The best tactic to stop hate is to return education to the conceptual method and back to the humanities that are essential to being civilized. We seriously need to stop relying on religion for social order because reliance on religion has promoted social and economic injustice, racism and war.

Well said. I agree with the worry about the ramifications of non-empirical moral metaphysics. I think that understanding what we are, and why we are that way, should shed light on which ethics are consistent with human society and which aren't. — Kenosha Kid

Oh yeah, it would make a huge difference! Unfortunately, especially in the US, Christianity has had a lot of control of education and has aggressively prevented the education essential to a higher morality.

There is a direct relationship between racism and Christianity and the problem with education that we have experienced, preventing our democracy from being fully realized besides having a prison system based on false beliefs and the highest number of incarcerated people in western culture. The belief system supports the military-industrial complex and the notion that our military is serving God. That is a bit of a moral problem with serious ramifications.

Not to mention, if we can rationalize with it, how can we not be aware of it? Or must we now separate being aware of, from being conscious of? — Mww

We operate in a state of illusion or delusion most of the time.

In his mega bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, world-famous psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think.
‎ — Amazon

Thinking demands huge amounts of energy and to conserve energy for most of our waking time we are in fast thinking mode. That means we are operating instinctively or habitually and on very little information. It would not be possible to function if most of the time we were not in the fast thinking mode, where our minds work with very little information.

Personally I think we should be all be working with an understanding of human nature and Daniel Kahneman's explanations of our thinking and why we make bad decisions. We might be much more tolerant of each other if we more fully understood the problems with being human. I have concerns that religious explanations of being human have been a serious problem to civilization.

I think this is problematical. Humans are plainly - empirically, even - different to any other animal, in terms of their capabilities, intellectual and otherwise, and certainly in terms of self-awareness. And that's both a blessing and a curse - a blessing in that self-awareness, combined with language and the ability to seek meaning, opens horizons of being that are simply not available to animals. And a curse, in that we can contemplate the meaning of our existence and our death. — Wayfarer

That is not the whole truth. As all other animals, our mental capacity is limited and it is the limits of our mental capacity that makes our morality a problem. If this is not understood we have serious problems with our moral decisions, laws, and justice.

We are limited to knowing about 600 people and when a population becomes larger than this we dehumanize those we do not know to cope with the overload of too many people. The result is being more moral with some people than others and more reliant on impersonal laws and the enforcement of laws that limit or completely take away our liberty.

Failure to accept evolution and the sciences that study our humanness is a very serious morality problem with social, economic, and political ramifications.

oldtimer: education was always meant to benefit the ruling elite. It is only when civilizations went from agricultural to industrial that the elite realized that the lower class/farmers needed to be educated so they could run complex equipment...and the rest is history — archaios

I have studied the history of education since ancient times and I disagree with you. Historically there have been many different purposes for education and different groups holding the responsibility of education. Scholasticism was the effort of the Catholic church and centered on Aristotle, supporting the authority of the church of course, but also lifting humanity out of the dirt and setting us up for the age of Englightenment and the return of liberal education. Scholasticism moved philosophy into science and the modern age. Liberal education is about freedom and that is why I opened this thread.

Mythology was the bases of education since mankind gathered around the fire and began telling stories. Mythology has always been about transitioning the young into adults and social bonding. That is a very different purpose of education than serving the elite.

This thread would not exist if our education had not changed from the humanistic goals to technological military-industrial complex goals.

You might be interested in Thomas Jefferson and his concern that education is essential to a strong and united public. The ideology of our democracy begins with the philosophy of ancient Athens and was developed through the age of Enlightenment and this root of the education is far from education that benefits the elite.

Where does your understanding of education come from?

You realize this is contradictory, right? Americans decide for themselves, yet schools and media tell Americans what to decide. — Echarmion

What is contradictory? You doubt that public education was used to mobilize us for WWI and WWII? You doubt that was essential to congress approving the US entering the wars? Would you like quotes from my sources of information?

That didn't change before the US entered the war. It was after entering that the US rapidly set up what would become the most powerful military in the world. They could have started that process in 1914.

What didn't change before the US entered the war? The Prussian take over of Germany following the Thirty Years war?

Thirty Years' War - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Thirty_Years'_War
The Thirty Years' War was a war fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648. It resulted in the deaths of over 8 million people, including 20 ... — Wikipedia

It'd help if you didn't paint history with a broad brush and made absurdly sounding claims like "vocational training is training for slaves".

I don't think a post the size of a book would work very well. No one would read a post that big, but providing some details of history is essential so I will.

Sure. Imperial Germany's naval expansion was the great blunder of the 20th century. But you're forgetting that, while Britain did not have a large land army, France and Russia did. And it was the fear of the "Russian Steamroller", together with the characteristically Prussian penchant for fast and decisive military action regardless of the risks, that lead to Schlieffen.

Oh please, France, and especially Russia, did not have the developed military technology of Germany.
France and Russia did not have education for technology for military and industrial purposes, any more than Britain or US did. The Prussians were so much more ahead in the war game because they understood things about war the rest of the world did not.

Please take a minute to consider what those countries thought was important about education. France was riding high on being the cultural leader of the world and when it came to war they were in the past. England's education prepared the young to be good Englishmen and they wanted to protect their social classes and rejected education for technology. The US was working with the ideology of the Enlightenment and totally focused on liberal education for citizenship. In 1917 the US adopted education for technology, but it retained education for citizenship until 1958. That is bolded because I say too much and people won't read it all and this is the most important point.

"The war of the future is a problem of economic organization of the most difficult nature and highest technological achievement, such as has never been hitherto demanded from any army. The old military qualities must give way to the organizing qualities. No doubt the courage and endurance of the individual soldier must remain for all times the foundation of military power, but organizing genius is required in order not to waste that courage and endurance. This is clearly shown from a mere examination of the colossal numbers engaged. To transport, to locate, and to feed these masses of men is the daily preoccupation of the military authorities. That they rightly understand the nature of the problem is certain, but it is very doubtful whether the problem can ever be adequately solved by commanders who are recruited from the Junkertum. Anxiety only arises with regard to their other qualifications. We know that our nation possess in its industries successful organizers, brains accustomed to direct great quantities of material and "personnel"- men who create new conditions of life for whole economic districts without having to appeal to any mystical authority. As democratic politicians, we may often have to oppose bitterly those captains of industry, but if it comes to war we shall be willing to be led by them."

