Ouch 4/23/2010

 Think about this from David Hume's "The Stoic":

But while thou ambitiously aspirest to perfecting thy bodily powers and faculties, wouldest thou meanly neglect thy mind, and from a preposterous sloth, leave it still rude and uncultivated, as it came from the hands of nature? Far be such folly and negligienced from every rational being. If nature has been frugal in her gifts and endwoments, there is the more need of art to supply her defects. If she has ben generous and liberal know that she still expects industry and application on our part, and revenges herself in proportion to our negligient ingratitude. The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds; and instead of vines and olives for the please and use of man, produces, to its slothful owner, the most abundant crop of poisons.

I resemble these remarks.

More broadly, I read in this morning's Indianapolis Star that Indiana's Superintendent of Education gave up on getting federal grants for Indiana's schools. I found Tony Bennett one of our state's less offensive Republicans and one that truly had good ideas for Indiana (unlike our Governor), but this strikes me as a chance to damage the teacher's union.

We extol the best athlete in Indiana. How many cities have signs at their borders telling strangers this place was home to such and such athlete? When does that city mayor use his bully pulpit to highlight the city's scholars or painters or writers or musicians? When have we seen the Governor or any other politician use their bully pulpits to praise the intellectual successes of Hoosier?

I see a failing on my part to not go back to more virtuous subjects. Hindsight always possesses 20/20 vision. I hurtled myself forward, forgot to think, and I see my errors there in Hume's paragraph. I should have known better, but I felt there was no recourse except self-destruction. My hope for anyone reading this with similar ideas puts the brakes on hard: get three to a church or a best friend or a doctor. Swallow your pride, for all of us are only human, which means we all screw up our lives.

By the way, I do not want to imply I wholly approve of the Indiana State Teachers Association. There is a bit of stodginess in their relying on seniority pay rules. Why not shoot back with a teacher based proposal that focuses on what is taught, and how it is taught. Surely, we can rethink, retool, and improve Indiana's educational system? Our survival depends on it.

On this subject, I suggest everyone find [and read] Richard Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism in America. When Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are our most prominent business leaders, we need to emphasize brain power over broad backs for the factory.

Also, we need to rethink what we teach. Our government depends on an educated population. I think we forget that, and think education's only purpose is for training wage slaves. (to borrow a phrase from Mr. Thoreau). Our form of government will degrade into oligarchy (excepting arguments from Walter Karp and Gore Vidal that we always had an oligarchy) or demagoguery, without an educated population. Perhaps this explains the Tea party, Michelle Bachmann, and why Republican governors talk about secession. Start with elevating history's importance.

Then figure out how to teach virtue. Maybe with Plato and St. Augustine. I think Hume's "The Stoic" could fit in there. I kick myself for forgetting, ignoring, what I knew from church and reading philosophy, but of those I see where who had church or philosophy in their lives? 

(Now the issue of knowing the difference between a quick fix and a revolution needs more space of its own.)

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