Gay and straight

[rusmeister]

If we don't have the right worldview, we do have at best an incomplete understanding of what is, and at worst a flat-out wrong understanding. The more correct our worldview, the more perfect our understanding of what is. It seems that you start from an assumption that we know "what is" and from there can proceed to discover a worldview. I say it is at least as much the other way around. We know what "is" because we see it a certain way; we interpret the facts in that way.

But these worldviews are judged right/correct by whose standard? Yours? The OC? RCC? US Congress? Time Magazine? The King James Bible? The Koran? Statistical average of Joe's opinions from the street? Southern Baptists? God Himself?

dw

Precisely. What is the source of Truth? This is where we disagree. I say that I, the individual, cannot be the source of Truth, the creator/source of the standard by which truth is measured, although I can find truth (and Truth) in a source that I find to be consistently right. As I said quoting the fat man, the most significant aspect of that discovery is finding it to be right where you are wrong. Therefore I say "Come and see!".

But to say that there is no truth because there are many claims is illogical - non sequitur. It is far more logical to deduce that if there are so many claims, there must be actual truth, and one of the claims is likely to be right - or certainly closer to that Truth than any of the others.

[Fist and Faith]

My problem is that any proof of X or any assertion of what IS is founded on a worldview. So no matter what you teach (your conception of what "is") you will also concurrently be teaching a worldview

And when someone in the street teaches a child that 2+2=4; or that we can observe erosion taking place on a mountain during a storm - what worldview is he teaching? Mine? Yours? Which of our worldviews are those facts founded on? Which of our worldviews disagrees that those are facts?

[rusmeister]

My problem is that any proof of X or any assertion of what IS is founded on a worldview. So no matter what you teach (your conception of what "is") you will also concurrently be teaching a worldview

And when someone in the street teaches a child that 2+2=4; or that we can observe erosion taking place on a mountain during a storm - what worldview is he teaching? Mine? Yours? Which of our worldviews are those facts founded on? Which of our worldviews disagrees that those are facts?

Well, of course the main point is that we are NOT talking about teaching someone in the street, but in a consistent, methodical, 5 (or more)-day-a-week institution. But even if you take a 5-minute 'Jaime Escalante-type' street moment, I'd say that something is STILL accompanying the fact. The motivation, the context, the purpose, are all bigger than the fact. They enlighten the fact and give it meaning. Something that is part of and contributes toward a worldview. 2+2=4, or "the Italian word for 'dog' is 'cane'", means nothing except in a larger scheme of things. By itself, it means nothing. A meaningless fact. An education is not an aggregation of meaningless facts. It is an entire scheme, an understanding of those facts. So it's not about disagreeing about facts. It's about how those facts are understood. Is the history or physical science of the world to be understood in the light of a meaningless evolution with no guiding purpose or in the light of special Creation and a Fall of man? How are we to understand literature, be it Shakespeare or James Joyce? And this is not some question to be answered after you have 'learned all the facts' in a Sunday school or at home with one's parents. Assumptions of these answers are implied at every point of study. The usually undiscussed assumptions are absorbed right along with the facts, because the facts must be presented, not as random facts, but as part of some larger scheme, or it is not an education at all. If you are not teaching children or students to think about these things, you are not teaching them at all, for the very first thing they must be taught is to think. (And there is the axiomatic assumption that you actually have something to teach them, including an understanding of what is taught.)

PS - I had foolishly typed out a response to your previous post in the 'quick reply' box, which subsequently got erased. So I've answered your post in my own head, and maybe will have time tomorrow to get back to it and try to clarify things that may be assumed in this reply.

