Thursday, April 28, 2005
Telling The Truth
Read this book last night. By VP Cheney's wife. Smart woman who headed National Endowment for the Arts. Pretty disgusted by current educational standards from kids to college to law schools. Premise is that the truth is not important, but some political agenda is. Now given Dick and all, you can be sure she is conservative, and that bias shows some. She has plenty of support for her allegations too. It gets a little long-winded, but her premises are right on.
The first is that our educational system, from top to bottom, has been taken over by a narrow and flawed doctrine that is quite hostile to other points of view. And following from this our entire society is adversely affected.
The second is that there is hostility to truth in any objective sense. Truth in any objective sense in rejected as all truth is subjective. The post-modern doctrine.
The third is that the "truth" is now all that is science, male and white is bad. All that is female, minority and not scientific/logical is good.
It's funny that the proponents of all this are the early baby-boomers who came of age as the beneficiaries of science, technology and capitalism. These folks came to cheap colleges from nice homes with stay-at-home moms while their poorer brethren were in Vietnam and in low-paid and/or difficult labor. They got free love, LSD and the Rolling Stones. In their wake, we got AIDS, crack cocaine and rap.
Now they sit tenured in university departments in the non-science liberal arts. They fill the heads of college students with their fundamentalist doctrine. Of course given their doctoral degrees in education and psychology, they also create the doctrine for schoolchildren. So the brainwashing starts early. From the biased law schools, they send out young lawyers on a social agenda into the courts and government.
So let us examine this doctrine. Objective truth. Sorry but science is objective truth, or at least the best way to seek it. The universe has laws and we can and have discovered them. It is a continual quest for truth. It is being revised and debated all the time. It's truth value is practically demonstrated in the technology that follows it. You can't get to the moon on a post-modern multicultural deconstruction. I doubt many of our tenured radicals would be willing to give up the fruits of science: Medical care, cars, planes, phones, air conditioning, central heat, toilets that flush, fresh water,...
So their attacks on science are garbage. On other issues, it is more slippery. The moral and ethical thing is one. They claim all morality is subjective. Three problems here. One is that some things are wrong. Plain and simple. Sexual penetration of a child for one. Any non-sick person would agree. So much for relativity here. From that follows that if nothing is wrong, then their is no basis for crime and punishment. Total chaos would ensue. In a brutal world such as that, our liberal academics would not do too well. Most would end up as sex slaves, serfs or on the BBQ when the food ran out. Finally these radicals defend their moral views like born-again Christians, so they are hypocrites besides.
Aesthetics. Is it really subjective that Mozart is better than Marilyn Manson? That David is better than laminated feces? Some things stand the test of time. A new generation is enjoying Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon." People still read James Joyce.
The intolerance is what really is ironic. They were so for free speech when they wanted their messages heard. Now in power, they have shut off dissent in an academic version of totalitarianism. No dissent tolerated. Disagree and a poor grade, humiliation in front of your peers, no academic position, no promotion, no tenure. Inquiry and discussion are shut out. Not much in the way of new ideas either. About all they have given us in thirty years is PC, multiculturalism, sexual harrassment, androgyny and misogyny. Wow! How progressive.
Anything white or European is bad. Never mind that here is the source of democracy, the republic, social welfare, science, technology and everything else that is good and wonderful in the modern world.
Anything male is bad too. Pretty much all the white stuff above was male too. Male bashing hurts the males in this society, the vast majority who have never raped or murdered anyone. Males do most of the tough dirty work in this society too. Who builds the houses, pulls people out of fires, fights the wars and climbs up the power lines in the rain? In nearly every case its a male. Can't these supposed intellects find something more constructive to do than alienate females from their fathers, brothers, co-workers and sons?
Of course women are perfect beings. They would never lie or cheat. They are altruistic and unselfish. Please. We are all primates here.
And every non-Western culture is wonderful. Never mind the Aztec human sacrafice. Or the African and Arab slave trade that initiated the European slave trade and continues today. Or the sex slavery in Asia. Idi Amin. Pol Pot. Mao.
They are for the destruction of capitalism, despite laughing about how they are destroying the system that pays them. That's real smart. I think I'll burn the farm that feeds me.
