I feel intimidated ;)

Maybe we should exterminate whole existence all together. Exactly that is what we are heading for, so you will be served at back and call! Or shall we provide everyone with effective means to be shot into oblivion? Is the only way out collective suicide?

However, meaningful relationships, creativity, and the experience of other positives that are not "trivial" for countless sentient beings do not deserve to be prevented simply because nobody is capable of asking for them before they exist. You would once again say that nobody is deprived from their absence, but this misses the point entirely because, as I have mentioned ad nauseum if the lack of bads can be good sans any conscious feeling of satisfaction, the absence of the goods is necessarily bad. — DA671

Ok, so you are not paying attention to what I am saying again. Because you are mischaracterizing my argument over and over, I'll break it down:

This isn't about an actual child prior to procreation. It is about the parent. YOU as the parent decide:

1) Someone is born and they are harmed. This is a known result of being born.
2) Someone is not born and they are not harmed.

Why considerations of "But they will like the happy moments" matters, is what I am questioning. That is exactly what I think is neutral in terms of ethical calculation. Happiness prevented has zero ethical obligations attached to it. Only suffering prevented has ethical obligations to it. AND furthermore, IF happiness is a gift bestowed upon someone AT THE COST of a life time full of various harmful experiences, that is no gift at all, and is in fact an UNETHICAL (though I would reduce it to being misguided to not be hyperbolic) line of reasoning, as that is no gift at all, but a gift attached with burdensome conditional circumstances put upon the recipient. Back to my analogy.. If you give a gift to someone and that gift entails a lifetime worth of painful experiences of various degrees and intensities, that is not a gift.

No person existed beforehand to "need" happy experiences. YOU created that need FOR THEM. You cannot create the circumstances whereby one can get deprived of happiness (by birthing them) JUST so you can say, "Look they now need happiness and we don't wan to deprive them!". Rather, you caused people to NEED happiness in the first place (by birthing them), for which they could be NOW BE deprived.

Maybe we should exterminate whole existence all together. Exactly that is what we are heading for, so you will be served at back and call! Or shall we provide everyone with effective means to be shot into oblivion? Is the only way out collective suicide? — Raymond

I didn't say that. I simply advocate not continuing other existence by passively not procreating. The only thing we the existing can do is commiserate.. but we can't.. WORK HAS TO GET DONE. Don't you see? Things decay.. Things move forward and we need to survive, etc. So we the living have no relief.

The only thing we the existing can do is commiserate.. but we can't.. WORK HAS TO GET DONE. Don't you see? Things decay. — schopenhauer1

I can see very clearly nature gets fucked. Precisely because we think something has got to be done. It's better to do nothing at all. Let's all just stop working and let nature give some breath.

. I simply advocate not continuing other existence by passively not procreating. — schopenhauer1

That's not the solution. Who we do it for then? For nature's sake?

I think that there is sufficient value (relief/happiness) for many people. Things decay, but they also participate in creation, existence, and growth. We should, however, try to conserve our resources in a more efficient manner instead of indulging in blind consumerism.

This seems to be getting circular, and I think it's you who hasn't understood my position. Still, I apologise if my reply appeared to mischaracterise your position. One is concerned with the one who does the action, but the action, in turn, matters due to the person in question. I was only advocating for consistency pertaining to the positives and the negatives. If the prevention of harm is good, then the creation of the benefits is also good.

This is certainly about someone other than (just) the parent, and this much is evident when you use "someone". This seems like impertinent semantics, but that's okay. The truth, in my view, is:

1. Someone is born and they are happy. This is a possibility of being born.

2. Someone is not born and they don't experience happiness.

I completely disagree with the idea that only preventing suffering has value when it comes to creating a person (existing people can generally live sufficiently valuable lives as long as they avoid harms, which is why it might be good enough for us to simply ensure that they are not harmed). The preservation and creation of happiness (a positive experience, the opposite of suffering) also matters a lot. I don't think that one needs to necessarily harm someone in order to be happy. In general, it's indeed possible that harms would exist alongside happiness (although it's possible to reduce the former significantly), but I don't think that preventing suffering at the cost of all positives can be considered fair/ethical. Doing so would be a "solution" far bigger than the problem it purports to solve. I am not saying that all lives are amazing, but there are many which certainly are and their worth isn't expendable. Nevertheless, as I have repeatedly said, I do hope that ideas such as the RTD and transhumanism can help drastically reduce extreme suffering.

No person existed beforehand to benefit from a lack of suffering. One has both needs and contentment, but one cannot simply prevent the circumstances where there would be any fulfillment and then claim that it's a better outcome. Causing the positives to exist will always be ethical and preventing valuable lives when there was no universal need for doing so cannot be acceptable.