[DukkhaWaynhim]

Funny, even though I went to Catholic church run public school through fifth grade, I simply don't remember learning how god's purpose was being fulfilled when I memorized my multiplication tables. Sure, there were christian elements all around, but the subjects that all students learn were treated as more or less religion-less subjects.
Rus, as a citizen of the state, would you be okay in the inverse situation, meaning that all public funded education systems instead were subversively tilted to be Christ-promoting, or perhaps even OCC-centric with their curricula? Would you be as disgusted that children were being helplessly and subtly indoctrinated over the course of their public education with OCC-ness?
Or would you be satisfied that the world were progressing to a more Truthful place?

dw

[Vraith]

Assumptions of these answers are implied at every point of study. The usually undiscussed assumptions are absorbed right along with the facts, because the facts must be presented, not as random facts, but as part of some larger scheme, or it is not an education at all. If you are not teaching children or students to think about these things, you are not teaching them at all, for the very first thing they must be taught is to think.

At least on this, we are in complete agreement. And it's why I abhor the whole system centered on standardized testing.
Where I learned to teach, part of the principles of their philosophy was to explicitly teach not just the facts, but the framework in which they were set.
It's odd, the graduates from the program are in high demand...yet they all have a very rough time for the first 4-5 years.
Anyway: my point is worldview/facts are way too often seen as one or the other being deterministic of its partner. The "truth" is that they are in dynamic feedback...but not a loop, or circle...if you graphed, it'd be an outward spiral...always returning-but-not-exactly.
Acceptance of homosexuality may have been a cultural/survival threat at some distant point in the past [I don't believe so, but it's possible I suppose]. But many, many things used to be threats that are no longer.
I think old wisdom has its place...but that human society, as an entity, is smarter and stronger than it was 1000, 2000, 10,000, years ago.

[Fist and Faith]

If you are not teaching children or students to think about these things, you are not teaching them at all, for the very first thing they must be taught is to think.

I want them to think. I want to present them with all facts, including what everyone else thinks of those facts, and ask them what they think. Do they agree with one view or another? Do the pieces of the puzzle form a unique picture in their head?

You do not want them to think. You do not want to present them with any views other than your own. Or, at best, you would not present them with any other views until your own is fully ingrained in them. At which point they can't truly consider any other possibility.

My way, your worldview will, doubtless, be chosen by some percentage. Your way, nobody's worldview but your own will be chosen by anyone. Which, of course, is your intent. Just don't try to pass that off as teaching them to think.

[rusmeister]

Funny, even though I went to Catholic church run public school through fifth grade, I simply don't remember learning how god's purpose was being fulfilled when I memorized my multiplication tables. Sure, there were christian elements all around, but the subjects that all students learn were treated as more or less religion-less subjects.
Rus, as a citizen of the state, would you be okay in the inverse situation, meaning that all public funded education systems instead were subversively tilted to be Christ-promoting, or perhaps even OCC-centric with their curricula? Would you be as disgusted that children were being helplessly and subtly indoctrinated over the course of their public education with OCC-ness?
Or would you be satisfied that the world were progressing to a more Truthful place?

dw

Your school experience suggests a lot more about what the people teaching you believed. It is entirely possible to go to a school with a religious label and get a nearly completely non-religious education. If the philosophy actually driving the teachers and administrators is different from the professed philosophy, then that's what you'll get.

As to your inversion question, it is not framed in a way that I can answer it correctly. I would answer that faith cannot be forced - but that if people are being taught general principles that are in accordance with actual Truth - the true nature of man, for instance, and the reality that we are living in a Fallen world, then I do think a lot of things would be better. If people are taught a holistic worldview, even if they choose to not accept faith in God/Christ, etc, they will be more likely to accept the morality that is part of that holistic worldview, where subjects are not taught in isolation but are interconnected. If they accept that morality, then pornography would be illegal and underground, it would be nearly impossible to find pedophilic materials. People would not "be" better. We would still have the problem of sin and Fallen man - but what society tolerates would reflect the standards taught. Many evils would have to be committed in secrecy in the dark, because they would not be tolerated in public - and I do think that would be better than what we have. By making unlimited freedom of expression our most sacred watchword we accept a host of evils that accompany that that are worse than the evils that accompany limitations on freedom of expression. If there is such a thing as decadence at all - and I believe there is - then logically, a society can decay, and logically, if a society can decay, then it can decay to the point where it collapses - suddenly or slowly, much more likely the latter. Is such a thing reversible? Maybe. But as we can see from issues like climate change and pollution, a point of no return can be reached long before it is widely perceived.

