↪Athena Does your blog have a name yet? The connection between the internet and democracy seems like a really interesting one, and I would love to check out your blog!

Thanks for sharing that incredibly helpful list! — DA671

Oh dear, I am supposed to be doing payer work so I can get a paycheck, but I think you have given me a new subject I need to write about in the Blog and that led to finding a link that explains the history of the subject of the thread and clarifies the Military-Industrial Complex is not just conspiracy theory. At the moment the title is "militaryindustrialcomplexornewworldorder" I think I need to add - to separate the words. I don't know how people would access the blog, but I can send you an invite. I have just started working on it and it is not that well developed. For sure I must explain how the internet makes the power of democracy even more universal because it is a tool encompassing our individual consciousness on a scale never before possible.

The New Age is also the Resurrection. Archeologists, geologists, and related sciences are resurrecting the past. This is a time of reckoning for all our past sins. I am speaking a huge flood of information that changes our consciousness so dramatically the people of the New Age will not able to comprehend life as we have assumed life must be. We will look as primitive to them, as apes are primitive to us.

There are many nice people out there; it just sometimes takes time to find them :) — DA671

I have been puzzling over this for a long time. I think forums are our best meeting place. I have started a Blog but I am just learning to use it. Religious people have the benefit of being organized in such a way they can be more effective as a group. But attempting to organize people without an established organization is extremely challenging, especially for someone without money. However, there are organizations, and thanks to the internet we can find them and join them.

Here are 36 organizations we can support.
https://foodtank.com/news/2020/10/36-organizations-helping-solve-the-climate-crisis/

The difference the internet makes, along with a better understanding of democracy, can radically change our reality. My main focus is improving our understanding of democracy.

I just had another thought. Looking at the list of organizations to fight climate change, I see all the little groups of Christians, before there was organized Christianity. I think religious kind of breath beginning as separate little groups, eventually joining into a large group, and breaking down again into smaller groups.

Your enthusiasm is inspirational and reinvigoriating! Even though we do have to resolve certain issues, I think that active participation and a balanced approach can definitely help us achieve our goals to an adequate degree. Thanks, for being there. — DA671

Please, may we all understand the miracle of democracy is bringing out the best in each other. In a democracy, we are not subjects. We are equals as the gods. That does not mean we are the same. The miracle very much depends on our variety and different points of view. The consciousness above us, that is all of history and all of our minds, is far greater than waht any form of dictatorship can manifest. You know as China is developing great technology, but maybe not a great a culture?

We need a better understanding of that miracle of democracy than we have today. Education for technology has made us as mean-spirited as Nazi Germany was and it was education too focused on technology for military and industrial purposes that led to the paranoia and meanness and blaming, blaming, blaming "those people". We see the problem in forums every day. People attacking and arguing with a very mean spirit, putting the attacked person on the defensive and destroying the possibility that together we can work miracles. Our problem today is one of spirit. If we are nice to each other, and work together, some really good things may happen.

And yeah, it's definitely encouraging to finally see (after a long time) many people who wish to genuinely contribute towards the well-being of others :) — DA671

Then it is not just me seeing this. That is exciting. All through history, things have swung this way and that way. When we experience enough shared pain we have joined together to counteract the problem.

I believe in the New Age. A time of high tech, peace, and the end of tyranny. What will be new is our consciousness will be so different, we will not be able to relate to the past, and this is the result of technology. We are no longer a labor-intense society. That makes a big difference and we need to think of a new future so we can work on creating that.

To deal with global warming, what do our neighborhoods need to look like? Personally, I am elderly and I want to live in a complex with others my age and those things I need to stay as fit as possible, such as a swimming pool and a variety of exercise programs, including stimulating my mind. That is not affordable for me, but if we were planning for a better future, that might be in the plan.

The Japanese have focused on creating neighborhoods where everything is in walking distance and the children are safe. What a wonderful thing to wrap our minds around. Environmental concerns are natural to such planning.

Many people pay careful attention to the weather because it affects their lives. Our weather report includes the severity of the drought we are experiencing and sometimes the air quality is mentioned. We can encourage our weather reporters to keep us informed and aware of our environment. So many people are ready for this, we can make it happen.

The most important thing is to be creative and imagine what would be better! Then we need to be civically active, not only to achieve good things but to learn what democracy is about. We absolutely must participate in committees that are working on social problems because that is how to learn how democracy works. We need to take back governing ourselves.

I think we are experiencing a new dramatic change that is mobilizing the people who believe in cooperation and who are compassionate. I have started a blog that is consuming much of my time and maybe it can become a place for caring people to participate in a change of consciousness.

:cry: :heart:

The is a beautiful video! I am so sorry our world is in such a mess, but we really didn't know we were causing so much harm. We have so much to do and need to do it very fast, but we aren't talking with each other.

Look, participating in civic activities is maybe even more important than voting. Look for a civic project you can become a part of. It doesn't matter what that project is as long as you are interested in it because you will more learn about how democracy works, just by getting involved. That is how we must take back our country. That is our best hope for getting through the very hard times we face.

And I want you to know you have been important to my understanding of much more than you could realize. I hoped you help me be a better and wiser person. If I just don't forget the lesson.

Sorry for my digression with shopenhauer1 from your OP but shopenhaur1 and DA671 had already established the digression and I am sure you can still bring us back to the OP if you feel there are still points about Global warming and chaos not yet aired. — universeness

I am good with what you are doing. I can see the different discussions happening in the thread and I think we need to just go with the flow. In the past I tried to control MY threads. :lol: That ruins everything and I am seeing how important creativity and relationships are.

Okay the New Age consciousness has begun. Like I am in total shock about our government discussing paying for child care, and frequently I am hearing information about poverty that is based on research. Since women have held seats of power, child welfare has been improving. Over 6 thousand years of patriarchy and in just over 50 years of women having power, we are seeing important changes. To understand how the future may be different is to understand our past and I am just too tired to think things through. I look forward to having something intelligent to say in the morning after I have recharged my batteries.

