Equality

[Immanuel Can]

On some level, don’t parents shape public education?

Public educators resist that...partly legitimately, but mostly illegitimately.

There are some really mentally-unbalanced parents out there, and giving them control of their own kids' education can be bad enough; giving them a say in someone else's child is a disaster. But the majority of parents are not like that, and want good things. Yet the public education system shuts them out, too, so they also don't really know what's going on. There are administrative and strategic walls that prevent them from finding out, walls that conceal what's really going on in the classroom, walls like "public relations," "curriculum books" and "educational jargon," and the most important wall of all, "not telling people what is really going on".

And the kids don't really know what's being done to them, so they really can't say. They imagine that their teachers are always there in some legitimate interest, and they think they're on board with the parents.

But often, they're not.

[Immanuel Can]

Adults have to be protected from ideas, just because some educationist deems them, "dangerously misleading?" How do the educational authorities know about these, "dangerously misleading," ideas, if they were never exposed to them. What mystical powers did they have that protected them from those ideas that other adults do not have so must be protected from them by their educational high priests?

The hubris of academics and educationists is absolutely breathtaking. They are the only ones who know what ideas others should be allowed to hear and think about for themselves. Censorship is wrong, -- unless a socialist or educator is the censor. The academy is the new Rome.

This is pretty spot-on, actually. Well said, RC.

[Nick_A]

Belinda

There is a lot of truth in what you say here. It's striking the right balance between being protective and being permissive. Also some students at universities are remarkably naive. Some cannot even spell!

The balance between being protective and being permissive is good to sustain cave life. Unfortunately none of these teachers are capable of teaching how to get out of the cave simply because they are ignorant of it.

[Belinda]

Belinda

There is a lot of truth in what you say here. It's striking the right balance between being protective and being permissive. Also some students at universities are remarkably naive. Some cannot even spell!

The balance between being protective and being permissive is good to sustain cave life. Unfortunately none of these teachers are capable of teaching how to get out of the cave simply because they are ignorant of it.

Most teachers teach the value of scepticism (skepticism) .

[Nick_A]

Belinda

There is a lot of truth in what you say here. It's striking the right balance between being protective and being permissive. Also some students at universities are remarkably naive. Some cannot even spell!

The balance between being protective and being permissive is good to sustain cave life. Unfortunately none of these teachers are capable of teaching how to get out of the cave simply because they are ignorant of it.

Most teachers teach the value of scepticism (skepticism) .

The poison of skepticism becomes, like alcoholism, tuberculosis, and some other diseases, much more virulent in a hitherto virgin soil.
Simone Weil

Intellectual skepticism or the ability to intellectually doubt is an asset while emotional skepticism or supporting the attitude of blind denial is a poison. How many teachers know the difference?

[commonsense]

Belinda



The balance between being protective and being permissive is good to sustain cave life. Unfortunately none of these teachers are capable of teaching how to get out of the cave simply because they are ignorant of it.

Most teachers teach the value of scepticism (skepticism) .

The poison of skepticism becomes, like alcoholism, tuberculosis, and some other diseases, much more virulent in a hitherto virgin soil.
Simone Weil

Intellectual skepticism or the ability to intellectually doubt is an asset while emotional skepticism or supporting the attitude of blind denial is a poison. How many teachers know the difference?

Probably all of them.

[Nick_A]

Most teachers teach the value of scepticism (skepticism) .

The poison of skepticism becomes, like alcoholism, tuberculosis, and some other diseases, much more virulent in a hitherto virgin soil.
Simone Weil

Intellectual skepticism or the ability to intellectually doubt is an asset while emotional skepticism or supporting the attitude of blind denial is a poison. How many teachers know the difference?

Probably all of them.

Intellectual skepticism is the ability to doubt ideas and question with impartiality. Emotional skepticism is pre-conditioned emotional reaction to ideas.

It is obvious that universities are filled with snowflakes conditioned to respond to ideas with emotional skepticism. Who conditioned them? teachers oblivious to the difference between intellectual and emotional skepticism so unable to teach it. If it is just ignorance and these teachers are victims of the poison of emotional skepticism, that is one thing. However if it is intentional it is one of the most vile forms of child abuse I can imagine.

[Belinda]

Intellectual skepticism or the ability to intellectually doubt is an asset while emotional skepticism or supporting the attitude of blind denial is a poison. How many teachers know the difference?