But if you still think that facts can be taught in a vacuum, separate from an understanding of them in some kind of worldview, then you won't understand what I just said. I'm not interested in pursuing that sort of discussion. You have to get that I see facts to be inextricable from understandings of them - which are taught automatically and usually not discussed, but merely assumed. A definite worldview IS taught in public education, and the form that dominates our system is subjectivism, which results in pluralism, which results in political correctness. We are told that everyone is free to believe what they will, but that what they believe does not and should not have bearing on their practical lives, and above all not on public life. This IS a worldview, one hostile to traditional Christianity, and one that I say is ultimately false, whatever truths (small 't') it may contain.

[DukkhaWaynhim]

As to your inversion question, it is not framed in a way that I can answer it correctly. I would answer that faith cannot be forced - but that if people are being taught general principles that are in accordance with actual Truth - the true nature of man, for instance, and the reality that we are living in a Fallen world, then I do think a lot of things would be better.

But where have we agreed on the true nature of man? Your reality, the one that you accept as fact -- that we are living in a Fallen world -- I don't live my life that way. Do most people accept Fallen-ness as fact? I don't think so.

But if you still think that facts can be taught in a vacuum, separate from an understanding of them in some kind of worldview, then you won't understand what I just said. I'm not interested in pursuing that sort of discussion. You have to get that I see facts to be inextricable from understandings of them - which are taught automatically and usually not discussed, but merely assumed. A definite worldview IS taught in public education, and the form that dominates our system is subjectivism, which results in pluralism, which results in political correctness. We are told that everyone is free to believe what they will, but that what they believe does not and should not have bearing on their practical lives, and above all not on public life. This IS a worldview, one hostile to traditional Christianity, and one that I say is ultimately false, whatever truths (small 't') it may contain.

I understand what you just said, I just don't like the (lack of) solution that you propose to address it. If the answer to ending the anti-Christian sub-curricula that you say permeates public education is to replace it with a Christian sub-curricula, then you are simply replacing one unfairness with another.
I don't think the public should be funding measurably anti-religious education programs, but neither do I believe it should be funding measurably religious education programs, especially if it ends up promoting one religion over another.
Would it be very difficult to develop and maintain an education system that remains as neutral as possible? Of course. But we are mistreating our children and the purpose of public education if we are indoctinating them with the notion that one or any religion provides all the answers, which is just as wrong as indoctrinating them with the notion that no religion *can* do so.
In the ideal, children should be learning to question the assumptions that makes faith in anything possible -- not for the sake of questioning, but to actually arrive at a conclusion that feels certain, and perhaps even agrees with Authority, instead of blindly accepting it because that's what Authority says to do. If the individual is always wrong, then you are saying that the individual's authority is always nil, unless it is backed by Authority. To me, that sounds so much more like an abdication of will rather than an incremental addition of yours to Its, as you would likely term it. You may still feel responsible for your own actions... but I have yet to find an institution worthy of that level of faith. I may find it one day -- but that day hasn't happened yet.

dw

[rusmeister]

As to your inversion question, it is not framed in a way that I can answer it correctly. I would answer that faith cannot be forced - but that if people are being taught general principles that are in accordance with actual Truth - the true nature of man, for instance, and the reality that we are living in a Fallen world, then I do think a lot of things would be better.

But where have we agreed on the true nature of man? Your reality, the one that you accept as fact -- that we are living in a Fallen world -- I don't live my life that way. Do most people accept Fallen-ness as fact? I don't think so.

Obviously not - a critical reason as to why I do not believe in the non-sectarian education that you still believe in.

If we were discussing health care, would you take the opinions and knowledge of a doctor in the system more seriously than an average person who has never worked in it? It's not a personal slur, but it is something I've noticed about public education - everybody has an opinion on it in a way they do not about other fields. It seems to me that in public education, there is a strong tendency for people to hold all opinions as being of the same value; something we would readily admit can't be true about any other field, where we would quickly acknowledge the professional who has extensive internal experience, even if we disagree with him - w would admit that he has a stronger basis than most of us for knowing what actually goes on inside the system.