One more thing. I think duty is wonderful! This is why we should not argue. Concepts like duty can mean different things to different people. Women have been very dutiful and they did what they did because it is the right thing to do, not because of high pay.

Just reading my way through this thread from the start and I just 'in general terms' wanted to declare myself as a fan of your overall positions on this topic. :strong: :grin: :up:
7 minutes ago — universeness

Well thank you. I think that means there is hope for the future. No matter what happens, even if we are reduced to a few tribes barely able to survive and reproduce the next generation, if we realize the connection between science and good moral judgment, and what this has to do with democracy and raising the human potential, there is hope. We will find our way.

Who says that nature is not capable in providing for all, if left alone? — Raymond

You might think about the answer for yourself. One of the most damaging things we do is have huge farms that require huge amounts of fertilizer. The job of the man who explained this type of farming had the job of helping small farmers become more successful. He realized these small farmers could not produce enough to feed the mass of humanity that was in desperate need of affordable food. The food shortage was a crisis and so was throwing them off the land and replacing them with huge corporations, a crisis. Leaving now landless farmers with no source of income. The very people he was supposed to help, were hurt, but the masses had more food.

You probably know the problems with relying on manufactured fertilizer. That fertilizer runs off and gets into rivers and then oceans and is a serious pollutant. A main ingredient in fertilizer is oil and right now our method of extracting oil from the ground is seriously polluting.

Every living cell must have potassium and phosphorus and we get those minerals through our food but potassium is not naturally abundant. Morocco has almost half the world's known supply of phosphate deposits and our food supply is dependent on it because it goes into our fertilizer. Only when the ground has a lot of a mineral is profitable to mine it. China, the US, Africa, and a few other nations depend on the Morocco supply of phosphate and it is finite. So what do we do? Stop mining for phosphate that goes into our fertilizer, which then pollutes the rivers and oceans?

If you want to argue what is wrong with our lifestyle of abundance, there are some really good books. If you want to know what mineral resources have had to do with history and future wars, see if you can get Walter Youngquist books,"Natural Resources and the Destiny of Nations" and "GeoDistinies". "Abandon Affuelence!" by F.E. Trainer will give you some good talking points. That book covers- "The review of recent evidence on major global problems examines resources and energy scarcity, environmental destruction," and more.

There is no doubt our way of life is not sustainable. It is like we are riding a bicycle that is going faster and faster and as we go downhill, and we don't know how to put the breaks on. The problem is, if we don't put the breaks on, we go over a cliff. How do we safely slow the bike down?

But please give up the notion that we can just return to a simpler way of life and everything will be okay. Life has always been a challenge and people have always destroyed their environments when they stayed there too long. Marvelous civilizations fall when the soil and other resources are exhausted. The economy of Rome depended on gold mines and chasing after the gold required a huge militarily expensive, just as the US exhausted its own easily accessible oil and needs to use military force to secure its mid-east supply of oil. When the gold was exhausted, Rome abandoned the northern part of Europe, and Rome itself, as the power elite moved east to Constantinople, closer to newly discovered gold mines. There is no place for us to move and we can not absorb the mass of humanity that is fleeing desperate poverty.

I was not a happy kid at school and I saw quite keenly what it did. It mobilizes each and every citizen for war and this condition of total mobilization does not leave you. It continues in higher education, in the jobs you undertake, in the time tables you are being regimented into, in the meticulous moment of testing, examination, from university days to child rearing advice... We have a society of mass mobility but also mass mobilization in which you are called to whichever front you are needed, a mercenary plying his trade, going to wherever you are ordered. That is our condition. You would like to read Ernst Junger I think. Ernst Junger is an old German conservative who saw in the first world war the forge in which a new age was being crafted, the era of the 'worker', but the worker regimented like the soldier... It is a wonderful text eerie in its precociousness of society's self understanding... — Tobias

Okay, I have to read that! He published a few books and I am not sure which one is the most important to my effort. I am too tired to figure it out now.

I have started a blog for the purpose of documenting my concern about the military-industrial complex. Would you know which book is the best for explaining the era of the "worker"? I really do not care about the gory details of war. It is what an increasingly high-tech military has done to the whole of society that concerns me. Or maybe I do not need his book but can simply go with your explanation? How much of an explanation of your perspective can you give us? Might I use it in the blog?

This is why I could not complete my book. I am constantly learning something new. I love the idea of a blog where can just add information as I become aware of it.

True. And just like science is used nowadays to spare us from our own wrath on nature, while nature is increasingly the victim of scientific beating, people back then had their own means of coping. Rain dances, rituals, or whatever. Offerings included. But at least, nature was left alone, to a higher extent than these days. — Raymond

That is not exactly true. Primitive lifestyles were not always eco-friendly. The most common problem was deforestation. Easter Island is a good example of the problem. When all the trees were cut down, the people could not build boats and meet their dietary needs by fishing. That led to eating everything on the island, which finally lead to cannibalism. The next most serious problem is just exhausting the soil.

Around 3,000 years ago, farmers settled on the fertile Loess Plateau in western China, a region about the size of France. By the 7th century, the rich soils were feeding about one quarter of the Chinese population. But intense pressure on the land eroded the soil. By the 20th century, desertification had condemned the remaining population to poverty. “It was a desperate place,” says Juergen Voegele, an agricultural economist and engineer at the World Bank who first visited the region in the mid-1980s. But that would soon change. https://rethink.earth/turning-desert-to-fertile-farmland-on-the-loess-plateau/ — RICHARD BLAUSTEIN

Here is a list of animals humans hunted for food until they became extinct. https://www.britannica.com/list/6-animals-we-ate-into-extinction

Civilizations collapsed because of exhausting the region's ability to support life. In the past, people would just move to another area. Today they can not do that because there are people everywhere. The problem is not just created by science and technology. The problem is also our success and the increased humanity.

Where humans are consuming groundwater, they are nearing a disaster as they are consuming that water faster than it is replaced, and soon those regions will become deserts. Another problem is the limit of minerals essential to making fertilizer. The planet can not support the mass of humanity.

The climate change is one of them. — Raymond

But without science, no one would know we have global warming. People would still think everything is about the will of a god, and if that god is pleased with us or not.

