The Struggle for the Soul of America

[Nick_A]

Indoctrination: "Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing." George Orwell

Education in contrast is the process of enabling a student to harmonize his tripartite essence into a harmonious whole. The modern public educational trend supports the struggle for external power over internal harmony. This assures the loss of the soul of America

The theory of tripartite essence is one theory among many others of human nature. It's best to flavour all theories with scepticism, as we are subject to confirmation bias, including those of us who are not obsessed.
You think the soul of America is bound up with the theory of the tripartite soul. You may be right. Or you may be right to some extent. However you are not credible unless you produce real life evidence with statistics.
Educationists have studied these questions for decades, and have done so as objectively as they could.

Do you agree that the purpose of America is described in the following.

The Purpose of America was to prove to the Kings and Queens of the world, and to ourselves, that an educated and moral people were capable of ruling themselves. Nobility believed that people wanted to be controlled for their own safety and security. They had good reason to believe this as anarchy or mob rule was the usual result of self rule.

I would say that the noble experiment called America will fail because of the struggle for power making self rule impossible and the necessity for a strong central government to rule. One of the main reasons is the inability for education to serve to develop an educated and moral people but instead develops an indoctrinated amoral people who create their own reality.

It is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue. John Adams

When a free country no longer seeks to remember perennial objective values initiating from the GOOD but instead seeks to create its own values, nothing is possible but the devolution of society into Psychological slavery.

Progressive education seeks to teach how to create our own reality. Platonic eduction seeks to enable a student to feel their relationship to perennial objective values.

This leads us to the essential problem concerning education if the goal is a free society. We need to become educated as to what Man is and what God is. We need an understanding of God and Man that doesn't insult the scientific mind but at the same time nourishes the needs of the heart. The ideal education would arouse the curiousity science offers while offering meaning to the heart.

It may be possible in a hundred years but clearly, humanity as a whole, is not ready for it.

[Belinda]

Can you instead think about what prevents education being as good as you would like?

This leads us to the essential problem concerning education if the goal is a free society. We need to become educated as to what Man is and what God is. We need an understanding of God and Man that doesn't insult the scientific mind but at the same time nourishes the needs of the heart. The ideal education would arouse the curiousity science offers while offering meaning to the heart.

Fine words. How might society proceed?

Teaching methods and curriculums are both important aspects of liberal education.

Education's medium is mostly language. The teacher who leads children and adults to ask "What is man?" and "What is God?" does not impart information but asks open questions like Socrates did.

The Socratic method (also known as method of Elenchus, elenctic method, or Socratic debate), is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions.

[Nick_A]

Can you instead think about what prevents education being as good as you would like?

This leads us to the essential problem concerning education if the goal is a free society. We need to become educated as to what Man is and what God is. We need an understanding of God and Man that doesn't insult the scientific mind but at the same time nourishes the needs of the heart. The ideal education would arouse the curiousity science offers while offering meaning to the heart.

Fine words. How might society proceed?

Teaching methods and curriculums are both important aspects of liberal education.

Education's medium is mostly language. The teacher who leads children and adults to ask "What is man?" and "What is God?" does not impart information but asks open questions like Socrates did.

The Socratic method (also known as method of Elenchus, elenctic method, or Socratic debate), is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions.

Very true. Modern education is mostly language so head oriented. Critical thinking expresses itself as indoctrination since there is no method for verification. The purpose of the Socratic method isn't to argue interpretations from critical thinking but rather to remember what has been forgotten. Can people in a group open themselves to remembering rather than arguing and accepting?

Suppose the question of justice comes up in classroom and one student asks "what is justice"? For me, justice is the results of the lawful interaction of of intentionally designed universal law. This assumes a conscious source. So the idea is to remember lawful interactions. But for the secularist who denies the source, justice is subjective and we create our own concepts of justice. If students are taught to believe in what society has defined as justice they easily turn to "might makes right." Liberty is impossible where the drive for power is dominant..

As a student of child centered education how would you respond to the question of justice? Is the universe just? Is it an expression of God's laws creating and permeating the universe or is justice a man made concept defined by the state and the result of "might makes right?" Can a student remember justice or do they learn it through indoctrination?