(Of course, I'll disagree with other PS teachers - but on other grounds - the very grounds that I myself experienced as a teacher - seeing everything but not getting WHY it is the way it is.)

But if you still think that facts can be taught in a vacuum, separate from an understanding of them in some kind of worldview, then you won't understand what I just said. I'm not interested in pursuing that sort of discussion. You have to get that I see facts to be inextricable from understandings of them - which are taught automatically and usually not discussed, but merely assumed. A definite worldview IS taught in public education, and the form that dominates our system is subjectivism, which results in pluralism, which results in political correctness. We are told that everyone is free to believe what they will, but that what they believe does not and should not have bearing on their practical lives, and above all not on public life. This IS a worldview, one hostile to traditional Christianity, and one that I say is ultimately false, whatever truths (small 't') it may contain.

I understand what you just said, I just don't like the (lack of) solution that you propose to address it. If the answer to ending the anti-Christian sub-curricula that you say permeates public education is to replace it with a Christian sub-curricula, then you are simply replacing one unfairness with another.
I don't think the public should be funding measurably anti-religious education programs, but neither do I believe it should be funding measurably religious education programs, especially if it ends up promoting one religion over another.
Would it be very difficult to develop and maintain an education system that remains as neutral as possible? Of course. But we are mistreating our children and the purpose of public education if we are indoctinating them with the notion that one or any religion provides all the answers, which is just as wrong as indoctrinating them with the notion that no religion *can* do so.

In the ideal, children should be learning to question the assumptions that makes faith in anything possible -- not for the sake of questioning, but to actually arrive at a conclusion that feels certain, and perhaps even agrees with Authority, instead of blindly accepting it because that's what Authority says to do. If the individual is always wrong, then you are saying that the individual's authority is always nil, unless it is backed by Authority. To me, that sounds so much more like an abdication of will rather than an incremental addition of yours to Its, as you would likely term it. You may still feel responsible for your own actions... but I have yet to find an institution worthy of that level of faith. I may find it one day -- but that day hasn't happened yet.

dw

Here I don't think that "fairness" is the issue. I think truth is. And if we propose teaching anything at all, if we do not propose the Stanford Nutting version of education www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmHzYWO6b0k
then the teacher purporting to "teach" the pupil has some kind of idea of truth - of acquired knowledge of which he is certain, and which the pupil presumably does not have. Thus, "fairness" - an idea which places that knowledge on an equal footing with ignorance; specifically, an insistence on the uncertainty of the knowledge to be taught, is in opposition to certainty of knowledge (I speak from the teacher's side - it is granted that the teacher wants the pupil to undergo the process of learning why the knowledge is certain).
of course, when you speak of "neutral education systems" we already part ways. My entire thesis is that they cannot be neutral. Nor do I suggest that a given religion or belief system provide "all" answers (presumably to "all questions" - but that a belief system does purport to provide definite answers to critically important questions).

In the ideal, children should be learning to question the assumptions that makes faith in anything possible -- not for the sake of questioning, but to actually arrive at a conclusion that feels certain, and perhaps even agrees with Authority, instead of blindly accepting it because that's what Authority says to do.

Here I agree completely - although, of course, my own view is that it is not necessary to be a competent first-class thinker in order to be saved - to obtain eternal life (ie, an idiot can be saved) - only that it IS a desirable thing to think as well as we are able to. So I do not say that the individual is really ALWAYS wrong - but in general, when he proceeds from his own authority, as a general rule, he is wrong. The abdication of will which I would advocate is not an abdication of reason, or what we recognize to be true, but an abdication of the insistence that my will be God -the ultimate arbiter.

[DukkhaWaynhim]

And within the context of a publicly-funded education, continual effort needs to be undertaken to acknowledge and support the reality that not everyone agrees on whether an Authority exists, let alone the nature/denomination of that Authority.

