Social Destruction?

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Fido

I think one of the biggest predictors of poverty is lack of social control.

The predictors I mention are supported by a tremendous amount of actual research, including large scale interventions with control groups. Philosophical musings have never solved practical problems on this scale, nor will they ever. Cultural change happens because people's living conditions change, not the other way around.

To be sure there is a cyclic relationship between diseases of poverty (both social and medical) and the stability and "social control" in such a society. But when you look at the research what you repeatedly see is that poverty regresses again and again to disease and mortality as strong independent predictors.

And societies with strong social control do not necessarily benefit from development, modernization, or stability -- after all, didn't Afghanistan under the Taliban have an extremely tight social control system? And yet it had the highest infant mortality rates and lowest life expectancy in the entire continent of Asia. Zimbabwe's public health has gone down the crapper ever since Mugabe turned it into a police state. How about Guinea-Conakry under Toure? The thread that unites these examples is that the social control is imposed by an oligarchy, and trickle-down discipline has never worked on a large scale. You want to change culture, then address what people are suffering from first.

[saiboimushi]

Does anyone else find it absolutely absurd that most americans can't name the first five presidents? Don't really know what's in the constitution or the Declaration of Independence? I don't wonder why our education is the laughingstock of the world...Isn't this another form of social destruction?

Yes, it is. Our students receive a very peculiar education in this country, not simply from schools but also from parents, social interactions, and media. They are taught the basics in math and language arts, making them intelligent in the lowest sense. They can read and calculate, and thus can perfom all kinds of self-preserving tasks: manage money, follow politics, maintain technology, and function somewhat effectively within an "information" economy. In essence, they are machines or barbarians, but machines/barbarians that exist in a partly non-mechanical, non-barbaric world, a world of culture and values.

And this is my biggest concern: these students are not sufficently educated about values or culture. They are literate, and thus can participate in politics--but I would rather that they did not participate in politics, since literacy is not a sufficient condition for good political decisionmaking, i.e., virtue. The question of what is a sufficient condition for virtue is a virtuous question; it is the true starting point of virtue. And since the idea of virtue has been lost in our culture (replaced by the law and by a vague utilitarian rationalism), we need to return to this question--and never, ever lose sight of it again.

The best way to do this is to read what wise people have said about virtue, and to keep reading. This is the true form of literacy, the only form that has any value. And it is also the true meaning of education.

In my opinion

POSTSCRIPT: So much of what kids do to act out is really the manifestation of their desire to realize a value-laden world. Kids can easily spot the Nothing, since they have not yet grown so used to it that they no longer even notice it.

[Rasputini]

I disagree with your view on education. To be educated is to be aware of points of view, to know something about the world around you, and to be able to formulate your own oppinions that are based on some sort of evidence. Knowing what virtue is does not hold any value on its own; you need to take what others have said on it and make your own oppinion on it. My philosophy TA mentioned an interesting comparison between university students. He said there are the cows and the bulls. The cows take the info they're presented and regurgitate it, the bulls take the information digest it, and make their own "substance." Let the kids read till their eyes bleed, but if they don't have the interest or the ability to make something of it, they're just barfing up useless, meaningless facts. That is not a truely educated person, you're still caught in the same loop of barbarians and machines like you said. I don't think education is the root of society's problems... The knowledge and information is out there; people don't care enough to do anything with it.

[saiboimushi]

Let the kids read till their eyes bleed, but if they don't have the interest or the ability to make something of it, they're just barfing up useless, meaningless facts.

You're absolutely right, and I think you've hit on what I consider to be the spirit of education: interest or desire. However, I would not extricate education from its spirit, as you seem to do. Nor would I draw an absolute dividing line between facts and values, as our "culture" does all the time. (If you are a young person, I admonish you to retain your passionate idealism, and resist the temptation to bow down to mere facts, since mere facts--extricated from all value--are not the proper objects of the desire you rightfully preach. And you seem to know this.)

Lately I've been doing a lot of thinking about desire--about how it might best be inculcated or even induced (like vomiting?) in the classroom. The contemprary educator faces an almost impossible task: to get kids to see the value in what they are learning. Many teachers, as we all know from experience, are not even aware of the value of what they teach. Sometimes I wonder if I am any different ...

[Rasputini]

Well I think I seperate "the spirit" of education so much because I think there is a difference between knowledge and education. You might have a vast knowledge of something, but that doesn't make you educated. I think that's what I'm really getting at.

Well as far as classroom interest, my dad, whose a high school art/photo/socials teacher is always telling me how the kids don't get the simplist of concepts, they don't care, and they're mentally lazy. I myself am 19 and recognize my own mental laziness. Just for example, I have finals in a couple of days, and my mind is just anti-studying; i just wanna go do other things. I think technology is a major contribution to the my own and up coming generation's mental laziness. How many times have I easily gotten distracted with online chat or games or whatever. Information is so easy to get (wikipedia, google, etc) that classroom learning runs at a rediculously slow pace in comparison. In addition to that, I think pop culture has a huge impact. You have this "gangster" mentality that glorifies street life, drug trafficing, drug use, degrades women, and I would argue promotes a general "school isn't cool" message. Compare that image to those in the 60's and 70's; yes they weren't exactly pro education, but they didn't glorify high school drop outs who sold drugs for x number of years. Of course suggesting that pop culture affects EVERYONE would be a generalization, but when looking at the masses or society in a whole, I think i can get away with it this one time. hehehe

[saiboimushi]

Well I think I seperate "the spirit" of education so much because I think there is a difference between knowledge and education. You might have a vast knowledge of something, but that doesn't make you educated. I think that's what I'm really getting at.