Plagues and famines, earthquakes and hurricanes, etc. have always been part of human history. Bad things happened long before technology and human beings were sacrificed to the gods to keep us save from their wrath.

We could not know about global warming until we had the problem and the technology to measure everything and understand the problem. We need to process this information and decide how we are to manage it. That is moving forward not backward. However, learning from the past could be vital to moving forward. A big problem with that is human populations are too large to maintain without modern technology. I think we are backed into a corner that it is going to be very hard to get out of.

This caught my eye and I'd like to make a short riff on it. My own math skills, not much more than yours, have led to a small epiphany. My own naive understanding had me believing that there was always a place to get to, that I could try to get to. That is, some end point or destination; in maths, for example, the solution to some problem. But, as with the Hubble deep space pictures, or thinking about Antarctica or the Canadian North, or of Mandelbrot sets, or of any of the limitless vistas of math, one realizes there is no real there to get to. It just keeps on going, dwarfing humanity to less than a dot. With that one combines the observations by Farley Mowat of the Inuit of Northern Canada, who spent their lives in trackless wastelands. They, he observed, were never really away from anything, because where they were everything was, their home being wherever they were. (Mowat's example being the comparison of what southerners mistakenly thought the Inuits' homes were, with what they actually were: carelessly built ramshackle huts built of findings v. the caribou skin garments they wore perfected over a few thousand years of development.) A whole entire different understanding of place (and time) and being. I suspect mathematicians and cosmologists, et al, are part Inuit and must be to remain sane. — tim wood

That is truly beautiful but also terrifying! I think my head just can not comprehend it. I am not comfortable with being lost in space and time. It is like being naked and vulnerable. But who I am should not depend on externals, right?

Of course the question of identity is a philosophical subject, very much so. It featured and still features prominently in debates on political philosophy between the more liberal inclined thinkers and the so called 'communitarians'. You might really like the work of the communitarian thinker Alisdair Mcintyre. I think the phrase, 'the lonely crowd' is very well put. I think that is the situation we are in. — Tobias

I found an Alisdair Mcintyre speech on-line
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191001-dunbars-number-why-we-can-only-maintain-150-relationships#:~:text=The%20theory%20of%20Dunbar's%20number,about%20150%20connections%20at%20once.

I think the "lonely crowd" is unavoidable because of our human nature that includes limited social capacity. We are lucky to know 600 people by name. The number of people we can really know is much less. "There are well-defined limits to the number of friends and acquaintances the average person can retain." https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191001-dunbars-number-why-we-can-only-maintain-150-relationships#:~:text=The%20theory%20of%20Dunbar's%20number,about%20150%20connections%20at%20once . I don't care about the details other than establishing when it comes to being social there are very real biological limits. We can compensate by becoming members of smaller groups, such as a church, or a professional group, or a fraternity. Prejudices play into this biological fact. We might avoid Mormons or people of color or people with another difference that to our mind separates "us" from "them". We must have mercy for each other because it just isn't easy being human and we are demanding far too much from each other than what is reasonable.

This is where the importance of "customs" and "good manners" comes in. We can compensate for our limits by sharing customs and ideas of good manners. If a total stranger claims to be Christian then this person becomes "one of us" making religion essential to the formation of civilizations. I like my grandmother's 3 rules.

1. We are respectful to everyone because we are respectful people. It doesn't matter who the other is because it is about own character as a respectful person or an uncouth jerk.

2. We protect the dignity of others.

3. We do everything with integrity.

I think that covers just about any situation?

but simply going back to the old ways will not do it. In any case, a lot of people would die were we to die if we did that. The question is what wisdom is when confronted with such a conundrum. The criticism is made possible by the mass mobilization for science we have undertaken in the past decades. — Tobias

:lol: In the old days, I left home early in the morning and did my own thing all day and then went home when people began turning their lights on. I don't think it is safe to give our children that much freedom today. We didn't lock the doors to our house or car and we lived in a Los Angeles suburb. :lol: If you can find the movie "Blast From the Past" it makes an interesting statement about social change where I grew up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhMQOb0tEmI More has changed than our understanding of science. We no longer have the culture that we and that is why I write!

This does not mean I am stuck in the past because I believe if we do not self-destruct, we are transitioning into a New Age, that is so different from the past, people in the New Age will not be able to relate to our primitive past. Exploiting each other and nature as we have done up to this point will be unthinkable. Dressing people in uni-forms and having them march into the enemy's weapons will be unthinkable, but dropping bombs on the enemy may still occur? I like what Alisdair Mcintyre says in the speech because he mentions what a culture and time in history has to do with our concept of morals. It is also a political matter. We now have reactionary politics based more on our feelings than our intellect. When making decisions we look inward to see how we "feel" about this or that, not evaluate how it fits with our principles. What are principles? We have a culture that is so unsure of everything we are powerless to do anything but follow orders to get what we want. This is not a good stopping place for the future.

Ok, so your problem is with a certain cultural identity, an ideal form. It is not a form we have or a form that might have manifested itself fully at any one time, but a certain cultural ideal that you refer to as 'democracy'. I understand it and I am not criticizing it just seeing if we can get our terms straight and aligned. This cultural ideal is built around equality, but also around a set of cultural values. The heroes of old, maybe the battles of old fought by different liberation movements, the stories of old. One peculiar puzzle you face is that the stories of old also relegated the narratives of others to a seat of lesser importance. In the US for instance the stories of the native Americans or stores of people of color. Every American hero you names is a 'dead white man' in popular parlance. I am not the most woke on this forum, but sensitivity to this aspect of 'democracy' is needed. You present it as a rather unproblematic situation that existed in the USA of old, but like Athenian democracy it was made possible by the exclusion of a lot of 'others'. That kind of exclusion is not deemed acceptable anymore so we live in a different society, one cannot without committing grave injustice, revert to a situation of the past. — Tobias

Absolutely and I am puzzled by your ability to understand what I am saying because my fellow citizens do not. If I were rich and younger, I would have to visit your country and study its education system in an effort to understand why you think differently from the nation that makes me rant like a crazy person.

