Productive Confusions: Faith with Doctrine, Community with Church

"Hey, how 'bout them Phillies!"
"What? Two good games? Fuhgeddaboudit! I lost my faith years ago!"
--Typical fan comments in Philadelphia

**

Confusion, which relies on ignorance, naiveté or inattention, is a much used marketing tool, both for commercial and political purposes. Why? Because it works. ("Idealists" who think that everyone appreciates the value of providing a good education, should dwell on this point. See The Classroom Teacher: Who Wants Experts?")

Confusing "faith" with "doctrine" and "community" with "church" has its pay-offs, too. The question to be asked is the ancient, "Cui bono?," "Who benefits?" Do not jump to the conclusion that the answer is: the faithful or a community of faithful.

Confusing faith with doctrine is like confusing a baseball fan with a player, or a hunter with a soldier. The differences here rest on the fact that the behavior of players and soldiers is constrained by discipline, by "rules of engagement," which fans and hunters need pay no attention to.

But even more important, professional ball-players, like soldiers, have commitments to team or to armed service; commitments that amateurs likely do not have. Professionals come with agendas generally not shared with the laity or with civilians.

In the same way, community may be confused with church, even when it is capitalized, e.g. "Church." This is like confusing a home with a house, or love with marriage. They may sometimes coincide, but they are still critically distinguishable.

And who benefits from the confusions? Ask yourself the economic question: "From which persons to which others do transfers of wealth occur?" Who gets the loot? Look past the smoke and mirrors of claims of a "spiritual" transaction. Such may occur, but are they the point?

There are those who believe that such confusion could be cured to some degree if our public schools could include some religious components, a vision of something higher than individual success and happiness, or market competitiveness. Maybe.

But, let us shift our eyes, for a moment, away from celestial glory and salvation, down to the problems we have to deal with everyday in our worlds of commerce and politics. Down to where moth or rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.

For references and to examine these issues further, see Religion, Intelligent Design and the Public Schools: serving God to Mammon?


Cordially
--- EGR

** Bill Klem. (n.d.). AZQuotes.com. Retrieved August 02, 2016, from AZQuotes.com Web site:
http://www.azquotes.com/quote/648998

Blocking Inquiry

Upon this first, and in one sense this sole, rule of reason, that in order to learn you must desire to learn, and in so desiring not be satisfied with what you already incline to think, there follows one corollary which itself deserves to be inscribed upon every wall of the city of philosophy: Do not block the way of inquiry.
-- C. S. Pierce (1889) The First Rule of Logic

But even in this, our Land of the Free, Of, For and By the People, blocking inquiry is seen as an indispensible technique to proper socialization, called “good citizenship.” And the basic rule of “good citizenship” is “Don’t question either this directive, or those who have (claim?) the authority to tell you what to do.” Little wonder that “critical thinking” is little more than an empty buzzword in the mouths of those who govern American educational institutions.

Of course, much lip service is given to the idea that education should nourish and encourage a child’s curiosity. But unspoken is the reality that such curiosity must be constrained within bounds whose existence is seldom acknowledged, much less subject to inquiry. For the sake of a “peaceful, orderly society.”

In fact, it is not only teachers, but parents, too, who breathe sighs of relief once they perceive that their children have given up on asking “Why?” and, instead, just pay if only very perfunctory obedience when told to do things.

Much money is wasted when people are given a costly education in which they don’t learn to tell when they are being given a runaround. Much of our formal education is flawed in this way. Even most higher education fails to give people a practical introduction to the many words, phrases and modes of speech used to dissuade us from asking potentially embarrassing questions.

So instead of explanations that might give insight and control to those who ask for them, they are offered terms, inquiry blockers, like “human nature,” “mystery,” “intuition,” “faith,” “feelings” and similar obscurities as “explanations” for many of the important problems they encounter. Such education aims not at empowerment and mastery, but obedience and resignation.