I am, however, aware of the fact that there are many issues we need to resolve, which is why I tell many people around me to not have a child unless they are ready to give them the care they deserve (something which has become more difficult due to our contemporary work culture). Thank you for sharing your insightful views!

The only thing we the existing can do is commiserate.. but we can't.. WORK HAS TO GET DONE — schopenhauer1

Then it's better to procreate. Give them your values and they might help to stop the inflationary growing machine.

I hope that they would not have a need to do so!

Ha! A subversive program! The rebellious little %$%#$! — Raymond

Hey!

What I wanna know is when's the next ice age due? Can we hope for some kind of equilibrium between an ice age and global warming? Can we fine-tune global warming so as to offset the gobal cooling of an ice age?

It's better to do nothing at all — Raymond

Do nothing! — Zen

I hope that they would not have a need to do so! — DA671

I hope so too. :wink: If they don't have the need, then that's up to them. It's a fact of Nature though that if She is trampled on continuously, Her bones are broken routinely, bleeding wounds are inflicted on Her and left stinking in the wind blindly, Her hands are stainless-steel manacled conveniently, and if She gets shot at ruthlessly or stabbed in the back repeatedly, She is questioned callously in burning floodlight from which She can't escape, skinned, scalped, and dissected alive methodologically, injected with poison intentionally, or contently beaten down into caged slavery, and Her eyes are cut out remorselessly, Her blood is sucked insatiably, She's considered an enemy to be conquered or controlled stricly, or if She's emplaned opposite uncomprehensively, tortured systematically, Her legs are pulled and She's venomously tripped repeatedly, Her insides turned outside contemptuously, or She's arrogantly submitted to invented laws, pushed in linear molds vigorously, psychotically torn apart and replaced by Her dead leftovers, then, if she will survive the treatment, we shouldn't be surprised She will turn Her head away from us, without any will to help us left, if still any will is there. The only solution is to treat nature like a friend again, or at least like a person who has the same right to walk freely on the planet as any one of us. Without Them, life is simply impossible.

What I wanna know is when's the next ice age due? — Agent Smith

Around 2043. Around 2043

Co-existence with nature is surely essential. If we do manage to do so, we can experience the majesty of the mountains, the beauty of the twilight, and the eternally ethereal gale that has the potential to light up our darkest of hours. Love and knowledge cannot exist if one is constantly engaged in conflict and mindless competition for "growth". Our current work culture does seem to lead many people to their bubbles, with altruism being relegated to the sidelines. However, such a system is not tenable in the long term. We depend on each other, and the relationship is not merely an economical one. Hopefully, the popularity of suffering-focused ethics will help raise awareness regarding the need for compassion and cooperation.

We are always going to be at odds because you don't see the imbalance of this idea:

"Preventing" happiness is not a harm, unless there is an actual person who will be harmed.

YET

Creating happiness brings with it collateral damage (harm to an actual person).

Preventing harm brings no collateral damage (no deprived happiness for an actual person).

In your scenario, there seems to be a some "thing" that is deprived. But there is not.

You keep wanting it to be commensurate (no THING is prevented from suffering). But I am not quite saying that. I am saying in one case collateral damage takes place, and the other it does not. That is a fact, and not a metaphysical projection. The only collateral damage of preventing "happiness" would be the sadness of the parent projecting what "could have been", and I just don't count that in the equation when the decision is about a future person who will actually bear the brunt of the decision (for collateral damage) and did not need to in the first place other than sentimental feelings of lost happiness.

Here you seem to take my position: Enlightenment philosophy hasn't yet trickled down to the rabble.

The Enlightenment was acceptance of what science could do for us and what we have achieved is far beyond what anyone imagined at the time of the enlightenment.
— Athena

Here, again, "we" is used too broadly. What a significant proportion of "we" has achieved is total rejection of science and scientific values. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Thomas Jefferson was very clear that only if our republic was defended in the classroom, would it be defended. He devoted his life to everyone having that education. We no longer know what the education was unless we make the effort to know that. It is easy enough to know. Just look up classical or liberal education. Or education for the enlightenment.

The Enlightenment left us with a belief in the value of learning, of the comprehensive role and scope of education and of its fundamental role in society. Its DNA includes critical thinking and free debate. Over generations, the mission of education developed around those principles.Jul 26, 2016 — Wikipedia

What is wrong here? There are two ways to have social order, culture, or authority over the people. If people want liberty, they must transmit the culture that is essential to that. We stopped doing that in 1958 and are now leaning towards authoritarianism and anarchy. The Texas Republican 2012 agenda opposed education for higher-order thinking skills and some Christians also oppose education for the higher order thinking skills. Christianity has historically been a problem to education and progress.

