Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA11279 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 8 Dec 2000 14:02:23 GMT Subject: beliefs via education or vice versa Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 08:57:58 -0500 x-sender: wsmith1@camail2.harvard.edu x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, Claritas Est Veritas From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "memetics list" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Message-ID: <20001208135644.AAA18438@camailp.harvard.edu@[128.103.125.215]> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 12/08/00 08:21, Vincent Campbell said this-
>Depends on one's definition of education, I suppose.
"The plain fact is that education is itself a form of propaganda -- a
deliberate scheme to outfit the pupil, not with the capacity to weigh
ideas, but with a simple appetite for gulping ideas ready-made. The aim
is to make 'good' citizens, which is to say, docile and uninquisitive
citizens." - H.L. Mencken
There's reason enough to take this quote at face value. There's
definitely reason to gulp it whole when religious education is discussed-
that societal/cultural/tribal/local education that flows from the
church/shaman/temple/medicine hut and maintains status quo, and also
maintains a cohesive society, intact against a myriad of foes and
antagonists, and willing to endure great discomfort to preserve its
feelings of continuity and warmth and community.
This may be all education was and is for a grand percentage of the human
race.
With the advent of monastic scholarship and isolation, and the university
system, the individual happened upon occasions to discover knowledge,
rather than being led to it.
One's method of learning may have arrived despite education, there and
then, or here and now.
How many committees in _your_ educational infrastructure...?
Ideally, it is "the act, process, or art of imparting knowledge and
skill", and we should be doing what we can to make it so.
Context, though, context....
>People come to believe things because we're perceptually imperfect
This is such an important point that IMHO it cannot be stressed enough.
Hardly secondary to this, people can be _led_ to believe things because
we are perceptually imperfect as well, and that cannot be stressed
enough. Connecting one's perception to the way things are is the holiness
of science, and the unholiness of religious belief systems.
Acknowledging all that is imperfect is the divine task....
- Wade
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