. That is the result of a failure of their citizens, not a reflection of a Constitutional Republic’s inherent instability.
If you hold that the citizens of a Constitutional Republic are inherently incapable of self-governance, which BTW was Socrates view, then your criticism is actually of human nature. In which case, no form of governance has yet been created which reliably ensures that successive competent rulers can be obtained. In fact, history repeatedly and consistently demonstrates otherwise.
That POV results in the inescapable conclusion that humanity is too flawed to achieve lasting and just governance.
“There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.” John Adams
Here is what is wrong with today’s America, in that a large percentage of its population, especially among its leadership, no longer embrace the following;
“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains* upon their own appetites.
In proportion, as their love to justice is above their rapacity.
In proportion, as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption.
In proportion, as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves.
Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.” Edmund Burke
* morality cannot be independent of religion
Morality cannot be independent of religion because absent the precept that morality extends from an entity beyond mortal man’s apprehensions of that which is morally correct and that which is morally incorrect, humanity is reduced to the individually subjective and/or the moral consensus of the mob. In the first case, societal cohesion is absent, in the second case the tyranny of the majority.
newmanian at 8:59, yes indeed.
The short version:
“You didn’t build that…you didn’t earn that…you didn’t birth that…not really…”
…with fondest wishes from the “It’s All Ours” Party (AKA “It Takes a Village” people…)
https://www.wbur.org/news/2012/07/26/obama-you-didnt-build-that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Takes_a_Village
“Morality cannot be independent of religion”
Point of order. Morality CAN be independent of religion. Such a moral order, however, would necessarily be significantly if not radically different from one based on religion.
On the K-12 thing, I saw a poll in Virginia that found something like 70% of Democrats believe schools boards should have more say about children’s education than parents, with majorities of Republicans and Democrats believing the opposite. Does anyone really think 70% of Virginia Democrats believe that?
Do Virginia Democrats with children actually think school boards know better than they do? Do even childless Virginia Democrats actually think school boards know better than they do? If those school boards suddenly mandated a GOP-friendly curriculum, would Virginia Democrats simply nod, smile, and go along?
It’s all performative nonsense and it’s another example of how nothing is really going to improve until a lot of people get painfully reacquainted with reality.
Mike
A main problem here boils down to the language issue.
“Education” has been redefined (AKA transformed) by the usual suspects into hiding its actual meaning: the extreme indoctrination and brainwashing of children with the latest in sophisticated Leftist sewage.
So that the claim, “Parents have no business in the classroom” and/or “Parents have no business telling us what to teach”—which would make a lot more sense if the teachers truly felt RESPONSIBLE for providing their charges with a decent and genuine education—REALLY MEANS, “Parents have no business telling us NOT to indoctrinate their kids; no business telling us NOT to brainwash their kids WITH OUR TRUTHS…” (“with our truths” actually meaning, of course, “with the latest iteration of our steaming hot baldersdash”…. Fresh off the press, as it were.)
It’s as simple as that. Dishonesty piled upon dishonesty expressed with utter dishonesty.
Orwell again (sigh)….
I guess the “good” news is that more and more people are seeing all these perfumed cowpies for what they are. Moreover, they are beginning to notice WHICH POLITICIANS support the hijacking of education and the emotional/spiritual kidnapping of their children. (Actually, it’s hard NOT to notice at this stage.)
As Orwell pointed out long ago, the Left always misuses words to express ideas/thoughts that are the opposite of their common meaning. What they do, wish to do, is so contrary to human nature that a mask, a lie, is needed to keep truth at bay.
Related:
“Surgeon Fired After Telling School Board Parents Should Make Children’s Healthcare Choices”
https://www.newsmax.com/us/minnesota-surgeon-school-board-mask-mandate/2021/10/26/id/1042038/
At some point, they’re going to go a step too far….
At some point, they’re going to go a step too far…
Again, someone signed a letter terminating him. What is that person’s name and why doesn’t anyone show up at their home and start demanding answers, show up in the parking garage and start demanding answers?
