Have you ever talked to someone who has no clue what you're talking about? A friend of mine grew up in Turkey, the daughter of a Christian missionary couple. She was not exposed to much American culture in the way of music, movies, or television. She did have an extensive education in art, which didn't help me communicate with her at all. It was reminescent of communicating with the "savages" in Brave New World.
I’m with Jason on this—public schooling, despite its benefits, and those far too rare worldview-challenging & perspective-broadening teachers, does a lot more mind-narrowing than expanding. As an institution, it’s largely a propaganda and conditioning factory. It teaches students how to fit into a system, based on the very matter-of-fact and mechanistic, labor/production-value based thinking, rather than how to think critically or creatively.
That said, I also recognize the wisdom in your pointing to the cyclical nature of it all. This shift toward the “just the facts” approach reflects modernism’s own soaked obsession with scientific objectivity, and commodification of all things (and devaluation of all things which resist commodification), which itself might be ripe for its own collapse and cycling into something more fantastic and grand, coming around again.
A question I find myself pondering after reading this is, how can we guide kids (and ourselves, culturally) toward reembracing and valuing art and the humanities, despite the ongoing Borg assimilation?
Time to think about this with some Raffi in the background for ambiance.
Always love checking these out for finding new stuff. Thanks so much for putting these together!
Welcome! Thanks for creating good things to share!
…raffi an absolute scourge to sound…
Ugh, I used to think so, too. But now, like the scent of garbage that you can no longer smell…it just puts me to sleep.
…don’t raffi and drive…
Have you ever talked to someone who has no clue what you're talking about? A friend of mine grew up in Turkey, the daughter of a Christian missionary couple. She was not exposed to much American culture in the way of music, movies, or television. She did have an extensive education in art, which didn't help me communicate with her at all. It was reminescent of communicating with the "savages" in Brave New World.
I’m with Jason on this—public schooling, despite its benefits, and those far too rare worldview-challenging & perspective-broadening teachers, does a lot more mind-narrowing than expanding. As an institution, it’s largely a propaganda and conditioning factory. It teaches students how to fit into a system, based on the very matter-of-fact and mechanistic, labor/production-value based thinking, rather than how to think critically or creatively.
That said, I also recognize the wisdom in your pointing to the cyclical nature of it all. This shift toward the “just the facts” approach reflects modernism’s own soaked obsession with scientific objectivity, and commodification of all things (and devaluation of all things which resist commodification), which itself might be ripe for its own collapse and cycling into something more fantastic and grand, coming around again.
A question I find myself pondering after reading this is, how can we guide kids (and ourselves, culturally) toward reembracing and valuing art and the humanities, despite the ongoing Borg assimilation?
Time to think about this with some Raffi in the background for ambiance.