One standard to judge them all - or a humble foreign policy?

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In the "Good Old Golden Days" we had authority, Kids listened to parents, teachers, ministers, cops and the government. Where that changed is when they changed rules in the name of freedom. Now instead of teaching kids to sit down and shut up during the Lord's Prayer if they didn't care or believe, the example they see is of a selfish lobby group that are just as self righteous as the one they rail against who change the rules because they don't like being told to sit down and shut up for two bloody minutes of their day. I'm sorry, but if you can't or won't sit quietly for two minutes (I have Tourette Syndrome, and Even I can do that), I have no sympathy for you what so ever. Once upon a time you'd get a ruler across the knuckles for acting up during the Lord's prayer, and worse if you went crying to your parents about it.

Where society refuses to enforce the authority of teachers, that's where the education system crumbles. Where Society refuses to draw a line morally, anarchy will take over. With no rules, there is no freedom. How long before we are no longer safe in our homes or communities? What is there to teach people that they can't always get their own way? People don't want tohear that anymore...

 

Of course, the issue isn't that society refuses to draw a line in the moral sand, but that you don't like where society does draw the line.

 

And which days were these, Gnarff? I don't recall people ever being that concerned with authority, at least not in the US. But perhaps it was different where you are. Americans in general tend to be suspicious of anything that claims to be an "authority." We've always been a difficult people to rule or govern, for the most part. Just ask the English.

 

Respect for authority varies from group to group. I can remember a time when children where expected to respect their teachers and other authority figures. "The Good Old Golden Days" have never existed and never will because each period has its good side and its bad side.

That said, I agree with Gnarfflinger, when society accepts that what makes "me" feel good is the proper way to behave we have anarchy. Everyone for themselves and to Hades with others. With freedom comes responsibility or we have nothing. Courtesy and respect are the oils that make society a place where people can seek a good life for themselves and their children.

Chandos, I think you think in terms of society from the top down while Gnarf and I are seeing it from the bottom up. Could be wrong but that is the impression I get. You see the group and we see the individual. Both ways are correct and needed and are not mutually exclusive.

edit: I am a natural born rebel. I hate being told what to do or how I should do it or that infamous line "It's traditional. It's always been done this way." However I also believe in courtesy and respect for others which limits what I am "free" to do.

 

I have devoted most of my life to understanding the development of the individual. The group is really not much of a concern to me. I don't see that society needs to be vertical (from either top or bottom) but rather horizontal, especially in its more recent development. But because society has developed in a vertical fashion, horizontal planes sit a right angles along it, in their own patterns of development. Along these right angles to the vertical hierarchy is where the development of the individual is more easily understood. I think this becomes more clearly illustrated in the literature of the Middle Ages, than previous times. But I have an overly romantic view of how the individual developed during that period.

Chaucer comes to mind instantly: Look at how his characters seem so vivid, so real. They are neatly tucked into the vertical hierarchy of the given "estates" by their portraits: A Prioress, a Good Wife, a Monk. Yet, once they are viewed up close they are not what we would expect them to be like if we judge them from their determined postitions along the hierarchy. What becomes striking is how "individual" they are. But I'm really beating around the bush here, because in large part there are the dynamics within the three parts - or estates - of the social order to contend with.

Instead, Homer serves just as well. Achilles, or Odysseus illustrates this point. At the top of the hierarchy is the king, or even the gods. Yet, Achilles defies his king, Odysseus, the gods. What does this tell us about the relationship and interaction between the individual and the hierarchy? The heroic ideal, represented by the individual, at right angles to the social order, is what creates, in large part, the dramatic tension of the poems. It is human personality that drives the narrative, as in most good literature. Not conformity. What do we find in most literature worth anything? The individual set against, or in conflict, with conventionality, or tradition.

My point in all this is to show that the top down, or even bottom to top view of the social order does not really tell us very much about the individual. Do the same kinds of hierarchies exist in the ME as well as in the West? How do they ressemble each other? Do you think it is possible that in the hierarchies in the ME that the idividual may find himself in the same interaction, given the conformity and traditions of orthodoxy, as an individual in the West? Perhaps not. But then again, what kinds of choices are open to him or her?

 

Once upon a time, there was a moral line in the sand that seemed to work for the most part. Then one day, an activist judge agreed with someone that didn't like how it was maintained, and took that part out instead of telling them to sit down and shut up for two freakin' minutes. Soon, more people looked at things they didn't like and eventually, society was torn apart by those activist judges, and there is no moral line in the sand. Now who is safe?

Like when the aforementioned English saw that you didn't like being their subjects and changed their attitude? Canada is still part of the Brittish Commonwealth because of those changes, despite having their own sovreignty...

I'll take a few boring minuted at the start of a school day and a ruler across the knuckles when you misbehave over the school shootings and other crap you have today...

Sounds like the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. That was forgotten long ago, and now the many suffer for the perceived freedoms of the few...

That way of thinking is being phased out. They want people to be selfish in hopes that they will be consumers who buy things they don't need with money they don't have. Maybe Common Sense is trying to be phased out as well...

