Once you have (or someone else has) explicitly addresse the questions I've raised to you, — 180 Proof

She did, numerous times, in the first few pages. The 1958 thing is about Eisenhower and education for technology.

The Cold War stimulated the first example of comprehensive Federal education legislation, when in 1958 Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik. To help ensure that highly trained individuals would be available to help America compete with the Soviet Union in scientific and technical fields, the NDEA included support for loans to college students, the improvement of science, mathematics, and foreign language instruction in elementary and secondary schools, graduate fellowships, foreign language and area studies, and vocational-technical training.

She is convinced that, prior to that change, US education promoted Greek style values and good citizenship.

Those assertions do not account for the objections raised (again) herein
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/845168

addendum to
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/807895

Those assertions do not account for the objections raised (again) herein — 180 Proof

I know. I never thought they stood up to mine, either, but what the hey. Wasn't making an argument, just trying to fill you in on Athena's ... uh... theme song, as it were.

:up:

This is a little off topic but are you aware of Allen Turing being the father of AI? — Athena

Very much so, he very much deserves the accolade imo. Small point btw, it's Alan not Allen.

For sure the fact that we have survived without claws and fangs proves that we evolved to help each other stay alive. We share much in common with other social animals. Genghis Khan had no problem with killing people until a Chinese man who came from an agricultural society taught Khan to harvest the towns and cities, instead of destroying them. Khan and the Mongols did not come from an agricultural society but a society dependent on hunt in an environment that led them to believe they lived despite the sky god who was far more likely to kill people than to help them survive. So by the Mongol story of life, it was people in the cities who were evil, as the cities led some having great wealth and left many extremely poor. Khan told his people to never settle and become like the city people. Lying and stealing were punishable by death because among the Mongols there was no need to lie and steal because everyone's needs were met. If a stranger knocked on your door without question he was given food and shelter because not doing so could lead to the person's death and someday you might be the one needing food and shelter. — Athena

Genghis is another interesting case in point, akin to other historical butchers of humanity, from Alexander to Attila, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler/Stalin. It's a very long list.

Yourself @Vera Mont, @180 Proof, @Existential Hope, @0 thru 9 might find this a very interesting doc about early human civilisations. Its almost 3h long, but worth the time investment. It highlights various thoughts from scientists in the field that 'talk to' some of the exchanges we have had on this thread regarding human developed culture.



I have now watched this twice. There is so much content, I wanted to investigate a little further. I was intrigued by 'Haydens hypothesis,' for example. From my google searching, I think this is a reference to the work of Brian Hayden, a Professor Emeritus in the Archaeology Department at Simon Fraser University.

So far, I have found this interesting:
It is widely assumed that among hunter-gatherers, men work to provision their families. However, men may have more to gain by giving food to a wide range of companions who treat them favorably in return. If so, and if some resources better serve this end, men's foraging behavior should vary accordingly. Aspects of this hypothesis are tested on observations of food acquisition and sharing among Ache foragers of Eastern Paraguay. Previous analysis showed that different Ache food types were differently shared. Resources shared most widely were game animals. Further analysis and additional data presented here suggest a causal association between the wide sharing of game and the fact that men hunt and women do not. Data show that men preferentially target resources in both hunting and gathering which are more widely shared, resources more likely to be consumed outside their own nuclear families.
These results have implications for
1) the identification of male reproductive trade-offs in human societies,
2) the view that families are units of common interest integrated by the sexual division of labor,
3) current reconstructions of the evolution of foraging and food sharing among early hominids, and
4) assessments of the role of risk and reciprocity in hunter-gatherer foraging strategies.

There is a great deal more from the above video that I would like to know more about.
If you don't have a spare 2h 50 mins to spare then, fair enough.

Have you watched/read much on the Peloponnesian wars, between Athens and Sparta?
I have watched this one, it's another 3h offering but I think it shows how Nazi like, early Spartan and Athenian societies were, along with most of the other combatants in the area at the time. This one talks a lot about Athenian democracy and democrats. I really enjoyed it and it gave me a lot more insight, regarding Athens rise to power.

Thank you for this riveting recommendation!

Watched some of the archeology video. Good find. I really dig it! :nerd:

:up:

I'll look at the civilization one, of course: that's exactly the kind of thing we watch at lunchtime (unless there is a current bakeoff or sand sculpture competition) It'll take about three days. I
ll pass on the Peloponnesian war - have had it up top here with Greece and its internecine squabbles. I prefer Bettany Hughes' presentations.