Even a moron is enjoying the benefits of what we have achieved. The whole world is enjoying the benefits of what we have achieved and I am not overusing the word "we". Humanity has come a long way from when we shared this planet with Neanderthals. We can think of the word "we" as a nation or the whole of humanity and when it comes to global warming, we had better think "we" means all of us.

Thomas Jefferson was very clear that only if our republic was defended in the classroom, would it be defended. He devoted his life to everyone having that education. We no longer know what the education was unless we make the effort to know that. It is easy enough to know. Just look up classical or liberal education. Or education for the enlightenment. — Athena

You are assuming many classrooms can even HAVE this debate. Most are just trying to get by with the worst behavior problems (mainly in inner cities).. Education is wasted on the youth (mostly). I don't know how many people have told me that they hated history as a kid and it was only as an adult did they actually come to appreciate the understanding it brings to study it. Same with almost everything else..

But you are very right.. The US education system seems to essentially sift out the STEM students.. and tries to nurture them.. They will be the next engineering/science/doctor class used by the corporate overlords to dole out more technology. I have no doubt there was a concerted effort to promote this idea during the Cold War as a policy level decision.

That beings said.. federal decisions on education are usually at the level of funding, not so much curriculum It's up to the states and school boards to actually adopt any national recommendation. However, if they reject the recommendations, it's at their peril of losing funding probably.

I do not think our differences are as big, especially since I admire people like you who care about others. However, it's unfortunately true that not taking the meaningful aspects of life into account on the basis of a flawed framework can lead one to actually "imbalanced" positions that are, in reality, deeply unethical. No, preventing happiness can certainly be bad if preventing harm can be good. The lack of the positives leads to the negatives and vice versa. If the absence of all does not matter, then one could also say that the lack of harm does not matter unless it benefits an actual person. But if we consider the lack of suffering to be ethically preferable, the absence of all good cannot be deemed desirable.

Creating life also creates happiness (real good that is ethically relevant).

My "scenario" is concerned with consistency, and so it only cares about existing people. It isn't my worldview that suggests that applies unjustified double standards such as the absence of suffering being good without any actual benefit but the lack of happiness not being problematic by the same token.

People are created: Cherished lives and some negative lives exist. The latter is bad but the former is good.

People are created: Either there is no value at all, or the lack of the negatives is comparatively better but the lack of all the positives is also worse/unpreferable.
The immense goods of life cannot be turned into collateral damage for the sake of completing the project of eliminating the negatives, for that leads to a problem that is worse than the solution. Once again, I am talking about existing people, not the void. And if people need to feel deprived for the lack of happiness to be bad, then they also need to feel conscious relief for the absence of harm to be good. As for the idea that the absence of suffering and harm doesn't have any value at all for nonexistent beings, I would firstly say that I do not think one can say that someone has been harmed/benefitted from an action if it does not lead to a comparatively better/worse outcome. But be that as it may, I think that the logical position is to hold is that the creation of the negatives (that nobody had an interest in avoiding before existing) is bad, and the creation of the positives (that nobody could view as a desideratum prior to their birth) is good. Not creating anybody, in this case, would be ethically neutral (which I do not think to be the case, since I do think that new people affect those who exist), but it would not be obligatory.

Sentimental needs for preventing all life cannot be a valid excuse for preventing all value. Commensurability can be subjective, though it does seem like most people do cherish their lives. The point is that not creating a person also does not commit any good other than fulfilling the needs of those who do not want life to exist due to a flawed idea of what constitutes a solution (since if the lack of happiness is not bad, then neither is the lack of harm preferable), and this does not justify ceasing the possibility of ineffable goods that did not deserve to be prevented., even if the people putting forward these proposals have good intentions.

Lastly, I would reiterate that I do agree with much of what you said pertaining to the need to take suffering seriously, and the broader idea of taking procreation far more seriously is also truly significant.

No, preventing happiness can certainly be bad if preventing harm can be good. — DA671

This is just an untrue statement. In one case there is collateral damage (someone who exists to be harmed). In the other case, there is NO collateral damage (no actual person exists to be deprived). This is an imbalance. I'm not sure you do get this point.

The lack of the positives leads to the negatives and vice versa. — DA671

No, it quite literally doesn't. No ONE exists to be deprived of any "lack of positives". No collateral damage of "deprivation". However, by being born collateral damage of harm is done. I'm saying this, yet again...

