[chajin]

In two of my online college courses for two different colleges (unfortunately I don't teach either course any more, though I would like to), I had a discussion question related to the question of ethics, law, and civil disobedience, that was connected to the Socratic dialogue Crito, where the condemned Socrates is given the chance to escape prison and save his life, and he refuses, because that would make him a criminal, which would negate the fact that he was being condemned unjustly.

The question was very simple: "How is Socrates in the Crito like Sir Thomas More? Henry David Thoreau? Martin Luther King, Jr.? Flip Benham? How is Socrates not like each of the above?"

This, of course, meant that the students had to actually do some research on More, Thoreau, King, and Benham. Most of them thought they knew a lot about King, and had heard of Thoreau, but knew nothing of More or Benham.

Every time, it was the same. The vast majority of students (not counting the slackers) would essentially claim that Socrates, More, Thoreau, and King were men who were willing to stand for principle against the evils of society, and Benham was a [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] anti-choice extremist who deserved to be punished for keeping women from exercising their right to choose. It then fell upon me to spend the remainder of the week gently suggesting to the students that the way they thought of Benham was precisely the way segregationists had thought of King, slavers of Thoreau, Tudor-supporters of More, and Sophists of Socrates.

By the end of the week there was usually a grudging acceptance, some version of, "OK, Benham is forcing contemporary society to question its values, just like the rest of the people we wrote about, but he's still a [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] anti-choice extremist who deserved to be punished for keeping women from exercising their right to choose." I would, to myself and God, praise Him for small victories, and wait for the next term to do it all over again.

[roofgoat]

I guess I am a pessimistic person, but the moral of your story is close minds usually stay closed.

What you did chajin was great, very smooth so please do not think I’m being critical. I think it’s sad to say, but progressive powers are just too much today.

Whereas good, decent conservative educators (or you can add parents) are building students into a quality product - hand made, skilled craftsmanship, top of the line materials - making the product last and withstand abuse, the progressives/socialists/communists are like Chinese factories.

They are producing low quality, lousy widgets at 1,000 times the production rate we are. They are overwhelming society with a crap product and it’s too much for our product to compete.