For those interested in remembrance, the first step is developing a student's ability for conscious attention.

https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/do ... 6/D83776W5

I was surprised when I read this but he understood it so there is some help for education. His thesis elaborates on Simone Weil" famous essay but is easier to understand for those unfamiliar with the value of conscious attention as opposed to reliance on directed attention leading to indoctrination.

The concern of this study is the loss of the meaning or purpose of education and the instrumental view of education as its corollary. Today, education is largely conceived of as a means to gain social and economic privilege. The overemphasis on school children's test scores and the accountability of teachers and schools is evidence that education has lost its proper meaning. In such a climate, we observe general unhappiness among teachers, school children, and their parents. Society as a whole seems to have given up on education, not only school education but also the very idea of educated human beings. There is an urgent need to reconsider what education is and what its purpose is. However, these questions—once being the primary concerns of philosophers of education—are barely discussed today. I intend to energize the discourse of the aims of education by examining Simone Weil's thesis that the sole purpose of education is to nurture attention..................

Nurturing conscious attention leads to remembrance while denying it leads to indoctrination. Liberty is only possible when the emphasis is on remembrance

[Belinda]

Nick_A wrote:

The purpose of the Socratic method isn't to argue interpretations from critical thinking but rather to remember what has been forgotten. Can people in a group open themselves to remembering rather than arguing and accepting?

That is a good way to describe education proper as opposed to training, or indoctrination.The work of the teacher is to draw out from the pupil what the pupil 'knows'. However I maintain the pupil should still respect truth to the extent that he measure and collect evidence. The good teacher should warn the pupil not to trust authorities without the scepticism that is due to all human ideas no matter how established they be.

[Nick_A]

Nick_A wrote:

The purpose of the Socratic method isn't to argue interpretations from critical thinking but rather to remember what has been forgotten. Can people in a group open themselves to remembering rather than arguing and accepting?

That is a good way to describe education proper as opposed to training, or indoctrination.The work of the teacher is to draw out from the pupil what the pupil 'knows'. However I maintain the pupil should still respect truth to the extent that he measure and collect evidence. The good teacher should warn the pupil not to trust authorities without the scepticism that is due to all human ideas no matter how established they be.

It seems reasonable but without the influence of opening minds to objective values, the result is the loss of liberty to socialism. Here is a typical example from a teacher who experienced secular intolerance. For example

https://www.heritage.org/education/comm ... ed-leftist.

Another way the left propagandizes is through the normalization of its views and positions as nonpolitical.

The Black Lives Matter organization is a prime example of this. Many of my colleagues wore Black Lives Matter pins and apparel to school in blatant violation of school rules forbidding political statements on clothing.

When I asked for a justification of the behavior, I was told it wasn’t political to support the group, it was a matter of human rights. The children would see these pins and clothes and connect radical leftist groups with basic human dignity. “How dare you question Black Lives Matter? I was taught this is a matter of human rights!”

But it isn’t just a matter of actively teaching that America and the West are evil. Suppression of “wrongthink” is equally as important to the brainwashing process. The lessons I was allowed to teach also were censored.

Classic intolerance. BLM is good and America is evil. How can one be a good teacher in an environment which denies it in favor of teaching the propaganda of a closed mind? It is becoming increasingly dominant as a result of education devolving into the process of indoctrination. This is the direct result from denying the source of objective values.

[SpheresOfBalance]

SoB

The unique value of America is that it was intended to encourage an individual to become what they are rather than just being an indoctrinated atom of society.
What anyone is, is manufactured, by those closest to them, (experience), as they say about computers, "garbage in, garbage out." Of course the opposite is also true.

SOB: The problem is that hardly anyone is educated enough to actually understand what they are. Education should be free for all, and the people that make that so, shall be the most unbeatable force of truth the earthlings has ever had to offer. As long as they're honest with themselves!

Why it apparently has failed is another question

SOB: I just told you why it's failed! Fear, Denial, Falsehoods! The education of how they play!
Your problem is like most, you've given up. You see the way things currently are and you throw in the towel as you say, "that's the way it is." But your life has been far too short to see the way it was, the way it's changed. The FACT is that it was MADE the way that it is. And TOGETHER we can ALL MAKE it the way we WANT it, and it would be UNIFIED, of that there is no doubt, in my mind.

