Posted on 05/10/2015 5:20:29 AM PDT by SJackson
From time to time, a news story will pop up somewhere that perfectly illustrates the demonstrable damage that political correctness (and the liberal definition of equality) has caused to conventional wisdom and society as a whole. Such a story presented itself this week when a man named Adam Swift, a British academic and described philosopher, offered his thoughts on the societal unfairness created when parents read bedtime stories to their children.
Yes, bedtime stories.
Swift believes that being raised in a healthy family dynamic (one in which parents read to their kids) gives the children who benefit from it an unfair advantage over children who aren’t fortunate enough to be raised that way.
Swift has apparently done a lot of research on this topic, stating, “Evidence shows that the difference between those who get bedtime stories and those who don’t — the difference in their life chances — is bigger than the difference between those who get elite private schooling and those that don’t.”
He goes on to say, “I had done some work on social mobility and the evidence is overwhelmingly that the reason why children born to different families have very different chances in life is because of what happens in those families.”
I’m not sure it takes an academic philosopher to understand why children who grow up in happy, stable families end up doing better in life than others. It might take that very type of person, however, to believe that the success of those children is harmful to society.
Swift fears that this gap in social mobility and equality will continue on for generations, and that it must be stopped. Luckily, he has a solution. Does is have something to do with encouraging a stronger family dynamic? Not quite.
“One way philosophers might think about solving the social justice problem would be by simply abolishing the family,” says Swift. “If the family is this source of unfairness in society then it looks plausible to think that if we abolished the family there would be a more level playing field.”
Brilliant. Let’s destroy functioning, healthy families for the sake of creating a “level playing field.”
Swift does realize that his solution couldn’t be implemented effectively, due to how messy it would get. Thus he and a colleague put their minds together to come up with a backup plan, and boy is it a good one.
Swift qualifies his idea this way: “What we realized we needed was a way of thinking about what it was we wanted to allow parents to do for their children, and what it was that we didn’t need to allow parents to do for their children, if allowing those activities would create unfairness for other people’s children.”
I don’t know about you, but as a parent, I definitely want these two brainiacs in charge of telling me what I’m allowed and not allowed to do with my children…you know, because they sound really, really smart. Anyway, back to his idea…
After deep consideration, Swift and his colleague begrudgingly decided that communities have to “allow parents to engage in bedtime stories activities” because even though it’s not good for society, it’s good for families. Private schooling, on the other hand, should be banned because its removal will level that all important playing field “without any real hit to healthy family relationships.” In other words, fewer smart people in the world will lead to greater equality.
God bless academia.
While it’s tempting to write off over-educated buffoons like Adam Swift as fringe, eccentric thinkers who shouldn’t be taken seriously, I would argue that his line of thinking is depressingly representative of the modern day liberal movement, even here in the United States.
Learn about John Daly's upcoming novel BLOOD TRADE. Learn about John Daly’s upcoming novel BLOOD TRADE.
Swift’s broader argument, after all, is that uneven outcomes are a social injustice. This was the very backbone of President Obama’s successful re-election campaign against Mitt Romney in 2012, and has been at the forefront of much of the rhetoric related to social issues that have come out of the White House and liberal activists over the past six and a half years.
Our political culture has co-opted terms like “fairness” and “equality” away from their traditional definitions, and have applied them to practically any circumstance in which one person is better off than another. This has allowed the American Left (just like Adam Swift) to totally ignore the root causes of the very real problems that keep people from becoming successful in life.
Emulating what works isn’t even considered. Instead, society’s achievers are identified as the real problem. Their successes and wealth are unjust, thus they must be vilified and diminished for the sake of equality. The logic makes no sense, yet it’s quickly becoming conventional wisdom.
What has happened to the American psyche in recent years is downright scary. People like Adam Swift merely compel us to open our eyes a little wider and realize where we’re headed.
The left has never been about raising up human dignity and standards of living. It has always been about enforcing the lowest common denominator on everyone.
Very true about the lowest common denominator. And that’s what Common Core is all about.
Just let Progressives talk long enough and sooner or later the pure evil that is at the heart of their ideology will surface.
In short, they are lacking in a good education. They are therefore undereducated. That means increasing their level of knowledge so that they can distinguish a good argument from a really stupid one.
That’s right; when using racial lines no longer fit their mantra (due to the increasing number of poor whites), they had to change tactics. In a desperate pitch to keep non-black voters on board after years of a failed communist administration, they have to reach out to more gibsmedats by promising them equal outcomes for children born in a loving, caring family environment and those bred to provide a life of lazy leisure to self-centered “takers”.
While our founding documents may claim all men are created equal, God never promised that.
Your position on this depends on your goal: If you hope to drag everyone in society down to the lowest rung of the evolutionary and social ladder, avoid exposing your child to books at bedtime.
If your goal is to have every person in society achieve their full potential, do your part by reading to your child at bedtime.
“He goes on to say, “I had done some work on social mobility and the evidence is overwhelmingly that the reason why children born to different families have very different chances in life is because of what happens in those families.”
I think this is probably the biggest “NSS” statement of the year that I have seen so far………………….
what’s NSS ?
Great book. My mother’s aunt, who was a teacher in the NYC schools (1929-1959) gave us a discarded copy. Imagine trying to get that book in NYC schools today?
I read it when I was young kid ...... in the late 50’s
Like the Russian peasant, who envied his neighbor’s goat. When he found a magic lantern, and the genie offered him but one wish, he wished that the genie would kill his neighbor’s goat.
So if good parenting makes more successful children, let’s outlaw good parenting, and we can all be equally unhappy. A society full of unproductive misfits will be utopia. It will be just like a faculty lounge.
“No S??? Sherlock”?
But.... you don't get it. No amount of 'education' will fix that.
1. YURI BEZMENOV: Ideological subversion is the process which is legitimate and open. You can see it with your own eyes.... It has nothing to do with espionage.
I know that intelligence gathering looks more romantic.... That's probably why your Hollywood producers are so crazy about James Bond types of films. But in reality the main emphasis of the KGB is NOT in the area of intelligence at all. According to my opinion, and the opinions of many defectors of my caliber, only about 15% of time, money, and manpower is spent on espionage as such. The other 85% is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion, active measures, or psychological warfare. What it basically means is: to change the perception of reality of every American that despite of the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country.
It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages. The first one being "demoralization". It takes from 15 to 20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years required to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy exposed to the ideology of [their] enemy. In other words, Marxism-Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generation of American students without being challenged or counterbalanced by the basic values of Americanism; American patriotism....
The result? The result you can see ... the people who graduated in the 60's, dropouts or half-baked intellectuals, are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, and educational systems. You are stuck with them. You can't get through to them. They are contaminated. They are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern [alluding to Pavlov]. You cannot change their mind even if you expose them to authentic information. Even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still can not change the basic perception and the logic of behavior.
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Could be the American Dairy Council tried to have it banned because it gave away the secret getting butter without milk...
Guess they didn't foresee a shortage of tigers.
Apparently LBS was popular even among blacks since it portrayed a black kid in a positive light -smart and quick thinking, against the usual characterizations common at the time.
I look at it like they're educated beyond their intelligence.
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