03-23-2022, 12:40 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-23-2022, 02:08 PM by Eric the Green.)
"Having some English major lecture them on the importance of Catcher in the Rye when they are worried if they are gonna get shot that night"
A society where people feel they belong, where they have opportunity for greater education and for social and economic mobility, where people understand civics and how to make government work for them at all levels, would result in less worry about getting shot at night, or anything else. Because we would have a culture of cooperation, participation, social awareness, ethical principle, political awareness, critical thinking, and civic understanding. We would have a society where people vote for policies that benefit everyone, not just the upper class. And education in the arts and literature enriches life, and people of all classes deserve to have some concept within them of richness of life, regardless of their economic class or income. Humanities education also increases peoples' ability to see beyond their noses and to think, plan and evaluate, and to be self-determining and inspired, which helps people get along and succeed in society and possibly assume posts that have more to do with human resources and abilities, and training, educating and managing people. "Work" and "jobs" is a broader category than mechanical or clerical work. It is often primarily about human relationships. We need more education and training in this.
People in ancient, medieval and renaissance societies, and people today in Mayan areas and in India and Indonesia and many other places, who have few or none of the conveniences that we have in the USA, understand that richness and wonder, are happier than those chasing bucks and status, and they make beautiful things. We in America, educated only in how to do paperwork, make a buck and make technology work, do not. Richness in life in the USA exists only among those who are well educated in the classics, and/or who have some sense of ancient world cultures, or of the new alternative cultures since the Awakening; who lived in a Haight-Ashbury community or went to love-ins to hear the Woodstock music, or who went to human potential seminars or new age conferences. Ordinary typical American life is not worth living. The unexamined life is not worth living.
A society where people feel they belong, where they have opportunity for greater education and for social and economic mobility, where people understand civics and how to make government work for them at all levels, would result in less worry about getting shot at night, or anything else. Because we would have a culture of cooperation, participation, social awareness, ethical principle, political awareness, critical thinking, and civic understanding. We would have a society where people vote for policies that benefit everyone, not just the upper class. And education in the arts and literature enriches life, and people of all classes deserve to have some concept within them of richness of life, regardless of their economic class or income. Humanities education also increases peoples' ability to see beyond their noses and to think, plan and evaluate, and to be self-determining and inspired, which helps people get along and succeed in society and possibly assume posts that have more to do with human resources and abilities, and training, educating and managing people. "Work" and "jobs" is a broader category than mechanical or clerical work. It is often primarily about human relationships. We need more education and training in this.
People in ancient, medieval and renaissance societies, and people today in Mayan areas and in India and Indonesia and many other places, who have few or none of the conveniences that we have in the USA, understand that richness and wonder, are happier than those chasing bucks and status, and they make beautiful things. We in America, educated only in how to do paperwork, make a buck and make technology work, do not. Richness in life in the USA exists only among those who are well educated in the classics, and/or who have some sense of ancient world cultures, or of the new alternative cultures since the Awakening; who lived in a Haight-Ashbury community or went to love-ins to hear the Woodstock music, or who went to human potential seminars or new age conferences. Ordinary typical American life is not worth living. The unexamined life is not worth living.