It isn't that I've given up but willing to investigate why the human condition is as it is. Are you like all within the Great Beast a victim of "wretched contentment " as described by Nietzsche. "I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?" If you haven't made any attempt to overcome wretrched contentment, you cannot understand the problem. Are you willing to discuss the human condition as Nietzsche described it?
Nietzsche died of mental illness like his father before him. Like Machiavelli it's not clear to me whether they were "ADVOCATING" such selfishness, such greed, such megalomania, or rather "REPORTING" it's existence with "DISDAIN" as a "WARNING." Surely I don't agree with there being any Übermensch or aristocracy. I certainly take their rhetoric as a "WARNING" to be wary of such base concepts. I hate both colonialism and imperialism. The USA doesn't belong to current americans, it belongs to the American Indians.

To hell with humankinds fears as it turns ugly with so much "self sucking", (yes a crass way of speaking of crassness. Its just reward!)

Once the sin against God was the greatest sin; but God died, and these sinners died with him.
This actually speaks of the ignorance of humankind. I'd rather not entertain such ignorance these days.

To sin against the earth is now the most dreadful thing,
Agreed if sin is to destroy it's natural course, unadulterated by humankinds insatiable greed, as if it necessarily knows!

and to esteem the entrails of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth...
Total gibberish! The unknowable can't be said to have entrails, and there is no necessary meaning that can be ascribed to the earth by that which is its cause. Humankinds ignorant, thus ever varying, projected meaning, has no necessary meaning of actuality/fact/truth.

What is the greatest experience you can have?
To know the truth of it all!
It is the hour of the great contempt.
Of ignorance, sure!

The hour when your happiness, too, arouses your disgust, and even your reason and your virtue.
All that matters is the absolute truth, devoid of all human design.

What about the human condition assures it leads to wretched contentment?
Ignorance!
What does it mean to sin against the earth?
See Above!
Regardles of education, the same ideas were spoken of forever yet the world is in chaos.
Not regardless of education, ignorance breeds chaos.
If we live in fear,
Indeed!
what are you afraid of that denies the overman?
The ignorance of lunatics that believe in such a falsehood, that would deny my one and only life's understanding, free of said ignorance.

Towards the Ubermensch

"I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?
All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment...
Behold, I teach you the overman. The overman is the meaning of the earth.Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth! I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go.
Once the sin against God was the greatest sin; but God died, and these sinners died with him. To sin against the earth is now the most dreadful thing, and to esteem the entrails of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth...
What is the greatest experience you can have? It is the hour of the great contempt. The hour when your happiness, too, arouses your disgust, and even your reason and your virtue.
The hour when you say, 'What matters my happiness? It is poverty and filth and wretched contentment. But my happiness ought to justify existence itself.'
The hour when you say, 'What matters my reason? Does it crave knowledge as the lion his food? It is poverty and filth and wretched contentment.'
The hour when you say, 'What matters my virtue? As yet it has not made me rage. How weary I am of my good and my evil! All that is poverty and filth and wretched contentment.'

"Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman--a rope over an abyss...
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under...

"I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves.
Alas, the time is coming when man will no longer give birth to a star. Alas, the time of the most despicable man is coming, he that is no longer able to despise himself. Behold, I show you the last man.
'What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?' thus asks the last man, and blinks.
The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea; the last man lives longest.
'We have invented happiness,'say the last men, and they blink. They have left the regions where it was hard to live, for one needs warmth. One still loves one's neighbor and rubs against him, for one needs warmth...
One still works, for work is a form of entertainment. But one is careful lest the entertainment be too harrowing. One no longer becomes poor or rich: both require too much exertion. Who still wants to rule? Who obey? Both require too much exertion.
No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.
'Formerly, all the world was mad,' say the most refined, and they blink...
One has one's little pleasure for the day and one's little pleasure for the night: but one has a regard for health.
'We have invented happiness,' say the last men, and they blink."

from Nietzsche's Thus spoke Zarathustra, p.3,4,5, Walter Kaufmann transl.

All the above is antiquated bullshit, as it's all been done before, over and over again, he obviously has no idea of the differences between us, instead he lays blame, when all that really matters is resolution, understanding all there is, to see the real and largest picture of them all. The truth shall set everyone free, that is, once they can accept it! We must all shit out our denial as the waste product it is. We must see our true reflection in the mirror of understanding.