I think we should come to understand democracy by reading the Greek and Roman classics and then perhaps visiting other countries to see who well they are working with the principles. Democracy is a complex concept and we need to understand the complexity.

Yes, it is about heroes and stories about the struggle to have justice and liberty for all, but not totally. Oh dear, you cause me to think deeply on this and it is difficult as giving birth to a child! It has become popular in the US to attack heroes. It is being said the effort to be a hero makes people terrible human beings. Our national heroes were strong, independent leaders and we destroyed them. We had education for independent thinking. Now we are voting party tickets, with ministers telling their congregations how to vote, and we prepared our young four "group think". This is a serious social, economic, and political change.

Your fault-finding, that the stories are about dead white men has truth but is not totally true. I believe I mentioned the hero stories were multinational. A huge part of our cultural education was European folk tales and our explanation of our democracy begins with the Magna Carta. We were able to teach morals without depending on religion by using those folk tales that are about virtues. True this Euro-centric education did not include people of color or Native Americans and that fault should be considered. On the other hand, our federal government was strongly influenced by Native Americans. They had a federation of tribes and were closer to the Greek city/state organization than European kingdoms and that helped those who were literate in the classics understand that past history.

Because I have collected old textbooks, I know some textbook publishers did a better job than others. :lol: My favorite children's history book is very quaint. Technically it is more of a fairy tale than fact, but that book has more cultural value than the technically correct ones, that are so dry it is cruel and inhuman punishment to make a child read them. The book I like best, begins the explanation of democracy with Athens, not the Magna Carta.

The hold Christianity has on the US needs to be understood. The Bible was used to justify slavery and to argue against it. When people believe they are doing the will of God, they have the strength of that belief, and the Civil War with two opposing ideas of God's will was especially intense. The Christian control of education has been problematic, and the South's control of education has also been problematic when it comes to racism. We are now dealing with the Christian mythology of our democracy and that is a huge problem!

"That kind of exclusion is not deemed acceptable anymore so we live in a different society, one cannot without committing grave injustice, revert to a situation of the past." How are natives with different languages and different cultures included? Some of them wanted to be included and they were treated terribly. Others did not want to be included and did their best to defend their land but lost.
We are not that far from killing each other for control of land. And with intense pain, many of us feel, if native Americans controlled our evolution instead of Christians and Europeans, we would not have global warming. Christianity prevented us from accepting the earth as one living organism that needs to be protected.

The situation with people with African heritage is an extremely difficult one! You might remember we fought a civil war over than one, and the matter was not resolved with a civil war. We are still in an intense fight to preserve the past or bring about radical change. I read a book about education that was published only a few years ago, that was extremely racist! :scream: Science is making a huge difference but as you might see in your news of the US, we are at each other throats over if we should wear masks or get vaccinated. I am saying, we are not very scientific. That problem falls back to ignorance of Athens and what science has to do with good moral judgment. and democracy.

You found fault with Athens and that is justified, but we also need to understand what it had to do with science and good moral judgment, and democracy. Democracy is constantly evolving. The direction that evolution takes, can increase human potential or destroy the democratic nation. When we look at the racist problem we are dealing with, it validates what Socrates said about exploiting people. Sooner or later the exploited people will become a problem. We have sown a racist seed in our democracy and are far from your understanding of what is wrong with it.

Ok, clear enough. But then, what Athens had was no democracy as we understand it. People loving outside the city walls were not citizens, women were not citizens, slaves were not citizens, foreigners were not citizens. Even Aristotle (and I mean Aristotle, not a footnotes in the history of philosophy!) could not vote in Athenian democracy. He was a foreigner, a 'metoik', excluded from many rights the full Athenian citizens had. — Tobias

What an absolutely delightful argument!

Hold on to your chair because I am going to get very cynical. :wink:

Since when did the fate of the poor become the government's concern and the government paying for child care?! :scream: Really, you want women mucking around in government? That appears to lead to a nanny state and the destruction of our capitalism because of the evil of socialism. And as for those foreigners, do you want them coming in and having a say in government?

I don't know how aware of US politics you are but those concerns did not end with the fall of Greek city/states. The end of patriarchy and that social order, has been traumatic. And God knows, those refugees flooding into our country pose a serious threat! And the last thing we should do is open our borders and give them voting rights! And it is even a problem to give people of color voting rights, even if they are technically citizens. Trump won the election and Biden should not be living in the White House, and this is a very serious matter. This is so serious it was okay to storm the Capitol Building in an effort to prevent the wrong man from being president.

Okay, enough of me venting. Tensions are running very high right now and I very much appreciate having a different preceptive in an international forum. I don't think the US looks very civilized compared to some European countries that have more experience with being civilized. Advanced science and technology is changing everything and thanks for noticing when I speak of democracy it is an ideal not limited to the US.

On to a more thoughtful reply to your post.

Indeed! Actually the same kind of military regimes were enabled everywhere in bureaucracy, in the hospitals, in areas hit by pandemics, in factories and in schools. Michel Foucault write about it brilliantly. But actually, the German military, at least in WW2 was so ruthlessly efficient because they allowed field commanders leeway into how to reach objectives. That you describe is known as Taylorism, or Fordism, the mindless deskilled working on the production line. The current 'mobilization' of citizens is far less crude and more insidious than that. We are led to accepting the goals rather mindlessly, but the means. we are taught to think about them. It is much more efficient than thinking ahead in every eventuality. As actually German lawyers learned. Prussia was also one of the first countries with something like 'science of law'. What I mean is, also 'Prussian education' developed. We are no longer in the 19th century. — Tobias

I am so glad you see the expansion of military order throughout the whole of society. You may have been taught to think about the means of achieving goals. But I don't think this comes with education in the US. There are factions that are trying to get us there and the US is on the brink of another civil war!
We are processing a complete change of consciousness and this is a very turbulent process! People are flipping out and gunning down everyone in sight. The storming of our Capitol Building was an organized action and I don't know how anyone can believe Trump did not intentionally inspire it. From what I have heard through television, Germany has made awesome progress and I speak of the US that has not made that progress and is in intense trouble right now. We are at the point where Hitler took over, not where Germany is today.