Probably all of them.

Intellectual skepticism is the ability to doubt ideas and question with impartiality. Emotional skepticism is pre-conditioned emotional reaction to ideas.

It is obvious that universities are filled with snowflakes conditioned to respond to ideas with emotional skepticism. Who conditioned them? teachers oblivious to the difference between intellectual and emotional skepticism so unable to teach it. If it is just ignorance and these teachers are victims of the poison of emotional skepticism, that is one thing. However if it is intentional it is one of the most vile forms of child abuse I can imagine.

That is a useful dichotomy, between "intellectual skepticism" and "emotional skepticism".

'Intellectual skepticism' is one of the ways we reason. We can, and many do, learn to examine our own motives, predispositions, and prejudices('emotional ') and subject them to intellectual skepticism.

For instance if somebody is learning to overcome paranoia ('emotional)it helps if they are skeptical about their own reasoning habits. Teachers teach well balanced empathy.

And for instance, if someone is so gullible ('emotional')they are preyed upon it helps if they learn the world has a lot of cheats, fools, and exploiters in it. Teachers teach how to be more safely independent.

Besides educators we also have trainers who teach skills that have definite goals such as fastest runner, hand-eye coordination, useful reactions to certain emergencies, and so forth. In the olden days most teachers were like trainers a lot of the time and got children to learn by rote. Rote learning is not much taught these days but still has uses, for instance learning that Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta Echo Foxtrot Golf alphabet, and suchlike.

[Immanuel Can]

It is obvious that universities are filled with snowflakes conditioned to respond to ideas with emotional skepticism. Who conditioned them? teachers oblivious to the difference between intellectual and emotional skepticism so unable to teach it.

Only partly, Nick.

You're right that teachers, particularly in the public system, both promulgate and circulate emotionalism and relativism. Alan Bloom wrote about this in his famous introduction to "The Closing of the American Mind." So, fair enough.

But it's deeper than that. Emotionalism and relativism are strongly supported by our media, both through form and content. That is, it's explicit in much media ideology, but also latent in the elective practices of things like television or the internet. For where there are always multiple perspectives and answers, participants are drawn to withhold judgments indefinitely, for fear of being shown wrong; and eventually, this permanent suspension of sound judging creates de-facto relativism, even among those who don't believe themselves to hold to relativism consciously. So that's one source. (David Shenk is a good author on that.)

Another, and one which sets the deck for the teachers, is parental confusions. Too many parents today think THEY have no answers, so their idea of a generous way to raise their kids is to "let the children make up their own minds," but without providing for them any direction or answers at all. And the result is predictable: kids say, "Well, if my dad is 45, and he still doesn't know what truth is, then my chances of finding our are not good; and why would I waste my life, looking for answers that I can see are not available even to an adult?" So instead of "making up their own minds," they abandon the search for answers. Who goes on fools' errands, after all?

All these sorts of things are just reinforced at the universities nowadays. So the upshot is that many people have viscerally given up the search for truth. They'll play about with ideas, and they'll still have personal opinions; but they won't settle on firm convictions, because the penalties for being firm in one's convictions and wrong nowadays seem too big.

So sure, criticize the teachers. But share the blame around, where it's deserved. This is a major social problem, and it's distributed across the entire developmental continuum of a child's experience today.

[Belinda]

It is obvious that universities are filled with snowflakes conditioned to respond to ideas with emotional skepticism. Who conditioned them? teachers oblivious to the difference between intellectual and emotional skepticism so unable to teach it.

Only partly, Nick.

You're right that teachers, particularly in the public system, both promulgate and circulate emotionalism and relativism. Alan Bloom wrote about this in his famous introduction to "The Closing of the American Mind." So, fair enough.

But it's deeper than that. Emotionalism and relativism are strongly supported by our media, both through form and content. That is, it's explicit in much media ideology, but also latent in the elective practices of things like television or the internet. For where there are always multiple perspectives and answers, participants are drawn to withhold judgments indefinitely, for fear of being shown wrong; and eventually, this permanent suspension of sound judging creates de-facto relativism, even among those who don't believe themselves to hold to relativism consciously. So that's one source. (David Shenk is a good author on that.)