While we’re at it, the ‘CEO’ of “Lake Region Healthcare” is a lawyer. The ‘chief medical officer’ is a podiatrist. She’s the only medical professional in their executive suites.
You think maybe an organization run by a lawyer is an organization where the compliance people have taken over? (And been allowed to do so by the collection of businessmen and lawyers on their board?).
A huge part of this campaign is to make people very afraid.
Don’t listen to what we tell you? You’re fired.
Refuse to follow our instructions? We’ll take away your pension.
Object to our mandates? You won’t be admitted to any hospital for ANYTHING.
It takes a lot of courage to stand up to these threats.
And those making such threats are thugs of the worst order.
What the citizenry has to deal with is, in addition, a war of attrition waged by the Federal government and its agencies; and by all too many Democratic run State governments and Municipal governments.
With the disgusting media’s encouragement—a media that does its best to make sure that no contradictory information seeps out.
The Loudoun county parents rallied to the cause and one hopes they will inspire others; but how many are willing to sacrifice their futures and that of their families…when “just go along” is so much easier?
Also, it seems to me (I could be wrong here) that the rape that unfortunately occurred—actually, that was ALLOWED to occur by school board policies—galvanized much of the pushback, especially when the first rape was uncovered, especially when it became clear that the school board officials were lying non-stop even as they were threatening parents.
And so all power to the parents who stood up. (There’s strength in numbers especially when the cause is righteous and one feels that one’s back is against the wall.)
Essentially, their cry was “Get your hands off our kids!!”
But what would have happened had there been no rape to galvanize this epic pushback, which may in fact (it remains to be seen) ultimately cost the Democrats the governorship of the state. (One can hope.)
It’s entirely possible that the pushback would have been THE SAME absent this violent violation and the attempt to cover it up AS WELL AS cast the parents as “terrorists”—for standing up for their kids; but absent this gross and indecent public exposure by the school board, its leadership and its members, maybe it wouldn’t have happened the way it did.
I’d like to think so, but… there’s no way to be sure….
Of course this Left push is not new, but simply a continuation, since they never truly give up. This quote below – I do not have a link to as it is from some “Free Republic” files I saved many computers ago.
From N.Y. Post 11/26/99 “….. A well-placed story this week in the Washington Post painted Starr-successor Robert Ray as a social troglodyte of the first order. The evidence? In 1993 and again in 1996, Ray ran for the board of Community School District 13, in Brooklyn’s Park Slope, as a member of the Children’s Slate — whose principal plank was opposition to the infamous Rainbow Curriculum. Remember “Heather Has Two Mommies?” “Daddy’s Roommate?” Condom instruction for third-graders — and teaching approvingly about homosexuality as a matter of “tolerance” in the first grade? That was the Rainbow Curriculum. While the Washington Post characterized that preposterous gaggle of radical edu-junk as “a multicultural approach to teaching children about alternative lifestyles,” it was — in point of fact — about much more than that. It was an outrageously age-inappropriate effort at social indoctrination, undertaken by then-Schools Chancellor Joseph Fernandez and a coalition of activists — who, in the end, almost won. But they didn’t, and soon Fernandez was sent packing……”
Stepping back from the navel gazing and closer to the OP for a moment, the NASB did publish an apology for the infamous “Terrorism Letter” a few days back. Did that get any play here? Apologies if I missed it.
Not that I considered this act of contrition genuine, mind you (cratering membership and subsequent loss of dues tend to bring focus back to the discussion), but it should make for interesting testimony this week from AG Garland.
Oh, you must be referring to that “So sorry we got caught (on several counts)” apology.
Yeah, that was one impressive apology! And so SWIFT!! Not to mention convincing…
(How does one spell, “pathetic and misconceived damage control”?)
Actually, I’m beginning to wonder if the entire nation owes the NASB a huge debt of gratitude for so spectacularly exposing itself—and not JUST itself—in the way it has….
(One awaits, with bated breath, the ramifications that one hopes will come barreling down the pike.)