If the absence of all does not matter, then one could also say that the lack of harm does not matter unless it benefits an actual person. — DA671

No no.. Again, you keep missing the point.. Follow the argument I am making and not the one you want it to be...

If no one is born, no collateral takes place. No actual person is harmed (by harm or being deprived of happiness). You as the person deciding this for someone else can know this, yes?

If someone is born, collateral takes place. An actual person is harmed. You as the person deciding this for someone else can know this, yes?

But if we consider the lack of suffering to be ethically preferable, the absence of all good cannot be deemed desirable. — DA671

That first part in no way entails the second part.

Creating life also creates happiness (real good that is ethically relevant). — DA671

And my point is it also creates the collateral damage of harm. So again, do you think it's ethical to create that or not? It is an absolute known fact that most lives have harm involved.. and it's known that it is unknown to how much, the child's disposition, etc.

My "scenario" is concerned with consistency, and so it only cares about existing people. It isn't my worldview that suggests that applies unjustified double standards such as the absence of suffering being good without any actual benefit but the lack of happiness not being problematic by the same token. — DA671

Rhetorical nonsense based on an argument I am not making so skip.

Sentimental needs for preventing all life cannot be a valid excuse for preventing all value. — DA671

Why though? You seem to think value is some sort of independent entity that can be harmed by not existing..It only matters RELATIVE to a person who is either experiencing value or not experiencing it. If no one exists, no one cares or is deprived of it. And DON'T start saying that this is the same with the flip side of suffering.. look at the argument one..more..time...

If you don't have a person, there is no collateral damage (no person to be deprived of happiness nor experience harm).

If you have a person, there will be collateral damage.

That is your choice.

The point is that not creating a person also does not commit any good other than fulfilling the needs of those who do not want life to exist due to a flawed idea of what constitutes a solution (since if the lack of happiness is not bad, then neither is the lack of harm preferable), and this does not justify ceasing the possibility of ineffable goods that did not deserve to be prevented., even if the people putting forward these proposals have good intentons. — DA671

Goods are not entities unto themselves.. ineffable or otherwise. They are relative experiences to being born at all. The prevention of goods, is not ethically a problem, as there is no one to be deprived in the first place. You are the one putting a ghost in the equation of a secret entity (value/good) that needs to be continued. Value/good is not an agent, a person, a thing that is a recipient of moral weight. It is simply a contingent factor on actual agents.

Simply put, you will have suffering start for someone else in one instance, and it will not start in the other instance.

I do not think you understood what I was saying, though I am sorry if I accidentally misconstrued you.
Once again, the point is that if the absence of harm can be considered better, then the lack of happiness is bad. This is only about consistency, but I did also mention in my previous reply that I am willing to consider non-creation to be neutral. However, it still would not be obligatory, and creating the positives will always matter. The "imbalance" lies in your arguments, not mine.

I was talking about the nature of suffering and happiness for existing people, so you again did not get what I was saying. Aside from the fact that not creating anybody can cause many people to be sad, the lack of all life cannot be considered a moral obligation due to the fact that the genesis of the positives is necessarily good. I am repeating myself, yet again, that if the creation of "collateral damage" is bad, the creation of innumerable goods is good.

As for the alleged imbalance between the existence of an obligation to not harm others but no such need being there for happiness, I think that this is not important when it comes to creating a person. I have already said this, but one does not need to constantly intervene in a person's life in order to ensure they are happy. Usually, not harming them can be sufficient. However, this caveat concerning increasing happiness does not apply to people who don't exist, since nobody is satisfied prior to existing. Therefore, the creation of happiness matters just as the prevention of harms does. Furthermore, one could say that preventing harms matters slightly more but it can still be good to increase happiness, just not at an unreasonably high cost to oneself. I believe that the inextricable link between the poles of happiness and harms means that the choice is more straightforward because removing harms does lead to goods, but we should certainly not have disproportionately high expectations, since that might end up causing more harm than good. In addition to that, it would seem better to live in a world where more people have sufficiently valuable lives, so one could prioritise the reduction of extreme harms.

You are the one who seems to be missing the point since you refuse to see things from outside your lens. If nobody is born, nobody is harmed. This is either neutral or good. If it is good that the harms do not exist, I do not see any reason to think that the lack of happiness is not bad. If it is neutral and the only relevant consideration are the lives of those who exist, then the creation of happiness can certainly be good, just as the presence of harms might be bad. If someone is born, one can experience a happy life due to a decision someone else was capable enough to take for them.