My ex-wife was a high school English teacher (both parochial and public), my ex-monther-in-law has been a public schools English teacher for amost 40 years, and I have several friends that are teachers in both private and public systems, so while my personal experience is limited to being a product of the education system, I hope you'll agree I'm not speaking from a position of total ignorance on the subject.
I still think it is possible to educate children without espousing one world-view or another. At the minimum, the numerous teachers that a child interacts with throughout their public education each have their own world-views, and approach the task of teaching with completely different mindsets, even within the strictures of the curricula they must adhere to. If the curricula themselves are somehow poisoned with foundational flaws that promote a religious or anti-religious worldview... well that's a problem with the curriculum that should be addressed in the interest of being neutral to religion, instead of pro or anti.

School subjects, like grammar, literature, math and science should be neutral to religion. Actual literature being studied in lit class is likely not neutral to religion. However, properly done, religion as history, culture, and a source of literature can be taught as a subject without violating the tenet of being religiously neutral.

Do not mistake me, I see great value in religion, as I do in math, science, music, etc. I just don't want my tax dollars funding the spread or stoppage of religion under the guise of public education, and I don't want one religion's moral agenda put forth as public policy, especially with respect to what some religions insist are foundational moral judgments and assumptions that all should make regarding sexual orientation.

dw

[rusmeister]

And within the context of a publicly-funded education, continual effort needs to be undertaken to acknowledge and support the reality that not everyone agrees on whether an Authority exists, let alone the nature/denomination of that Authority.

My ex-wife was a high school English teacher (both parochial and public), my ex-monther-in-law has been a public schools English teacher for amost 40 years, and I have several friends that are teachers in both private and public systems, so while my personal experience is limited to being a product of the education system, I hope you'll agree I'm not speaking from a position of total ignorance on the subject.
I still think it is possible to educate children without espousing one world-view or another. At the minimum, the numerous teachers that a child interacts with throughout their public education each have their own world-views, and approach the task of teaching with completely different mindsets, even within the strictures of the curricula they must adhere to. If the curricula themselves are somehow poisoned with foundational flaws that promote a religious or anti-religious worldview... well that's a problem with the curriculum that should be addressed in the interest of being neutral to religion, instead of pro or anti.

School subjects, like grammar, literature, math and science should be neutral to religion. Actual literature being studied in lit class is likely not neutral to religion. However, properly done, religion as history, culture, and a source of literature can be taught as a subject without violating the tenet of being religiously neutral.

Do not mistake me, I see great value in religion, as I do in math, science, music, etc. I just don't want my tax dollars funding the spread or stoppage of religion under the guise of public education, and I don't want one religion's moral agenda put forth as public policy, especially with respect to what some religions insist are foundational moral judgments and assumptions that all should make regarding sexual orientation.

dw

All this is to say that you don't agree with me. OK. End of debate.

[rusmeister]

Here's the post I blew the response to. )Gahh! Twenty minutes of wasted effort!)
I resolve to be more careful...

I'll never understand what the objection is to public education that teaches the "natural sciences', and churches that teach their specific religions. The two don't need to conflict, as I've said often enough, but both insist in causing a conflict often enough. Idiotic arguments against evolution in churches, using "science" that no evolutionary scientist in the world has ever supported; and schools saying science has proven there is no God.

Well, Fist, if you don't understand what GKC was saying there, and have nothing to ask me about it, I guess you never will understand the objection. That's why I feel my conversations with you are mostly over. If you don't get that a professor , instructor or teacher can really teach a particular attitude toward life as a scheme, either by teaching that all truth is subjective, or that anything outside the natural sciences is whatever you make of it - the only truths are material truths - and that they don't need to teach it as a curriculum point, then I don't know how to transmit it to you. (It is hardest of all to transmit to those that don't want to be transmitted to.) It is taught merely by assumption, the inevitable assumption of the instructor's worldview. I AM a teacher and I can see clearly how views - both my own and others - can serve as assumed - and undiscussed - backgrounds, laying the foundation of how the child/student will think about life.

