Do we HAVE to go to school today Mum? Teacher's always going on about 'Social Justice' and 'The Environment' and stuff...and yesterday she called my best friend "despicable".
You write "The modern State conceives of the family and parenthood as a barrier to be broken down" So has the time come for a major rethink of School? In my own last post, I wrote about the rapid growth of homeschooling in America: "America has seen a sharp growth of parent anger and activist pushback against instances of classroom indoctrination - sometimes even at kindergarten age. The trigger was how covid pandemic lockdowns heightened parental awareness of the school curriculum. Opeds like this one are not uncommon: “When schools went remote, parents found out what was actually going on inside the classrooms. Teachers were coaching students to hate themselves, their country and their religious traditions and sexualizing young children.” https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/teach-your-children-well
Dad, dad, everyone makes the country a better place, so why don't we get 100 million people to come so that the country will be more than double a better place?
"The modern State, in other words, increasingly concieves of the family, and particular parenthood, as a barrier to be broken down so that it can more directly interface with the child so as to secure the latter’s ‘best interests’, which it presumptively has a better idea of than the parents. What the State desires vis-a-vis children, as I have elsewhere discussed, is to intervene as closely and intimately as possible, in the name of creating the future client class which it needs to legitimise its own government."
It is fascinating (and distressing) to witness non-state actors enthusiastically embracing and promoting statist objectives. It would be better to learn that MJ is a state-sponsored propagandist. The idea that there are folks out there who love this dispensation and promote it willingly is chilling (and sobering I suppose).
Galling as a writer is the direction children's books have taken over the past 30 years. It's a highly regulated industry. It would probably make for fascinating research to discover how that industry has been shaped. Who's actually behind it? What kind of books get approved by the publishers? My sense is that creativity and fun have completely left the building. Where the Wild Things Are, Dr Seuss, and Roald Dahl are now considered questionable reading for kids. Meanwhile there are a lot of indoctrination books for kids these days without any narrative element at all. Going to the doctor and potty books might be useful, but too many seem to be manuals of this kind. And you correctly conclude that this approach will lead to the development of a compliant client class. It does tempt one to consider the involvement of agencies like the CIA. The world is getting a little out of hand population wise... we need to control all those people somehow.
I know what you mean about MJ Calderon. In a way it's a familiar dynamic: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Compassionate people are often the ones that like coercion the most.
Here I think it's just the case that people in the industry are mostly graduates from the humanities and they've been steeped in certain messages at university. This then reinforces the already existing slight bias among writers towards soft left politics (common among creatives).
Sadly re "creatives" you're right. Though we are not all that silly. Problem is there are no venues for those who see things differently, so the field looks more politically tilted than it is. I attempted to start a magazine for those writers, but the boomers I approached for startup dosh (and their public endorsement) couldn't be convinced.
Expert taking-apart of what sounds like a very silly book! Your first sentence though provides a caution here: you found it in the local library. Ordinary people do not get their books from libraries any more. They get them from Amazon or even Waterstone's.
Look at the books that actually sell - the ones that are actually read - and the picture becomes much less bleak. You mentioned JK Rowling. You could also have mentioned Game of Thrones - which is filled with richly drawn characters, none of whom is perfect.
People still love to read great fiction and real stories, despite the best efforts of the wokerati.
“why I have given up on even trying to engage with any work of fiction created prior to the internet age.” I assume you must mean “since the start of the internet age”
You are right David, the propaganda is relentless. The author obviously thinks that the parents must need to be educated. Yet, generally all people, no matter where from, are accepted at an individual level. No-one wants to be thought of as a bad person and most Britons are exceptionally polite. Hell, not even me and I don’t like anyone very much. Hence, in our day to day lives most of us are nice to those who are nice to us and generally rub along with whoever we come in contact with. This is how our society works. This natural propensity to get along has, however, been propagandised in order to gain acceptance for mass immigration. Those who object are vilified. However, once you inject massive amounts of foreign populations into your community people start ‘noticing’. No one minds if a few people come in and take on the norms of others but large numbers disrupting community norms or forming their own communities is a different matter. Generally we see a separation, like oil and water. There is some mixing at the margins but generally people stick with their own sort. The other, more recent, ‘noticing’ is that not all migrants are the same. How many times do we hear that we need immigrants to pay our pensions or work at Prêt? Yet, yet, some groups are disproportionately involved in criminality or live on benefits. Even some of those who work send remittances back ‘home’ or live a reduced life here to fund their future life abroad. These issues undermine British society, the British economy and British peoples’ wages. It is now starting to be accepted that mass immigration is not an unalloyed benefit. I think if we take away pull factors to start with it might reduce these negative impacts and migration itself. This will, of course, impact on the historic populations of these isles too. Unfortunately, I think that a more authoritarian regime will also become a necessity to ensure that the criminals from our diverse society don’t predate on those who are not criminals and manage where groups clash too. Either that or one or more groups will come to dominance. Shame, it didn’t need to happen.