Another, and one which sets the deck for the teachers, is parental confusions. Too many parents today think THEY have no answers, so their idea of a generous way to raise their kids is to "let the children make up their own minds," but without providing for them any direction or answers at all. And the result is predictable: kids say, "Well, if my dad is 45, and he still doesn't know what truth is, then my chances of finding our are not good; and why would I waste my life, looking for answers that I can see are not available even to an adult?" So instead of "making up their own minds," they abandon the search for answers. Who goes on fools' errands, after all?

All these sorts of things are just reinforced at the universities nowadays. So the upshot is that many people have viscerally given up the search for truth. They'll play about with ideas, and they'll still have personal opinions; but they won't settle on firm convictions, because the penalties for being firm in one's convictions and wrong nowadays seem too big.

So sure, criticize the teachers. But share the blame around, where it's deserved. This is a major social problem, and it's distributed across the entire developmental continuum of a child's experience today.

"Another, and one which sets the deck for the teachers, is parental confusions. Too many parents today think THEY have no answers, so their idea of a generous way to raise their kids is to "let the children make up their own minds," but without providing for them any direction or answers at all. And the result is predictable: kids say, "Well, if my dad is 45, and he still doesn't know what truth is, then my chances of finding our are not good; and why would I waste my life, looking for answers that I can see are not available even to an adult?" So instead of "making up their own minds," they abandon the search for answers. Who goes on fools' errands, after all?"

But teachers are very much aware of the value of homes where books are read and discussions go on. Also, when children are young they need to know the rules. I wrote to Nick about the value of training.

The search for truth matters a lot. However it's the honest search that is important. It is not true that some mere man knows absolute truth about anything. "although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is – for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know" (Socrates)

[Immanuel Can]

"Another, and one which sets the deck for the teachers, is parental confusions. Too many parents today think THEY have no answers, so their idea of a generous way to raise their kids is to "let the children make up their own minds," but without providing for them any direction or answers at all. And the result is predictable: kids say, "Well, if my dad is 45, and he still doesn't know what truth is, then my chances of finding our are not good; and why would I waste my life, looking for answers that I can see are not available even to an adult?" So instead of "making up their own minds," they abandon the search for answers. Who goes on fools' errands, after all?"

But teachers are very much aware of the value of homes where books are read and discussions go on.

Unfortunately, there are very few of those today. The average North American teen is surprised to hear that their entire conversations with their parents average less than 8 minutes a day. Their reaction, when you tell them, is, "That long"? As for books, most parenting today is done by video game and internet. As for discussions, most parents have bought into the idea that telling children anything framed as truths is indoctrination -- and that belief suits the parents very well, because parenting is hard, and kids ask hard questions, and soul-searching is not fun for them to do. So they take the laissez-faire attitude, and say, "Well, when you're older, you'll be able to search that out for yourself."

But what did their own parent's generation, the post-boomers, really give them, anyway? Consumerism? '60s radicalism? Yuppiedom? So they're just poorly equipped to parent, in many cases.

As for what teachers today are "aware of," I can tell you of a certainty that they are not so "aware" as you imagine. They are capitulating to the mass media, and substituting forms of computer "learning" for a lot of human contact...and this is only made worse by COVID measures. I can tell you first hand that they are putting up only token resistance, and only to the very worst extremities of the internet. Most of today's young teachers were themselves raised in an ethos of media saturation and domestic disorder. They have very limited awareness and almost no copying skills to compensate for what is going on in society more generally.

Good reads on this, if you're curious, are, "The Dumbest Generation," by Bauelein, or "Endangered Minds," by Healy.

[Belinda]

"Another, and one which sets the deck for the teachers, is parental confusions. Too many parents today think THEY have no answers, so their idea of a generous way to raise their kids is to "let the children make up their own minds," but without providing for them any direction or answers at all. And the result is predictable: kids say, "Well, if my dad is 45, and he still doesn't know what truth is, then my chances of finding our are not good; and why would I waste my life, looking for answers that I can see are not available even to an adult?" So instead of "making up their own minds," they abandon the search for answers. Who goes on fools' errands, after all?"

But teachers are very much aware of the value of homes where books are read and discussions go on.