But there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with teaching the natural sciences from a natural science perspective. At the same time, your children will learn about God from you and the priest at your church. Why do they need to learn about erosion and multiplication from somene with your religious views? It's fine if you want your children to learn everything that can be learned by someone who will teach it with that particular attitude toward life. But I don't. So why can't we just have the natural sciences be taught as natural science? I see what you say to DW at the top of this page. But it's not 2 hours once a week. Your kids get instructed in your faith well more than that. Every moment they are with you they are being taught from your view. From you, from the friends you visit and have over, from church, from church-organized activities... All of that surely balances out being taught natural science without it being taught as part of the Orthodox worldview.

Public education should be about things we all agree are facts. How to read and write. How to add, subtract, multiply, and divide; and even some more advanced math. What happens when sunlight hits a leaf.

I think I've responded to this well enough in other posts by now. There's nothing more to say, to add to the conviction that worldview and attitude are always transmitted along with subject matter. We acknowledge this when we talk about good teachers filling students with enthusiasm; it is equally obvious to me when the average person, the average product of the public system cares little to nothing for history and literature - the exceptions being people who DID get an outstanding teacher in spite of the system and got something that stuck despite the system working to beat the love of learning out of people. The attitude taught, by the system and structure as much as by teachers in formal classrooms, comes part and parcel with the facts taught.

I admit that GKC is hard, especially for the neophyte - the person who has read little to nothing of him. I have said before that I read my first several books by him at a snail's pace, scratching my head, and rereading passages - which forced me to actually think - before I began to 'get his drift'. But if you don't get what he's saying, say so. If you get it and disagree, say why. (And if you ever do get it and agree,make sure to thank my post! )

Why did you bother putting such effort into trying to "get his drift" when your initial efforts were negative? Why did you put so much into it in the hopes that you'd come to understand him? Why did you think he was worth the extreme effort that you realized it would take?

And there's not point in saying why I disagree. I've told you some general things, and ali has told you many specifics. You say our interpretations of what he says are wrong. We think they are not. Do you suspect that's going to change?

Here all I can say is "Go ahead and spite yourself." Shakespeare and Mark Twain are also wonderful writers, with a great deal of depth and appeal. I'm telling you that from a secular literary standpoint, Chesterton still stands among the greatest writers, even though you hate what he believes. "The White Horse" is still an unsurpassed work of English literature, the only thing I can compare it to is "Eugene Onegin" (generally considered the greatest work of Russian literature) - and that's not even English. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Onegin (If you haven't read Onegin, definitely do some time - One of my graduate works was a comparison of available translations - the translation by Walter Arndt IS the best - Nabokov's sucks, it's a word-for-word translation with no poetry that a computer can do.)

If a person says, I won't read so-and-so because I don't like what he/she believed, then that's their choice and their loss. A person might not consider exposure to Charles Dickens, Jane Austen or Emily Dickinson a loss, but those who have seriously read them would know that it is. Russians traditionally only got exposure to "Oliver Twist", because that suited the Communist's ideological purposes in showing up the evils of capitalism. The ideological censors couldn't stomach "A Christmas Carol" because it rubs too close to faith and eternal questions (never mind Dickens' virulent opposition to Malthus), so while Oliver Twist needs no introduction to most of the adult generation here, I have to introduce "A Christmas Carol" to students from the standpoint of zero knowledge. (I push it as part of my Christmas season cultural program). Dickens, like Chesterton, had a range that defies pigeon-holing. If one reads Oliver Twist and stops there, what impression will they have of Dickens - as many Russians did? A rather grim and cheerless one, of a social activist. Unfamiliarity with his broad range of talents, from historical fiction (need I mention "A Tale of Two Cities"?) to brilliant and varied character sketches, as in the Pickwick Papers, and the dry humor and ultimate cheer found in A Christmas Carol, would have one totally mis-assessing the man. You think you've got him down, but you don't. The same with Chesterton. Reading a few chapters of TEM and a number of passages related to apologetics doesn't clear you of that. Do not make the mistake of thinking that you have a grasp of the man from your limited readings.