It's the fitting in that is key. Like David I have been an immigrant 3 times, but always as a white person in a white country, so that might colour the experience as it were:
1. In Texas, a bit of a stretch to call it immigration as it was an expat. appointment for 2 years. I'd worked with Texans for many years so thought it wouldn't be a problem and we all spoke the same language right ? Ha ! But the majority of the population were utterly parochial, didn't know anything outside Texas let alone the USA - s huge state full of small-minded people. We hated it and left at the end of the first year.
2. On the Cote d'Azur for 5 years. This was a permanent job so more real. I worked with French people and we lived in a small French community. We both were fairly fluent and got on well, but we did have a lot of friends in the English speaking co-workers. We might have stayed there full time, but thought that our son would benefit more from English schooling rather than French and I think we made the right decision. He still has a beautiful accent though :)
3. When we retired almost 20 years ago we moved to a rustico we'd bought and restored/extended in NW Italy not far from where we'd lived near Nice. My wife and I had met in Italy and she was fluent in Italian and I could understand a lot, but that improved enormously over the 14 years we lived there. We integrated fully and had a wonderful time. I even joined a theatre group although I only got foreigner roles as my accent isn't great. Our village had everything we needed and we always used locals for building and other work. Our daughter came on holiday one summer, met a local boy and they now have 3 bi-lingual children. We're all back in the UK now as they moved for work reasons and our steep terraced land was getting too hard on our ancient knees, but we miss it a lot and go back regularly.
The point of this rambling is that it is all about the numbers and how well you are integrated. We were accepted in both France and Italy because we spoke the language and appreciated the differences rather than keep saying that the UK is best (now changed to the EU is best of course among the elite here). We still kept up some UK traditions like curries and roasts and once I even showed the mamas in the cookery group how to make steak and ale pie. It couldn;t have been too bad as they ate it all !
There were a few permanent foreigners in the village, but a huge influx of Germans and Danes in the summer. They were appreciated for the money they brought, but everyone was glad to see the back of them in the autumn.
They also impact the NHS in ways that are not obvious. For example, 2% of the population, due to 65% of them marrying their first cousins, provide 35% of the severe congenital defects. These are life-long, incurable conditions of staggering cost in clinical time and financial cost to the taxpayer.
Do we HAVE to go to school today Mum? Teacher's always going on about 'Social Justice' and 'The Environment' and stuff...and yesterday she called my best friend "despicable".
You write "The modern State conceives of the family and parenthood as a barrier to be broken down" So has the time come for a major rethink of School? In my own last post, I wrote about the rapid growth of homeschooling in America: "America has seen a sharp growth of parent anger and activist pushback against instances of classroom indoctrination - sometimes even at kindergarten age. The trigger was how covid pandemic lockdowns heightened parental awareness of the school curriculum. Opeds like this one are not uncommon: “When schools went remote, parents found out what was actually going on inside the classrooms. Teachers were coaching students to hate themselves, their country and their religious traditions and sexualizing young children.” https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/teach-your-children-well
I know some home schoolers. No doubt it will grow here too, but never underestimate the basic conformism of British culture...
Dad, dad, everyone makes the country a better place, so why don't we get 100 million people to come so that the country will be more than double a better place?
Ha!
Gee, if only history could tell us how weaponising all forms of culture for social engineering might work out...!
I recommend The Phantom Tollbooth for 7 yrs and up.
I gravitate toward this assessment, David:
"The modern State, in other words, increasingly concieves of the family, and particular parenthood, as a barrier to be broken down so that it can more directly interface with the child so as to secure the latter’s ‘best interests’, which it presumptively has a better idea of than the parents. What the State desires vis-a-vis children, as I have elsewhere discussed, is to intervene as closely and intimately as possible, in the name of creating the future client class which it needs to legitimise its own government."
It is fascinating (and distressing) to witness non-state actors enthusiastically embracing and promoting statist objectives. It would be better to learn that MJ is a state-sponsored propagandist. The idea that there are folks out there who love this dispensation and promote it willingly is chilling (and sobering I suppose).
Galling as a writer is the direction children's books have taken over the past 30 years. It's a highly regulated industry. It would probably make for fascinating research to discover how that industry has been shaped. Who's actually behind it? What kind of books get approved by the publishers? My sense is that creativity and fun have completely left the building. Where the Wild Things Are, Dr Seuss, and Roald Dahl are now considered questionable reading for kids. Meanwhile there are a lot of indoctrination books for kids these days without any narrative element at all. Going to the doctor and potty books might be useful, but too many seem to be manuals of this kind. And you correctly conclude that this approach will lead to the development of a compliant client class. It does tempt one to consider the involvement of agencies like the CIA. The world is getting a little out of hand population wise... we need to control all those people somehow.
I know what you mean about MJ Calderon. In a way it's a familiar dynamic: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Compassionate people are often the ones that like coercion the most.
Here I think it's just the case that people in the industry are mostly graduates from the humanities and they've been steeped in certain messages at university. This then reinforces the already existing slight bias among writers towards soft left politics (common among creatives).