And I am not sure about everything I have said, but I am trying to think through want you said and my more immediate information gathering that has been hammering away at the industrial model of education. I have so much thinking to do and I am thrilled by how you stimulate it.

Just part of the inevitable change of life? You mean the inevitable "progress" as part of a lifestyle that has done more harm to humanity than any other form has done and that even claims about itself that it is a lifeform lifted above other forms, as you write yourself. Now every form of life thinks it's the best, but imposing it by force is something completely different. Claiming that beating people in submission in favor of The Way, and that it's only natural this had to happen, that it had to be that way, is not any different from turning people into submission in the name of God. Again, this is no attack against science (I'm one myself!), only a defense of people who want to base living on a different story. — Raymond

I think you speak with much more hindsight than you realize. Only recently have many of us accepted global warming is happening. It is all well and good to look back and look forward and conclude we have not been angels without fault. But I think we should acknowledge this kind of thinking is the result of our progress. We can know more today than ever before and if we were not here, we could not know so much and would not judge ourselves wrong. I think you need to be a little easier on humans who are learning as we go.

If it were not for the technology we have developed fewer people would live to old age and that would be terrible because young people do not have the perspective that is gained with age. We would not be able to feed the world as well as we are doing. We have so much to be thankful for, and I think being thankful or throwing stones, is more about our attitude than anything else.

Yep. I like the "little pepper-corn" analogy. I've mentioned before that the number of new research papers in math alone arriving at Cornell's ArXiv.org surpasses 250 per day. — jgill

Wow. A gentleman in the apartment complex where I live is devoted to math. I asked him what is happening in the math field and he explained there are many sources of information and a lot is going on and he was not moved to speak of any one thing. :lol: I had no idea something like 250 papers per day is what he was talking about. Kind of like someone from a small European country coming to the US and expecting to drive across it in a few hours. The truth of the matter can be overwhelming. And considering my math skills are third-grade level, I can now understand why he didn't want to explain more. You speak of a world of thought that is very foreign to me.

These countries are western in fact. Cities in India, China, Afghanistan are all alike. I mean the ways of life made impossible by western expansion. There are, or better, were, lots of them scattered around the globe. African tribes (showing themselves for money to tourists), Aboriginals (some in Australia drinking alcohol after being robbed from their land), people on islands who got cancer by nuclear testing), people in India getting used for money while their ancestors lived a happy life before the advent of the west, native Americans, people from Africa living a happy life before the west arrived, the Hopi Indians, Inuit ways of life, people living happily in nature, etc. — Raymond

While I agree with some of what you said, I also disagree with things you said. I sure do not see Cities in India, China, Afghanistan as the same. I also do not blame the west for all the problems.

As the imperative of growth dictates. Progress=growth. Litterally. More, deeper, larger, higher, faster, further, richer, shorter, thinner, fatter, boomer, or banger. "The record is broooooken!" I'm not saying this is inherently wrong, but it fucks up nature. That's the reason for the chaos in nature. And the unholy alliance of state and Science. I'm "a scientist" myself (like anybody..) but at least I realize what once was God and State is now Science and State. — Raymond

That is a better explanation of what has gone wrong than blaming the west. I am not arguing disrupting aborigines' lives is not harmful or even tragic. But life is change and with the bad comes the good, such as clean water, medicine, technologies that benefit people, resulting in more people living into old age and then all the problems that come with growth. It might be unavoidable that mankind brings on the chaos that destroys life on the planet, or that one human consciousness consumes all human consciousness, making what has happened to the aboriginal people of the world just part of the inevitable change of life.

In a philosophy forum, it is paramount that we consider the meaning of life and the best possible values. Realizing such things as feeding the very poor will increase the size of their breeding population and therefore the problem of keeping them fed and this becomes a problem for the earth as the growing population of humans consumes resources and this can mean the extinction of species and global warming. We need to wonder and attacking is not wonderful.

All non-western forms of live. — Raymond

Please, explain. Are you saying the Chinese have a better way of life? Perhaps India is the best model? Arabs are equal to Asians? Do you want to live in Afghanistan?

I haven't unfortunately. It was on my 'watch list' and maybe if I find it I will watch it soon. But anyway, many Nazi's were guilty, men who learned how to read and write. Nazism was one side of German history, it also had wonderful theologians, philosophers, and literary geniuses. — Tobias

Yes, yes, and that is why I argue education so seriously! Saltwater is water, but you do not to drink it. When we are considering education, we need to consider what is the purpose of that education. Perhaps you can go my reply to Raymond that quotes James Williams.

Liberal education is for free men. A liberal education prepares the young to be self-governing and self-directed!

Education for technology has always been education for slaves. Our technology has advanced but it is still for slaves and their society is run by policies they do not make. This mentality wants a Hitler or a Trump, who will make life good for them. They have archy confused with liberty and favor brute force over reason. No matter how technologically smart they may be, that is not equal to wisdom. @Raymond seems to be arguing what is wrong with this.

That is exactly what we do in academia nowadays... we are not trained to be revolutionaries. Part of me resents it, but another part of me sees wisdom in this slow but meticulous grinding of our lens... — Tobias

My last post was not done when it posted because of a technical problem, but there is no harm in jumping to your last post. What you said is true, and because this is an international forum, I was made aware of this being an international problem. Amazingly Athens also had these problems! Perhaps we can see this as growing pains?

I am feeling a burning need to look more deeply into Athens's history. There was strong resistance to the increasing technological focus of education in Athens and some thought this was destroying Athens, as I have concerns about our technological focus destroying the US.

I am so grateful you are so open-minded and you are not an "either this or that" thinker. You open the windows for thinking, while many slam them shut.

Well ideally, in my point of view, education makes us happier persons who understand and can cope with the world around them. — Tobias

I love that statement! :heart:

American heroes are great but children today grow up in an international world, heck, we are even conversing here in an international forum. — Tobias

Yes, our heroes were quaint but culturally very important to the US, and destroying them, as we have done, has destroyed our culture. The result is being what we defended our democracy against. This change is directly related to the change in bureaucratic order. It is the difference between being an individual or a member of a group.

