A Stoic Response To The Climate Crisis

[Belinda]

Henry Quirk wrote:

still missin' the point

Then ask me an intelligent question.

[Belinda]

how so?

When you are using a ruler to measure a table, you are also using the table to measure the ruler.

So the measurable world is made up of particular entities? Or does the act of measuring create entities from undifferentiated energy?

[Walker]

how so?

When you are using a ruler to measure a table, you are also using the table to measure the ruler.

no

If you’re a furniture mover you measure tables with your feet (or stride) and you measure feet with shoe sizes, not a table (unless you're Andre the Giant), although admittedly it is possible to calibrate a shoe sizer with a ruler.

[Impenitent]

-Imp

[Nick_A]

Nick, how would you educate youths but not indoctrinate them ?

I tried this once in the secular intolerance thread which provoked so much nastiness it isn't something i would initiate. but I would just contribute. As long as the ideas remain genuine it is dangerous.

However I will say that indoctrination is aimed at the personality of a student while ecuaction is designed for the soul of Man. Those suggesting that they are different are not tolerated by secularism.

Both use the term Eudaimonia. Sometimes it is translated as happiness. Modern indoctrination is aimed at what society has decided leads to a person's happiness. The purpose of education is to arouse in the student what is essential for its soul to reach its essential purpose or what allows it to become happy.

The trouble is discussing the difference between the indoctrination of personality and the education of soul knowledge is a taboo subject because the difference isn't understood and denied from the beginning. So sadly it must be avoided for the sake of keeping the peace.

“Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one.” ~ Socrates.

Distinguishing between arousing the qualities of the inner man and indoctrrinating the acquired values of the outer man when the differences are rejected leads to intense nastiness. Public education as it now exists is not ready for it.

[Walker]

-Imp

With its design, scratches and blemishes a little three-foot table tells more tales than the silence of a budding stoic but unlike the table, having transcended the imprisoning resistance or attraction to passion*, a stoic in full flower is no longer limited by detachment or befuddlement, and to the delight of many may even smell like roses in the Spring on shower day.

* often happens to old folks naturally

[henry quirk]

no

Yes.

My ruler is exactly 1/3rd of my table.

I don't care what you measure or how.

I got no stomach for wanderin' down Peacock Lane.

Up-thread, B commented on Walker, Mannie, and me. I observed her comment said more about her than us.

That's it, that's all.

Go play with somebody else.

[henry quirk]

Henry Quirk wrote:

still missin' the point

Then ask me an intelligent question.

I have no questions for you.

Up-thread, I asserted sumthin' about ownnes.

That's it, that's all.

Mebbe skep will dance with you.

[Walker]

Speakin' of schoolboys: what happened to that lil shit, David Hogg? Same thing that's gonna happen to Greta, I imagine.

Is that pronounced hog, as in pig?

He’s now a Harvard Man, as they say, and a budding community organizer likely with an eye on running for some political office down the road. If you last long enough he may even be your president since by then he will be running on the hook of oppressed minority. His current vehicle for attracting his life-blood media is to attack the NRA. Until he’s old enough to shave he’s probably going to ride that pony with the goal of mingling at high levels with known masters of selling non-harassment insurance, the kind where if you pay your premiums on time to the bagman your windows don’t get broken or your company doesn’t get chewed up by bad publicity caused by demonstrations, media-fueled boycotts and social condemnation from the press, the entertainment industry, and civilian virtue-signalers.

[Belinda]

Nick_A wrote in answer to my question regarding indoctrination and education:

However I will say that indoctrination is aimed at the personality of a student while ecuaction is designed for the soul of Man. Those suggesting that they are different are not tolerated by secularism.

I agree in principle but I'd say it differently. I'd not say 'soul' for instance. I'd also name actual teaching methods. and curriculums that aim to educate not indoctrinate. I did initial teacher training during the early 70s when child led methods were very much in vogue. I still adhere to these principles and so do most teachers I know and have heard of.

It's a straw man that teachers are not believers in education and despise indoctrination.

