[Gilithin]

barmar, on 2023-October-26, 17:03, said:

Telling people that they're stupid isn't going to help. We saw that during the Clinton campaign with her "deplorables" comment.

I don't think the Trumpists are stupid, any more than the followers of cult leaders like Jim Jones and Charles Manson were. They're often disillusioned or disappointed, and these charismatic people promise a solution to their problems, so they go along with it.

While I have not seen any statistics on the IQ of Trump voters, we do know that a very large proportion of them are poorly educated (by level) and from education systems that are specifically designed to provide a poor education that does not promote questioning or trying to understand the world around them. So while not politically acceptable, stupid may not be so far from the truth. If you do not acknowledge the real truth of the situation, you cannot hope to come up with solutions. Yes the result is cognitive dissonance. But almost everyone has some level of that - it is normal. What we need to understand is why it is so marked in these individuals and that starts with culture and education.

[Winstonm]

I agree and would add the meaning of the word stupid has evolved to incorporate poorly educated, uninterested, willfully ignorant, and the successfully propagandized.

Perhaps a new word is needed: stupirant or igpid.

[pilowsky]

Intellectualisation is a very high level coping mechanism.
I suspect the majority of people choose their 'team' on the basis of other factors such as: fear, greed and envy.

[Winstonm]

It was good enough for Honest Abe so it's good enough for me. Give me tthat old time schooling....

Quote

Home schooling has become — by a wide margin — America’s fastest-growing form of education, as families from Upper Manhattan to Eastern Kentucky embrace a largely unregulated practice once confined to the ideological fringe, a Washington Post analysis shows.The analysis — based on data The Post collected for thousands of school districts across the country — reveals that a dramatic rise in home schooling at the onset of the pandemic has largely sustained itself through the 2022-23 academic year, defying predictions that most families would return to schools that have dispensed with mask mandates and other covid-19 restrictions.

[thepossum]

Winstonm, on 2023-October-31, 10:00, said:

It was good enough for Honest Abe so it's good enough for me. Give me tthat old time schooling....

I think there are some people entitled to think they could do a better job.
Maybe not many

Protecting children from the (terrible) truth can work if they never have to go out into the real world

I am not going any further in either direction.

I do think what are needed most are survival skills though - and personally even though I was not prepared well for the real world I would miss the social of a school

[Winstonm]

thepossum, on 2023-November-01, 01:28, said:

I think there are some people entitled to think they could do a better job.
Maybe not many

Protecting children from the (terrible) truth can work if they never have to go out into the real world

I am not going any further in either direction.

I do think what are needed most are survival skills though - and personally even though I was not prepared well for the real world I would miss the social of a school

Socialization is a large part of the value of a public education.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2023-November-01, 07:29, said:

Socialization is a large part of the value of a public education.

This is true in so many ways.
In high school algebra class there was a kid, I forget his name, that was ok at algebra but I was better and I helped him. The we both took metal shop. I was ok at that but he was great at it and helped me.
In biology class I sat next to a girl who liked to talk to me about her love life. I learned a lot from her.
I dated a girl from my school who, on our first date, explained that while I was not as smart as she was I was smart enough so that she would go out with me.
One day as I was about to leave school a friend told me that this older and tougher kid was going to be waiting by my car to beat me up but his friends had reminded him that he was on probation for auto theft and beating me up was more trouble than it was worth.
I could go on. And on. And on.
The first HS reunion I went to was something like the 52nd year reunion. I was having trouble remembering one of the guys and then I recalled a guy who was a wild daredevil on the trampoline. I asked him if he was that guy. Yep, he was. I think he liked being remembered for that.