I tire of my argument so I am sure readers are tired of it too, but this needs to be understood.... Cheney and Haliburton controlling oil and other resources essential to war and supplying our military. Making huge fortunes and not being part of the military. Hello America, the military-industrial complex is a fact of our lives, not just a conspiracy theory. The Prussians realized total warfare far ahead of the rest of the world and realized industry is just as much a part of the war effort as the military. In case you miss the point- industry is leading our military decisions. As Germany did, we are using our military to protect our economic interest and this is far beyond our national defense goals before the second world war. There were some exceptions in the days of colonization but today our military goals are far beyond what they once were. We bravely used force to make weak and almost primitive societies bend to our industrial well, but that is not equal to being prepared for war with our equals and competing with our equals for finite resources, and statically controling areas of the world and military essential resources.

Mention of bureautic change being a big technology change has not gotten attention. "In the past, personal and political liberty depended to a considerable extent upon government inefficiency. The spirit of tyranny was always more than willing; but its organization and material equipment were generally weak. Progressive science and technology have changed this completely." Aldous Huxley

Assigning Social Security numbers to every individual is very important to the efficient management of a population and the bureaucratic ability to manage a bureaucracy the size of Social Security would not be impossible without adopting Prussian military bureaucracy and applying it to citizens. THE US HAD EXTREMELY INEFFICIENT GOVERNMENT AND WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN CAPABLE OF RUNNING A BUREAUCRACY SUCH AS SOCIAL SECURITY. This post is too long, and so incomplete, but know it is the combined work of Hoover and Roosevelt and the crisis of the Great Depression, that gave the US Big Government.

It'd help if you didn't paint history with a broad brush and made absurdly sounding claims like "vocational training is training for slaves". — Echarmion

I will be back in a few minutes, but I just unloaded and then read your statement and I want to correct you. Liberal education is for free men. Education for technology has always been education for slaves. It most certainly is not education for free men prepared for leadership. It would be so much easier to have this discussion if people asked questions, instead of assuming things.

You're defining current US foreign policy as defending the world? Our destruction of Libya and Syria under Obama? Our futile invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan? Our incursions into Somalia and Niger?

I'm afraid you and I will need to agree to disagree. US foreign policy is not benign, is not about defending freedom, is not helping anyone. On Bush's watch the US became a torture regime, and under Obama the torture became institutionalized. This is wrong. It's evil. — fishfry

Assuming is not a good thing. How about our trouble with Iran begins during the Eisenhower administration because he used the CIA to create a rebellion in Iran that took out the democratically elected leader and put in his place a tyrant because the US wanted to be sure it had control of Iran and not the USSR. That was a disaster as we brought in our troops making matters worse until the Iranians rebelled again and threw us out. I would be glad to go on about the wrongs done by our military-industrial complex, and how screwed the taxpayer is and how completely powerless we are if that is what people want to discuss. But that conversation would only be pathetic venting and do absolutely nothing to make things better. I am so angry about the perversion of our democracy and the place to make a difference is education.

Had we been paying the real price of oil from the 1950's until fracking, our gasoline would have cost at least as much as the Brits were paying for gasoline and many of us could not have afforded it because the real cost of oil is the military expense of controlling it and that went sky high during the Reagan administration when we took control of the Persian Gulf and granted arms to people like Sadam.

Bin Laden did not attack the people of the US. He attacked the military-industrial complex and we should have thanked him and taken advantage of this moment to take power away from the military-industrial complex but really is that our biggist problem compared to global warming and doing to our water supply what we have done to our oil supply, and -----

Does anyone remember when we thought our constitution prevented the federal government from controlling public education? How about remembering when the government could not track us through education, banking, and medical care and now our cell phones? What do you think of having to have a government-approved ID to ride public transportation? And that wall we are building with taxpayer money walls us in and well as walling others out. No more fleeing to Canada to avoid the draft and the No Child Left Behind bill mandates schools to give military recruiters students names and addresses.

Bring it on, dump your anger here, then maybe people will start taking discussion of education seriously. This is supposed to be a philosophy forum and this thread is about the military-industrial complex and culture change. I didn't think this forum got political. We were known around the world as a nation that stood against war. Iran loved us because we helped them get rid of British control. Making America great again did not mean a military power controlled by neocons and paid for by taxpayers. And our education was based on the Enlightenment, not technology for military and industrial purpose which I have said is education for slaves and is destroying our democracy.

Yeah, so why did the media convince an isolationist populace? Idealism for democracy? Possible, but then why not enter earlier? A more likely rationale is that, apart from pro-democratic sentiment, which certainly existed, there was also the matter of all the credit given to England and France. If they lost, that money would be gone. So there was a strong economic incentive to intervene. And America's behaviour in the interwar period was almost entirely focused on their economic interests — Echarmion

.

Why not enter earlier is easy to understand! Number one, in the US government, does not tell the people what to do. The people tell government what to do. This is the meaning of a patriotic defense. Only when we accept a war is our patriot duty and the will of God does our congress agree to a war. Schools and the media were used to get US citizens to agree to the war.

Industry wanted to close our schools, claiming the war caused a labor shortage, but teachers argued an institution for making good citizens was good for making patriotic citizens. We could not have done so well in mobilizing for war and maintaining the war effort without our schools.

Secondly, the US was not prepared for war. We are not appreciating the technological crisis when we were a low technology, intense labor society, and women volunteered to knit socks for soldiers, and children used their lunch money to buy US bonds. People are thinking of war as we know it today, but this is how we came to know war because of Prussia. What we have today is very different from the past.

The Prussians took control of Germany following the 30 years war, and they central public education and focused it on technology for military and industrial purposes. The US did not have the typist, mechanics, and engineers need for modern warfare, because our education was about citizenship, and Americanizing immigrants, not vocational training. We did not have the trained manpower for a modern war.

Likewise, England's education was about character and being a good Englishman. It rejected Germany's education for technology because education for technology is a great social/economic leveler and England wanted to protect its classist society. The US education was about transmitting a culture, not about vocational training. The US did adopt Germany's education for technology in 1917 and this was a wonderful thing as it led to our growing middle class. Education for technology is vocational education and has always been for slaves. Our liberal education was for free men. Now we are back to education for slaves and we are in a cultural crisis. We don't care enough about education to understand such things. I doubt if anyone here has paid much attention to education. I am spent years studying this stuff, and because what I say is not in agreement with what everyone knows, I the person who doesn't know what she is talking about.

[qoute] I recommend "The Sleepwalkers" by Christopher Clark. But that all the european nations where gearing up for war in the early 20th century really is common (among people interested in the period) knowledge. You can probably read it on Wikipedia.
[/quote]

When the library opens I will check out the book.

I recommend "The Sleepwalkers" by Christopher Clark. But that all the european nations where gearing up for war in the early 20th century really is common (among people interested in the period) knowledge. You can probably read it on Wikipedia.

I will check it out.

Some countries were colonizing and using military force to defend their colonies. However, if they had been preparing for war, things would have been very different. I will allow Sarolea to explain.