PS I just added a new unword to my peeve list: imagineer. It from Disney-speak, is it?

Yep, 'Imagineering' or 'imagineer,' was originally a Walt Disney job description.

I started watching that video. The narrator spent ten minutes telling me how old it is and what-all we don't know about the period, so by the commercial break, my SO was bored and asked for a soccer game. I'll try again when I'm alone.

Best watched alone, no distractions that way.

You asked some very good questions.

Not that long ago education was not important to most jobs. Being able to read was not a requirement for the labor force and graduating high school was not required. At the time of the Great Depression, it was much more important to have a job than an education. Manual labor did not require it. Things changed big time after WWII and this is the story I would like everyone to know.

Know there is a direct connection between war and education, starting with WWI. This is because of technological advances and Germany was far ahead of everyone else because it had education for industrial and military purposes long before WWI. I can send you quotes from books explaining all this if you want. It is 100% It is 100% the purpose of this thread to talk about why the US is now just like the enemy it defeated in WWI and WWII. Past President Eisenhower warned us about the Military Industrial Complex and we ignored him but he was telling us something very important.

The first link is a short explanation of Eisenhower's concern and the next one is the original speech.





Education for technology began in 1917 and it took us a year to mobilize for the war. Education not only prepared us mentally for the war but also organized volunteers to support the war, and educated for conservation, and replacing flour with corn meal, and much more. Those who understood the situation were in a near panic to prepare our young with the new technological skills WWI demanded but education for citizenship and patriotism remained the priority until the military technology of WWII. Are the connections between war and advanced military technology and changes in public education clear?

what was the pre-"1958" "purpose of education" — 180 Proof

so what was the pre-"1958" "purpose of education" — 180 Proof

Good moral judgment and good citizenship.

vis-à-vis state-sanctioned racial terrorism / legal segregation, systemic discrimination against women & gays, widespread unfair & unsafe labor practices, endemic populist antisemitism, wholesale environmental degregation by agriculture & heavy industry, and ongoing land (and mineral rights) theft from and 'public erasure' of Indigenous Americans ... — 180 Proof

All of that seems so obvious today but none of it was obvious before and that it is obvious today is a positive change resulting from preparing our young for a technological society with unknown values.
We could have an amazing discussion if it is asking and answering questions, rather than cutting statements and putting me on the defensive. Nothing is black and white and there is a lot of complexity to all of this. People of color were willing to fight in the war because of the efforts to make everyone patriotic. Then the shit really hit the fan when came home from the war and realized they were not equally sharing the benefits that they fought to defend. Is that clear? War intensified the effort to educate for patriotism and that came back to bite the Whites when the people of color fought to defend our way of life that they learned about in school but did not in fact enjoy.

Here is the problem and solution- All the horrors of wrongdoing came with a different reasoning than we have today and some people are still locked in that ugly past. Education can change reasoning and laws that prevent discrimination change what we experience and that also changes our consciousness.

There is no need for you to list democratic values. Often I ask questions so the other person will think about them, not because I want an answer to the questions. Until it is obvious that our democracy is in deep trouble because almost no one knows the democratic values, no one will see any need to have education for democracy. That is what this thread is about.

There are two ways to have social order, culture, or authority over the people. Without education that transmits the necessary culture, the culture for liberty and justice can not be manifest. Along with education for technology comes authority over the people, and chaos we are experiencing.

The power of the authority above us today is exactly what we defended our democracy against in two world wars, before adopting the German models of bureaucracy and education. As people sometimes need psycho-analysis, nations can need psycho-analysis and the US most certainly need psycho-analysis! In social services and medical care, people are operating in intense fear of policies like HIPAA and the punishments brought down from government if they violate the policy set by a committee that is dismissed after the policy is made, and there is no way to change anything except an act of congress. This leads directly to the horrors of Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, I doubt that anyone understands the importance of what I am saying. BUT THIS IS NOT HOW WE EXPERIENCED BEING AMERICANS IN THE PAST. As the people in the past did not see the wrongs with their prejudies, we can not see the wrong past President Eisenhower warned us of.

I will immediately watch the video and I am so thrilled you see something important in Athens and Sparta!

Germany was the Sparta of the modern world because of Prussian control and the US was the Athens of the modern world. Now the US is also the Sparta of the modern world.

Unfortunately, I doubt that anyone understands the importance of what I am saying. — Athena

:roll: :shade:

"I have found that life persists in the midst of destruction and, therefore, there must be a higher law than that of destruction. Only under that law would a well-ordered society be intelligible and life worth living. And if that is the law of life, we have to work it out in daily life. Wherever there are jars, wherever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love. In this crude manner, I have worked it out in my life. That does not mean that all my difficulties are solved. Only, I have found that this law of love has answered as the law of destruction has never done."