This all supports my ever lowering opinion of so-called higher education. What a crock of shit. The university is just another wasted public resource to a large extent. Half teaching skills the students should have mastered by high school and the other half indoctrination into total bullshit. Of course there is good stuff in there too. There are good instructors. The science and engineering and health professions are good still. It appears most of the money spent on education is a waste. Or even destructive.
The first is that our educational system, from top to bottom, has been taken over by a narrow and flawed doctrine that is quite hostile to other points of view. And following from this our entire society is adversely affected.
The second is that there is hostility to truth in any objective sense. Truth in any objective sense in rejected as all truth is subjective. The post-modern doctrine.
The third is that the "truth" is now all that is science, male and white is bad. All that is female, minority and not scientific/logical is good.
It's funny that the proponents of all this are the early baby-boomers who came of age as the beneficiaries of science, technology and capitalism. These folks came to cheap colleges from nice homes with stay-at-home moms while their poorer brethren were in Vietnam and in low-paid and/or difficult labor. They got free love, LSD and the Rolling Stones. In their wake, we got AIDS, crack cocaine and rap.
Now they sit tenured in university departments in the non-science liberal arts. They fill the heads of college students with their fundamentalist doctrine. Of course given their doctoral degrees in education and psychology, they also create the doctrine for schoolchildren. So the brainwashing starts early. From the biased law schools, they send out young lawyers on a social agenda into the courts and government.
So let us examine this doctrine. Objective truth. Sorry but science is objective truth, or at least the best way to seek it. The universe has laws and we can and have discovered them. It is a continual quest for truth. It is being revised and debated all the time. It's truth value is practically demonstrated in the technology that follows it. You can't get to the moon on a post-modern multicultural deconstruction. I doubt many of our tenured radicals would be willing to give up the fruits of science: Medical care, cars, planes, phones, air conditioning, central heat, toilets that flush, fresh water,...
So their attacks on science are garbage. On other issues, it is more slippery. The moral and ethical thing is one. They claim all morality is subjective. Three problems here. One is that some things are wrong. Plain and simple. Sexual penetration of a child for one. Any non-sick person would agree. So much for relativity here. From that follows that if nothing is wrong, then their is no basis for crime and punishment. Total chaos would ensue. In a brutal world such as that, our liberal academics would not do too well. Most would end up as sex slaves, serfs or on the BBQ when the food ran out. Finally these radicals defend their moral views like born-again Christians, so they are hypocrites besides.
Aesthetics. Is it really subjective that Mozart is better than Marilyn Manson? That David is better than laminated feces? Some things stand the test of time. A new generation is enjoying Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon." People still read James Joyce.
The intolerance is what really is ironic. They were so for free speech when they wanted their messages heard. Now in power, they have shut off dissent in an academic version of totalitarianism. No dissent tolerated. Disagree and a poor grade, humiliation in front of your peers, no academic position, no promotion, no tenure. Inquiry and discussion are shut out. Not much in the way of new ideas either. About all they have given us in thirty years is PC, multiculturalism, sexual harrassment, androgyny and misogyny. Wow! How progressive.
Anything white or European is bad. Never mind that here is the source of democracy, the republic, social welfare, science, technology and everything else that is good and wonderful in the modern world.
Anything male is bad too. Pretty much all the white stuff above was male too. Male bashing hurts the males in this society, the vast majority who have never raped or murdered anyone. Males do most of the tough dirty work in this society too. Who builds the houses, pulls people out of fires, fights the wars and climbs up the power lines in the rain? In nearly every case its a male. Can't these supposed intellects find something more constructive to do than alienate females from their fathers, brothers, co-workers and sons?
Of course women are perfect beings. They would never lie or cheat. They are altruistic and unselfish. Please. We are all primates here.
And every non-Western culture is wonderful. Never mind the Aztec human sacrafice. Or the African and Arab slave trade that initiated the European slave trade and continues today. Or the sex slavery in Asia. Idi Amin. Pol Pot. Mao.
They are for the destruction of capitalism, despite laughing about how they are destroying the system that pays them. That's real smart. I think I'll burn the farm that feeds me.
This all supports my ever lowering opinion of so-called higher education. What a crock of shit. The university is just another wasted public resource to a large extent. Half teaching skills the students should have mastered by high school and the other half indoctrination into total bullshit. Of course there is good stuff in there too. There are good instructors. The science and engineering and health professions are good still. It appears most of the money spent on education is a waste. Or even destructive.