[Nick_A]

Total gibberish! The unknowable can't be said to have entrails, and there is no necessary meaning that can be ascribed to the earth by that which is its cause. Humankinds ignorant, thus ever varying, projected meaning, has no necessary meaning of actuality/fact/truth.

What is the greatest experience you can have?
To know the truth of it all!
It is the hour of the great contempt.
Of ignorance, sure!

The hour when your happiness, too, arouses your disgust, and even your reason and your virtue.
All that matters is the absolute truth, devoid of all human design.

You assert that the Earth is the source of meaning. All that matters is absolute truth and reliance on our interpretations prevent it. Our ignorance leads to wretched contentment

what are you afraid of that denies the overman?
The ignorance of lunatics that believe in such a falsehood, that would deny my one and only life's understanding, free of said ignorance.

You don’t appear to be one of these lunatics. How did you avoid it? I remember when I first became aware of the great perennial ideas. I thought why would the world except such a situation? Then it hit me like a brick; why do I except it? I am part of the human condition. How can I become less of a lunatic?

Nietzche is describing evolving beyond being a slave to wretched contentment and becoming what the Man of the earth is capable of. Nietzsche describes it the Overman being compared to an ape and dominates the earth.

The Overman is king of the earth. He can do anything. Being free of fears and acquired inhibitions there is nothing holding him back. He will rule in chaos. Now it becomes interesting. Was Jesus born an Overman or evolved Man?

Luke 4
5 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 And Jesus answered him, “It is written,
“‘You shall worship the Lord your God,
and him only shall you serve.’”

King of the earth and dominance in a world of chaos or being a conscious servant to universal purpose and doing what was necessary in the world to introduce “consciousness”.

Is a person capable of opening to absolute truth without first having experienced their nothingness and what denies it?

All the above is antiquated bullshit, as it's all been done before, over and over again, he obviously has no idea of the differences between us, instead he lays blame, when all that really matters is resolution, understanding all there is, to see the real and largest picture of them all. The truth shall set everyone free, that is, once they can accept it! We must all shit out our denial as the waste product it is. We must see our true reflection in the mirror of understanding.

If the fact that we are asleep in Plato's cave creates wretched contentment, how is it resolved? When the dominant goal of life in Plato's cave is the acquisition of prestige, who wants to wake up and experience their nothingness?

[Belinda]

Nick quoted:

Luke 4
5 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 And Jesus answered him, “It is written,
“‘You shall worship the Lord your God,
and him only shall you serve.’”

The good Jew does not idolise himself but God alone. God is other than himself. This ethic has been adopted from Judaism into Xianity too.

If Plato's Allegory of The Cave is understood as if some people, those who have escaped from the Cave's shackles, are Godlike then the famous Allegory is opposed to Xianity which supports the poor and downtrodden, the social pariahs, the poor, and the sinners.
Plato's Allegory of The Cave is about how Everyman might be a reasoning being once he sees he is a prisoner of convention and traditional values.

[Nick_A]

Nick quoted:

Luke 4
5 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 And Jesus answered him, “It is written,
“‘You shall worship the Lord your God,
and him only shall you serve.’”

The good Jew does not idolise himself but God alone. God is other than himself. This ethic has been adopted from Judaism into Xianity too.

If Plato's Allegory of The Cave is understood as if some people, those who have escaped from the Cave's shackles, are Godlike then the famous Allegory is opposed to Xianity which supports the poor and downtrodden, the social pariahs, the poor, and the sinners.
Plato's Allegory of The Cave is about how Everyman might be a reasoning being once he sees he is a prisoner of convention and traditional values.

But Jesus was not a good Jew. He entered the earth as a representative living by perennial truths and offering the conscious results of doing so. He wasn't an adjective. He united the Jews and Gentiles as one in relation to perennial truths.

When a person in Plato's cave turns towards the light it is the beginning. In Christianity it is called metanoia. It is far from becoming a Son of God

[Belinda]

Nick quoted:

Luke 4
5 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 And Jesus answered him, “It is written,
“‘You shall worship the Lord your God,
and him only shall you serve.’”

The good Jew does not idolise himself but God alone. God is other than himself. This ethic has been adopted from Judaism into Xianity too.

