09-22-2020, 11:24 AM
Conspiracy theorists have a wide range of follies from the harmless (Moon landing hoax) to the offensive (Holocaust denial) to the harmful (anti-vaccination). All depend on some denial of rational thought, especially the core value that establishes the most likely truth (the simplest explanation consistent with truth almost certainly -- in essence, you can bet your life on it) is the truth.
We can place the blame on many things, including people in the business of creating and selling pure bunkum (flat earth, recent collisions in the solar system, ancient astronauts, young-earth creationism, William Shakespeare couldn't have written all that is ascribed to him), bigotry (Holocaust denial, slavery was good for blacks), extremism ("providential" theory of American history, Marxism-Leninism, "scientific" racism, Afrocentrism*, the gun cult), medical quackery, or monetary hustles (Buy gold! Buy gold! Buy gold!). Add to this, I see the decline in the teaching and learning of the classic liberal arts that allow people to learn a wide, if not deep, knowledge in favor of deeper knowledge in fewer things (the Multiversity that has transformed undergraduate education into a watered-down grad school). People need some means of discerning truth, but even that is not enough. Breadth rightly comes before depth unless one can succeed at depth in one area (such as the performing and creative arts) early. Even with this said, the messed-up lives of many child stars of music and acting suggests that we need more breadth of experience to avoid the perils of the "Hollywood lifestyle".
If you are thinking about K-12 education, then I suggest that K-12 teachers be better versed in the liberal arts than they are. Many students do not go on to college or simply end up with some vocational curriculum intended to allow them to function in a commercial society, so their last possible encounter with the liberal arts is often K-12 education. Because life cannot be all work in a social order of high productivity and technological prowess (unless a few greedy swine have designed the political and economic order so that it funnels everything possible to some Master Class while giving others nothing more than the physical means of an animal-like existence, mind-rotting mass culture as an anodyne, and mind-denying religion as moral instruction).
*The achievements of African-Americans are adequate to establish the capability of Africans, and there were isolated but distinguished civilizations (Egypt is connected to Europe and the Near East, and is a special case for having more influence upon Europe and the Near East than upon sub-Saharan Africa, so it does not fully count as an African civilization) in sub-Saharan Africa. Beethoven was not black, as if that has any relevance. There is no "Whites Only" label on Plato, Michelangelo, J S Bach, or Leo Tolstoy. I can appreciate Hokusai without being Japanese and I can appreciate Duke Ellington without being black.
We can place the blame on many things, including people in the business of creating and selling pure bunkum (flat earth, recent collisions in the solar system, ancient astronauts, young-earth creationism, William Shakespeare couldn't have written all that is ascribed to him), bigotry (Holocaust denial, slavery was good for blacks), extremism ("providential" theory of American history, Marxism-Leninism, "scientific" racism, Afrocentrism*, the gun cult), medical quackery, or monetary hustles (Buy gold! Buy gold! Buy gold!). Add to this, I see the decline in the teaching and learning of the classic liberal arts that allow people to learn a wide, if not deep, knowledge in favor of deeper knowledge in fewer things (the Multiversity that has transformed undergraduate education into a watered-down grad school). People need some means of discerning truth, but even that is not enough. Breadth rightly comes before depth unless one can succeed at depth in one area (such as the performing and creative arts) early. Even with this said, the messed-up lives of many child stars of music and acting suggests that we need more breadth of experience to avoid the perils of the "Hollywood lifestyle".
If you are thinking about K-12 education, then I suggest that K-12 teachers be better versed in the liberal arts than they are. Many students do not go on to college or simply end up with some vocational curriculum intended to allow them to function in a commercial society, so their last possible encounter with the liberal arts is often K-12 education. Because life cannot be all work in a social order of high productivity and technological prowess (unless a few greedy swine have designed the political and economic order so that it funnels everything possible to some Master Class while giving others nothing more than the physical means of an animal-like existence, mind-rotting mass culture as an anodyne, and mind-denying religion as moral instruction).
*The achievements of African-Americans are adequate to establish the capability of Africans, and there were isolated but distinguished civilizations (Egypt is connected to Europe and the Near East, and is a special case for having more influence upon Europe and the Near East than upon sub-Saharan Africa, so it does not fully count as an African civilization) in sub-Saharan Africa. Beethoven was not black, as if that has any relevance. There is no "Whites Only" label on Plato, Michelangelo, J S Bach, or Leo Tolstoy. I can appreciate Hokusai without being Japanese and I can appreciate Duke Ellington without being black.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.