I think you and I have been in agreement from the beginning. We've just been saying the same thing in two very different ways

You're 19 and I'm 27, so really we're both young. Yet of late I have felt the bow of my spirit begin to slacken. Facts set in like the winter cold. When you're young it is all-too-easy to resist facts, and your virtue in resisting them is like the virtue of physical beauty, one that comes naturally and hence is not really earned. As our natural resistance to facts fades, the true test of our spirit begins. Do we merely go through the motions of our bodies, until death? Or do we take arms against a sea of facts, and by opposing them, help to preserve one little blossom of value against the acidic winds of mere matter--the storm without the god?

Our education and culture should make life enjoyable, beautiful, harmonious, and good. If they do not, then to hell with them.

[Rasputini]

Hmmm wouldn't resistance to facts be lowest in youth? By the time we're older we would have formulated our opinions and be the least willing to move from them. A child will believe just about anything you tell them, and they'll addopt your point of view until they get older and develop their own.
Personally I think our education and culture are making life enjoyable. Even if we see our society crumbling before us it gives rise to enjoyable discourse and a gathering of minds. Is that not an enjoyable, beatiful, harmonious and good thing? It is not necissarily society that gives us those things... We make them.

[saiboimushi]

Hmmm wouldn't resistance to facts be lowest in youth? By the time we're older we would have formulated our opinions and be the least willing to move from them. A child will believe just about anything you tell them, and they'll addopt your point of view until they get older and develop their own.

Kids' resistance to facts is not a truly philosophical resistance, hence its inconsistency and (if no real education intervenes) its inevitable failure. To use a common expression, this natural resistence "is just a phase." One can, in principle, have a true belief, but this belief is subject to change since it is not properly grounded in truth, as wisdom must be. A stopped clock is always right twice a day. And a person who has no desire to do evil will not do evil--not because they are wise, or even really virtuous, but simply because they do not want to do evil. If the desire changes, they will do evil. (We have all seen a sancitimonious goodie two shoes turn into a satyr when subjected to certain temptations that they never had before. They were never really angelic; they just never had any good reason to do naughty things.)

Children are incredibly succeptible to other people's thoughts. In fact, they ARE other people's thoughts--even their resistance to other people's thoughts, along with their resistence to facts, is just other people's thoughts. The fatal thought or belief is that people start out a certain way and then end a certain way, and for the majority of humanity, this means that people start out better and happier and then end up worse and less happy, until death takes them. Kids start out beautiful and energetic and incredibly wise--but all of this is a kind of illusion, a copy of the genuine article, since kids are just manifesting everyone else's beliefs about them.

At some point, we must reach the center or cause of our being, instead of remaining helpless at the effect or circumpherence. This attainment is Wisdom, and the false imitation of Wisdom is the virtue (like physical beauty) that is not really earned, and hence not really understood or possessed.

POSTSCRIPT: I should mention what I mean by "fact." A fact is not a truth, since a fact does not include or embody value, whereas a truth does. A truth, as I define it, is a unity of fact and value.

A truth sans goodness and beauty: that is a mere nauseating fact.

[Rasputini]

Ah. Well my view is that we all start off as a blank slate. So there has to be that early conditioning when resistance is low. Personality builds with experience; enough so that it may alter someone's disposition. Just because a small child is generally a happy one, does not mean they will necissarily end happy.

"a person who has no desire to do evil will not do evil--not because they are wise, or even really virtuous, but simply because they do not want to do evil. a person who has no desire to do evil will not do evil--not because they are wise, or even really virtuous, but simply because they do not want to do evil. " This I strongly disagree with. To me this would be an act of either ignorance on the part of the person who desires no evil, or it shows a lack of social conditioning to define what is good and evil. There's another thread on Good and Evil so i won't go too much into it here, but good and evil are relative to other actions and perception. Anyway, I dont think not wanting to commit evil will garuntee that.

[saiboimushi]

"a person who has no desire to do evil will not do evil--not because they are wise, or even really virtuous, but simply because they do not want to do evil. a person who has no desire to do evil will not do evil--not because they are wise, or even really virtuous, but simply because they do not want to do evil. " This I strongly disagree with. To me this would be an act of either ignorance on the part of the person who desires no evil, or it shows a lack of social conditioning to define what is good and evil. There's another thread on Good and Evil so i won't go too much into it here, but good and evil are relative to other actions and perception. Anyway, I dont think not wanting to commit evil will garuntee that.

You don't have to agree with this example, as long as you understand my idea . Take instead my first example of the broken clock, and then consider, if you will, the idea that it illustrates.

Enjoyable conversation by the way. Work is slow right now.