—Mahatma Gandhi, YI, 1-10-1931, p.286 — Existential Hope

That is reminiscent of Greek philosophy and the monster that consumed everything even itself. That means the powers of creativity and goodness must be the most powerful because if destruction were the greater power, nothing would exist.

I am frustrated by limited time and lack of knowledge and I want to say I think the most ancient thinkers have a quality of thought that is superior to thinking that follows learning. I think learning tends to close the mind. Learning can open the mind too but it can deaden intuitive thinking, right? I know in ancient times people paid attention to patterns and used math to express order.

This discussion with everyone's participation has been so stimulating, I would love to drop my daily commitments and focus on the thinking being done here.

With what is happening in Israel and Ukraine it is pretty hard to have faith in the good. I am struggling.

Wow, I gave a lot of time to my explanation and you have not kept your promise to address democracy.

She is convinced that, prior to that change, US education promoted Greek style values and good citizenship. — Vera Mont

Thank you Vera. We used the Athenian model of education for well-rounded individual growth. This prepared the young for life and self-government and was along the lines of liberal education. Since 1958 we are preparing the young to be products for industry, and a high-tech society with unknown values. It goes with the change in bureaucratic order that shifts liberty and power away from the individual to the state. That leads to increasing authority over the people and a police state. That is a very different culture than the one we had.

This prepared the young for life and self-government and was along the lines of liberal education. — Athena

I still don't agree. According to what I've read, American education before that act, followed by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, finally made some semblance of an academically rounded education possible for the majority of students. (Except where nobbled by state law and disabled by religious segregation.)

:up: :up:

↪180 Proof Wow, I gave a lot of time to my explanation and you have not kept your promise to address democracy. — Athena

Well, to begin with, I didn't understand your "explanation" (maybe because it doesn't directly address the objections I'd raised here ). Also, I believe I've expressed my position on "democracy" in a number of exchanges with you previously, such as earlier on this thread ...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/807143

Okay please list 10 characteristics of democracy and perhaps say something about how they relate to our ideas of right and wrong. — Athena

Here's an excerpt from an old thread with the disingenuously polemical title Why Must You Be Governed?

Democratize the economy as much as practically possible.

Political democracy in the absence of economic democracy (aka "economic autocracy" (becomes neoliberal corporatocracy)) has always been a failing project. [ ... ] Read A. Smith closely. & Read P. Kropotkin closely. Read D. Schweickart & T. Picketty closely. — 180 Proof

In other words, "our ideas of right and wrong", Athena, are symptoms of the neoliberal ideology (or there is no alternative (T-I-N-A) to the corporatist status quo). The American Republic was founded on economic autocracy (read Charles A. Beard, 1913) just as classical Athens – your "educated for democracy" ideal – was founded on economic autoocracy (read Orlando Patterson, 1991); and the manifest purpose of "US education before 1958" was the same as it has been ever since 1958 (except maybe in style): generation after generation, for students and their teachers to internalize unquestioning conformity to and support for economic autocracy (e.g. neoliberal corporatism) in order to reinforce being full-time consumers while, at most, being quadrennial citizens. For 'the demos', of course, this is (still) a failing project.

Thank you for your illuminating thoughts. I would say that while the struggle is undeniable, the good can only be frustrated to a certain point before it breaks free. This was true when we ended widespread slavery, smallpox, ubiquitous illiteracy, etc. In spite of everything, I remain optimistic that we will see progress.

With what is happening in Israel and Ukraine it is pretty hard to have faith in the good. I am struggling. — Athena

The Israel/Gaza and Russia/Ukraine horrors would challenge any human notion that we, (as in the human race,) are capable of 'making things permanently better for all concerned.'
Will these current horrors escalate into WW III and a full nuclear exchange?
As I have posted before, I think if that truly did happen, then good riddance to us bad rubbish.
The planet will recover from our stupid world war III. What will be sad imo, is that the ability for life on this planet, to demonstrate truly good purpose and meaning, will be set-back, perhaps for another few million years.
But, until the nukes land and detonate, that takes out me and the rest of the Scots, I will keep arguing that there is a better way! and I will keep my hopes high, based on a previous point I posted:

The vast majority of the human cities currently existing on this planet, were not bombed today!
The vast majority of humans currently alive today were not raped, shot or slaughtered today!
Most of the human nations/tribes of the world are not currently at war today!