Students in higher education are subjected to myriad "introductory" courses that serve up buzzwords, seldom critically examined, like "market," "ecology," "transcendence," "power," "society" that they may sport as knowledge, even though very little if any practical application is acquired with them. (See Masks: words that hide agendas)

Even worse, the semi-literate condition a great number of people end up in after years of formal education cements their belief that any skills requiring careful attention to the fine points of writing or discourse are dispensible for everyday, practical activities, except for, perhaps, those of lawyers or college professors.

The sad irony is that there appears to be no small number of lawyers, college professors and other “professionals” for whom careful, critical use of language is as much a confused exercise as it is for the average guy-on-the-street. Politicians, advertisers and hucksters of salvation know this and rely on it to make their living.

To examine these issues further, see Inquiry Blockers


Cordially
--- EGR

God, Church and Schooling for Democracy: American Faith in "Faith."

The key consideration for the conduct of interpersonal affairs is that the activities of people can harmonize without their ideas about ends and means being in agreement – Nicholas Rescher Pluralism p.180

Anybody who has remained in a marriage for any length of time recognizes the wisdom of Rescher’s quote on the basis of (often rudely awakened) experience. In his important book, Pluralism. Against the Demand for Consensus (1995. Oxford. Paperback) Rescher, in great detail, explains cogently why a democratic pluralism requires an acceptance of diversity and a toleration of the discordant views of others.

In view of Rescher’s argument, we each of us must ask how we can demonstrate “acceptance of diversity” and “toleration of discordant views” in our behavior. How ought schools, especially public schools, deal with this?

Let’s just focus our concern on a simpler question: What major impediments exist to achieving an acceptance of diversity and a toleration of discordant views? The answer is simple, also: Family, Church and School.

Every child picks up early that her family expects her to mirror the likes and dislikes of Mom, Dad and relatives. But there is so much evidence that outside forces, for example, popular (vulgar) culture, weaken family influence substantially, that we’ll skip over the family and go to Church and School, instead.

Many religious organizations encourage confusion in the minds of their congregations between God and the church leadership. Most, though not all, religious organizational functionaries discourage deviant expression from what they believe “defines” membership.

Yet most, again, if not all, encourage the ultimate expression of egotism: faith in Faith. The Common American Religion is Faith in Faith, which even atheists practice. Faith in Faith ultimately boils down into Faith in Ego.

If you ask most people, “Are there people who follow false faiths?” they will answer “Yes!” Then if you ask them, “How do you know you aren’t one of them?” the usual reply is something along the lines of “It is my Faith that my religion is not false!”

Pay attention to the phrase, “my Faith.” Once people are mature enough, it is their responsible decision to accept or reject that “Faith.” And their reasons for acceptance are seldom more than egoistic. Even, in the rare case, if they say they spoke with or heard the voice of God, it is usually their own personal judgment that they were not delusional or deceived that supports their decision. Whether you accept something on your own or others' authority, you have still decided to accept it.

Schools, despite lip service to the contrary, do their own share to undermine diversity and tolerance. Schools are commissioned to teach “standards.” But are these standards widely recognized as embodying practical means to widely accepted ends? Or are they only formalities serving to bolster the status of favored subcultures?

To examine these issues further, see Religion, Intelligent Design and the Public Schools: serving God to Mammon?


Cordially
--- EGR

The Public School’s Real Mission: Inculcating A Common Faith?

Faith is believing what you know ain't so.
 -- Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

The reason bad public schools are bad is that they badly governed, from top to bottom. Happily, bad public schools are in the minority, despite what some newspapers and other lickspittle TV pundits have to say about them.

“Badly governed” does not mean “governed with bad intention.” What it does mean is that school leaders seldom are willing to face facts which threaten their piece of mind. These school governors, -- state and local administrators, superintendents and principals -- are brim full of ideologies and nostrums they’ve inherited and which they insist on foisting off on the vulnerable.

Part of this is their not unreasonable belief that that much of the general public is in the same delusional state. No parent wants their kids learning things which would disturb the parents’ peace of mind. (This is why so-called “critical thinking” gets many a salute, but has yet to make any headway into the public school curriculum.)