"Under present conditions of international relations, as a continental Power, Germany needs no powerful navy but needs a powerful army. In at least one definite sense it may be said that to Germany the army is essentially defensive. On the contrary, England, as an insular and maritime Power, needs no mighty army but needs a mighty navy. In the same special sense to England, the navy is essentially the defensive weapon. To put the position and mutual relationship more clearly; if to-morrow England started raising a powerful army of 500,000 soldiers, assuming that it could not conceivably be directed against France and Russia, but that it could only be used in alliance with France and Russia in a joint attack against Germany, Germany would legitimately take alarm; and she would naturally argue that England would not make such tremendous sacrifices merely to send out an eventual punitive expedition to Nigeria or China. She would assume that England was preparing for an attack on Germany. And in just the same way when Germany is adding to her formidable army a formidable navy, which could only be used against England, she cannot wonder if her naval policy gives rise to the gravest apprehensions and if the English people draw the inevitable inference that Germany, if not indeed contemplating an immediate attack, is at least preparing for such an eventuality when she judges that its necessity has arisen".

Do you see a difference between colonial behaviors and the major powers paring for war against each other?

It's really not that complicated.

Generation 1 are responsible for bringing up generation 2 to cope well with whatever is thrown at them.
If generation 2 fail to cope (come up with bad policies in response, or fail to reverse bad policies after they're no longer appropriate), then generation 1 has done something wrong (or failed to do something right).
Generation 2 are responsible for bringing up generation 3 to cope with whatever is thrown at them...

I don't understand why you're having such trouble comprehending such a simple concept.

If generation 2 implement, or fail to reverse, policies which are bad, then generation 1 has failed in their task of preparing them for whatever is thrown at them.

If such a situation has occurred (and I agree it has), it is patently foolish to look back to the approach which absolutely, without doubt, lead directly to where we now are. We have to change something about the previous approach otherwise we will just re-run the same process.

It's like you're setting a ball rolling down a hill, you're fine with it near the top whilst it's going quite slowly, soon it gets out of control and starts running away from you. Your solution is just to take the ball back to the top of the hill because you liked it there. But we know exactly what will happen if you start the same ball rolling down the same hill the same way. It will be fine for a while and then start running out of control, just like it did last time.

As for your faux offense, any complaints about the state of affairs implicitly blames someone (even if only of dereliction). If you want me to say nothing about the fault in your generation, why do you get to harp on about the faults in mine, or my descendents. — Isaac

Are you a parent? How old are your children? Most of us understand conditioning our children to be good children and that is about all we know about parenting. I have not found a child who could comprehend what talk about and without that discussion it is not possible to begin the discussion on what needs to be done. I am not convinced the necessary discussion can occur with you and you think you know a lot and appear to have some interest.

Even if a parent and all the children in that family understood what I am saying, they would be powerless to do any more than share the information with others and hope they join the effort to raise awareness and plan for something better. I have been trying to do that for many years and you can see how well that goes. The world is full of uninformed people who insist I do not know what I am talking and that prevents a discussion from going any further. So now please tell me what I can do to save our democracy and liberty. Take the responsibility. I am glad to give it to you.

You do not know as much as you think know, especially not my opinions about education past, present or future, and the discussion would go much better if you stopped assuming and started asking questions. Do I think the Dick and Jane early readers were the best books? No! Dick and Jane and all the other test books were racist and sexist!

Or wait. Just give me 8 democratic principles. Most older books list 10 or 12 principles so if you are literate surely you can tell us 8 of them. Explain what morals and science have to do with our liberty. If you can not do these things, you are not ready to prepare your children to defend the republic our forefathers gave us. If you are willing to take the responsibility you say I should take, and can not answer the questions, what are you going to do about that?

Germany, in world war 1, didn't "swallow up one country after another". They didn't even get to Paris. America entered that war not to protect it's democracy, but to protect it's economic interests. [/quote/]

Laugh, I could have sworn the glass was half empty but it you insist it is half full, then I guess that is true.

"We have seen how the Kaiser's marvelous soldiers carried their banner to the very outskirts of Paris an August and September, 1914. It is the Great God efficiency, to which the Germans were required by their commanders to pay homage of worship-and it behooves us either to effect a thing that will operate as well or to copy theirs. The fact of the world at war has silenct the erring lips that declared against the necessity for preparation against disaster, like that of Belgium and Servia." J.A. B. Sinclair 1917 NEA Conference.

There is no way the US would have entered the first world war if schools and the media had not convinced the population that the US had to defend democracy. The US was isolationist and did not want to get involved. The US was protected by an ocean in the west and an ocean on the east and did not feel threatened by a land invasion. The technology for airfare was not well developed. It did not have enough trained typists, engineers, mechanics for war and didn't have that many people enlisted in military service.

There was a lot of defending of colonies but that was far from being prepared to fight off an invasion with an army equal to Germany's army. Theodore Roosevelt entered a war with calvary. LOL That is comical compared the German military technology. Prussians changed the nature of war and I can not think of a nation that was keeping pace with the Prussians.
— Echarmion

All of Europe was mobilizing for war in the early 20th century. That's a major reason there WW1 started.

Please share your source of that information so it can be discussed. There was a lot of defending of colonies but that was far from being prepared to fight off an invasion with an army equal to Germany's army.

The problems around the world are challenging and I am not sure what part in them the US should play? But we can know this is not the first time a democracy became a defender of the world. Our history pretty much parallels Athens's history. Athens's education also changed and became focused on technological correctness, while alarmed people spoke of the end of the Athens that was. Athens overstepped its boundaries and was taken down by Sparta and eventually Sparta collapsed because it's a population declined too much to defend itself.

I am concerned that our push for technology was necessary at one time, but it lacks wisdom. The 1958 National Defense Education Act was to expire in 4 years, and obviously that did not happen. We neglect history and do not have the perspective we need for good judgment. I think our expectations of technology were unrealistic and that we need to rethink our direction and where we want to go from here.

I don't doubt your intentions, but raising conciousness (whatever that is) is not the same as taking responsibility.

What have I said that you do not believe is true? — Athena


That's simple...

we are what we defended our democracy against. — Athena


No one else made us do this, so we obviously did not defend our democracy against anything.

that past education promoted independent thinking and literacy and a culture essential to our liberty. — Athena


This is self evidently false because if the past education promoted those things then those emerging from it would not have created the society we have today, would they?

Only when democracy is defended in the classroom is it defended — Athena


Again, self evidently false because democracy was defended in the classroom and it lead to a generation of teachers and leaders who no longer defend it in the classroom.