The range of Chesterton's writing, his talents and immense knowledge surpass that of any writer I have ever read. There is no better literary criticism than Chesterton's - that finds the best in a writer, even a philosophical opponent, and praises it, while cutting through to the heart of what the writer stands for. It can be argued that there were better English poets, but Chesterton stands among them. In the essay he has no equal. In the murder mystery genre he can be put right next to Doyle and Christie. His phenomenal (though not photographic) memory enabled him to write circles around Thomist scholars. He is the acknowledged master of Thomism. As a biographer, more than anyone I've ever read he touches on the heart of a person's life, rather than "born here, lived here, died here" - the general approach to biographies. He is a master of the aphorism and paradox. The combination of wit, humility and depth and range of knowledge (since the word "genius" will be rejected on emotive bases) is almost as rare as finding snow and ice in the Sahara desert.

www.chesterton.org/wordpress/?page_id=39
3 links that give the best overall introduction I know to the man.

www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/index.html
If this bibliography doesn't make you gasp, then I'd say you don't get the significance of the sheer prolificity of the man. Sure people can be prolific and untalented. But the existence of Chesterton societies around the world, the number of web sites dedicated to him, etc etc testify that this is not the case here.

So go ahead and don't discover the man. (And here, cursory exposure is hardly discovery.) You'll be the poorer for it.

[DukkhaWaynhim]

I guess I'm a happy pauper.

And why are you slumming it on a Donaldson board, when it sounds like you'd rather be whispering vespers at some web temple to GKC?

[Fist and Faith]

Here all I can say is "Go ahead and spite yourself."

I wish I had the right to make that decision! But I do not. Nobody here in the Close does. You will not allow it. You will continue to post quotes and links, and continue to give us attitude for not reading everything at the other end of the links. We don't agree with what we do read, and, so, choose not to read everything else he ever wrote. But you won't just let us spite ourselves. You will continue to tell us that we have short attention spans, and we're stubborn, and we won't learn the truth because it would force us to expend great effort into changing our lives, etc.

I mean, good lord, we're still talking about this! Literally years after we started saying we weren't interested in Chesterton! But you will not let us suffer with our ignorance. You will force him onto us. And it's not because he was a full-rounded, three dimensional person. If that was it, you'd be in the Library, telling everyone about so many different kinds of things he wrote. But you're not. You're only here, wanting us to agree with his beliefs.

[rusmeister]

Here all I can say is "Go ahead and spite yourself."

I wish I had the right to make that decision! But I do not. Nobody here in the Close does. You will not allow it. You will continue to post quotes and links, and continue to give us attitude for not reading everything at the other end of the links. We don't agree with what we do read, and, so, choose not to read everything else he ever wrote. But you won't just let us spite ourselves. You will continue to tell us that we have short attention spans, and we're stubborn, and we won't learn the truth because it would force us to expend great effort into changing our lives, etc.

I mean, good lord, we're still talking about this! Literally years after we started saying we weren't interested in Chesterton! But you will not let us suffer with our ignorance. You will force him onto us. And it's not because he was a full-rounded, three dimensional person. If that was it, you'd be in the Library, telling everyone about so many different kinds of things he wrote. But you're not. You're only here, wanting us to agree with his beliefs.

So ignore it, Fist. I pretty much have nothing to say to this post. I could refute the parts that paint me and my motivations in ways that I do not see them, but think it a waste of time.

The fact that you continue responding says something, too. If it were really that irrelevant, the easiest thing in the world would be to ignore the whacko who's off his rocker.

[rusmeister]

Assumptions of these answers are implied at every point of study. The usually undiscussed assumptions are absorbed right along with the facts, because the facts must be presented, not as random facts, but as part of some larger scheme, or it is not an education at all. If you are not teaching children or students to think about these things, you are not teaching them at all, for the very first thing they must be taught is to think.

