Article Says Lack of Rational Philosophy Cripples Millennials
Interesting claim that absence of Aristotelian based morality has set Millennials adrift. Maybe some sanity is still out there in the culture.
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Snowflakes being laughed at if at least by some gives old dino some hope. Some.
The allosaur word of the day is~
https://www.google.com/search?q=some&...
If they were taught how to think instead of what to think, they could become our greatest generation. Aristotle must be turning in his grave by what is transpiring in Public Education and especiall "Higher" education!
Time to get Gramsci and Allinsky out (or at least give equal time to de Toqueville, Murray Rothbard and the truly great thinkers who taught Truth and gave their students the opportunity to think for themselves!
Truth be told......
The "Greatest Generation" was our parent who survived the Great Depression and fought WWII. Feats that we probably at this point would be hard-pressed to replicate. That is the sad Truth....
Children used to be taught how to think. Today they're taught what to think, and questioning is not tolerated, with the questioning student subject to bullying into submission. After years of being instilled in the idea that questioning results in punishment, it's no wonder that young people fear hearing statements that contradict what they've been told is truth, and demand "safe spaces" where they can hide from unacceptable thoughts.
Years ago I had a friend who was a teacher, Jr High and HS level, and he gave it up because he had teenagers fighting tin the back of the room, others having intercourse a bit more intense than just social, and a system that told him if he didn't follow THEIR party line and inability to enforce discipline, he was not only subject to termination, but prosecution.
Those kids that WANT to learn face not only social pressures to be one of the cool f***-ups or be ostracized, but similar pressures by the school administration itself, who are more worried about what a child WEARS than what a child LEARNS... and that each represents not our future, but a chunk of that free money they get for their spending barrel, that is little johnny doesn't show up to learn nothing but deviant behavior, they get less in their feeding trough.
I think the issue is hovering parents. My guess on the cause is before it was easy to get 24/7 kids' programming on TV, parents sent their kids out to play where they learned to interact with others and take care of minor problems and disputes on their own. Now it's easier for kids to stay in and watch TV or video games. There are fewer kids out, making it less fun and more risky for kids to go out. So parents keep them in. I would have driven my parents crazy, but today there is so much programming and games available nearly for free that kids are pacified for long periods of time. The first generation of young people raised this way are now young adults.
I think in the post-WWII period baby boomers absorbed the message that a rising tide lifts all boats. Get good grades, get to a good job, climb the ladder, and prosperity comes to you. Peter Thiel touches on this in Zero to One.
"the elite will always be elite because private schools don't teach you to hate learning, only public schools do that."
I used to think that, but I do not count on it anymore. I had a bad experience with a moderately expensive private school four our kids. My new idea is changes in management or the teacher could at any moment cause the school to get better or worse. We don't count on the school. We do a lot of supplementing. It's so important to talk to them about what they learned in school today. At private, public, and camps, they have taught things I disagree with and agree with. I no longer expect them to go to a place that doesn't have people who say things that are wrong, just as I don't expect all clients, vendors, and employees to make sense to me. They're learning that early.
The reason my daughter said she would believe everything I say is because I don't shelter them from the truth about this world and the atrocities in it. If it is conspiracy fact I will give them the proof, if it is conspiracy theory I will tell them that and show them where the problem remains unsolved. I am a logic person. I studied mathematics so I reason with them constantly and challenge them to reason or think critically for themselves. Sadly they preface most of the problems that weigh on their minds by saying, "please don't tell mom about this, but..." That is what really weighs on my mind.
Did the same with my four children. It took some time and struggling, but they got there and now they are rational critical thinkers and on "our side".
Personalities, cultures and degree of active intelligence are a result of philosophy. Of course a better philosophy answers bad personalities, cultures and states of knowledge. Every individual requires a philosophic outlook to live, regardless of his degree of intellectual capacity and potential. There is no substitute for rationality. Of course Ayn Rand's philosophy is the answer for different people. It is based on the nature of man as a being who requires his rational thought to live.