Since 1958 all those not going on to higher education have been cheated out of the education they need to self-actualization. — Athena


Again, self-evidently false. Pre-1958 education cannot possibly have lead to self-actualization because it produced the very people who came up with and implemented mechanical industry-serving post-1958 education.
21 hours ago
Reply
Options — Isaac

Ah did you get when we entered the first and second world wars, we most certainly did defend our democracy in the classroom and we stopped doing this in 1958 when the National Defense Education Act was passed? I know this because I buy the old books about education and the textbooks. The reason for this change is in the past our national defense depended much more on patriotism than technology.

Everything I am saying is about war and education and how the two go together, and the social, economic, and political ramifications of how military technology changes public education

When I say the change in education has made us what defended our democracy against, you said

"No one else made us do this, so we obviously did not defend our democracy against anything."

That seems a strange thing to say. We would be speaking German if at the beginning of WWI we had not rushed to bring our nation up to the level of German military technology and this includes bureaucratic technology that has radically changed politics! In 1916, our education had nothing to do with technology and vocational training. It was all about literature and culture. So here we are in lulla land totally unprepared for modern warfare, and Germany was swallowing up one country after another. This technology is as much about bureaucratic technology as it is about weapons.

"The German military organization is the world's model, at least from the standpoint of immediate accomplishment of results, and therefore we can hardly do better than to emulate it in its perfect working.....
There had developt in Europe and in America, among those active in the cause of universal peace, a trend to discredit the military service and by every means discourage young men from entering the services of their countries in their armies and their navies."

" J. A. B. Sinclair 1917 National Education Association Conference. There was no National Education Association before the urgent need to mobilize our nation for war.

Charles Sarolea wrote a book warning the world Germany was mobilizing for war and his book was ignored until WWI began.

In 1958 it was the USSR and nuclear warfare threatening us. Our national defense depends on us staying ahead of others in this arms race.

World events demanded we imitate Germany and become the most powerful military force on earth, or do you have another idea of how we could deal with that reality?

Now about my responsibility exactly what do you think I should have done? At first, there was no internet so I could not raise awareness. I have been on the internet for several years now, only be attacked, banned, hurt again, and again. Everyone seems to want to prove me a conspiracy idiot and how wrong I am, and if that does not silence me, I am banned from forums. I PROMISE YOU, MY SENCE OF RESPONSIBILITY HAS MEANT YEARS OF BEING HURT AND COMING BACK TO TAKE ANOTHER BEATING. I was hoping this forum would be different but here I am defending myself from someone who wants to blame me for what happened and says I don't know what I am talking about.

I want you to know statements like this

"This is self evidently false because if the past education promoted those things then those emerging from it would not have created the society we have today, would they?"

hurt me deeply.

How many years do you think you could care so much about something and keep trying when people who have never read a book on the subjects of Germany, bureaucracy, and education attack you like that? Why would you tell me to be responsible and then tell me how wrong I am?

Our lives were not all about money before the war and we did respect our elders, and no one of quality would be as disrespectful as you. Lawyers were lawyers because of a love of justice, and doctors were doctors because of a love of healing, and teachers were teachers because of a love of our nation and teaching, and reporters thought they were defending our democracy with their reporting. You didn't live that past so why do you think you know it? Disrespectful- know nothing know it alls, are our cultural crisis and if I can not change this, I will be glad to leave this planet.
.

I certainly didn't mean to put you on the defensive but I have the curiosity and sense of wonder of a child.

I don't think I want to be judgmental about the good or bad of military research, but was looking for denial or confirmation of what I am reading in books about the military and industrial take over of higher education. This is about cultural change, right?

A democracy needs people to be generalists so we have some idea of the meaning of things we vote on besides our own personal interest. When we are generalists we can all talk about the issues and work together to reason through things. According to the books, specialists tend to have their own jargon and that leads to others not understanding what they are talking about. Specialization goes with ideas of superiority and inferiority and this can become very unfriendly. I think when we specialize, we develop social and political problems?

Your generation (my generation to an extent, I'm well north of 50) raised the very people currently taking that power away. Why aren't you prepared to take any responsibility for that?

All you've done is listed a whole load of stuff wrong with current society, much of which I completely agree with, but you hark back to a time when things were 'better' in some way. My argument is something in that generation caused this state of affairs.

The people responsible for creating and maintaining the state of affairs you're lamenting were raised by the generation you're treating with reverence. They can't possibly have been that great, they raised a generation of monsters. — Isaac

Excuse me, I have taken responsibility for raising consciousness ever since I realize what happened and why. That has been about 40 years. Exactly what do you think I should be doing? LOL perhaps you think I have a lot more power to change things than I do?

What have I said that you do not believe is true? And how many people do you think have the information I am providing because only a huge and united mass, with infromation, can make a difference? The Germans didn't see anything wrong until it was too late. How is any generation of Americans supposed to do better than the German's did, and where are they to find the necessary information, or why should they even know they need to look for it?

Sure, simple conditioning works better for training dogs than having long discussions with them. I've had long discussions with my very smart dog, and I can report that it didn't improve her behavior one wit (she was, of course, a very good dog).

It happens to be the case, like it or not, that human beings, dogs, monkeys, rats, and crows share many neurological characteristics. That's why we also learn in ways not much differently than other animals. Psychology's first big (and successful) project was to understand how we learn. So it is that the methods of the rat lab became the 'image of psychology'.

In saying that, please note, I am not equating a human mind with a dog's mind. The scope of human mental activities is far vaster than a dog's, and our brains are far more complex, and utilize additional methods of learning, knowledge acquisition, imagination, and so on and so forth.

Hey, Athena: I think we share a lot of discomfort, dissatisfaction, and disagreement with the world as it has been made. My disagreement here is that there are just more villains than the Military Industrial Complex. — Bitter Crank

I think the problem is a failure to understand the Military-Industrial Complex.

I would not be making my arguments if the first day I walked into a second-hand book store to find a book that listed the American values all children learn, I had not walked out with a copy of the 1917 National Education Association Conference and Charles Saralea's 1912 book "The Anglo-German Problem". Germans are fascinating people! While in the US our domestic education was about citizenship and culture, the German education was all about science and technology. In 1917 we added vocational training in a rush to catch up with Germany and have enough typists, engineers, and mechanics for modern warfare, but not until 1958 did we more fully adopted their model of education.

The US was basically a nation of innocent children living for a love of God. While the Prussians who took control of Germany were living for the love of military might. Can you imagine this? It is explained in several books, that verify each other.

As war came to involve everyone it became a complex organization touching every aspect of a civilization. Every aspect. Germany was the first nation to nationalized workers' compensation, health care, and a pension plan. Look at veteran's benefits in the US and perhaps think about what happened to Rome when military leaders began ruling Rome. Historically military men have taken care of their own, and Germany applied military bureaucracy to the whole of Germany. This includes all the social benefits the allies did not have! It includes Social Security and everyone having a number, a very handy thing for the state to have when it goes to war. Imagine war without numbering people and things. How important do you think those numbers were in the Civil War compared to how important they are to modern warfare. Number and document. Number and document. This is a little cultural change compared to telling "his story" in the past. Imagine history being a number, not a name.