Added: As with so many things, school was simpler when I was attending back in ancient times. I did not know anyone who was home schooled. Some kids I knew went to Catholic schools.i guess some went to private schools but the only kid I knew who had gone to one had been kicked out and was now in public school with me.
And kids were forgiven for being kids. When I was 12 I got frustrated by my mother always bragging about my good grades so I set out to deliberately get bad grades and I was quite successful; at that. When I was 17 and applying for college no college ever expressed concern over my bad scores in eighth grade.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2023-November-01, 07:58, said:

This is true in so many ways.
In high school algebra class there was a kid, I forget his name, that was ok at algebra but I was better and I helped him. The we both took metal shop. I was ok at that but he was great at it and helped me.
In biology class I sat next to a girl who liked to talk to me about her love life. I learned a lot from her.
I dated a girl from my school who, on our first date, explained that while I was not as smart as she was I was smart enough so that she would go out with me.
One day as I was about to leave school a friend told me that this older and tougher kid was going to be waiting by my car to beat me up but his friends had reminded him that he was on probation for auto theft and beating me up was more trouble than it was worth.
I could go on. And on. And on.
The first HS reunion I went to was something like the 52nd year reunion. I was having trouble remembering one of the guys and then I recalled a guy who was a wild daredevil on the trampoline. I asked him if he was that guy. Yep, he was. I think he liked being remembered for that.

Added: As with so many things, school was simpler when I was attending back in ancient times. I did not know anyone who was home schooled. Some kids I knew went to Catholic schools.i guess some went to private schools but the only kid I knew who had gone to one had been kicked out and was now in public school with me.
And kids were forgiven for being kids. When I was 12 I got frustrated by my mother always bragging about my good grades so I set out to deliberately get bad grades and I was quite successful; at that. When I was 17 and applying for college no college ever expressed concern over my bad scores in eighth grade.

In this pandemic era I notice my sense of years is askew so this happened maybe 6? years ago. An extremely religious family in a community adjacent to Tulsa home-schooled their four kids and the oldest two boys one night went on a rampage and stabbed to death their parents and the younger kids.
None of the children had ever attended school public or private.

[Gilithin]

Winstonm, on 2023-November-01, 14:58, said:

An extremely religious family
home-schooled their kids
and the boys one night went on a rampage.

And the evidence for a link between these 3 things is...?

[pilowsky]

Gilithin, on 2023-November-01, 15:03, said:

And the evidence for a link between these 3 things is...?

Are we still talking about the USA?

[kenberg]

Gilithin, on 2023-November-01, 15:03, said:

And the evidence for a link between these 3 things is...?

t could be amusing, in a sick way, to speculate. As mentioned, there was a direct connection between my mother bragging about my grades and, when I could not get her to stop, me deliberately getting bad grades. Perhaps in the case Winston mentions the parents kept bragging about what good Cristian children they were, the parents would not stop when the kids asked them to stop, and so they set out to get the Cristian version of bad grades.

Ok That is truly sick.

But I do look back with pleasure on a childhood that combined guidance with plenty of free choice. And my mother did stop bragging about my grades. In high school, I just brought the grade slips home and she signed them without reading them.

[Gilithin]

kenberg, on 2023-November-01, 18:35, said:

t could be amusing, in a sick way, to speculate.

OK, let me be more direct. If you saw an article in an alt-right media outlet along the lines of "Two brothers from a black family were attending an inner city state school and the boys one night went on a rampage", what would be your reaction? What is the link here between "black family", "state school" and "rampage"? Everyone has their personal assumptions, on the left just as much as the right, so you have to be very careful when you read an article chaining together your own triggers not to read into it more than is really there.

[kenberg]

Gilithin, on 2023-November-02, 11:04, said:

OK, let me be more direct. If you saw an article in an alt-right media outlet along the lines of "Two brothers from a black family were attending an inner city state school and the boys one night went on a rampage", what would be your reaction? What is the link here between "black family", "state school" and "rampage"? Everyone has their personal assumptions, on the left just as much as the right, so you have to be very careful when you read an article chaining together your own triggers not to read into it more than is really there.

Of course I agree. I had not intended my analysis as serious.

[Winstonm]

Gilithin, on 2023-November-01, 15:03, said:

And the evidence for a link between these 3 things is...?

Did I say there was? These are facts. You must come to your own conclusions.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2023-November-02, 16:47, said:

Did I say there was? These are facts. You must come to your own conclusions.