My experience with the younger generations (yes, I am a geezer) has been mostly positive, but I suspect is hardly representative. I have hired and tutored many new mining engineering and geology graduates that have come from very science and technology oriented curricula. They can be really amazing. I have known and befriended many that can think critically even outside of their specialized education. Applying critical thinking to politics - they get it. And the questions they can ask!
But as a mentor type, I relate other experiences that I have had, particularly in politics and law, especially regarding the Constitution and they are all ears. "They didn't teach us that!"
I know, but you are hearing it now. Your education has only begun.
While true in so many apparent cases, it is not applicable to the entire generation just because they are of that age. That is the usual painting of groups as a collective instead of acknowledging individuals. Which is why I took exception to painting "millennials" as all the same and talked about my experience with some of the younger generation as being different than this collective characterization.
My point is also that reason is not lost, was never lost (hence Ayn Rand in the 20th Century), and will never be lost. It is an inherent capability of mankind.
Reason is the ability to apply critical thinking to any subject, politics included. This is what separates humans from other creatures. It is endemic to the species. Yes it can be denied and attempted to be aborted, but one can never deny the reality of the capability.....and be correct.
What I am saying is that this cognitive ability will never be entirely lost to all individuals despite indoctrination, intellectual trends, "movements", and other such collective forces. It is who we are as individuals. That fact can never be entirely negated. It will always bubble to the surface.
That is why the ability I see in certain young ones as also having the ability to critically think about and question what is going on in politics is so encouraging and relevant to this article.
The innate ability of reason will never be stopped. The ability for some to think for themselves will always persevere. That is the theme of Anthem. That is why she wrote it.
That man's essence is the 'rational animal' does not mean that he behaves rationally regardless of his choices. 'Losing reason' does not mean the biological disappearance of the human faculty of the mind capable of logically integrating in conceptual form the information provided by the senses; it means the failure to practice that, under the influence of irrational philosophy and the loss of the knowledge of how to do it, which is largely what happened under the influence of religion between Greek civilization and the Enlightenment. The influence of reason as a dominant factor in the culture returned in the Enlightenment, beginning with the Renaissance. That is not subject to debate other than by the mystics and the subjectivists.
The article decried the loss of the influence of religion due to the Enlightenment, obliterates the essential distinction between Aristotle and the mentality of religion that displaced it, then attributed the Enlightenment to leaders of the subsequent counter Enlightenment. It is not a good article. That you still find younger people in this culture now able and willing to think rationally has nothing to do with the article and does not make it a "really good article".
The original post in this thread praised the article as an unusual "sanity" for supposedly seeing that a rejection of Aristotle and rational philosophy "set Millennials adrift". The article is the opposite of that, confusing Aristotle with pre-Enlightenment religion and calling for St. Benedict, not rational philosophy.
Millennials are adrift and worse, as is the whole culture because of the bad philosophy driving it for well over a century. The Millennial generation only happens to be the latest in the trend. That does not mean that individuals are not capable of thinking if shown how, despite the bad education promulgating bad philosophy. The problem is doing this on a cultural scale, where clear logical thinking is routinely undermined by bad philosophical premises that are increasingly difficult to uproot. The article proposes an answer to changing the whole culture with a return to religion under the guidance of the likes of Allistair MacIntyre. That is not the answer. It is the opposite.
It's not enough to proclaim slogans about "Aristotle" and "rational philosophy". One must understand what Aristotle and the Enlightenment accomplished, how it differed from the religious tradition that destroyed western civilization for over a millennium, how it differs from the road to destruction we are getting today, and what it takes on a philosophical scale to correct it. Instead we see, on of all places an Ayn Rand forum, a post extolling appeals to Allistaire MacIntyre and religion just because a bad article included the name "Aristotle" and decried common behavior of "millennials".