If I write too much no one will read, so I hope I have sparked some interest that opens the way to say more in another post. The point is the Military-National Complex is about the organization of a nation, not just a separate branch of the government.

Obviously it didn't because the generation it produced contained and supported the institutions responsible for the very industrialisation of education you're complaining about. How can you claim they were successfully inculcated with a "culture essential to our liberty", and in the very same argument accuse them of designing a system to train illiterate robots? Is designing a military-industrial education system something which you find to be essential to our liberty? — Isaac

I remember, no matter if I was dealing with a store, a medical facility or a bureaucracy, my information was private, and I was treated as though the decisions were mine, not some assholes policy that serves the businesses we must deal with and not us. My generation is horrified by what has happened to our personal power and perhaps if this thread continues long enough there will be a better appreciation of the culture we have destroyed.

It is important to understand the change is both education and bureaucratic. We have been disenfranchised and lost so much personal power, it is hard to think of a reason to defend what we have become. We can't do anything today that is not controlled by a policy that we had no say in making. My grandmothers generation would not go along with what has happened to us. I so remember the day she walked away from a teaching job because the administration interfered with her discipline of a student.

Not that long ago, we did not marginalize people because of what is in a criminal of credit file. Our laws protected our privacy and our government could not track us through our education, banking, medical care. Only our libraries refused to open our private records to the government. This is not the democracy we defended in two world wars.

Now please, what you are speaking of when you say "designing a system to train illiterate robots". Where did you get that information? I know there is a very popular book about education that misleads our understanding of past education and I am fully ready to argue from past books that make it clear, our teachers who became teachers around the time of the first world war, fully believed they were defending democracy in the classroom and preparing each individual child for life by helping each one discover his/her our interest and talents. Since 1958 all those not going on to higher education have been cheated out of the education they need to self-actualization.

In the past, we judged people by their character and virtues, not by their technological merit.

I welcome your arguments.

What of the external stimuli that allowed such a system to be created by its constituents? Surely it wasn't merely the gilded education system of the post-war boom that pushed American society from the good old days to the living hell it is now? And your argument holds the implication that there ever was a 'good ol' days'. Most famously, Emmet Till was lynched in 1955, McCarthyism ended the year before that, and people lived in constant fear of nuclear annihilation.
I suppose the idea I'm trying to forward is that living in what our parents & grandparents most definitely saw as a hellscape caused them to want to try to create a utopian society, or at least one safe from Soviet and racial threats (those being the most obvious in my mind). And that society, which was designed to survive the Cold War, brought on its own set of issues. — deb1161

Oh my goodness my mother would sit up in her gravy and applaud you if she could. I absolutely love what you said. May I quote an old text?

"A democracy thrives upon criticism. When a free people, alert to change, studies its institutions to make them serve more richly the aspirations of the common man, it necessarily discusses the points at which improvements seem to be needed. On the public forum and in the national press interested citizens concentrate their attention upon defects in the democratic pattern to the extent that a Martian observer might draw the conclusion that, in the opinion of its followers, democracy is a failure.

What the observer does not understand is that the public critics accept the fundamental principles of democracy so completely that they do not argue about them. The purpose of public criticism is to improve the ways and means of carrying out these fundamental principles and not to destroy them."

From the "Democracy Series" a grade school level series used in the 1940's to mobilize us for war.

Today, I don't think anyone could list 8 of the democratic principles that can be found in old textbooks. I came to collecting old books about education and textbooks because when my school teacher grandmother died, I wanted to know what it meant to defend democracy in the classroom. Only when democracy is defended in the classroom is it defended, because the defense of our democracy and liberty depends on each one of us. Our military force can not defend our democracy. We have perverted our democracy exactly as the republic of Germany was perverted by the Prussian love of military might.

The first major military take over of education was in 1917 when we mobilized for the first world war. Because our national defense depended on patriotism, education for citizenship remained a priority until the military of technology of the second world war. Air warfare and the nuclear bomb made the rapid development of military technology essential, and all the businesses that had war contracts with the government very much wanted the Military-Industrial Complex. But in 1917, the world was in crisis because Germany was more technologically advanced than any other nation, and especially the US was far behind modern military technology. Today patriotism has little to do with our war capabilities because our military technology requires our money more than our sons and daughters. Compare Iraq with Vietnam. Our military force depended on young men and women in Vietnam but not so much when we invaded Iraq. The focus of modern warfare is technology and the ability to pay for it. Trump has improved things by increasing the exportation of this military technology. Is this the way to a better world?

The problem with your argument is the same as the problem with any "haven't things gone to pot, weren't they better in the old days" argument. Something about them good ol' days caused things to become the living hell they are now. Your lauded system of education pre-1958 can't have been that good because it produced a generation of people willing to design, implement, vote for, and otherwise allow the very system you now decry. — Isaac

It might be better to ask questions rather than jump to conclusions. However, I will use your post to open the subject of college education today, not equally being literate.

We might be able to fault what Eisenhower called our "domestic education" for promoting inequality and a status quo of privilege that is no longer acceptable? I am not sure, and that is certainly open for discussion. But for sure that past education promoted independent thinking and literacy and a culture essential to our liberty. That is no longer true. The talk today is about college graduates not being literate and not capable of forming good arguments because of the lack of education for the Higher Order Thinking Skills. There are military and religious reasons for this.

In the past we used the Athenian model for education, promoting well rounded, individual growth and we used the Conceptual Method of education. With the focus on technology came specialization and the Behaviorist Method of education which is also used for training dogs. This change brings us to the concern of college graduates being illiterate.

The social, economic, and political ramifications are huge and this brings us to Trump, a president who ignores science, neglects to gather information, and makes decisions without much thinking. A president with Wrestlemania mentality and we can watch him in the WrestleMania ring on youtube. A president too focused on the economy, and some say his own re-election, and lacking a world few essential to our position in the world leadership. To be clear this is not about Trump, it is about the education we have had and all the people who follow him. The US adopted the German models of bureaucracy and education. Now the US is what it defended its democracy against. This is a cultural and political crisis.

Infinite compositions of linear fractional transformations. Pretty much pure mathematics. :cool: — jgill

It looks like that is being discussed in other threads, but how does it apply here? I am very open to explanations.

That is interesting. Where can a person get more information about this?

