How to talk to a (Fundamentalist) Christian Part I

Well, this part caught my eye --

"Everyone is talking about the red states being on the dole, and about the connection to slavery, but they aren't pointing out the most obvious problem here - the poor educational systems."

I'm wondering what you mean by this. We homeschool. Unschool actually. And I'm interested in all sorts of alternative ed ideas.

But I wonder what you are suggesting here. . .

Thanks.

Nance

You and I probably won't agree on education matters, but please don't let that distract you from the point of this series. I'm not trying to fix education in this group of posts - I'm trying to get people to understand why people believe in the things that they do and how to approach someone with no capacity for critical thinking. In the South, even the public schools are heavily influenced by religious ideology, and I'm saying that's a problem.

First let me say that no one system is ideal for everyone. I used to think that I'd home school if I had kids, but I now think it's not generally a good idea to have kids in an isolated environment. I know that not all home schooling is that way, and that the kids tend to do very well academically. In too many cases, though, they don't get education, they get indoctrination, so I don't believe in home schooling. I'm not sure what you mean by unschooling, but I'd like to learn, if you have a few minutes to explain.

I cover this in the upcoming sections. I see a big part of our current problem as being a result of people not being taught American history. If you want proof of this, watch The Tonight Show's Jay Leno interview people on the street about history trivia. It's frightening what the average person doesn't know. Too many people are told that this is supposed to be a Christian country, with no input from anyone else to explain to them that this simply isn't true. The culture has an interest in having some standardization of subjects, and also in some diversity of thought. Kids need to be exposed to different people, opinions and different cultures. I'll agree that there are problems with public schools, but I think we should focus on fixing those. (That would be a long article in itself.)

I would prefer that all children be required to attend public school, and leave any alternative religious training or subjects for the parents to arrange on evenings or weekends. I don't believe in private, parochial or boarding schools either. Children should be educated locally, by accredited teachers, until they are well into their teens. This is not only important for social and academic skills, but the school system can also catch early warning signs of abuse or neglect. It also has a "democratizing effect" in that it would help break down elitist social barriers maintained by exclusive schools and Universities. Once in their teens, I'm all for accommodating special circumstances, like schools for the arts, as long as the kids are taught critical thinking, and remain in a diverse environment.

These are just my opinions, and as I said, they aren't the goal of the article. Please read the rest of the series before you decide how you feel about it. This is just an introduction.

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Hiya,

You write: "I see a big part of our current problem as being a result of people not being taught American history. If you want proof of this, watch The Tonight Show's Jay Leno interview people on the street about history trivia. It's frightening what the average person doesn't know."

I'm disinclined to view this as a problem. Afterall, what was the situation years ago? Many people were taught some pretty ridiculous things about US history. So, if we've gone downhill from our past, then surely moving from telling lies about history to not knowing much about it doesn't help.

Plus, Jay Leno man on the street interviews aren't representative of the voting population, are they? Voters are typically better off, more educated, white, more apt to be married, older, etc. Maybe you don't care about voters? But I assume you do since you mention the last election.

And, on that note, I really can't say that I agree that voters would like it that we'd emphasized the Nazi Connections.

The democratic party has to be _for_ something and tell a narrative, a story, about why they believe what they believe and how it will help people. Why do I say that? This this study:

http://www.vanishingvoter.org/VV2000/Press_Releases/11-04-00.shtml

One of the things voters hate is the bickering, the demonization, etc. Yeah, I personally love a good fight. That's why I do things like run a blog and posts on blog and get involved with people who have strong opinions. But, we are hardly ordinary USers. Most peple I know tend to avoid confrontation. They like to put their opinion out there and not have it argued with and get offended when others take issues, saying something like "It's just my opinion" as a way to foreclose discussion -- the demand to defend the opinion.

For whatever reason, they don't seem to like to see bickering in the political arena. Lord knows why not...

Plus, I'm a sociologist and I just can't get behind the whole Fascism thing. It would be denying what we know about fascist states, reducing that complex, nuanced research to simplicities.

b

Bitch |
Lab

I'm beginning to regret posting this article in sections. This is an article about moral and ethical development and how it affects the way people think about religion. If political activists don't learn this, nothing is going to change.

I looked at the study you linked to - all that did for me is reinforce the fact that non-voters have a more negative view of voting than voters. I'm saying that the number of voters would be larger if people understood how government works. I also think there's a big difference in what people say in a survey and what they do at the polls.

I do care about voters, but I care more that they tend to be older, white, and educated - meaning that they're a product of a stronger educational system than younger, poorer, non-white people had. By not voting, younger people and minorities are accepting the status quo. Women in this country endured torture in American prisons to win the right to vote. African Americans risked their lives to vote until very recently. Now most people can't be bothered to show up. That's a huge change and rich white men are getting even richer because of it. The Right Wing has Michelle Malkin running around promoting internment and Ann Coulter is saying women shouldn't have the right to vote. Alito thinks the birth control pill and IUDs should be illegal. Remember, the Right is disciplined to stay on message - when you start hearing their cheerleaders talk about something, take it seriously, no matter how outrageous.

People in the past certainly did get a skewed view of history, but they got one. The average school kid in the 50's would have been far more likely to know who fought the civil war and why than kids do now. They knew far more about fascism than people do now. Their language skills were better. They had more facts readily available. They had longer attention spans. They had to meet certain standards or fail. Schools became lax in that over the last 30 - 40 years. There's a reason my college required students to sit in a classroom and write an essay before they were allowed to graduate, and the reason is that there were kids in the past who had graduated without knowing how to read. That is not going to create an informed electorate.

Are you familiar with Britt's article about the 14 characteristics of fascist governments? America under the Bush regime meets all 14 criteria. I think Americans are hypnotized by our own mythology. "We could never be fascists - we're Americans!" That's naive and dangerous. How many people have to be rounded up without warrants, attorneys, access to the courts or rights of habeas corpus; beaten to death during torture; how many civilians melted with white phosphorus; how many protesters corraled, silenced and lead away in handcuffs; artists intimidated; media manipulated; elections stolen; hunger strikers force fed; political rallies confined to only one party; how many white supremacists have to patrol the boarder and radicals try to impose a theocracy before it counts as fascism? Because all of that is happening in America or being done by Americans right now. Our government is committing war crimes. It will do no good to learn the "f" word once you're on a train headed to internment or worse. No, I don't think that's an exaggeration, I think its inevitable if something doesn't happen very soon.

As you'll see in Part II, you have to approach voters on three levels - you have to appeal to the reptilian, mammalian and human minds. Not talking about fascism made Kerry look weak. Not calling Bush a liar made him look weak. The Bush campaign kept people in a perpetual state of fear, which short circuits logical thinking. You have to appeal to their survival instincts, add an air of hope and then back it up with new ideas. Kerry had ideas, but he was never able to get their attention the way the Republicans did.

Al Gore was probably the most qualified man who ever ran for President, but he didn't win in a landslide against a guy who presents himself as if he's a retarded cowboy from Texas. Nice trick for a rich guy born, raised and educated in Connecticut. Quite a trip from cheerleading in the Ivy League to clearing brush in Crawford, but when your Dad is the former head of the CIA, you're bound to learn some black ops techniques. If we ever want another Democratic president, we'd better learn a few, too.

Let me know what you think of the rest of the series, OK? Thanks.

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