Unfortunately, there are very few of those today. The average North American teen is surprised to hear that their entire conversations with their parents average less than 8 minutes a day. Their reaction, when you tell them, is, "That long"? As for books, most parenting today is done by video game and internet. As for discussions, most parents have bought into the idea that telling children anything framed as truths is indoctrination -- and that belief suits the parents very well, because parenting is hard, and kids ask hard questions, and soul-searching is not fun for them to do. So they take the laissez-faire attitude, and say, "Well, when you're older, you'll be able to search that out for yourself."

But what did their own parent's generation, the post-boomers, really give them, anyway? Consumerism? '60s radicalism? Yuppiedom? So they're just poorly equipped to parent, in many cases.

As for what teachers today are "aware of," I can tell you of a certainty that they are not so "aware" as you imagine. They are capitulating to the mass media, and substituting forms of computer "learning" for a lot of human contact...and this is only made worse by COVID measures. I can tell you first hand that they are putting up only token resistance, and only to the very worst extremities of the internet. Most of today's young teachers were themselves raised in an ethos of media saturation and domestic disorder. They have very limited awareness and almost no copying skills to compensate for what is going on in society more generally.

Good reads on this, if you're curious, are, "The Dumbest Generation," by Bauelein, or "Endangered Minds," by Healy.

But I myself have experience in primary school teaching and so has one of my sons who is at present a school governor, and two daughters in law who are teachers . All of us are aware of the value of the relationship between teacher and individual pupils. All of us deplore governemnt measures to increase tick boxing as method, and we all want smaller classes. None of us were reared in chaotic homes. Smaller classes can only be got through taxation that pays for more teachers.

Parents want the best for their children and the majority of parents trust the expert educators, the teachers.

Professor Bauerlein: "Because in my limited experience as a teacher, I’ve noticed in the last 10 years that students are no less intelligent, no less ambitious but there are two big differences: Reading habits have slipped, along with general knowledge. You can quote me on this: You guys don’t know anything."
Of course I agree most of information retrieval is now electronic. This is a pity as books are written as wholes not snippets. But the advantage of electronic info is is it easy to access and its retrieval is a skill that extends to other academic areas where cross referencing ideas from a broad. multiplicity of sources is of value .

I like general knowledge but I am old, and in my day general knowledge was a smaller body of possible knowledge than it is now. In modern times, and for some decades past, it's better to have the general ability to know categories of knowledge so you can look up the particular idea you seek.

[Immanuel Can]

Good reads on this, if you're curious, are, "The Dumbest Generation," by Bauelein, or "Endangered Minds," by Healy.

But I myself have experience in primary school teaching and so has one of my sons who is at present a school governor, and two daughters in law who are teachers . All of us are aware of the value of the relationship between teacher and individual pupils. All of us deplore governemnt measures to increase tick boxing as method, and we all want smaller classes. None of us were reared in chaotic homes. Smaller classes can only be got through taxation that pays for more teachers.

I appreciate your experience. I would guess I have more.

If you find yourself among those who were not reared in chaotic homes, I'm very glad for you. I'm afraid that the average young person today cannot say she has your advantages. Even when broken homes, addictions or consumerism aren't destroying their homes, media saturation is. There's a very interesting article, one of many you really should look at...it's short, but it's very telling about what's going on with our children's brains right now. It's at...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... on/534198/

I can tell you that what it talks about, I've also seen at the ground level.

Smaller classes do help the pedagogical situation, but are not really the issue here. The issue is the wholesale capitulation of the public schooling system to technophilia, the naive belief that everything is "better" with a "technological" solution, and the capitulation of parents to the media and to relativism. Smaller classes won't address any of that, so we can save our tax dollars.

Parents want the best for their children and the majority of parents trust the expert educators, the teachers.

Some do. More seem to want a tax-funded babysitting, university admissions or career training service to alleviate them of their parental duties, so they can get on with making money, getting a second husband, or whatever else they consider more important than parenting. You can tell because the vast majority of them, especially those with underperforming children, don't show up on parents' nights. Their support for actual education is minimal; their attitude is, "I'm giving you my kid, so now do the right thing with him, so I don't have to."

That being said, there are glorious exceptions...just not nearly enough of them.

[Nick_A]

Both IC and Belinda have overlooked the loss of the one human attribute which assures continuing in Plato's cave. It is the loss of the human ability for maintaining conscious attention.