How do you deal with political parties that have risen up in arms against the country and lost? It's actually easy, if after defeat they change their ways, they can be accepted back. That's how you get past civil wars. The leftist party that started our civil war and then luckily was defeated, is now at present in the government here. And nobody, neither the prime minister or any other member of the party, is thinking about a bolshevik revolution as they did in 1918. — ssu

It is my understanding some states in the US are more highly identified with military prestige than others. They are more inclined to believing the US represents the Power and Glory of God. This seems at odds with a growing sense of guilt and our notions of national destiny and what this has meant to those who are not White Anglo Saxon Protestants. As Israel is for Jews, the US has been for White Saxon Protestants and neither nation embraces equality. Their commitment to democracy is questionable, and perhaps both nations are divided by the hypocrisy of standing for a limited democracy that is not all-inclusive

There two concerns in that paragraph. Both sides of the Civil war believed God was on their side and people who believe they are doing the will of God are much more committed than those who don't think they are doing the will of God. Some of us are godless peaceniks. We are more in line with Quakers who have always opposed war. Where do you stand on the issue of God and war?

The other issue is how inclusive or exclusive are you? A major force behind the racism in the US was Southern Bells who used media and education to assure their elitist position in the south would be culturally protected at the expense of people of color. This is very much with us today, with a Black man being killed by police after a White woman reported she felt threatened. This prejudice is part of people's identities just as military prestige is part of some people's identities. "I am important because you are not and as the police officer kneeling on a Black man's throat I am gloating with my sense of power". I am a southern bell. I am a southern gentleman who serves God and country. We go together like a right hand and left hand. That is so much better than being a dirty hippie, at a love-in with people of all colors, right?

↪Athena
You make a good point about the humanities being pushed aside after Sputnik. I'm surprised this thread is languishing. :chin: — jgill

I am not surprised. My concerns are known as conspiracy theory and the belief that Eisenhower's warning should be ignored, and the lack of interest in looking into the details is powerful! It is like Trump using fear and anger and making us distrust everyone but him, just as the Nazi's did when they came to power. Those who are unaware of what is done to control the masses are in the dark and I think they want to stay there.

However, the eruption following watching a police officer gloat as he has his knee on a man's neck until the man is dead, has been as a major earthquake to our understanding of reality. I am hoping this earthquake continues to awaken our consciousness.

No argument there. The USAF even funded one of my minor research projects that had no military applications. The Cold War has had a profound effect on society. — jgill

Could you please provide more information? What was that research about?

A major branch of research is public opinion and how to influence it. When I was young, I loved taking part in surveying people until I finally realized the purpose of the research was increasing the ability to manipulate them. This, also being a main part of how the Nazi party came to power and some of the best research coming from Germany before the US realized the value of it. Did your research have anything to do with the behavior of crowds?

I at odds with those who managed the cold war. Having us duck under our desk and putting our hards over heads, would not have been adequate protection in a nuclear war, so it was pointless unless the point was to cause fear and control the sheep.

The war on communist as though they could have no values that could be acceptable was a bit insane. The association of the US with God, was very powerful and I believe very much part of the problem we have today. Trump standing in front a church he has never entered and holding up a Bible as though to assure us he has God's authority, is something that should not have happened and is very much a part of the cultural conflict don't you think?

Our national destiny to spread from coast to coast is not as popular today as it once may have been, and taking this destiny to having military control of mid-east, associating it with the Power and Glory of God, following the Vietnam war division between those of us who support war and those of us who do not, heats up our cultural conflict doesn't it?

Thanks for the input. Though I’m thinking after being on this forum, I am reminded that Philosophy asks questions that other subjects have done away with. And I can think/believe anything I want on these matters, including religion. Because nothing in Philosophy has been proven so there will be pros and cons on any view. Seems like a waste of time. Thanks all. — Maya

I think our religious heritage has lead us down the wrong path. It appears we have forgotten what philosophy has to do with science, and what science has to do with right reasoning.

Western Physics (with its particles and forces in 'Space Time' ) has never correctly understood the wisdom of ancient philosophy (All is One and Interconnected / Dynamic Unity of Reality). It is also important to understand that the ancient philosophers did not actually know how the universe was a dynamic unity, what matter was, how the One Thing caused and connected the many things.
Recent discoveries on the properties of Space and the Wave Structure of Matter (Wolff, Haselhurst) confirm that we can understand Reality, 'the true nature of the gods' and the interconnection of all things from a logical / scientific foundation. (As Cicero, Leo Tolstoy and Albert Einstein ask for, a rational explanation of religious faith.) We hope you enjoy the following biography and quotations of Cicero. https://www.spaceandmotion.com/Philosophy-Cicero-Philosopher.htm

At the bottom of that link is this quote:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. (Max Planck, 1920)

Philosophy brings us to science and science brings to new truths and changed consciousness.

If at the end of a decision you feel good, you have made the right decision for you. Doing what society views as the right thing might make you feel good, it might not. You might have your own views of right and wrong and feel amazing fighting for them. I would agree if you went to prison however or had a criminal record, that would make you feel rubbish because it’s like society is being mean/punishing you. — Maya

So if ignoring the coronavirus and the need to wear a mask and practice distancing makes us feel good that is what we should do?

Oregon Public Broadcasting has been focusing on the causes of racism and has been broadcasting explanations of the different movements and the actions of people in power that made racism such a terrible problem. I have purchased DVD's of the programs and hope to share them in my community.

A program about the fight for women's suffrage explains what women of color did in the fight for the right to vote and what White women did to exclude them because they did not want racism to be a competing issue.

We could all contact our schools and our school boards requesting updated history books that include the efforts made by native Americans and people of color to manifest a better reality that is compatible with the values of democracy. By working together we can have a stronger democracy than the one we have now.

value — Kev

It is a mistake to assume what someone else thinks.

But civilization existed for thousands of years before that gold and oil was of any value? Why? Because nobody had done the work to find it, drill it/mine it, and transport it. Non-renewable resources are such only as long as they are 1. resources and 2. non-renewable. Like I said, the actual material does not disappear. We don't know if oil will ever be renewable, although it most likely won't be a resource by the time we had such technology. But when you pay for gold, you aren't just paying for a raw material. You are paying for all the work that went into delivering you that raw material. — Kev

I am having a hard time following your reasoning. When a gold mine is closed the businesses close, and then everything including real estate has no value. We recentedly experienced this in a big way when the banking/housing crisis crashed our economy. All that property lost its value. Lives and futures were destoyed. Now where is the happiness?

Happiness is not measured monetarily, who would say such a thing? But does that mean you wouldn't spend money on something that makes you happy? You probably take trips/vacations that make you happy, and there is a lot of human labor, other than yours, that goes into that. Money represents human value, so you will trade value for value. Now if you disagree with what other people value, do your feelings dictate reality? Are you always correct? And I'm not saying that you're never correct, or that the trend you see isn't there. But you seem to be tracing back the causality to people's freedom to choose (money).