The academic community from primary school to university is under siege from commercial and narrow political interests which may be subsumed under the title 'Authority'. The means for youths to stand against Authority is to teach youths reason, good judgement, and sources of accurate knowledge.

These are what we all need as our response to the climate crisis, and the crisis of covid19.

[Nick_A]

Nick_A wrote in answer to my question regarding indoctrination and education:

However I will say that indoctrination is aimed at the personality of a student while Eudaimonia is designed for the soul of Man. Those suggesting that they are different are not tolerated by secularism.

I agree in principle but I'd say it differently. I'd not say 'soul' for instance. I'd also name actual teaching methods. and curriculums that aim to educate not indoctrinate. I did initial teacher training during the early 70s when child led methods were very much in vogue. I still adhere to these principles and so do most teachers I know and have heard of.

It's a straw man that teachers are not believers in education and despise indoctrination.

The academic community from primary school to university is under siege from commercial and narrow political interests which may be subsumed under the title 'Authority'. The means for youths to stand against Authority is to teach youths reason, good judgement, and sources of accurate knowledge.

These are what we all need as our response to the climate crisis, and the crisis of covid19.

All you are doing is denying the essence or soul of Man while advocating acceptable aims or indoctrintion for the young personlity in order to deal with temporary pragmatic problems like climate change

But the truth is that anyone willing to contemplate the difference puts themselves in danger in the secular wold. It simply is not tolerated and this attitude explains how little it is known. Education for the needs of the soul of man has been denied in favor of indoctrinating the personality of Man decided by the whims of those in power..That is why you won't find threads on the deeper Platonic meanings of Eudaimonia. It is too risky, insulting, and disturbs the peace.

[Walker]

The academic community from primary school to university is under siege from commercial and narrow political interests which may be subsumed under the title 'Authority'. The means for youths to stand against Authority is to teach youths reason, good judgement, and sources of accurate knowledge.

Not everyone is cut out for the university, so the university adapts by expanding programs with lower standards of intellectual rigor ... such as remedial classes.

In the US, what career options does society offer a poor kid other than huge college debt or military? Some unions (pipefitters) offer apprenticeship education and training for free, with a guaranteed job afterwards leading to a middle-class life. Promoting this more realistic approach to life preparation is an interest of the Trump administration, and an antidote to welfare.

Are you familiar with Robert Pirsig’s philosophy of education as explained in Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? (I no longer have a copy.)

[Belinda]

Walker, it is something to do with motor bike mechanics doing the maintenance of the machines with devoted love rather than doing the work to earn money.

I know the world of academia is imperfect and has enemies within and without. Universities have to earn their bread. There are however safeguards so that academic standards are maintained in research and publication and as far as possible in teaching students.

PS University education is not simply for people to get better jobs. It is also to benefit individuals with life skills and thereby advance the cause of personal freedom and free society.

[Nick_A]

Well it seems people do not distinguish between the essence and personalty of human being for the sake of education. Why not begin this indoctrination process at the pre-school level?

The results are why so many swallowed that hope and change nonsense from Obama.

As Spock would say: fascinating.

[Walker]

Walker, it is something to do with motor bike mechanics doing the maintenance of the machines with devoted love rather than doing the work to earn money.

I know the world of academia is imperfect and has enemies within and without. Universities have to earn their bread. There are however safeguards so that academic standards are maintained in research and publication and as far as possible in teaching students.

PS University education is not simply for people to get better jobs. It is also to benefit individuals with life skills and thereby advance the cause of personal freedom and free society.

I found the passage I was thinking of, online. It’s a good philosophy of education although it rubs vested interests the wrong way, since it emphasizes education according to interests and capacity, rather than conditioning the expectations of education towards college for all.

*

“The idea that the majority of students attend a university for an education independent of the degree and grades is a little hypocrisy everyone is happier not to expose. Occasionally some students do arrive for an education but rote and the mechanical nature of the institution soon converts them to a less idealistic attitude.

“The demonstrator was an argument that elimination of grades and degrees would destroy this hypocrisy. Rather than deal with generalities it dealt with the specific career of an imaginary student who more or less typified what was found in the classroom, a student completely conditioned to work for a grade rather than for the knowledge the grade was supposed to represent.