"Idolatry comes from the fact that, while thirsting for absolute good, we do not possess the power of supernatural attention and we have not the patience to allow it to develop." Simone Weil

People and especially the young look for meaning. The media, teachers, secular religious institutions and psychology all look to tell a person what to do at the cost of the loss of conscious attention.

"One has only the choice between God and idolatry. There is no other possibility. For the faculty of worship is in us, and is either directed somewhere into this world, or into another.” Simone weil

It is through conscious contemplation that the young ponder God and nothing promotes it like the vastness of our universe. Plato encourged teachers to first open the mind before allowing reason to enter it. But society encourages the opposite. The result is idolatry and the gradual loss of our ability for conscious attention.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/08/1 ... and%20love.

Brainpickings is one of my favorite sites. This article focuses on the relationship between attention and grace.

We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will.

The will only controls a few movements of a few muscles, and these movements are associated with the idea of the change of position of nearby objects. I can will to put my hand flat on the table. If inner purity, inspiration or truth of thought were necessarily associated with attitudes of this kind, they might be the object of will. As this is not the case, we can only beg for them… Or should we cease to desire them? What could be worse? Inner supplication is the only reasonable way, for it avoids stiffening muscles which have nothing to do with the matter. What could be more stupid than to tighten up our muscles and set our jaws about virtue, or poetry, or the solution of a problem. Attention is something quite different.

Pride is a tightening up of this kind. There is a lack of grace (we can give the word its double meaning here) in the proud man. It is the result of a mistake.

Weil turns to attention as the counterpoint to this graceless will — where the will contracts the spirit, she argues, attention expands it:

Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love.

Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.

If we turn our mind toward the good, it is impossible that little by little the whole soul will not be attracted thereto in spite of itself.

Who now has the responsibility to turn the students mind in the direction of the good as plato understood it? The church caught up in morality cannot do it. Teachers are unaware of the value of conscious attention so cannot do it. the media won't do it since it costs them money, So the point is the responsibility is for the few who understand the value of conscious attention in society and keep it alive privately.

Conscious attention is the human way of escaping from Plato's cave. It is denied by the majority caught up in idolatry.

This is the conclusion of an abstract from a doctoral thesis by Yoda, Kazuaki

https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/do ... 6/D83776W5

I conceive of Weil's thesis as a comprehensive response to the question in Plato's Meno: "Can Virtue be Taught?" Replacing the term "virtue" with "attention," Weil responds that it can be taught and it should be the sole purpose of education. Like Plato, Weil considers education to be the conversion of the soul to the Good, while attention is the orientation of the soul to the Good (or God). As we turn to see the contradictions between the transcendent Good and the reality in this world, we need to contemplate that without losing the love of the Good in life's bitterness and confusion.
By learning to contemplate, reading better, and changing perspectives, one could learn to love better. Weil claims that this should be the sole purpose of education. This grand vision of education may re-kindle the meaning of education and suggests a compelling alternative to the now dominating instrumental view of education. It might then save the downcast situation of education observed in teachers, school- children, their parents, college professors, and our society as a whole.

[Nick_A]

The idea of equality of opportunity for a person to become themselves is an insulting and repulsive idea if for no other reason than we don't know what it means. But what if for some reason humanity as a whole realized it was asleep in Plato's cave, what difference would it make?

"The combination of these two facts — the longing in the depth of the heart for absolute good, and the power, though only latent, of directing attention and love to a reality beyond the world and of receiving good from it — constitutes a link which attaches every man without exception to that other reality.

Whoever recognizes that reality recognizes also that link. Because of it, he holds every human being without any exception as something sacred to which he is bound to show respect.

This is the only possible motive for universal respect towards all human beings. Whatever formulation of belief or disbelief a man may choose to make, if his heart inclines him to feel this respect, then he in fact also recognizes a reality other than this world's reality. Whoever in fact does not feel this respect is alien to that other reality also." ~ Simone Weil

What if people became aware of what they really needed as opposed to being distracted by the many facets of materialism? What if people came to experience the slavery of the human condition; that as much as Man is attracted to the light, the majority of our organism runs from it. Would humanity as a whole admit our inner slavery to the human condition. That would be real equality. Of course it is impossible. the world hates it just as the world hated Jesus and his awakening mission.

The concept of real equality is dead in the world. Its value is only for the minority attracted to the need to become themselves as opposed to automatons of the Great Beast.