Why do you think learning about the world is important? I am not saying it is not important but I am struggling with a question of identity and unity. To destroy our sense of identity and cultural agreements could have negative consequences. Wow, could this be a philosophical subject. I somewhat envy Native Americans who have strong tribal identities as this is so different from the "Lonely Crowd" in which most of us live. And that concern of the lonely crowd is the opposite of my concern in the paragraph above, that we lose individual power and the strong leaders we need. :roll:

I don't think what I have said is comprehensible but it is confused. I am afraid this confusion is behind the intense political and social conflict we have now. I think nations can be as in great need of psychoanalysis and individuals. The US is having an identity crisis.

Why should a democracy be a way of live and social organization above all others? Why shouldn't other forms of life be sensitive to the dignity and worth of the individual? — Raymond

What other system empowers individuals and lifts the individual human potential, and therefore, the collective potential of civilization?

Three cheers for Prussian education no? — Tobias

No, I will give you a quote from James William's 1899 book, TALKS TO TEACHERS ON PSYCHOLOGY; AND TO STUDENTS ON SOME OF LIFE'S IDEALS.

"If we reflect upon the various ideals of education that are prevalent in the different countries, we see that what they all aim at is to organize capacities for conduct. This is most immediately obvious in Germany, where the explicitly avowed aim of the higher education is to turn the student into an instrument for advancing scientific discovery. The German universities are proud of the number of young specialists whom they turn out every after year, -not necessarily men of any original force of intellect, but men so trained to research that when their professor gives them an historical or philosophic thesis to prepare, or a bit of laboratory work to do, with a general indication as to the best method, they can go off by themselves and use apparatus and consult sources in such a way as to grind out in the requestite number of months some little pepper-corn of new truth worthy of being added to the store of extant human information on that subject. Little else is recognized in Germany as a man's title to academic advancement than his ability thus to show himself as an efficient instrument of reserch."

I watched a video about education last night that explains what is wrong the government attempting to control education. Good mothers and teachers of the past are focused on helping children self-actualize. Fathers are apt to set expectations and expect the young to meet those expectations. Now the teachers in the US no longer have control of their classrooms but are being controlled. The past may have had faults but child care was pretty much left to the mother as teaching children was left to the teacher, not policymakers. I want to share the video and what is wrong with the present male domination and control of education. That is education for the Military-Industrial complex instead of education for well-rounded individual growth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX78iKhInsc

Isn't Eisenhower also the one who warned the US about the danger of the MIC? — neomac

Isn't Eisenhower also the one who warned the US about the danger of the MIC? — neomac

Yes, he was and he knew what he was talking about. I was going through the books that contained the government documents for every year, because I wanted to know more about the National Defense Education Act. After I found the information I wanted, I skimmed through the books to see what else might be interesting. That is how I found the information about new connections between government and research and government and education.

Years later I checked the abstracts for information about the recession that started in 1974 because of OPEC embargoed oil to the US. I noticed all research on poverty disappeared from the abstracts and in its place was research on welfare fraud. (controlled research for a purpose) About a year after the research change the news was talking about welfare fraud as much it takes about covid today (manipulation of the media). Germany never did better. It is what the Germans did when they wanted money for war. Control information to manipulate the public.

This research pitted the public against those bums on welfare and domestic budgets were slashed. Some states discontinued welfare to two-parent families when there were no jobs because of the recession. Forcing men to abandon their families so their families could get help. This created a huge family problem that is still with us today and then Reagan poured money into military spending.

Some of that money is what made Saddam strong because we were bribing oil producers to sell us oil cheap. We had the navy stationed in the Mediterranean Sea, making it clear one way or another we were going to take oil. The recession was caused by OPEC embargoing oil, making just about everything Reagon said about us not needing to conserve, and the poor being lazy bums, a lie. There was a huge shift in wealth and power during the Reagan years.

What I have said is directly related to the dispute about socialism and also concern about families.

An idea can fail

1. At conception stage (think)

2. At implementation stage (act)

It's unclear to me at which stage socialism fails. — Agent Smith

When the masses are clueless, as they are, democracy is only an illusion.

In another thread, Weber was mentioned so I pulled out a book of Weber Selections and he may have been a genius, but re-reading what he said, it is alarmingly mechanical. A quick scan impresses me as soulless. I may be wrong and I am inviting other opinions.

Prussia?

I'm curious to know more about your views. Do you publish anything on this subject? Can you suggest any readings that support or elaborate more on your statements? — neomac

I hate it when I make mistakes like that. Obviously, I meant "Persia" when I wrote "Prussia" and was speaking of the Persian invasion of the Greeks. :grimace:

For years I tried to write a book and I have given up. I have put information into forums and gotten such a negative reaction it seems that my effort is futile. Your response is very surprising!

The notion of Prussian military bureaucracy being applied to citizens may have come from Charles Sarolea's 1912 book "The Anglo-German Problem". Little pieces of information come from different books and my memory is not precise. However, when it comes to understanding the Military-Industrial Complex I think Charles Sarolea's book is the best and it is free online. He uses Prussian quotes that make you feel like a fly on the wall when big decisions were being made. I hate the violence of war, but the strategy of war is thrilling! War strategy and technology go hand and hand and often have dramatic social ramifications. In modern times, the connection between war and technology has great economic ramifications. The internet is the result of government military research and then the genius of men who saw the potential of this technology and how to create a new reality.

A main source of information is an old college text "Public Administration and Public Affairs" by Nicholas Henry. That one confirms the US adopted the German bureaucratic model and explains why that was necessary. The bureaucratic organization we had was extremely inefficient and something like a national pension plan would be impossible without improving the technology of the system we had.

Very important to understanding how Roosevelt and Hoover worked together to radically change the US federal government is the book "Big Government" by Frank Gervasi.