Sadly re "creatives" you're right. Though we are not all that silly. Problem is there are no venues for those who see things differently, so the field looks more politically tilted than it is. I attempted to start a magazine for those writers, but the boomers I approached for startup dosh (and their public endorsement) couldn't be convinced.
Expert taking-apart of what sounds like a very silly book! Your first sentence though provides a caution here: you found it in the local library. Ordinary people do not get their books from libraries any more. They get them from Amazon or even Waterstone's.
Look at the books that actually sell - the ones that are actually read - and the picture becomes much less bleak. You mentioned JK Rowling. You could also have mentioned Game of Thrones - which is filled with richly drawn characters, none of whom is perfect.
People still love to read great fiction and real stories, despite the best efforts of the wokerati.
Yes, you're right to a point - though it's often well-meaning politically correct parents who do the indoctrination...
That last para is one of the best I have read this year (and I’ve just completed my MSc).
Thanks, Gus. Use the MSc to good effect!
“why I have given up on even trying to engage with any work of fiction created prior to the internet age.” I assume you must mean “since the start of the internet age”
Gah! Thanks - will correct that.
You are right David, the propaganda is relentless. The author obviously thinks that the parents must need to be educated. Yet, generally all people, no matter where from, are accepted at an individual level. No-one wants to be thought of as a bad person and most Britons are exceptionally polite. Hell, not even me and I don’t like anyone very much. Hence, in our day to day lives most of us are nice to those who are nice to us and generally rub along with whoever we come in contact with. This is how our society works. This natural propensity to get along has, however, been propagandised in order to gain acceptance for mass immigration. Those who object are vilified. However, once you inject massive amounts of foreign populations into your community people start ‘noticing’. No one minds if a few people come in and take on the norms of others but large numbers disrupting community norms or forming their own communities is a different matter. Generally we see a separation, like oil and water. There is some mixing at the margins but generally people stick with their own sort. The other, more recent, ‘noticing’ is that not all migrants are the same. How many times do we hear that we need immigrants to pay our pensions or work at Prêt? Yet, yet, some groups are disproportionately involved in criminality or live on benefits. Even some of those who work send remittances back ‘home’ or live a reduced life here to fund their future life abroad. These issues undermine British society, the British economy and British peoples’ wages. It is now starting to be accepted that mass immigration is not an unalloyed benefit. I think if we take away pull factors to start with it might reduce these negative impacts and migration itself. This will, of course, impact on the historic populations of these isles too. Unfortunately, I think that a more authoritarian regime will also become a necessity to ensure that the criminals from our diverse society don’t predate on those who are not criminals and manage where groups clash too. Either that or one or more groups will come to dominance. Shame, it didn’t need to happen.
It's the fitting in that is key. Like David I have been an immigrant 3 times, but always as a white person in a white country, so that might colour the experience as it were:
1. In Texas, a bit of a stretch to call it immigration as it was an expat. appointment for 2 years. I'd worked with Texans for many years so thought it wouldn't be a problem and we all spoke the same language right ? Ha ! But the majority of the population were utterly parochial, didn't know anything outside Texas let alone the USA - s huge state full of small-minded people. We hated it and left at the end of the first year.
2. On the Cote d'Azur for 5 years. This was a permanent job so more real. I worked with French people and we lived in a small French community. We both were fairly fluent and got on well, but we did have a lot of friends in the English speaking co-workers. We might have stayed there full time, but thought that our son would benefit more from English schooling rather than French and I think we made the right decision. He still has a beautiful accent though :)
3. When we retired almost 20 years ago we moved to a rustico we'd bought and restored/extended in NW Italy not far from where we'd lived near Nice. My wife and I had met in Italy and she was fluent in Italian and I could understand a lot, but that improved enormously over the 14 years we lived there. We integrated fully and had a wonderful time. I even joined a theatre group although I only got foreigner roles as my accent isn't great. Our village had everything we needed and we always used locals for building and other work. Our daughter came on holiday one summer, met a local boy and they now have 3 bi-lingual children. We're all back in the UK now as they moved for work reasons and our steep terraced land was getting too hard on our ancient knees, but we miss it a lot and go back regularly.
The point of this rambling is that it is all about the numbers and how well you are integrated. We were accepted in both France and Italy because we spoke the language and appreciated the differences rather than keep saying that the UK is best (now changed to the EU is best of course among the elite here). We still kept up some UK traditions like curries and roasts and once I even showed the mamas in the cookery group how to make steak and ale pie. It couldn;t have been too bad as they ate it all !
There were a few permanent foreigners in the village, but a huge influx of Germans and Danes in the summer. They were appreciated for the money they brought, but everyone was glad to see the back of them in the autumn.
They also impact the NHS in ways that are not obvious. For example, 2% of the population, due to 65% of them marrying their first cousins, provide 35% of the severe congenital defects. These are life-long, incurable conditions of staggering cost in clinical time and financial cost to the taxpayer.