In the olden days of kings and princes, the Established Church of a nation saw to it to inculcate the belief in their congregations that their ruler, as malignant as he might be, sat in power by the Will of God. Subjects were to accept their lot in life and forswear violence as an instrument of change. (See In Days of Yorengore)

In today’s United States of America, where both aristocracy and religious sectarianism in government are purported to be absent, it is the role of the Public Schools (and many a private and parochial school) to teach little more than that our “citizens” -- never “subjects” -- are obliged to accept their governors as the Will of the People.

As good citizens, they are to reject any attempts at governmental change which might involve “violent” activity -- no matter what Thomas Jefferson ever advocated. This "Citizen’s Faith" is what is most important; the recently tediously advocated knowledge-and-skills-focus on the schools has always been given little more than lip-service.

If getting knowledge and skills were really the mission of the schools, then there would be a far more careful preselection of students than our governors and their clients, including parents of schoolchildren are prepared to pay for. Kids are put in grades by age. This is a traditional and cheap sorting method. If some don’t do so well on their report cards, everyone who does not work in a school knows at whom to point the finger of blame.

Here is a method for raising test grades substantially in just two years:

a. for the next school year, retain in grade every public school student who does not have B+ average on standardized tests;

b. any student who is failing this year should be held back for two years;

c. make age 7 the beginning year for first grade; and

d. pull back the curriculum so that any intellectually rigorously formal curriculum is not encountered before 9th grade.

If these steps were to be taken, students would encounter the present high-stakes testing almost two years later in their academic careers and more likely do far better in them, especially in the middle schools.

I don’t expect the above steps to be even considered. Why? Because our school and political leaders, along with many, many parents of school children, just have too many mental impediments -- myths, misinformation, and narrowly focused esteem issues -- to deal with providing their students, their children, with an appropriate, humane, invigorating education.

For references and to examine these issues further, see The Capacity to Benefit from Formal Academic Schooling: 
two ideologies of distribution 




Cordially
--- EGR

Technician, or Magician: Can You Tell the Difference?

udated 1/26/21

… he used to say, Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo, a dark composure of words, to blinde the eyes of the beholders, to make his Trick pass the more currently without discovery ... — Thomas Ady, A Candle in the Dark, 1656

If baldness treatments really work then why does a wealthy man like Donald Trump still have problems? If Hollywood spas and diets really work, then why are they visited again and again by pretty much the same movie stars? If prisons help to reduce crime, why is the American prison population the largest in the world and still growing?

If pious declarations of Faith mean anything then

a. why is the Bible Belt plagued by “acts of God” so very much more than the Sin Cities of this country; and
b. why are many of the previously unsuccessful “prophets” of the End Time still pushing their wares?

Why do even “the best” hospitals and universities closely guard data as to their successes and failures? Why does the popularity of our political, economic and psychological pundits contribute directly to the failure of their predictions? (See Philip E. Tetlock, Expert Political Judgment)

What is the difference between a magician (an illusionist) and a technician? It is not, merely, that one wears stage clothes and the other, "scientific" garb, e.g. a stethoscope, a loupe or a sheepskin. The important difference is whether the causes and effects they believe to be at work are, in fact, at work.

People everywhere show a desperate willingness to believe in some kind of causal connection, a hope that somebody, somewhere knows what and how to do something. Many sincere people, possessed by one or another blinding Faith, stumble about in search for answers. But their very Faith often makes it impossible even to carefully examine the “answers” they encounter.

If private and parochial schools are so much better than public schools, why don’t the better students of the former consistently beat out those of the latter? Why are schools, already crammed full of gimcracks and geegaws from a thousand different manufacturers and universities, nonetheless perpetually in “need” of reform?

How many school "reformers" turn out to be little more than illusionists? How much talent, hope and money has been wasted pursuing their illusions?

For references and to examine these issues further, see The Teacher as Technician


Cordially
--- EGR