Then we go from those books to the ones that warn the US could be moving in a dangerous direction because of wartime government contracts and those who had those contracts and wanted to keep them. These books were written at the end of WWII. The US demobilized after every war until the Korean war. That is when Eisenhower embedded the Military-Industrial Complex in the US. Part of the reason for doing that was keeping our economy strong. Instead of shutting down the war industry and ending jobs, we repurposed their mission and kept them going.

I lost my best source of information about what Eisenhower did to embed the MIC when the U of O document library decided to digitize the books and removed the books from the shelf! This should be considered a crime against society! Now, none of that information can be accessed without knowing the precise title of what one is looking for. In the past, a person could spend all day looking through the books, made when history was made, and discover unexpected things, like Eisenhower's letter to Germany praising Germany for their contribution to democracy. Or what Eisenhower did to create new links between government and research and new links between government and the media. Setting us up for the insanity we have today and making it possible for Reagan and Bush Jr. to misuse their power to lie to us and use our military might in ways it should not be used. Without access to those books, I can no longer validate what I read.

Those links Eisenhower made, along with the 1958 National Defense Education Act, have serious social, economic, and political ramifications. But then it may be interesting to study the changes Roosevelt and Hoover made more carefully along with having a better understanding of the changes Eisenhower made. Most of us do not pay attention to the political matters that need our attention. Like people have accepted global warming and as not that unusual, we seem to think our government was always as it is today. Unless we are discussing this stuff, the reading can be too boring to interest anyone. It is pretty dry. :brow: But hey, history is dead, this is a new day and our technology has made us so superior we do not need to look back. :worry:

Too unnuanced for my taste. Maybe ok as a comparison, but Athens' democracy was also build on slaves and could only work by excluding the great mass of people from consensus decision making. The same actually goes for the US in times past. The model of democracy you seem to favour actually requires the exclusion of many people and many legitimate interests. Enlightenment democracy is democracy for the happy few. In the 19th century the challenge the Prussians faced and later the rest of the world was how to manage a mass society, a society in which everyone wanted a voice. One way was discipline and drilling as the school system does. You call specialization a poison to democracy and that goes hand in hand with this. Specialization though might well his sociological inevitability. It is not coincidental that the great sociologists of old were... Germans. The greatest of which, Max Weber, grew up in Prussia and very meticulously already analyzed the 'iron cage' of bureaucratization. — Tobias

:grin: "Democracy is a way of life and social organization which above all others is sensitive to the dignity and worth of the individual human personality, affirming the fundamental moral and political equality of all men and recognizing no barriers of race, religion, or circumstance." (Germanerl Report of the Seminar on "What is Democracy?" Congress in Education for Democracy, August, 1939)

Our form of government is a republic. Only very small populations can have direct democracy and there was a time in Athens when every male citizen who came of age had to attend the governing meetings, so everyone understood the reasoning of the law and had an opportunity to change that reasoning, as a meeting of the gods debating until having a consensus.

I believe it is important we understand democracy as a culture not the form of government. Government is only one aspect of democracy. We retain the power of the people by electing representatives that is a republic. However, again when we are not transmitting that culture through education, we can not manifest democracy any more than a church will manifest Christianity if it puts the Bible in a back corner and teaches math and science instead of Bible stories.

Yes, I do and find it fascinating. Also here I see many links to governmentality research. The states of Europe, in the 18th and 19th due to mutual competition perfected the science of the state, aptly called 'statistics'. Germany, but also France and the UK had to mobilize the people to gain the upper hand in the race for the colonies. In the US there was space enough, no competition and there was enough land to carve out a good agricultural living. However, do not idealize one form or the other. Those children of God also ruthlessly murdered the native Americans and institutionalized a system of racial aprtheid until well into the 20th century. Ideas in the 18th and 19th century were just very backward everywhere. — Tobias

You have a very important perspective on the development of government, but there is one more thing we need to know.

Government research :lol: I minored in public policy and administration. It was the most depressing time in my life! In the 60's I thought I wanted to be a social worker. Learning about government ended that desire! We adopted the German model of bureaucracy that goes with the Prussian model of education.
It is essential we understand education and war, and education and government order, andpreviously you mentioned military order!

The Prussian model of government is the Prussian military order applied to citizens. This begins with Prussian generals determining the military action and precisely defining every single task that is necessary to pull this off. Once the plan is complete, the swarm of ants (army) will do exactly as planned, even if every general is killed. Unlike kingdoms, bureaucracies never die.

In the old bureaucratic order used by the government and all businesses, everything depended on the individual aptitude of the person doing the job. If that person died or left for other reasons, it would throw the whole operation into chaos. The replacement would not do the job exactly as the person before, but organize the job to take advantage of his best abilities and delegate other responsibilities to someone else. That means everyone would have to adjust to the new person's way of doing things.

That was very inefficient and it was tied to nepotism. :gasp: You might imagine the problems with that. And this is also a social problem, a social problem the English education protected. England strongly supported the division of classes that they had and rejected Germany's education for technology because education for technology tends to be a social leveler. Suddenly with education, the commoners qualify for jobs because they have the training, AND hiring is based on merit. Merit hiring means uncle Joe who is an alcoholic and is lacks the necessary knowledge/training does not get the job, but the job is given to the man with no breeding, but the right training. Education for good citizenship and education for a good Englishman was not so different. As I stated, US education was about good citizenship, not technology and that meant the US was technological behind Germany and not ready for war. But Abraham Lincoln who grew up in the boonies could become president.

Sorry, that was very convoluted. President Eisenhower praised the Germans for their contribution to democracy shortly after the end of WWII. Education for technology and merit hiring is a social/economic leveler. Unfortunately, Eisenhower realized too late, the modern German model of bureaucracy, and education, leads to dependency on specialized experts. He warned us of that danger, but most Americans think what I am saying is a "conspiracy theory". They do not know enough about bureaucratic organization to see the problem. No matter what system is used, there will be problems. The Prussian model of bureaucracy is far superior to the one the US had. We could not have a national pension plan without that change. However, our past education, liberal or classical education is essential to our liberty and democracy.

You are right about the importance of governmental development, but we might want to keep Tocqueville's 1835 (Democracy in America) warning in mind. We are becoming a despot that is opposed to the democracy we had. Or as Aldous Huxley said. "In the past, personal and political liberty depended to a considerable extent upon governmental 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 all this completely."