Fired Minnesota surgeon follow-up:
“Hundreds rally in Fergus Falls for recently fired surgeon”
https://www.valleynewslive.com/2021/10/25/hundreds-rally-fergus-falls-recently-fired-surgeon/
H/T Instapundit
Sire! The peasants are revolting!!
H/T “Wizard of Id”…
“…Thousands Of NYC Workers March Against Vaccine Mandates”:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/lets-go-brandon-and-f-de-blasio-thousands-of-nyc-workers-march-against-vaccine-mandates
+ Metaphor Alert!?
“Feel-Good Story of The Week: Elephants Stomp Another Poacher”:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kevindowneyjr/2021/10/26/feel-good-story-of-the-week-elephants-stomp-another-poacher-n1526955
H/T Instapundit (for both)
MBunge,
“Point of order. Morality CAN be independent of religion. Such a moral order, however, would necessarily be significantly if not radically different from one based on religion.”
I wish it were so. Put most simply, a moral order separate from relgious precets would be based on the Golden Rule. Were humanity composed of entirely rationale beings, that would indeed be sufficient. However,such is not the case.
Again, the reason that morality cannot be divorced from religious precepts is because when morality is absent religion’s fundamental precept of a law giving creator, society devolves to the individually subjective and/or the moral consensus of the mob. In the first case, societal cohesion is absent, in the second case the tyranny of the majority.
Rather than just disagree without direct rebuttal, address as to why a secular morality does not devolve into the categories I’ve described.
Geoffrey Britain:
I think that for most people who claim that morality can be separate from religious underpinnings, they are speaking of individuals rather than societies. In other words, there are some religious people whose behavior is immoral and some atheists who lead very moral lives.
I also think there is an element of custom. For example, some European nations that have cultural and legal underpinnings that are Christian, and whose populations are now far less religious than in the past, still haven’t degenerated into some lawless chaos regarding criminal behavior, for example.
neo,
I completely agree that individuals can be highly moral without precepts based in religion. There are exceptional individuals who naturally live by the Golden Rule. Many individuals with a strong sense of ethical principles. Though for a variety of reasons, less in every generation.
Which is why I spoke of societal factors. When individuality is the primary determinate for a society’s ethical norms, societal dissolution will increase with succeeding generations. “Do as you will, will be all of which the law consists” because “if there is no God, then everything is permitted”.
That will in turn lead to tyranny because a tipping point will be reached in which the majority demand that order be restored.
As for Western Europe, as all here realize, it has been moving toward an ever growing authoritarianism with strong elements of tyranny starting to emerge. That will continue to increase both because they do not have constitutional safeguards, nor a legal guarantee of free speech and have abandoned their Christian heritage in favor of the left’s premises.
Eastern Europe appears to be a mix of some nations resisting and some embracing authoritative trends.
GB – to your request for direct rebuttal, hopefully this gets us at least partly there:
Social cohesion:
1) the relative role of genetic instinctual inheritance of our evolved psychology provides a common baseline for all humanity, so here is your social cohesion by a “force” that cannot be denied, even if it is not (or may not be) divine, as we are all essentially human (4% as psychopaths excepted?). Our sociality and our empathy give us an orientation to cooperation and the Golden Rule — golden as it is almost universally acknowledged.
Consensus of the mob:
2) and the relative role of culture to define “morality” on top of that. The implied but unstated “religion” you reference is really the Judeo-Christian version, as modified over the centuries with papal cannon law, the common law, scientific and political advances of the enlightenment, and other influences. We have ended up with “all are created equal” and “consent of the governed” as the better/ best approach (as you mentioned to Z), coupled to separation of powers and balancing of powers, and enumerated and non-enumerated rights. A human design that is not perfect but does tend to limit tyranny.