It very much does due to the fact that one necessarily seeks to avoid negatives and achieve the positives. If an ethical system revolves around the former, it would only be coherent if it also takes the latter into account. Therefore, the absence of experiential negatives is good, and the presence of experiential positives is also good.

I do think that it can be ethical to create deeply meaningful lives even if there are harms. Once again, your position seems to entail that not creating someone is an obligation (and not just a neutral act). The only reason something would be obligatory (in the context of a framework that cares about the conscious experiences of people) is if it is "better" for a person in some way, whether it's abstractly or experientially. But as I have said ad nauseam, if the absence of the negatives is an obligation due to the good resulting from its absence, it can also be problematic to not have any positive sensations. I do think that we should consider as many relevant factors (economic conditions, health, etc.) as we can to ensure that the possibility of harm can be minimised.

"Sentimental needs" also appeared to be a vacuous rhetorical trick to me, but no worries. As for skipping, well, the truth can often be skipped if one is not careful ;)

I have been talking about values with reference to people, so that appears to be a straw man to me. Value is indeed significant to those who exist, and as I have explained before, it does not make sense to say that creating "collateral damage" is bad and necessary to avoid but creating happiness is not good. And I hope you do not ask me to look at the argument again or talk about deprivation since I am not referring to that in this particular instance. It is definitely good to choose to give birth to a life that one would find amazing.

I care more about the actual implications of a view, not what one might think about it. Personally, I don't think that it makes sense to call an act a harm (collateral "damage") if it does not lead to a worse state of affairs for a person. The comparison might be an abstract one (though I tend to disagree with that), but it still exists and gives us a reason to deem one state of affairs to be more ethical over another. One could plausibly say that it's "better" for a person to not live and suffer than it would be to exist. But if that is the case, I think that it is also instrumentally worse for them to not experience the positives of life, irrespective of whether or not there is any concious feeling of deprivation. In my view, an ethical obligation exists (in terms of harms/benefits) only when it's clear that doing or not doing the act always leads to an outcome that's preferable or undesirable for the person. If neither has any value, then the lack of action can only be ethically neutral, not obligatory. Neutrality is better than a bad outcome (the negatives), but it is also worse than a good one (happiness), and, considering that many people do cherish their lives, I think that it can be justifiable to create a person.

You once again employ double standards when you start talking about deprivations with reference to the lack of happiness. If creating suffering leads to "collateral harms", giving birth also contribute to the formation of invaluable positives that do have worth. You are the one who is claiming that something ought to be a moral obligation even though it either has no value (since suffering and the lack thereof are also only relevant for those who exist, not the void), or any positive worth it has can be outweighed by the negative value being derived from all the prevented goods (in an abstract sense, obviously).


Although I consider "start for someone else" to be slightly misleading, since it can seem to imply as if someone already existed who was brought into a harmful state where harms began, the simple truth is that there also is the formation of happiness in one case, and there isn't any value in the other. I believe that it can be good to choose the former.

Around 2043. Around 2043 — Raymond

Perfect!

:up:

Co-existence with nature is surely essential. If we do manage to do so, we can experience the majesty of the mountains, the beauty of the twilight, and the eternally ethereal gale that has the potential to light up our darkest of hours. Love and knowledge cannot exist if one is constantly engaged in conflict and mindless competition for "growth". Our current work culture does seem to lead many people to their bubbles, with altruism being relegated to the sidelines. However, such a system is not tenable in the long term. We depend on each other, and the relationship is not merely an economical one. Hopefully, the popularity of suffering-focused ethics will help raise awareness regarding the need for compassion and cooperation. — DA671

I have nothing to add! Except :up:

Much appreciated :)

You are assuming many classrooms can even HAVE this debate. Most are just trying to get by with the worst behavior problems (mainly in inner cities).. Education is wasted on the youth (mostly). I don't know how many people have told me that they hated history as a kid and it was only as an adult did they actually come to appreciate the understanding it brings to study it. Same with almost everything else..

But you are very right.. The US education system seems to essentially sift out the STEM students.. and tries to nurture them.. They will be the next engineering/science/doctor class used by the corporate overlords to dole out more technology. I have no doubt there was a concerted effort to promote this idea during the Cold War as a policy level decision.

That beings said.. federal decisions on education are usually at the level of funding, not so much curriculum It's up to the states and school boards to actually adopt any national recommendation. However, if they reject the recommendations, it's at their peril of losing funding probably. — schopenhauer1

I do not assume any classroom/school can have the debate about what has gone wrong with education, because no one knows enough to have that debate.

What determines human behavior?