If Plato's Allegory of The Cave is understood as if some people, those who have escaped from the Cave's shackles, are Godlike then the famous Allegory is opposed to Xianity which supports the poor and downtrodden, the social pariahs, the poor, and the sinners.
Plato's Allegory of The Cave is about how Everyman might be a reasoning being once he sees he is a prisoner of convention and traditional values.

But Jesus was not a good Jew. He entered the earth as a representative living by perennial truths and offering the conscious results of doing so. He wasn't an adjective. He united the Jews and Gentiles as one in relation to perennial truths.

When a person in Plato's cave turns towards the light it is the beginning. In Christianity it is called metanoia. It is far from becoming a Son of God

Sorry Nick too far out for me. I'm away.

[Nick_A]

Has the struggle for America been lost? Is liberty no longer possible in the technological world and its struggle for power no longer aware of the need to nourish the soul? Simone Weil describes our situation.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/weil.html

Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation
Profession of Faith

There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man's mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties.

Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.

Another terrestrial manifestation of this reality lies in the absurd and insoluble contradictions which are always the terminus of human thought when it moves exclusively in this world.

Just as the reality of this world is the sole foundation of facts, so that other reality is the sole foundation of good.

That reality is the unique source of all the good that can exist in this world: that is to say, all beauty, all truth, all justice, all legitimacy, all order, and all human behaviour that is mindful of obligations.

"At the centre of the human heart is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world."
Those minds whose attention and love are turned towards that reality are the sole intermediary through which good can descend from there and come among men.

Although it is beyond the reach of any human faculties, man has the power of turning his attention and love towards it.

Nothing can ever justify the assumption that any man, whoever he may be, has been deprived of this power.

It is a power which is only real in this world in so far as it is exercised. The sole condition for exercising it is consent..........................................

Liberty if possible relies on the human ability to receive from above and awaken conscience. It is through conscience that Man is able to experience whatr Simone described as

"That reality is the unique source of all the good that can exist in this world: that is to say, all beauty, all truth, all justice, all legitimacy, all order, and all human behaviour that is mindful of obligations."

Without these impressions, nothing is left but the struggle for power and the eventual loss of liberty.

The Purpose of America was to prove to the Kings and Queens of the world, and to ourselves, that an educated and moral people were capable of ruling themselves.

Without a God concept, America will turn towards a tyrant and the quality of slavery which makes everyone equal. Equality in slavery; not a pleasant perspective

[Nick_A]

I remember years back during the Obama eligibility crisis. Being naive I still believed the government works for the people. If the people are the boss, than they have the right to proof of a presidential candidates eligibility: a constitutional right. That is when I learned of the new improved modern way. The government no longer works for the people but the people work for the government. Rather than being respected, the people as a whole were considered too stupid and unworthy of constitutional protection. To ask for proof the people were considered sexist, racist, homophobic and whatever else they can think of normal for stupid and unworthy people.

It is the same thing with this current demand for proof for a legal vote. People are too stupid and unworthy of proof for a legal vote so to question obvious corruption is both insulting and intolerable.

Now that America is becoming a banana republic, I suggest all those who do not consider themselves too stupid nd unworthy of Constitutional protections to send a banana a day to the DNC as a token of agreement. Now all can share in the equality of bananas. Thousands of bananas arriving each day. They keep coming in celebration of the transition into a banana republic.

[commonsense]

There’s no requirement for proof of a non-event. Fraud is a non-event until there is proof of its occurrence.

[commonsense]

It can certainly be argued that the US became a banana republic because of this election.

That’s because the president has claimed without evidence that the election is illegitimate and has filed several frivolous lawsuits that were thrown out as well as several that were concluded with defeat for the president.

The president has not offered any reassurance that he will accept the results of the election or that he will participate in a peaceful transfer of power should he lose.

It might also be argued that President Trump is the most dangerous person alive on this planet when it comes to the security of our democracy.

[Nick_A]

There’s no requirement for proof of a non-event. Fraud is a non-event until there is proof of its occurrence.

I'm old fashioned and still believe that American citizens are entitled to proof of of a legal vote when votes are questioned. The modern way suggests that American citizens are too stupid and unworthy of any proof of legal votes and is insulting to demand it. You are a modern man and I'm old fashioned.

I still say send the DNC bananas. If the government wants a banana republic, we'll send them bananas by the truckload.