 

QFT. While the change in attitudes brought us some inconvenient outcomes as well, the surge in civil rights is imo something to be proud of. When all is said and done, imo the 60s and 70s have a rather impressive legacy.

 

Morality is independent of race, ethnicity or gender. It took a while for society to accept that, but once there was one standard to hold them all to, that worked itself out.

How about the needs of the many outweigh the selfish desires of the few? It wasn't a need that took prayer out of schools, it was a desire by a few that didn't want to sit quietly while the rest of the class observed the prayer. Someone wants to avoid traditional punishment? They lobby to get rid of it and now there's no enforcement of rules. What if the majority of the kids need the few bad apples to sit down and shut up so they can learn? But that imposes on the rights of the few to "express themselves". Of course, the majority will always need people to "express" the famous line: "You want fries with that?"

 

Actually, Gnarff, racism and sexism are still alive and well. Nothing has "worked itself out", here.

Schools are run by the state, Gnarff. Prayer in school violates separation of church and state. The only selfishness I see is in the administrators trying to foist their religion upon other people's kids.

Corporal punishment wasn't abandoned out of some sort of twisted desire to allow bullies and disruptive kids to "express themselves". It was abandoned because it's cruel to beat a kid with a paddle for talking out of turn. There are plenty of better ways to get a kid to quiet down than beating him with a stick.

 

One thing that came to my mind was the general puzzlement in America in particular about why people in other countries accuse them of meddling in their affairs. Actually, there is a point in this that goes beyond reflexive anti-Americanism or blaming America for their own misery. It has to do with Tom Friedmans neo-liberal holy trinity of free trade, political democracy and human rights.

There is one thing that American's don't sufficiently take into account, and that results in them getting this thing fundamentally wrong: Free market and free trade is one of America's premier exports. A liberal market (in the neo-liberal sense as defined at US universities) forces the market actors to adapt to market conditions, which is at the very basic level the individual on the labour market. The market forces individuals to travel to find work, it forces them to leave their families to find work, it forces them to abandon their traditional (usually rural) lifestyle and trade them usually for an urban one. While this is at the very basic level has already been a reflex of modernity, it has been exacerbated by globalisation.

What also Europe but in particular America and American dominated organisations such as the WTO or the World bank have done is to consequently promote free market and more often than not have forced countries to adopt market liberal reforms, which have been without exception been lauded in the West as 'progress'. While this is generally perceived to be about makro-economy, it is often lost that these market reforms profoundly impact the respective societies, much more so than all US demands for human rights and a pro western values. The market forces on those cultures significant cultural changes simply by creating cold hard new realities. It is these changes that the the West is often accused of imposing on other countries.

Gnarff has lamented how modernity has in a sense destroyed or significantly altered the nulceus of the family. He makes a very good observation in this. It is one thing to say: Oh we respect your traditional ways - do as you please, we're liberals after all - while at the same time preaching free market that is destroying or undermining just that (for that it is irrelevant that they are unaware of that effect or just indifferent - they do sincerely believe it is for their best).

(PS: Which oddly enough puts Ron Paul in a paradox position - he is anti-interventionist, but pro-free trade and free-market ...)

 

But is it too much to ask for a few minutes spent quietly? In taking ethics out of schools, you take out rules and compliance with rules, and thus you have anarchy where nobody is safe.

Public humiliation would suffice for things like what you say, but for more serious violations, then corporal punishment should be used (like bullying). I have no sympathy for someone who goes to school, torments kids smaller than himself, then gets a strap across the hands from the principle, then sent home to parents that would apply further punishment and likely put him to work while he was suspended.

On second thought, have the cops come in with nightsticks and tasers, violently take the offender down and incercerate them. Until something is done, there will be no order in school, and education will have to cater to the lowest of the class...

Hmm, Cut foreign aid, make them develop an internal economy, by which the people can support themselves, and buy what they make to sell. You aren't coming in to run their country, but you aren't running a welfare state for them either...

 

Removing schoolwide prayer and taking ethics out of schools aren't even in the same zip code, Gnarff. You don't need religion to be ethical any more than you need a sombrero to cut broccoli on a tuesday. How exactly does not subjecting kids to prayer at the start of the school day remove ethics from schools? How does it create anarchy? How does it make people less safe? You are aware that students are well within their rights to form their own (non-mandated) prayer groups if they so desire, right? No one is denying kids the right to pray in school. The only right being denied is the "right" of the administration to lead the kids in a "non-denominational" prayer to Jesus or the Judeo-Christian image of God at the start of the day.

That's fine, but, as a parent, I can assure you that no one is beating my kids. I have to send my kids to school...but I don't have to let them be physically abused by strangers. I thought we abandoned "spare the rod and spoil the child" as the ridiculous farce that it was 100 years ago.

Police don't violently arrest people unless they resist. You aren't suggesting actually treating kids with behaviour problems worse than we treat common criminals, are you?

Bull****. There's order in schools already. The system has its problems, sure, but you are blowing the problem up to ridiculous proportions.