Yes, it was a cold war decision to change the purpose and the focus of education. I remember my teachers walking around in a state of shock when they were told the purpose of education had changed. It was obvious something big had happened and I didn't know what until that afternoon when a male teacher explained the change. He said education was now to prepare us for a technological society with unknown values. That was the end of transmitting the culture that was the priority of education until then? There are good and bad consequences to that. By the way, History was about culture in the US and preparing the young to be good citizens.

The funding situation was not always as it is. The federal government DID NOT have a say in required education and in your list of who did, you forgot to mention parents. Can you think of the good and the bad of parents controlling their children's education? What is the benefit of the federal government getting involved with what children learn? What does our constitution say about the federal government controlling education?

The reason I said that you should pick your battles was not because of qualms with you over this subject. It was through your connection of it to Biden's foreign policy. I respect your knowledge on the education system and that is why I honestly asked you for sources so I could inform myself with them, which you graciously gave. Your claims about Biden being undemocratic I found unconvincing and therefore I told you so. Your connection of them in my view weakens the strength of your argument and I think it is also a field in which you are less at home, but I may be wrong. Of course feel free to ignore them. I noticed something else as well, namely that when we breach a topic such as environmentalism and its Manichean roots we somehow ended up talking about education. That happened earlier as well as I recall. — Tobias

The links I gave you were not my sources of information. My sources of information are old books about education and include old grade school textbooks that are no longer in circulation. And thank you so much for recognizing the biggest reason humans disagree is different sources of information. I seem to be at war with everyone because my sources of information came from the past.

My comment about Biden being undemocratic when he had an exclusive meeting about democracy should not be faulted, because democracy is rule by reason, and that is not possible when people are cut out of the reasoning. How I can explan this so it is understood? We are supposed to have rule by reason, not authority over the people, not military and economic might that we use to control others. That is not what made the US great. Rule by reason is debating until there is a consensus on the best reasoning, like the Greek gods. We need to go back to the Greeks when they asked "how do the immortals resolve their differences? "The answer is, they debate until they have agreed on the best reasoning. Can you paraphrase that? You might have better wording for it than I do.

Anyway, I respect you very much on this particular topic. I did not wish to come off condescending, if so I apologize. On the other hand I also do not find your statement that I should be on topic very fair. I also did not use that line against you when you broached the subject of environmentalism and the question of Manichean religion. I like to explore this topic of education with you and rest assured I respect you knowledge.

My apologies. The problem you mentioned in this paragraph was totally my fault and I realized that while driving to the store. I regretted not having a more playful response to what you said about Athena. And as I said above, I feel like I stand alone because of the old books giving me a different perspective. I feel very burdened by the information I gathered many years ago, when I began buying old books about education to gain an understanding of my grandmother's generation of teachers, who thought they were defending democracy in the classroom. :lol: :cry: Oh, the futility of it all. My grandmother was a very important source of information and you would have to know her to know why. She and her generation are all dead now and facts are not enough to explain how different our past was.

That said there are some reasons to think you paint an overly dark and indeed Manichean picture of the former US system and the Prussian system of education. Certainly, the education system developed in Prussia was aimed at nation building. It was also aimed at giving the populace the skills to survive in a very rapidly changing world in which bureaucracy and industrialization became driving forces. The German society in the 18th century was nothing like it is now. Illiteracy was rampant, petty princes ruled petty kingdoms, the population lived in conditions of serfdom, also mentioned on the wikipedia page you gave as a source. There was no such thing as mass education. thinking for oneself was at the time always only done by an elite of either merchant classes or nobility. It is easy to criticize a system of mass schooling from the luxury of the modern day world, but I would reckon the access to reading and writing for the population was a big step up from what it had been.

Beautifully said! :cheer: I am thrilled to read more of your thoughts on this subject.

Moreover the idea of nation-building in the way described in the video is abhorrent to us of course and especially with the second world war in mind the video becomes even more ominous. However seen in the light of the history of Germany it was not such a silly idea. In the 17th century Germany has fought one of the most ruthless civil wars in history that depopulated much of the country and led to 30 years of warfare in which the German realms (it was not a country back than) tore themselves apart. Germany faced powerful and colonial neighbors in France and Russia. Seen from the perspective of the European history of incessant warfare, the German goals become understandable. The picture of emperor Frederick also deserves a bit of nuance. He was seen as an enlightenment figure in correspondence with Voltaire and a benefactor of the arts and sciences. that goes to show again that your appeal to enlightenment ideals is not as straightforward as you expect them to be. enlightenment ideals value order, progress and mastery of the natural world through education and technology. How they turn out in practice is much more difficult to predict. They may also be used by an emperor who rules despotically.

