Mensch tracht, und Gott lacht

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

People Learn What They're Taught

One of the maxims by which I understand and judge the world around me is a simple one:

People learn what they're taught.

It explains rather a lot, actually.

A correspondent named Gus, on the spunky Chapin Nation site managed by our friend Bern Chapin, had the following thought which I think illustrates this maxim admirably:

"Thought For The Day

"I was having a conversation with a friend about breast cancer recently when I said that in the past year I had lost two women I had cared about very deeply, even loved, to that disease. Later it struck me that I haven't heard a woman talk about men they cared deeply about or, My God!, loved in a long, long, long time.

"Fire's post today explains part of the reason: the feminist delusion that the safe-guarding of women is the prime responsibility of society (and of course to make that really stick, you have to portray men as monsters) and that women have no responsibility when it comes to sexual harassment (walking around with your boobs hanging out, girls, is a form of sexual harassment) or domestic violence (verbally assaulting a man when you know he cannot hit you without incurring social punishment comes under domestic violence but of a more subtle kind. And there is that rapidly fading belief that all boys are bombarded with that boys should respect girls. I wonder if girls are taught the same thing about boys.)

"The legacy of the feminists like Betty Frieden and Gloria Steinem not to mention the real fruit-cakes like Germaine Greer and Mary Daly will be the same as Yassar Arafat's.
Hatred and the brutalization of people."

Teach one group of people to feel morally superior to and afraid of another group of people, and this is exactly what happens.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Teach one group of people to feel morally superior to and afraid of another group of people, and this is exactly what happens.
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Let's see, teach the religious to feel morally superior to and afraid of abortion rights advocates and gays... teach them to feel morally superior to and afraid of free speech advocates and church/state separationists... teach as many Americans a possible to feel morally superior to and _especially_ afraid of the "liberal elite" who want to "force their agenda" on everyone...

You're talking about the Republican political strategy here. And I agree: this is what happens. Look around. Do you like it out there? This is what always happens when people are taught to prefer anger over acceptance, even to harbor it. Angry people are easy to channel, and the Pubs are doing a bang-up job with it.

Gloria Poole,RN,artist, etc,etc,etc said...

I read both the original entry and the comments and now I would like to add my comments. The original entry is right on target I believe and it is very timely! The US has become a nation of scared men, men who are not sure what they should think or how they should react to real women,or if they should apologize for being male. I love men! I was fortunate enough to be raised in a home with my father was dominant and where I had many brothers. I learned the differences between the sexes and my understanding of them has always been based on what I learned in the home. Later I read and studied the Bible to see what God said about men's and women's relationships to each other. I realized at that precise point in time that one of the major problems in the US is that the roles of men and women have been blurred.One day last week while sitting on the light rail waiting for it to restart, I noticed that all the men and women just immediately outside which had just emerged from the train, looked the same! I could not tell at first glance which were men and which were women. That shocked me.
The original entry of this comment about people learning what they are taught is true.Yet, the first comment seemed to attempt to twist it into something else and to use guilt to hammer the author. I absolutely believe that the US is reaping what it has sown to use the Bible word's in Galatians 6:7 "be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." The public schools in the US have taught for decades that "unwanted" human life can be killed if the mother wants too, so why is the nation shocked by Columbine, and school shootings?
They have handed out sports scholarships that should have made them ashamed, i.e. that a player could be admitted and graduated, not for academic prowess but for athletic skills. Since the school values were that sports trump education,why are they angry when the NBA or the NFL pays its players of a GAME, millions of dollars while average working citizens make a fraction of that annually? The public schools have taught that the goal of education is "high self esteem" so why are they now surprised that the federal government is considering a bill to make mandatory psychiatric exams on first graders? The public schools have taught the Communist Manifesto not by precise words but by example, requiring students who have much, to share with those who have little; and mandating "volunteer" work for graduation. [In my opinion, mandatory volunteerism is slavery.]
This nation has a set of values and they are much on display.The unfortunate truth is they are not God's values! And they are destroying America with depopulation, homosexual depravities,latch-key children left to roam the streets unsupervised;liquor stores, "recreational drugs", adultery,deceit,fraud,and the idea by many that government is god.
I hope that there is hope for America but I know that God is not mocked. Unless we begin to teach the timeless truths that underpin good societies again, and expect people to behave as humans made in the image of God,I fear the situation in America will get worst, much worst before it gets better. And the "handwriting on the wall" tells me that all those students who were taught to kill as a "right" are going to bear fruit one of these days and then what anarchy and destruction wil reign. Gloria Poole Pappas