I don't have time for anymore right now, but I'll come back to this.[/quote]

Okay, I am gone. I doubt if anyone questions more what they think than I do and I am not interested in defending myself. Have a nice day.

Why the year 1958? — ssu


The impact of Sputnik.

We replaced our liberal education that was addressing political and social problems through education from the first day a child entered school, — Athena


I graduated high school in 1954 and college in 1958, but I don't remember that kind of instruction. In the 1960s the civil rights movement affected school curricula in that way. — jgill

What do you mean you don't remember that kind of instruction? I can not give a better reply until I know what you are talking about. But I was in high school when the 1958 National Defense Education Act was enacted and I vividly remember that day, because we were afraid of a nuclear war and were doing drills of getting under our desk and covering our heads with our hands. Like that would do any good in a nuclear war. Anyway my teachers were walking about like they were in a state of shock. It was really frightening so I remember that day.

In the afternoon a male teacher announced the purpose of education had been changed. We were now educating for a technological society with unknown values and we should prepare for the day when automation took our jobs. He was right, and now what he was talking about is obvious.

My grandmother was a devoted teacher and because her generation was defending democracy in the classroom, I began researching what that meant when the US began having serious social problems and declared a national youth crisis. I have done this research by collecting old books about education and text books. I will verify what I say with quotes if I am asked to do that.

PS the classics used to be required reading. Now they are not found in school libraries because kids would rather read Captain Underwear, a story of a school principal who is in underwear. I would ban many books in school libraries and put the classics back in, because books equal culture or the culture of lack of culture.

Add things mentioned here alreadt: de-escalatory tactics, use of other officials than just the police in every occasion, a wide variety of methods that have been seen successful in reality, not emerging from some ideological agenda. Yet I really would not put the issue of the police using excessive force into being part of the culture war. Is wearing a mask and combating the pandemic part of "the culture war[/quote/

Welcome to the police state we defended our democracy against. Sometimes force is not the best idea. The police officer who took the side of the demostrators and lead through town, was the most successful because he won the hearts of the protestors. Instant peace and fulfilment of our American right to protest.
— ssu

Why the year 1958? The National Defense Education Act that radically changed public education, the new government relationships with media and reserach. That was a busy year for President Eisenhower in establishing the Military Industrial Complex that he later warned us against.

I think the "culture war" and the ongoing polarization have made the discourse highly contemptuous. And unfortunately, on purpose. To discuss values and morals in elections is good, yet things normally ought to be far more palpable to the voter concerning real issues. Because now the duopoly of the two ruling political parties use the "culture war" card in my view as a distraction. Both democrats and republicans seeks to use the culture war to their advantage.

Only in the US is it an insult to call someone liberal. The rest of the world retains the original meaning of the word as it is associated with "liberty". There is so much that could be said. I think meaningful discussion must begin with knowledge of the change in education. We adopted the German model of education and at this point ended education for good moral judgment and left that to the Church as Germany did. We now have reactionary politics as Germany had and our elected officals are doing as poorly as the German elected officals who all about power plays not reasoning. And our media is no longer doing the investigation and reporting of the past, but is sensationalized and appealing more to our emotions than our intellect. And our president was a Wrestlemania star before he became our president. Seriously you can watch Trump in the Wrestlemania ring on youtube. Our leader and a leader of Germany share much in common as the masses in both nations have shared the same eduction for technology for military and industrial purpose. By the way, Evangical Christians are very much a part of this change in education and political matters.

I mean stop for a while to think about it: is really a nationwide topic of uttermost importance which toilets can transgender people use? For transgender it might be important, but I do think this is quite a small minority. Before it was burning the flag. Now it's tearing down statues of George Washington and people talk of "a cultural revolution" taking place in the US. In my view which statues deserve to come down and which to stay is not important compared to things like what to do about unemployment as the pandemic induced global economic downturn is a big problem... not to mention the thousands that still will die from the pandemic.

The gender issues are a national issue, and Evangical Christianity is in step with this. Such issues are extremely important to religious people and determine who they for vote or against. As you indicated perhaps not everyone cares about gender identy issues, but us secular people are no longer united by education for democracy, and the Evangicals are united! To assure the vote of the largest, united. God motivated voting block, it is very important to appeal to them. They don't know, voting about who gets to use a toilet or not, is not a politically important decision. While they get hysterical over such issues, they are clueless about the really important political decisions being made for them and without their awareness. Thanks to the 1958 National Defense Education Act, few people realize they no longer have meaningful political power. They think voting over who gets to use a bathroom or against abortion rights, is the meaning of political power. The New World Order/Military Industrial Complex doesn't need them, only their votes. Those in the seats of power will be Havard or Yale graduates properly prepared to be among the ruling class.

As for tearing down statues and oh my god allowing women to vote and making it law they can not be discriminated against, some good things did come out of no longer transmitting our culture. There were good things about that culture and bad things.

Oh, I'm one of those conservatives who believe in representative democracy, even with it's failures and defects, and believe that changes can happen through consensus, mainly when the at first opposing side finally takes the agenda as it's own too. — ssu

For sure what is happening today is amazing. I don't think we have had such unity since the early days of unions. Unions succeeded because we all supported them, unitl Ronald Reagan destroyed them and our industy moved over seas, while us tax payers have been paying for the military might to defend our over seas industry. That might not seem philsophical but it is the same as Athens history when Athens philosophers determined logos is the controlling force of the universe, not the gods, and democracy was born with a growing middle class.

I suspect right now Black Lives Matter is succeeding because when we saw a police officer gloating while he took a man's life and we identified with the man saying "I can't breath". This is what the establishment is doing to us. More and more of us are realizing what Ronald Reagan started is not in our best interest and we are still furious about what the bankers did to our economy and our lives. The rich and powerful are gloating and we are finally waking up to our reality is not what we fought two world wars to defended.

Among other things we want back our industrial base and an acceptable standard of living for hard working people. We want human values to come back and we aren't buying over priced designer things in a competition to be better than others any more. US is coming back! And we are going to take down the controllers who stold our national wealth and put it in their pockets. We are mad and glad to be united again.

May I help you with the explanation that someone is controlling the dismantling of the Industrail base of the US and promoting the Military Industrial Complex that the UYS has become?

Search Results
Web results

Bilderberg Conference 2019: What happens in the secretive ...
www.businesstoday.in › OPINION › Columns
Jun 6, 2019 - ... of the Western world's 100 most powerful people, has been meeting in ... happens in the secretive meet of the world's most powerful people? — business today

Bilderberg meeting - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Bilderberg_meeting
The Bilderberg meeting is an annual conference established in 1954 to foster dialogue ... Various popular conspiracy theories describe the Bilderbergers as the most powerful group of men in the history of the planet. ... OCLC 2359663. anybody who has ever been to a Bilderberg Conference should be able to feel that he ...
‎List of Bilderberg participants · ‎Henri de Castries · ‎List of Bilderberg meetings — wikipedia

In 1958 the US replaced its domestic education with education for a technological society with unknown values. There are huge social, economic and political ramifications to this change. And yes, culture wars have followed this education for a technological society with unknown values.