There are also reasons to view the youtube clip with a bit of suspicion. Firstly it cherry picks among the quotes of Fichte. The wikipedia page for instance gives this as a Fichte quote: "Fichte asked for shaping of the personality of students: "The citizens should be made able and willing to use their own minds to achieve higher goals in the framework of a future unified German nation state"." Now that sounds very different already.

The second reason is a look at the one of the most 'command and control' institutions there is, the military. Prussian military tactics and later German military tactics were base on a combination of obedience and creativity. The adoption of a much more flexible approach to warfare based on objectives to be reached, but leeway to the commanders in the field as to how to reach them, required creativity and independent thinking. These abilities led to Germany being able to take on much more powerful foes 'on paper'. this actually mirrors the German research university, which also fosters creative, if specialized research. What I see in sociological terms is the bureaucratization an professionalization of education Now of course all for the greater glory of the nation, but they were regrettably very nationalistic times. We are talking about the age of colonialism, a very dark age in European history.

The third reason is that the video draws a straight line from Prussian education to Hitler and calls Fichte (Not pronounced 'Fitcht', or something but Fi'h'te) the father of modern neo-nazism. That claim is just silly. Why not simply nazism but neo-nazism? Those are different people from different cultural eras. The Prussian educational system might well be conducive to creating a law and order mentality that benefited Hitler's rise but it totally forgets the Weimar era in Germany.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic

I have to stop here because my head is being overwhelmed with your points and my head screaming replies. The root of the illusion of disagreement is the difference between Prussia and Germany. Have you read Charles Sarolea's 1912 book "The Anglo-German Problem'? He was trying to warn the world of Germany's intentions to go to war and he was ignored until the first world war had begun. This was one of the first books I bought when I began my research. I bought it because of great admiration for the Germans and I had heard the US had adopted the German model of education. The other book I bought that same day, was a copy of the 1917 National Education Association Convention. These two books are the beginning of the burden I feel.

Charles Sarolea said the Germans are artistic, creative, congenial people and the Prussians are sour and dour. He explains because of the 30-year war and Germany feeling threatened exactly as you explained, they gladly accepted Prussian rule. The Germans just wanted peace and an end to all the conflict that tore them apart. They became politically irresponsible and this really distressed Charles because he saw them as the superior people. All this relates to what happened to the US and Trump being our Hitler and the political struggles we have now because of reactionary politics just as Germany had before Hitler was able to take power. There is an education link to all of this.

In the 1917 conference book, one of the speakers explains why we must adopt the German model of education for technology. Citizens of the US refuse to accept Germany was militarily/technologically superior to the US. Our false concept of our history is a HUGE problem. The US was soooo backward and unprepared for both world wars! :cry: That is why we are blindly and adamantly supportive of education for technology replacing the education we had. We have no concept of the importance of that past education and don't know what ending it has to do with being reactionary and leaning towards authoritarianism and anarchy and paranoia- an extreme need to be in control and superior.

When I speak of the US adopting the German model of education, I do not mean a one-time thing. The US did not have vocational training until we began mobilizing for war. We knew more about heroes and poetry (character building) than math, science, or how to use a typewriter. We really need to understand what education and wars have to do with each other. Industry wanted to close our schools claiming they were not getting their money's worth from education because they still had to train new employees, and they claimed the war caused a labor shortage. Teachers argued an institution good for making good citizens is good for making patriotic citizens.

Please give that paragraph some thought so you get the nuances in what I am saying. What I am saying is not without nuances! I just can not say everything all at once. Imagine entering a relatively high-tech war, with a population that knows though about technology. No typist, no mechanics, no engineers, but they know about Washington and Benjamin Franklin and Lincoln as national heroes and have an idea of what is expected of them as good citizens. You know, like God's good children. They knew our national mythology that had as much to do with real-life as Homer's books, that told the Greeks how to be Greeks. (Americanized Greek mythology)

The Prussians lived for the love of military might, as the citizens of the US lived for a love of God. So we technologically were in big trouble but now think of the teachers' argument. Education for patriotic citizens and mobilizing the nation for war. The book of the1917 National Education Association is full of interesting information about mobilizing for war.

Now let us jump to 1958 and the new warfare of air warfare and nuclear missiles. President Eisenhower put the Military-Industrial Complex, also known as Hitler's New World Order, in place, and the 1958 National Defense Education Act is an essential piece to the Military-Industrial Complex. We can now mobilize for war in 4 hours or less, long before the citizens need to be mobilized for war. Patriotism was essential to past wars, it is no longer important. Are you thinking of the differences in education and the cultural differences? I hope so. I hope you come back with a reply that advances this discussion.