I guess I would say that if you say "The family is religious", "The family home-schooled", and "The kids stabbed their parents" in adjacent sentences in the same paragraph it is fair to say that you are strongly suggesting there is linkage even fi you do not explicitly say so.

But forget that. I would like to hear views on modern childhood generally. Looking back on my own childhood, back in horse and buggy days, it seems it was more relaxed. I read Son of Tarzan and I read The Passionate Witch. I read One, Two, Three, Infinity and I read Greek Mythology. I was not told to read any of these things. I was not forbidden to read any of these things. I was not told what I should think about them after I read them. I was 12 or so when I read The Glorious Pool (as with The Passionate Witch this was the 1950s version of racy), and I did sum up the storyline for the 12-year-old girl that lived near me, probably her mother would have had something to say about that if she had found out, but basically I read what I wanted to read and thought what I thought. Today there seems to be much more of a push to tell kids what they are to read, what they are to think, what they are to do. There is a great deal of antagonistic disagreement about what kids must read and think, and a lot of stress about it all. That horse and buggy approach suited me well. I liked learning how to prove that the (measure of the) three angles of any triangle add to 180 degrees, and I was happy to remain ignorant as to why someone went to Denmark to have a sex change operation. When school was over for the day I got on my bike, or later I got into my car, and went where I wanted to go. Maybe I am romanticizing, but it seemed like a very good childhood.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2023-November-03, 10:35, said:

I guess I would say that if you say "The family is religious", "The family home-schooled", and "The kids stabbed their parents" in adjacent sentences in the same paragraph it is fair to say that you are strongly suggesting there is linkage even fi you do not explicitly say so.

But forget that. I would like to hear views on modern childhood generally. Looking back on my own childhood, back in horse and buggy days, it seems it was more relaxed. I read Son of Tarzan and I read The Passionate Witch. I read One, Two, Three, Infinity and I read Greek Mythology. I was not told to read any of these things. I was not forbidden to read any of these things. I was not told what I should think about them after I read them. I was 12 or so when I read The Glorious Pool (as with The Passionate Witch this was the 1950s version of racy), and I did sum up the storyline for the 12-year-old girl that lived near me, probably her mother would have had something to say about that if she had found out, but basically I read what I wanted to read and thought what I thought. Today there seems to be much more of a push to tell kids what they are to read, what they are to think, what they are to do. There is a great deal of antagonistic disagreement about what kids must read and think, and a lot of stress about it all. That horse and buggy approach suited me well. I liked learning how to prove that the (measure of the) three angles of any triangle add to 180 degrees, and I was happy to remain ignorant as to why someone went to Denmark to have a sex change operation. When school was over for the day I got on my bike, or later I got into my car, and went where I wanted to go. Maybe I am romanticizing, but it seemed like a very good childhood.

I did not offer an opinion but placed four facts before you.
Home schooled, Christian family, adjacent to Tulsa, Murdered their family.

My opinion is the strict Christian upbringing holds the primary blame, not the home schooling and being adjacent to Tulsa makes it difficult to ever have those beliefs challenged.

If I had one wish it would be fir every person on the planet to suddenly understand there is no god or gods, that it’s just us trying to muddle through the best we can and there is nothing about that to get upset about.

[Gilithin]

Winstonm, on 2023-November-03, 16:11, said:

My opinion is the strict Christian upbringing holds the primary blame

Of course you do, because that matches your world views. Again, what evidence is there of a direct link? You appear to be falling for precisely the same conditioning as you accuse conservatives of when they link together disparate facts without evidence because it matches their pre-conceived ideas.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2023-November-03, 16:11, said:

I did not offer an opinion but placed four facts before you.
Home schooled, Christian family, adjacent to Tulsa, Murdered their family.

My opinion is the strict Christian upbringing holds the primary blame, not the home schooling and being adjacent to Tulsa makes it difficult to ever have those beliefs challenged.

If I had one wish it would be fir every person on the planet to suddenly understand there is no god or gods, that it's just us trying to muddle through the best we can and there is nothing about that to get upset about.