At least on this, we are in complete agreement. And it's why I abhor the whole system centered on standardized testing.
Where I learned to teach, part of the principles of their philosophy was to explicitly teach not just the facts, but the framework in which they were set.
It's odd, the graduates from the program are in high demand...yet they all have a very rough time for the first 4-5 years.
Anyway: my point is worldview/facts are way too often seen as one or the other being deterministic of its partner. The "truth" is that they are in dynamic feedback...but not a loop, or circle...if you graphed, it'd be an outward spiral...always returning-but-not-exactly.
Acceptance of homosexuality may have been a cultural/survival threat at some distant point in the past [I don't believe so, but it's possible I suppose]. But many, many things used to be threats that are no longer.
I think old wisdom has its place...but that human society, as an entity, is smarter and stronger than it was 1000, 2000, 10,000, years ago.

Well, we agree on framework, anyway (that's something)!

I don't understand your paragraph on feedback - it's insufficiently clear for me to comment on it.

It seems obvious to me that acceptance of homosexuality (( call it 'legitimization of homosexual behavior', LHB for short) CAN be a short-term and obvious threat to a society; certainly, supporters of LHB are fond of pointing out how birthrate will be reduced (by the redirection of sexual energy away from its creative purpose to a mere pleasure-seeking purpose), and so it would rightly be discouraged in a society whose demographics are threatened by a low birthrate, so of course, we only see it raise its head when there is no such threat. Of course, I think there are other threats that are long-term and NOT obvious - if they were obvious, it would not have the support it does in our time.

Again, I'd challenge you to try out Lewis's essay "Funeral of a Great Myth". It really does challenge your idea of collective improvement - if you think your idea can stand the challenge.
fpb.livejournal.com/297710.html
It's important to get the distinction made between evolution as scientific theory and evolutionism as myth.

[Fist and Faith]

Modern art may have "developed" from savage art. But then the very first picture of all did not "evolve" itself: it came from something overwhelmingly greater than itself, from the mind of that man who, by seeing for the first time that marks on a flat surface could be made to look like animals and men, proved himself to exceed in sheer blinding genius any of the artists who have succeeded him.

Very well put. How extraordinary to have been the first person to think this way. Or the one who heard something fall onto a hollow log, or hear a bowstring thrum, and think it could be more than simply the noise that thing makes. "Blinding genius" indeed!

[rusmeister]

Modern art may have "developed" from savage art. But then the very first picture of all did not "evolve" itself: it came from something overwhelmingly greater than itself, from the mind of that man who, by seeing for the first time that marks on a flat surface could be made to look like animals and men, proved himself to exceed in sheer blinding genius any of the artists who have succeeded him.

Very well put. How extraordinary to have been the first person to think this way. Or the one who heard something fall onto a hollow log, or hear a bowstring thrum, and think it could be more than simply the noise that thing makes. "Blinding genius" indeed!

You are taking an ability to abstract for granted. If there was a first man - especially if he evolved, something that I am personally skeptical of (but don't think it of immense importance) - then the point at which he stretched beyond what any animal has ever done was indeed a first step that had never been done. Same with the first use of the first tool or the wheel. Sure, it is obvious to US. Who was it that said, "Any technology sufficiently advanced will be indistinguishable from magic."?

[Fist and Faith]

You're saying Lewis took it for granted?? Because all I did was agree with him. I don't take it for granted. I think it's extraordinary that someone first had such thoughts, and it's not too much less incredible even now.

[rusmeister]

You're saying Lewis took it for granted?? Because all I did was agree with him. I don't take it for granted. I think it's extraordinary that someone first had such thoughts, and it's not too much less incredible even now.

If so, then my apologies. Your post came across as sarcasm with an apparent disdain for the quote.

"Blinding genius" indeed!

This reinforced that understanding.
Although I think that there is an order of difference in hearing a sound and recognizing art. Sounds existed without art and we learn as babies to turn toward them and react to them. Art has to be specially made first (even the simplest drawing of a stick figure with eyes, which babies can recognize, but not reproduce for some years). So it's not genius to turn towards a sound, but it IS genius to invent a completely new form of communication. Braille, for instance. Even sign language wouldn't match up, as we have always had gestures, and SL is simply a refinement. The invention of alphabets, such as the Cherokee Indian Sequoyah, or the Korean Sejong, had precedent that they copied. But a way to teach blind people to read as seeing people do - that was a stroke of genius. And so was the first artistic depiction.