Too much said and some important points still not made. Like 1899 James Williams objection to Germany's education for technology.

If state and science are separated a big first step will be made. — Raymond

How can that be? Ideally, democracy is rule by reason. How does a creature with an evolved brain develop its potential for reasoning well? How does it organize a society that can live by reason, rather than by instinct?

Once it were state and God going hand in hand. Today, Science has taken His place. While the Enlightenment was intended to set people free from the evil and madness done in the name of God, it essentially does the same what God was doing back tthen. I'm not attacking science (a modern sin! A taboo even. It's not spoken about and even the thought against science seems off...so...) but only pointing to the position it seems to have assigned to itself. On a global scale it is legally enforced to learn its principles, approach to problems, its view on nature, etc. while long before its advent people managed to live life on different principles and the irony is that these ways of life are now almost whiped away from the surface of the world by a world calling itself the free first world, while in fact it's a power hungry latecomer.

But again, this is not a plead against science. I like science! But it's just one story amongst many, though the many get less and less (although it seems there is more variety then ever in the world), and it seems we're stuck with it. People have their ways though and probably a better world will be the result.

Anyway I think there is more than meets the eye. We need a new type of education, one that moves towards questioning and investigation and towards interdisciplinarity instead of specialization. More and more it becomes clear we need to see problems not in specialistic isolation but in a holistic way, leaving space for uncertainty and complexity. It will ask a lot of us, because the old model is the one we use still even thought it may well be out dated. In that we can shake hands (if the pandemic would not prevent it...) — Tobias

Specialization is poison to democracy! Can we turn to classical literature once again? Pericles' raised the spirits of his fellow citizens at a funeral for fallen warriors, by comparing the differences between Sparta and Athens, and why Athens is right to defend its way of life in war. Sparta specialized their males for military service. All other work was done by slaves. Sparta determined what citizens needed and provided it through the use of slaves. Our technocracy is in line with Sparta the enemy of Athens.

When Persia invaded, both Spartans and Athenians joined forces to fight them off. It was at this moment in time that Athens became a democracy, leading to a new temple for Athena that taught the world of the new relationship of the gods, and the way of democracy (an imitation of the gods, rule by reason). In the past, the person or persons who ruled were men of power. Those who owned land and had wealth could hire their own armies for defense or to go loot the Persians. You know, brute force having nothing to do with reason.

But this new social/political organization was not completely new. It was an imitation of Sparta's political organization however, Athens did not provide for citizens, and did not control their lives as Sparta did. Pericles thought it was very important that Athenians were generalized and not specialized, and were individuals not an organization like ants!

The US had education that generalized everyone. Education for well-rounded individual growth. At the same time was education for independent thinking. These differences are why I keep speaking of the 1958 change in education that most certainly took us in the direction of specialization andreplaced education for independent thinking with "groupthink". We have been killing our democracy since 1958.

Once it were state and God going hand in hand. Today, Science has taken His place. — Raymond

Yes

While the Enlightenment was intended to set people free from the evil and madness done in the name of God, it essentially does the same what God was doing back then.

Yes, the enlightenment is about ending ignorance and realizing the human potential. It might be easier to understand if we replace the word "God" with the word "logos". Logos, reason, the controlling force of the universe made manifest is speech. What is the reason of the earth warming?

I'm not attacking science (a modern sin! A taboo even. It's not spoken about and even the thought against science seems off...so...) but only pointing to the position it seems to have assigned to itself. On a global scale it is legally enforced to learn its principles, approach to problems, its view on nature, etc. while long before its advent people managed to live life on different principles and the irony is that these ways of life are now almost whiped away from the surface of the world by a world calling itself the free first world, while in fact it's a power hungry latecomer.

Exactly what do you think science is?

[qoute]But again, this is not a plead against science. I like science! But it's just one story amongst many, though the many get less and less (although it seems there is more variety then ever in the world), and it seems we're stuck with it. People have their ways though and probably a better world will be the result.[/quote]

How do explanations of how things happen become a story? The greenhouse gases that are causing excessive global warming are man-made. How is that equal to a story that can be as fictional as religious stories?

That's not the solution. Who we do it for then? For nature's sake? — Raymond

Yes, it is an important correction that must be made. We live on a finite planet and if we do not respect the limits of the finite reality, we will self-destruct. There may be no future for humanity if global warming goes beyond the tipping point. The health of the earth is vital to humanity. If we don't take care of it, it can not take care of us.