“Such a student, the demonstrator hypothesized, would go to his first class, get his first assignment and probably do it out of habit. He might go to his second and third as well. But eventually the novelty of the course would wear off and, because his academic life was not his only life, the pressure of other obligations or desires would create circumstances where he just would not be able to get an assignment in.

“Since there was no degree or grading system he would incur no penalty for this. Subsequent lectures which presumed he'd completed the assignment might be a little more difficult to understand, however, and this difficulty, in turn, might weaken his interest to a point where the next assignment, which he would find quite hard, would also be dropped. Again no penalty.

“In time his weaker and weaker understanding of what the lectures were about would make it more and more difficult for him to pay attention in class. Eventually he would see he wasn't learning much; and facing the continual pressure of outside obligations, he would stop studying, feel guilty about this and stop attending class. Again, no penalty would be attached.

“But what had happened? The student, with no hard feelings on anybody's part, would have flunked himself out. Good! This is what should have happened. He wasn't there for a real education in the first place and had no real business there at all. A large amount of money and effort had been saved and there would be no stigma of failure and ruin to haunt him the rest of his life. No bridges had been burned.

“The student's biggest problem was a slave mentality which had been built into him by years of carrot-and- whip grading, a mule mentality which said, "If you don't whip me, I won't work." He didn't get whipped. He didn't work. And the cart of civilization, which he supposedly was being trained to pull, was just going to have to creak along a little slower without him.

“This is a tragedy, however, only if you presume that the cart of civilization, "the system," is pulled by mules. This is a common, vocational, "location" point of view, but it's not the Church attitude.

“The Church attitude is that civilization, or "the system" or "society" or whatever you want to call it, is best served not by mules but by free men. The purpose of abolishing grades and degrees is not to punish mules or to get rid of them but to provide an environment in which that mule can turn into a free man.

“The hypothetical student, still a mule, would drift around for a while. He would get another kind of education quite as valuable as the one he'd abandoned, in what used to be called the "school of hard knocks." Instead of wasting money and time as a high- status mule, he would now have to get a job as a low-status mule, maybe as a mechanic. Actually his real status would go up. He would be making a contribution for a change. Maybe that's what he would do for the rest of his life. Maybe he'd found his level. But don't count on it.

“In time...six months; five years, perhaps...a change could easily begin to take place. He would become less and less satisfied with a kind of dumb, day-to-day shopwork. His creative intelligence, stifled by too much theory and too many grades in college, would now become reawakened by the boredom of the shop. Thousands of hours of frustrating mechanical problems would have made him more interested in machine design. He would like to design machinery himself. He'd think he could do a better job. He would try modifying a few engines, meet with success, look for more success, but feel blocked because he didn't have the theoretical information. He would discover that when before he felt stupid because of his lack of interest in theoretical information, he'd now find a brand of theoretical information which he'd have a lot of respect for, namely, mechanical engineering.

“So he would come back to our degreeless and gradeless school, but with a difference. He'd no longer be a grade-motivated person. He'd be a knowledgemotivated person. He would need no external pushing to learn. His push would come from inside. He'd be a free man. He wouldn't need a lot of discipline to shape him up. In fact, if the instructors assigned him were slacking on the job he would be likely to shape them up by asking rude questions. He'd be there to learn something, would be paying to learn something and they'd better come up with it.

“Motivation of this sort, once it catches hold, is a ferocious force, and in the gradeless, degreeless institution where our student would find himself, he wouldn't stop with rote engineering information. Physics and mathematics were going to come within his sphere of interest because he'd see he needed them. Metallurgy and electrical engineering would come up for attention. And, in the process of intellectual maturing that these abstract studies gave him, he would he likely to branch out into other theoretical areas that weren't directly related to machines but had become a part of a newer larger goal. This larger goal wouldn't be the imitation of education in Universities today, glossed over and concealed by grades and degrees that give the appearance of something happening when, in fact, almost nothing is going on. It would be the real thing.”

https://www.drury.edu/academics/undergr ... Pirsig.pdf