Jeff has quoted this book numerous times. I just started reading it and I can understand a little more of where he is coming from with a lot of his posts.
So far it is basically laying the foundation that Americans are losing what it means to be American. They enter the academic world with a "clean slate". Families "Sup together, play together, travel together, but they do not think together. Hardly any homes have any intellectual life whatsoever, let alone one that informs the vital interests of life. Educational TV marks the high tide for family intellectual life." I can reflect on this with my own family of three. Patrick is smart. He said the other day, "Rhinoceros' come from Africa." I did not teach him this. Dora did. My family is still very young though and I can influence Patrick and his value/moral system for the next fifteen years he is at my house.
I remember having a conversation with my friend Jake a couple months back. We were talking about raising kids. He asked me about my plans and methods. I told him that I want to raise him like my father raised me. I turned out pretty good so I figure this method will do fine. Jake seemed to emphasize the importance of allowing kids to find their own interests and their own beliefs. Somewhere in our conversation he warned me of manipulating Patrick's mind. Jakes beliefs are shared by most Americans. But what is dangerous about this is that we lose our traditions and values that were passed on from the great minds of the West. In a land of many immigrants a child can be raised on an imported and inferior value system. We are lucky that there is such a variety of history to lean on when making a decision in raising our kids the right way. Parents now days basically facilitate the natural growth of their child without actually educating them. The public schools and media do this for us. Whether it be laziness or indifference or both, I do not know.
I was motivated to make this simple post by the email that Melkor sent me. It is an article in the Quantico Sentry about the Marines in the Battle of Seattle.http://www.quantico.usmc.mil/Sentry/StoryView.aspx?SID=4871. Bud-D read it already. These sort of history lessons are important.
Does Emma know the story of George Washington and the Cherry Tree? He was asked if he cut down the cherry tree and said, "I can't tell a lie, Pa."
That picture was supposed to be a lot bigger.
ReplyDeleteWhat does it mean to "be American?" And does the concept of "being American" remain unchanged from its origin to present day? It seems to be quite a subjective title. I would say that "being American" is thinking and living the way one chooses for himself and honoring the personal liberty of his fellow Americans. So perhaps instead of saying Americans are "losing what it means to be American" you could say "what it means to be American is changing," unless you have a firm belief that the culture and conciousness of our country ought to remain the same as it was when it was first formed.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the intellectual life at home is lacking and it sounds like what your friend, Jake, might be referring to is the Montessori style of education, in which children are brought up from a young age being shown how capable they are of helping themselvse, resolving conflicts in a civilized way, and learning in the style that is best suited for themselves. I have spent some time observing a Montessori classroom of three and four year olds and I can tell you that this method is highly effective in developing a child's intelect. Universal values are not lost at all, in fact, in my experience they are more firmly engrained by guides leading the children in situations that they can understand the values for what they are instead of simply being told to obey them because it's the rule. As for traditions, I'm not sure what traditions you speak of.
"In a land of many immigrants a child can be raised on an imported and inferior value system."... I hardly know what to say about this except that it may reflect a serious superiority complex... I would argue that it's the communication and honest exchange between cultures which makes a civilization such as our own really thrive.
I agree with your sentiment ToeJamm. To me, the good thing is that parents, if they choose to be, and probably even if they don't, are still the prime influencers of their child's values. I think a parent who takes a proactive approach on this is very likely to have good success. I know you will do this ToeJamm.
ReplyDeleteTo anonymous' comments, yes, it's important to expose a child to other cultures and other values in a fair way, but also important to explain what is good about our American culture, a culture that values freedom of opportunity and independence, rather than dependence on an authoritative government or church to order our lives.
Yes, this is superior to other cultures, and the success our nation has had and continues to have is proof of it. I think a prime focus of this blog is the danger of losing traditional American culture to the detriment of our children and the nation as a whole.
This nation of immigrants has thrived because the immigrants have adopted traditional American culture, rather than continue to live separately in their own culture. They came here because Americans did things better than they're country of origin did.
I would say that Ameicans are changing. I would say that they are changing in a bad way. I am not afraid to recognize good and bad.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what you mean by "superiority complex" other than I do recognize something as being superior to another. If a human loses his ability to do this then that person's brain shouldn't occupy his skull. If I look at my history and say that A is better then B, then I should be able to bitch and moan when B is being deceitfully spread throughout our education system.
If our education system is being funded by the government, then I don't want highly subjective liberal arts being taught. We might as well integrate church and state if we do that.
Montessori sounds straight. The problem is, its not being used. My article is about what is being used and what is happening. Our schools and even colleges are teaching leftist (non western) ideals(see my typical academia post for an example). If this is ok to you, then please don't critique me about subjectivity. Montessori teaching is good and fun but I'm talking about our nation's disasterous loss of face.
You don't have to be afraid to name yourself...Jake. Mwa ha ha ha
The values that most people hold and their basic worldviews are shaped by pop culture which disseminates values that came from philosophers that had the goal of reshaping society by destroying the existing foundations of it.
ReplyDeleteWhat it means to be American and its foundation is changing/crumbling as the purposeful efforts of those mentioned in the previous paragraph.
The public education system is designed to undermine Western civilization, undermine the authority and influence that the family has on a child, and are an indoctrination system for the government. Read about John Dewey, a very influential person in the development of the modern education system. He praised, in his "Impressions on the Soviet Union", how the Soviet education system undermined the influence that the parents had on the children.
All education systems are designed to socialize people to a standard way of acting so that they can function in a society and so that the society can exist: system of shared values are necessary for a society to exist. The only problem is that the government is the one that has hijacked the education system and is the one doing the indoctrination and setting the agenda. "A general state education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly like one another: the mold in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body." J.S. Mill
The education system is a disaster. Chinese and others' students are defeating American youth by large margins in the area of academic acheivement.
A good article on the fact that most college students are learning anything in their 1st 2 years. http://hotair.com/archives/2011/01/19/good-news-study-confirms-that-college-is-pretty-much-a-total-waste-of-time
Here is a funny clip from a new series called Portlandia.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hulu.com/watch/208807/portlandia-feminist-bookstore-bathroom-for-customers-only#s-p1-sr-i0
Jeff, if you want to see the pains one has to go through to live in this place then watch this clip. Overall though, its fun to live in Portland and laugh at the hippies.
That is why the North West is the gay west. It would piss me off that I would have to be punished by having to live in the same place with ignorant people that vote liberals into office that will end up causing me economic pain.
ReplyDelete