I agree that teaching critical thinking is a good idea. The problem is, however, that many parents don't want their children to be taught how to think critically. That's why we have a lot of children being home-schooled or sent to private, denominational schools.
More to the point, there's a tendency among well-meaning liberals to deal with social problems by just saying 'we need to teach children differently, then when they come to age they'll fix the mess'. Beyond the fact that this will take a long time, there's also the problem of getting the parents and teaching faculty 'with the program'.
As a writer with a long history of community organizing, I want to focus in on your line "Every hypocrite is a dangerous reactionary lacking a moral compass". That's the divide. I'd say that the 'dangerous reactionary' doesn't lack a moral compass, so much as they have a totally different one. Evangelicals don't see hypocrisy as evidence of a lack of morality, they see it as 'the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak'. In contrast, liberals see hypocrisy as the 'original sin' of the post-enlightenment world.
I don't think I've ever read anyone point out this fundamental difference at work here. But I think it really is key to what's going on.
doesn't lack a moral compass, so much as they have a totally different one.
Taoism helps make one able to shed those old paradigms of universal rights and wrongs. These people simply do what they feel is best for them even if other people think differently.
Great insights in to the alien mind! Makes perfect sense of the very long history of them not caring about hypocrisy. It is unfortunate that people born biologically the same can operate so differently.
Good piece. But the place to start is teaching critical thinking. Every hypocrite is a dangerous reactionary lacking a moral compass.
I agree that teaching critical thinking is a good idea. The problem is, however, that many parents don't want their children to be taught how to think critically. That's why we have a lot of children being home-schooled or sent to private, denominational schools.
More to the point, there's a tendency among well-meaning liberals to deal with social problems by just saying 'we need to teach children differently, then when they come to age they'll fix the mess'. Beyond the fact that this will take a long time, there's also the problem of getting the parents and teaching faculty 'with the program'.
As a writer with a long history of community organizing, I want to focus in on your line "Every hypocrite is a dangerous reactionary lacking a moral compass". That's the divide. I'd say that the 'dangerous reactionary' doesn't lack a moral compass, so much as they have a totally different one. Evangelicals don't see hypocrisy as evidence of a lack of morality, they see it as 'the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak'. In contrast, liberals see hypocrisy as the 'original sin' of the post-enlightenment world.
I don't think I've ever read anyone point out this fundamental difference at work here. But I think it really is key to what's going on.
doesn't lack a moral compass, so much as they have a totally different one.
Taoism helps make one able to shed those old paradigms of universal rights and wrongs. These people simply do what they feel is best for them even if other people think differently.
Great insights in to the alien mind! Makes perfect sense of the very long history of them not caring about hypocrisy. It is unfortunate that people born biologically the same can operate so differently.