There has been an argument for strong leadership. Will anyone end our cultural war and tell us what values we are defending?

I will argue the autocratic model of industry has resulted in dysfunctional families, and serious economic and political problems. All of which would be resolved with education for democracy and using the democratic model for industry. The most successful high tech industries followed the democratic model. The failure of the American auto industry has been the result of autocratic industry.

Do you have culture wars? We sure do and I hope we talk about this more.

The economy does run on human labor, though. "Resources" are not measured by weight or volume. Resources are anything required to produce human value. Without human labor there are no resources. We can run out of raw materials (technically we can't, because the physical material does not just disappear), but the existence of raw materials is not the most important condition in the creation of human value. — Kev

Do you mind if I ask how old you are? I don't think we share the same memories of reality. For sure we have read the same books. Do you know what a non renewable resource is? I grew up in California and we went to ghost towns. Towns that were once thriving economies because of gold. Then there is oil. Have you heard of an oil well going dry? Do you know for awhile our national wealth depended mostly on being the world's supply of oil? The US was an exporter much more than it was an importer. Our national wealth was built on a labor intense industrial economy. I don't think there was anything not made in the US. What happened?

How do we measure "good" in "good lives"? Who decides what is good? There is a non-arbitrary way to measure value, and that is based on what people are willing to pay for.

Not that long ago I don't think anyone would have measured happiness monetarily. For sure hippies did not. In the past people thought happiness was about friends, family and social prestige that could be attained by entertaining people or volunteering. We lived in a truly different culture than the one we have now. A career choice was about self fullment more based on being service to others than monetary reward. Especially for women, we nursed and taught, because doing those things made us feel good about who we are.

If people want to live like the natives did, or adopt certain aspects of that culture that they think is good, they can do that. But the design of power structures is a completely different issue, unless you want people to live in small tribes.

Oh yes, I do wish we adopted the human values of the past. Yesterday something went wrong with my car that I had just driven out of the shop after have the engine rebuilt. It stopped at a stop light, and would not go any further. I called the shop that is run by Japanese and immediately they sent a mechanic to resolve the problem. He could not easily resolve it so we agreed to have it towed to their shop. The mechanic insisted on staying with me and then his boss showed up and had the mechanic drive me home, and he stayed with my car until the tow truck driver hauled it away. I kept assuring them I was fine and they could go home, but they insisted on being sure I was home safe. I felt like a queen with their focus on protecting me and pleasing me. I remember when that was normal. Do you hear me? I remember when people treated each other much, much better than people are treated today. There is nothing money can buy that is better than that.

Do we have culture war? I think so. I think technology that is extremely impersonal and prevents us from getting to a real human being, and putting a monetary value of everything has made our lives hell! What you said about resources is horrifying to me. You do not seem to have a good understanding of reality and I suggest you read something like Youngquist's "GeoDestinies".

We live on a finite planet and perhaps our understanding of reality should take that into consideration. It helps us understand things such as why we now think our national goal should be having the most advanced and expensive military force of earth, forgetting before WW our nation was known for resistance to war and military spending. What we are today is not what made us an international leader. Our industrial base made us great not our military might.

Well, my point was that the consensus that people have in things like "something has to be done to police brutality" is obviously important was responded with the following answer.

Wellcome to the new PF:

Why this obsession with consensus? Consensus is not a political value. It is completely agnostic as to whether things remain terrible, or whether things improve. Actually it's worse: insofar as the material situation is terrible, the call for 'consensus' is a call to stall change, to compromise on it, and to continue the shitty way things are. I mean it when I say: consensus is poison. Forget about it. Nobody wants 'consensus' with a society that kills black people at outrageous rates. Nobody but those brought up on Disney movies want that. Hell, even Disney movies kill their bad guys. Consensus is anti-political crap. — StreetlightX — ssu

Wow it appears PF knows nothing about democracy! Are you supporting what was said or agruing against it?

The place to end police brutality is through cultural means, education and media. Unfortunately in 1958 we lost our wisdom and focused excessively on the rapid advancement of technology. We replaced our liberal education that was addressing political and social problems through education from the first day a child entered school, with education completely focused on advancing technology. That meant leaving moral training the church, and only brute force to maintain social order because not everyone goes to church nor can believe the biblical ,and those who do, do not agree on God's truth nor do they have a better way of resolving religious differences than killing people who disagree with them. This change in education has serious, social, economic, and political ramifications.

What change should we want?

I believe there is truth in what you said, but that is a limited truth. The truth would be more workable when there are more resources than people and the economy is dependent on human labor. Neither of those conditions are so today.

There are groups of indigenous people who have done well with a different organization of people. They did not develop technology as we have, but they had good lives. It might be time to know the truth of these people and rethink our organization of people, and make our organization more compatible with liberty and morality?

There are only two ways to have social order, culture or authority over the people. Liberty depends on culture. Culture depends on education.

Before we got so technologically smart we realized people from around the world were coming to the United States and non of them had experienced democracy. It was a priority for schools to teach children a set of American values, Americanizing the children and knowing their parents would learn about citizenship in the US from their children. I can quote from the 1917 National Education Association Conference and other books written back in the day if you want validation of purpose of education before the 1958 focus on technology and ending the transmission of our culture.

You can look at Boris Johnson defence of Winston Churchill statues or the last Trump’s speech Mount Rushmore speech, he made his 'defence' of American heritage (and Mount Rushmore monuments) one of the main messages of his campaign. — Number2018

Trump absolutely is a leader of a culture war. Opposing wearing a mask and following the advise of health experts is totally opposed to science, and therefore, orpposed to rule by reason. Disrespecting native Americans and advancing the exploitation of natural resources and the damange done to our planet, is totally opposed to science and rule by reason. The two sides are this battle are intense.

Not odd at all. I define the right as a "Tribalistic fealty to power". A spiritual hierarchy of Immigrants < Unbelievers < Believers < Wealthy Believers < Priests & Anointed Politicians < J-Man & G-Man holds appeal for those with this kind of disposition. — hypericin

Ah, Jesus didn't stand for a hiarchy of power did he? He said we do not understand what power is, didn't he? Neitzsche was concerned about Christians being sheep. Aren't they suppose to be good slaves and give charity? They certainly are not to aspire to worldly wealth and power. What is the good of their heirachy of power? Whereas pagan philosophy is about human excellence and rule by reason and opposes authority over the people. It is all paradoxical.