 

But most people can't figure that out. Further, the Bible contains a nice neat set of values in it (Ten Commandments, Sermon on the mount, a few other passages that I can't think of right now). Can you teach those principles without teaching the whole thing?

You're quibbling over what, two or three minutes at the start of the day? If someone can't find better things to do, then I pity them...

If your kids behave, then they won't be. But the bully that bloodies their nose should be punished. I would propose a strap across the hands and a suspension. Either that or lock them up as a criminal.

Not that long ago, but in some cases, that old saying is being proven right. The Rod means dicipline. Corporal punishment should be a third last resort (Exclusion and incarceration being reserved for worse cases).

When that behaviour crosses into criminality, then they should be treated as criminals.

When I was a kid, kids weren't getting killed at school. We had prayer in school and teachers and principals that enforced the rules. Is that a coincidence? I don't think so. We saw things changed the way you wanted, we see the results.

 

When I was a kid, kids weren't getting killed at school, we did not have prayer in school and principals and teachers were not allowed to give out any sort of corporal punishment, and this was less than ten years ago. In my opinion you are drawing false conclusions from very thin facts to suit your religious agenda.

It's quite interesting though how there are plenty of religious people supporting a schoolsystem that might as well be directly taken from the Soviet Union (with added prayer). While I'll be the first to agree that bullying is bad, I'm not convinced that there's any more of that than before, we just study it more and are socially more concious than we were ten or twenty years ago. There's a lot more public discussion about what happens at school and I'd like to think that as a healthy thing for any society.

@ Rally right you are, no more of this from me in this thread. Sorry for the derail. I probably should check the topic before posting.

 

Well, I think that school discipline in the last 10-15 years here has gone downhill (though there haven't been any killing that I know of), but corporal punishment had little to do with it. I don't think there was any (official) such even during the communist years, when there was discipline to spare (weeell, supposedly - but that's another story).

In all honesty, I think the degree to which a child should be religiously educated - and the religion s/he should be told about - is a matter to be decided in the family, not at school. School can help educate kids, but it's not supposed to substitute for the parents when they're too busy to teach their kids anything about ethics and morality. Teachers are supposed to be educators, not nannies - at least, that's how it was when I was there. We have a saying here about something called "the first seven years" - proper conduct, ethics and basic morality, the things you should learn before ever hearing the September 15th bells. Maybe there should be a school for parents, or future parents, to remind them of that. You don't need a fixed time to pray, anyway - I've said a few "God, help me get through this exam"s myself, and I didn't have anyone to prompt me. Besides, what if the kids aren't Christian? Isn't it a bit early to teach them the values of hypocricy and conformation to peer pressure at the age of 8 and 9? It's not like school doesn't have enough incentives for them to learn that already...

Also, Gnarf, I think there should be some difference between child offenders and adult ones, and not just on matter of principle but also on precedent. If children are not legible to vote, and to a lesser drink alcohol or drive, based on their inability to fully comprehend/consider their actions (afaik the default justification - i), then this should also be a factor when they are being punished for criminal behavior.

 

... I thought this thread was supposed to be about humility in foreign policy?

 

I agree, as this would be a whole other topic in itself, and certainly an interesting one. As a parent I struggle with this everyday.

 

I wasn't aware of this, Gnarff. Religious folks seem to think this, but I'm not buying it.

Absolutely.

Agreed. Of course, the police don't actually use force against criminals, even violent ones, unless they actually resist (and even then they only use as much force as is necessary to subdue the suspect), so my point still stands.

When I was a kid, kids weren't getting killed at school. We didn't have prayer in school and teachers and principals were able to enforce the rules just fine without without beating anyone with a switch, rapping anyone on the knuckles, or waterboarding any foreign exchange students. In fact, in looking at the schools my son has attended and currently attends, they still appear to be doing that just fine. I'm with Morgoroth. You are drawing conclusions from very thin (and often non-existent) facts to support your religious agenda. Our awareness of the problems of our school system is heightened. That doesn't mean that our schools have actually gotten worse, though. If you want to assert that schools aren't enforcing their own rules or that there isn't any discipline, you're going to have to prove it. With facts.

True, but as in all things, ideas about what our foreign policy should be tend to bleed directly into our domestic policy, as well. Try as we might to keep them apart, in the end, they are deeply inter-related. A social conservative who has no qualms about trying to use government to force other people to follow his social agenda and lifestyle isn't about to make a 180 when the topic switches from domestic policy to foreign policy. The ideas are inter-related.

 

Until a workable means of teaching compliance and proper behaviour in a social setting that is not included in a religious context that works can be provided, then religion is the best means we have.

Again, corrective measures need to be used, but if there is not any answers, law enforcement's current means are all we have. Current treatment of underage offenders doesn't seem to work...

You'll have to say more than that. Keeping propper behaviour in a social setting without religion is a problem. The "Anti-religious" crowd says that religion in school is bad, but until they propose a solution then there should be no change made.

And how much control do they really have? How long can you really keep a student out of class? What sanction are actually effective?

Then if we don't like the way they run their country, then we don't need to interfere--meaning no foreign aid or anything else. Is that in and of itself not some from of pressure?