Only when democracy is defended in the classroom is it defended and only when citizens understand the importance of obeying the law (based on the laws of nature) can they have liberty.

That explains my question about the embeddedness of your research, because you would be burdened doing everything by yourself without other to talk to and to compare data with others who share a similar interest. Historic research is very hard to do because you need a grasp of the interlocking structures of these societies you examine. — Tobias

Oh for sure, for sure! I desperately need the input of others! What we are thinking needs to be challenged from an outside source or we are not really thinking. This is why the Conceptual method is so important and what is wrong with the Behaviorist method. learning increasingly complex concepts stimulates true thinking. The Behaviorist method is about memorizing the required information and passing test. The Behaviorist method is programming, not developing a thinking human being. Have you seen the movie The Reader". I saw it long ago and my memory is vague, but the gist is a German woman who is illiterate is found guilty of war crimes. She was not guilty but was hiding the fact she could not read. If she had let that be known she would have been found innocent. A man takes interest in her and when she goes to prison, he sends her audio tapes of the classics. You see, she was only following orders and that was being a good Nazi and she had no concept of independent moral judgment and refusing to follow orders. That would have depended on knowing the classics and thinking about right and wrong.

Why do we recoil at Nazis following orders? Why have today's prisoners who, in prison, study the classics, become changed, people? Here is a problem with Christianity- it is not Jesus saving anyone but learning good moral judgment, and social rules, good citizenship, and peer support and pressure that makes us good. When we had liberal education based on the classics and being literate, we were fulfilling the promise of the enlightenment. Education for technology does not do that! Now we have a technologically very smart society, without wisdom.

The belief that we are evil unless saved by Jesus, is an educational problem because it has pit Christians against higher-order thinking skills that are essential to good moral judgment and small things like understanding why we should wear and mask and get vaccinated. Do you realize we actually have churches leading the fight against wearing masks and getting vaccinated?! Education for technology is not education for science and it is not education for good moral judgment. Education for technology prepares the young to rely on authority. Now we have an amoral society, that is threatened by both anarchy and authoritarianism, and the US doesn't have a leg to stand on in the international fight for democracy, and Trump is our Hitler, and some of his followers are in prison.

I am dying out here with this insight and no voice to answer everyone's question about what has gone wrong and what can we do about it. The 1958 National Defense Education is destroying the US. Now our children's libraries are filled with literary trash like "Captian Underwear" because that is what children will read, and no classics because children will not read the classics. Damn, right the kids won't read them, because they are not being educated to value them. While teachers blame the parents for not caring about their children and parents blame the schools for all the problems. And no one knows what the enlightenment had to do with our advancement nor what it means to defend democracy in the classroom. But we understand our right to bear arms. And I think we got talking about education by here by starting with global warming. This January Oregon is breaking temperature records, day after day. We think we know science, but we do not. We know technology and Christianity.
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That is very interesting. I am really interested in your research because indeed schooling, the way we mold our citizenry is a crucial aspect in the way we govern society. In that sense I really like this foray in different education systems. I did (and do) not know enough about the change in education system in the 18th and 19th century. So your old text books are really great sources of information. Can I ask, do you have a theory for your research, in other words is it guided by a certain hypothesis or theoretical framework? I am immediately thinking about a Foucauldian research on 'governmentality' and what the governmentality is of these different systems of schooling, the old American way and the Prussian system. Do you do your research yourself or in the context of a PhD research? Is there a research community or are you working on this by yourself? — Tobias

I am sorry I am only a domestic woman. Pay careful attention here and look for the gray that is both black or white. And know your questions are greatly expanding my own understanding of everything! You are giving me an enlightening moment of the kind that brings me to this forum. I do have a college education and I listen to college lectures daily. But I have never transitioned into the kind of educated person of which you speak. To me, your questions about having a theoretical framework, or "context of a PhD, is a language from Mars. Despite all my education, and self-education, I am still a domestic woman. And I will think I have died and gone to heaven if you are willing to explore this with me.

When I was working on a degree in Gerontology, I learn the difference between being a domestic woman and a college graduate. These are completely different consciousness with different languages and this plays to into the other questions you have asked. I learned about this difference through researching middle-aged women. The research I needed was not in the abstracts. I had to rely on the research women had done, and the work was not accepted by the males who control what goes into the abstracts. I am not talking about feminism here or sexual prejudice. I am talking about male and female differences and education was ruled by women! Because it was seen as most women's work like child care.

Oh dear, this is rough and I have to divide your reply because there is so much to say here. Not only do women think and behave differently from men, but domestic women have a different language and organize themselves differently. Women are much more personal than men who are organizational. My male professor was a chauvinist male whose knowledge of life was limited to men just like him. His vision of the world and mine clashed!. He refused to accept any research that was not in the abstracts, which goes with your interest in having a theoretical framework, or "context of a PhD,". How male those values are. He also shared with us that when his father died, he put his mother in a residence where she had to be completely dependent on others, and would not even allow her to drive. He forced her to give up her home, her friends, her whole life, and then said to class he wonders if that made it more difficult for her to adjust to being a widow. This was the head of the gerontology department and he could not have done worse to his mother. But what he did is typical male thinking according to the research I did. In the past women took care of everyone and men paid for someones to care for the children and the aged.

Now, what do you think education should teach us? You said "schooling, the way we mold our citizenry is a crucial aspect in the way we govern society." I said women were in control of education. Yes, the education experts tended to men. All the positions of "authority" would have been held by men, except in the one-room schools, where an 18-year-old woman was expected to give children of all ages an education, as though this were no different from any other child care. I am speaking of my grandmother's generation of teachers. Most grade school teachers were women. All education was based on liberal education. We teach children math to teach them how to think. We teach them the American mythology that is in history books. Education is about literacy and reading the classics, not about having a high-tech job. Am I conveying a feeling about education that is helpful in answering your questions?

No. Enlightenment was about introducing a new view and calling those not complying to the view ignorant.[/quote]

Okay, have a good day. We are done.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.