These four books have helped me to understand these ideas:
1) Darwinian Natural Right: The Biological Ethics of Human Nature by Larry Arnhart | Apr 2, 1998
2) The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures by Nicholas Wade | Nov 12, 2009
3) Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism by Larry Siedentop | Oct 23, 2017
4) Dominion by Tom Holland | Mar 23, 2021
@GB:
“Morality cannot be independent of religion because absent the precept that morality extends from an entity beyond mortal man’s apprehensions of that which is morally correct and that which is morally incorrect, humanity is reduced to the individually subjective and/or the moral consensus of the mob.”
Agree. So how do you plan on imposing one? It’ll have to be by force, you know.
R2L,
Thank you for a direct response.
“genetic instinctual inheritance of our evolved psychology provides a common baseline”
That is the most basic of physical commonalities. Unfortunately it is insufficient as a determinate to cultural behavior, which is determined by a culture’s moral assumptions.
“Our sociality and our empathy give us an orientation to cooperation and the Golden Rule”
The historical spectrum of various cultural moral precepts demonstrates that sociality and empathy do not lead to a cultural embrace of the Golden Rule. Very few if any cultures have embraced the Golden Rule.
Zaphod,
Morality cannot be imposed. Obedience and compliance can be imposed but that leads to societal instability.
A majority within a society must embrace it. Most people are well intentioned, especially when they see moral precepts to be in their self-interest.
What’s keeping Americans from seeing that classical liberal values combined with certain conservative values are in their self-interest is the manipulations of the Left.
In the aggregate, people choose to do the right thing when given all the facts because truth is persuasive. Truth however without wisdom is incomplete.
“But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.” Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
Who said that child abusers don’t have any values?…
‘Pennsylvania school district (Tredyffrin/Easttown) saying you can’t view their Critical Race Theory policies, training, and what they are teaching students because it would be a “copyright violation.” ‘
https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/1453204786187276288
H/T Ron Coleman twitter feed.
File under: Parents should be seen but NOT heard.
The knee jerks obsessively. Pavlov’s dog was more of a free thinker.
Dick Illyes on October 26, 2021 at 8:51 am. I agree. We need to take active steps to defeat the Left and school choice is a winning issue. Here are some suggestions of concrete steps that we can do:
California has approved the gathering of signatures for a school choice initiative. Donate to them even if you do not live in California. The initiative will have nationwide implications.
https://www.californiaschoolchoice.org/
Donate to the home schooling legal defense association to help homeschooling parents battle state bureaucracies. https://hslda.org/
Donate to EdChoice.org to advocate for school choice across the country.
If other posters have ideas to take active steps. post them here and at other conservative websites.
“Rather than just disagree without direct rebuttal, address as to why a secular morality does not devolve into the categories I’ve described.”
Oh, I’m not saying it won’t but even degenerate morality is still morality. Not to be pedantic dictionary guy but morality is just “principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.” There’s no reason at all that still couldn’t happen in a completely atheistic society. Such a moral system might be extremely fragile or extremely crude but it would still be a moral system.
An atheistic morality, however, would simply make distinctions between right and wrong, not good or bad and that makes all the difference.
Mike
@Geoffrey Britain:Again, the reason that morality cannot be divorced from religious precepts is because when morality is absent religion’s fundamental precept of a law giving creator, society devolves to the individually subjective and/or the moral consensus of the mob.
So the religion that provides these precepts, is it chosen in some other way than the individually subjective and/or the moral consensus of the mob? This really sounds like “turtles all the way down” morality which is not IMHO an improvement over postulating a single turtle to support your moral system.
These religions don’t all say the same thing, and I think hardly anyone would say there cannot possibly be an evil religion. In fact quite a lot of people are happy declare all religions not theirs to be evil religions. So I think we’re back to individually subjective and/or mob consensus, absent each person getting directly the same divine revelation.
Footnote: My religion? Why I’ve had that direct revelation and so don’t have any questions about which is the correct one and what it says about what to do. But I don’t ask you to find it out from me, instead from the Source I went to. I’m afraid though that even if you get it and even if it’s the same as mine, we can’t base public order on it unless we all agree publicly on what it is. Some of us will be confused, and some of us will lie, and we’re back to the individually subjective and/or the consensus of the mob.