I remain optimistic that we will see progress. — Existential Hope

:clap: :up:

"The vast majority" of the house is not yet on fire. Where there's smoke, the house is on fire.

So there is still time to put the fire out, or at least keep fighting it, if we all cooperate more on the main problem areas.

The vast majority of the human cities currently existing on this planet, were not bombed today!
The vast majority of humans currently alive today were not raped, shot or slaughtered today!
Most of the human nations/tribes of the world are not currently at war today! — universeness

Attach any date, in recorded or unrecorded history so far, and this would be true.

Today, the vast majority of the population of the planet, human and every other species, is in imminent danger of being incinerated by nuclear devices.
Today, the vast majority of humans and other animals on the planet is in danger of being killed or injured or displaced by climate events.
Today, the vast majority of fish and birds and animals on the planet is at risk of poisoning or illness via human waste.

This would only have been true of any date since Oct. 16, 1962 CE and is more true every day since.

Attach any date, in recorded or unrecorded history so far, and this would be true. — Vera Mont

I agree.

Today, the entire population of the planet, human and every other species, is in imminent danger of being incinerated by nuclear devices.
Today, every human and other animal on the planet is in danger of being killed or injured or displaced by climate events.
Today, every fish and bird and animal on the planet is at risk of poisoning or illness via human waste.
Today, there is no safe place or shelter in the entire world.

This would only have been true of any date since Oct. 16, 1962 CE and is more true every day since. — Vera Mont

I also agree, but this means humans have added to the many existential threats that have always been at a global scale, for all life on planet Earth. The dinos fate is good evidence of that, as are the 99% of all once existent species, that have gone extinct through no action of human beings at all, in the lifetime of this planet. Natural disaster has always been an existential threat to all life on planet Earth. I totally agree with you that we should not add to those threats or exacerbate them (as in the very real threat of climate change) due to our bad stewardship of the Earth or through our totally skewed interrelationships, due to pernicious invention/bad use of such as money and religion.
I also remind you again, that it is only our progress, via science and tech, that may reduce all current and future threats from natural disaster. If we make ourselves extinct via our own stupidity, then as I said, good riddance to bad rubbish. I don't think we are stupid enough to do that, and I think we will stop those who are. You think the stupid/selfish/f***wits amongst us, will prevail and if we survive, it will be in some very much reduced form, that is unable to affect our terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments, to the extent we can now, and to a much greater extent in the future. I think you are wrong about that. I agree that we are affecting our ecology and environment, in far too many very negative ways at the moment, but as I have previously stated, we will keep getting 'stuff' wrong, until we get 'stuff' right, far more often that we do now. It would be more useful imo, if you spoke/typed in ways that encouraged others to be in favour and actively support that pursuit, than insist that we will never be able to become a united planet with a combined terrestrial and extraterrestrial human/orgamecha population, in the hundreds of billions.

I totally agree with you that we should not add to those threats or exacerbate them — universeness

Too late! Somebody should have warned us sooner.

It would be more useful imo, if you spoke/typed in ways that encouraged others to be in favour and actively support that pursuit, — universeness

Been there. Done that. Carry the scars.

Too late! Somebody should have warned us sooner. — Vera Mont

Most didn't know enough about it and the nefarious didn't ever care enough about it.
Many many, including the like of Carl Sagan, did speak out but the majority of the population were not informed enough to take serious enough action in response. Most know a lot more now imo and that is spreading, although I agree the progress is too slow at the moment.

Been there. Done that. Carry the scars. — Vera Mont

I am sure you are a dear and tough auld gal, you can handle as many mental scars as the bams might try to cause you. You are struggling as best you can, for the sake of all of us, yes?
Are you not still a secular democratic socialist?

if we all ... — universeness

... relinquished our divergent perspectives and interests. "We all" are always already entangled in at least as many or more win-lose / lose-lose than win-win games. "We few" micro-cooperators, perhaps many times over, is more like it – scarcity-exploiting partisans, sects, gangs, networks, tribes, etc. "We all", my friend, just doesn't effectively scale (re: global governance, the UN, international law enforcement (e.g. climate change, WMD proliferation, wealth laundering / tax-defrauding, etc) ... globalization ... communism ... "utopia", etc). AFAIK, wars & black markets are our most prevalent, recurring forms of macro-cooperation. Even the "Tower of Babel" myth is quite insightful about the inherent fractiousness of the human condition (ergo the unfortunate, historical utility of religio, religare). Don't forget, mate: at our best we're primates, not angels.