It is true that some religious people say that everything they say is right because God told them so, but not all religious people see it that way, I think most are a good deal more open to discussion. The guy I know that is far and away the least likely to concede that he could be wrong about anything at all is an atheist. We were at his house for dinner one night, he brought out the brandy, I said I was taking some medication and I could not at the moment be drinking brandy, he tried, exhaustingly, to convince me that I was wrong. His wife suggested I should be the one to decide whether I could or could not drink brandy, he told her she was wrong. That discussion could serve as a metaphor for what has gone so terribly wrong in this country. Everyone is positive they are right about everything.

In my 20s I became friends with a guy who had come from a Minnesota small town to go to the university. He summed up his religious thinking: "When I first came to Minneapolis I learned that the arguments in favor of religion were not as strong as I was led to believe. But then I thought more about it and decided that the arguments against religion were not so conclusive either." He and I became good friends.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2023-November-04, 07:41, said:

It is true that some religious people say that everything they say is right because God told them so, but not all religious people see it that way, I think most are a good deal more open to discussion. The guy I know that is far and away the least likely to concede that he could be wrong about anything at all is an atheist. We were at his house for dinner one night, he brought out the brandy, I said I was taking some medication and I could not at the moment be drinking brandy, he tried, exhaustingly, to convince me that I was wrong. His wife suggested I should be the one to decide whether I could or could not drink brandy, he told her she was wrong. That discussion could serve as a metaphor for what has gone so terribly wrong in this country. Everyone is positive they are right about everything.

In my 20s I became friends with a guy who had come from a Minnesota small town to go to the university. He summed up his religious thinking: "When I first came to Minneapolis I learned that the arguments in favor of religion were not as strong as I was led to believe. But then I thought more about it and decided that the arguments against religion were not so conclusive either." He and I became good friends.

This is a posting I agree with 100%. My personal history points to religion as a causative factor. That could be wrong, I know. But any religion that begins with you must or I am the (only) way might not be in accord with those views, and most religions of which I am familiar all start off with the premise that you have to do so and so. If someone wants to prove me wrong I am open to hear them out.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2023-November-04, 12:06, said:

This is a posting I agree with 100%. My personal history points to religion as a causative factor. That could be wrong, I know. But any religion that begins with you must or I am the (only) way might not be in accord with those views, and most religions of which I am familiar all start off with the premise that you have to do so and so. If someone wants to prove me wrong I am open to hear them out.

Few things are totally simple. As to religion, I will give examples, very very different.

Example 1: When I was 13 my father had a stroke, he could not talk, read or write. On Sundays I stayed home and helped him in recovery efforts and, when I was a4, I started going back to church Sunday mornings although my father still stayed at home. After a service, the minister took me aside and explain that I had to get my father to return to church so that he would not burn in the fires of hell. I had no experience in telling my father where he should be or what he should do. I found an isolated spot, shouted obscenities at God for 5 or 10 minutes, and when I was not turned into a pillar of salt I decided I was through with at least that church and eventually decided I would go through life without religion.

Example 2: One of my very good friends, I was best man at his wedding, became a Methodist minister. I visited him a few months ago, he still is a part-time minister, I went to one of his services. After the Sunday service, there is a gathering where people are welcome to discuss issues and I was welcome to join in. A young man attended, asking for help. He was gay, he grew up in a family where that was totally unacceptable, he was into drugs, he needed help. The people were very welcoming, he was accepted. As the discussion came to a close, I wished him the very best in being whoever he is. The fires of hell were not mentioned, nor in any way implied. My contributions to the discussion were welcome even though I said nothing at all about God.

Do we accept people for who they are? Some Christians do, some don't. Some non-Christians do, some don't.

Ok, it's not simple. A mobster who goes to church on Sunday is forgiven and goes to heaven, I don't go to church on Sunday so I go to hell? My minister from example 1 probably would say yes. But that is not the majority view.

We have lost the ability to work with people who are not like us. This is not good.