I thought it was funny that the Anarchist seemed to be pacifist. In all likelihood she understands neither.
Yes, she probably understands neither.
I agree, that this incident should have been used as a "teachable moment" rather than an occasion to silence dissent.
We're losing a lot of opportunities for teachable moments these days. Some of it is because things are just happening so fast and so dramatically. Some of it is the failure of our institutions. I hate to see us lose opportunities like the kids in the article. Seems to me that that's what schools are supposed to be for, but they're going in the opposite direction.
I think the idea that everyone has an equal right to hold an opinion, has somehow been distorted to mean all opinions are equally valid, which they clearly are not.
We seem to gravitate to the extremes. When I was growing up, the status quo was sacrosanct. Deviation from the norm was, well, deviant, yet the norm was hypocritical and effete. Then came the rebellion. Rational analysis seemed like it was going to come into its own, but political correctness won, IMO because the customer was always right and the customers were incompetent. The closest that school and government officials could come to the customer being always right was for all opinions to be treated as equally valid. Which disabled the learning processes of school kids such that the next generation became even more incompetent to weigh competing opinions. And so on. Sad.
Karen
P.S. I haven't heard from Solon. Whenever people disappear for a while, I tend to try to contact them to make sure they're OK. I've done that so many times with Solon that I think he thinks that I think I'm his granny. So this time I'm waiting for him to appear again. |