MBunge,
“even degenerate morality is still morality.
Agreed.
“morality is just “principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.”
That’s certainly true for the individual.
“There’s no reason at all that still couldn’t happen in a completely atheistic society. Such a moral system might be extremely fragile or extremely crude but it would still be a moral system.”
Upon what basis do you imagine that disparate individuals in an atheistic society would reach a majority consensus? Such to form lasting societal stability? Absent the unifying theme of divine revelation (the premise advanced in all major religions), every person’s personal morality will be subjective and thus chaotic from a societal perspective.
“An atheistic morality, however, would simply make distinctions between right and wrong…”
The individual atheist absolutely makes their own personal, subjective distinctions between right and wrong.
Wherein the problem lies is when one atheist tries to get another atheist to agree to abide by their morality. A necessity if boundaries are to be respected. But boundaries vary when the subjective and personal is the determinate.
If for instance, I don’t agree with the concept of private property, how do you (absent force) keep me from taking your car? Moving into your home and helping myself to the food you’ve bought? Hey, that’s my morality, who are you to tell me that your personal morality is correct and mine incorrect?
That’s the case society wide, when personal subjective morality is the only determinate. Which eventually leads to societal chaos, which leads to demands by the majority for order, whatever it takes, which results in tyranny because overwhelming force is needed to “herd cats”.
@Geoffery Britain:Upon what basis do you imagine that disparate individuals in an atheistic society would reach a majority consensus?
Lol the atheists I encounter online don’t seem to have much trouble forming a consensus on most issues. Generally they’re fully on board with the war on Eurasia.
Nihilists! F*** me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.
–Walter Sobchak, “The Big Lebowksi”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J41iFYO0NQA
________________________________
Eventually everything comes back to “The Big Lebowski.”
Frederick,
“So the religion that provides these precepts, is it chosen in some other way than the individually subjective and/or the moral consensus of the mob?”
Not at all. All major religions start with an individual who persuades others that they have directly experienced divine revelation.
No, they don’t all say the same thing and IMO there have been and are evil religions. But I’m not arguing that all religions have to say the same thing. I’m simply asserting that societal stability requires a consensual moral system and that only religion can provide such a system because it posits connection to an entity that stands above mankind’s limited and subjective understanding. Absent that entity, humanity is reduced to the individually subjective and that has too in time lead to societal dissolution and from there to tyranny.
“I’ve had that direct revelation and so don’t have any questions about which is the correct one and what it says about what to do. But I don’t ask you to find it out from me, instead from the Source I went to.”
I can’t claim to have had direct revelation but agree that direct pursuit of the Source is necessary. That said, we all will benefit from a “way shower”, one who has already made the trek.
“And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”
Luke 9:23 KJB
“Upon what basis do you imagine that disparate individuals in an atheistic society would reach a majority consensus? Such to form lasting societal stability? Absent the unifying theme of divine revelation (the premise advanced in all major religions), every person’s personal morality will be subjective and thus chaotic from a societal perspective.”
Uh, how many actual people do you know? Human beings are relatively similar in outlook and impulses. A consensus on stuff like “don’t kill,” “don’t steal,” “don’t lie,” etcetera would be quite easily assembled. The vast majority of human beings have some level of empathy and some desire for company and that provides the basis for some sort of non-religious morality.
The issue with non-religious morality isn’t existential. It’s practical. How well would such a moral code function? How functional would its resultant society be? How easy or hard would it be to perpetuate such a code from generation to generation?
For example, it’s difficult to imagine a non-religious morality not being influenced a great deal by utilitarianism. But can you have a high-trust society under such conditions? A low-trust society will be much less economically dynamic and prosperous, which then creates additional pressures on the governing moral code.
Mike
“Absent that entity, humanity is reduced to the individually subjective and that has too in time lead to societal dissolution and from there to tyranny.”
Dude, religion has been around since essentially the beginnings of Humanity and tyranny of one sort or another has also been the normal state of human existence until roughly the last century or so…and possibly not even that.
Mike