my experience with university students has indicated to me that they are, in the main, much more conservative now than they were in previous times. much more locked into the status quo as a necessary horizon for thinking, much less equipped to relativize the existing political and cultural orders....as i have long assumed this was among the central points of conservative educational policies, i cannot say i am surprised, but i am saddened by it. it is not good to see servility knit into kids understanding of the nature of their world.
not good for them----not good for anyone, frankly.
the idea that this would be reversed by civics classes, in this political climate, with the right at the wheel, is a pipe dream. i would think that, in this climate, all these classes would do is further naturalize the pathology of nationalism, and this during a period when its relevance is becoming increasingly tenuous. future policy makers will have to figure out ways to think out from under its history. way to go--the oedipal route--blind yourself and inflict your blindness on kids. at least that way, those who blind themselves do not have to worry so much about unfortunate questions being raised-----hell, why should they be? their progeny are afraid to ask them.
yes, this is definitely the way to go.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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