Friday, November 23, 2012

Been thinking today, again, about what the 60s Revolution did to us.

One of the main things the 60s Revolution (for want of a better encompassing term) has brought us is the erasure of our history. History now consists only of what a particular person remembers, or thinks he remembers.

Here is an old post in the commbox from Karen:

"When literate people raise an illiterate generation, they are communicting their terror of the judgement of posterity. I think this is also related to the tendency of people like this to bear only-children, who grow into adults without siblings to check their memories against. Divorce and multiple households also destroy the continuity needed to construct a narrative about one's own early life."

My mother, who admittedly was unusually bright, studied French, German and Latin from the start of elementary school, could draw, sight read music and do calculus they way I do crosswords. And this was fairly normal for an ordinary middle class education in Britain in her time. By the time I went to school, her generation had all but abolished language and art education in schools. And the erosion continues with my young English cousin's generation not being taught basic historical facts or elementary maths. My cousin, who is every bit as bright as I was at her age, had no idea when the second world war started or why.



~

15 comments:

Teresa B. said...

So true! My two children who are now High School age have gone through more grammar than even I learned in school. We sit together to listen to audio books (or I read) mainly on history or historical fiction.
Their friends in school have no clue what they are talking about because WWII isn't taught until the 3rd quarter of gr 10. Like 2 weeks of WWII is going to give them all they need to know and remember!
But they will know everything about the women's movement in the US and Canada!

John L said...

That's interesting on why your mother's generation should have gone along with the destruction of education. There must be more to it as well though.

I am enraged that the level of education I got at public schools in Winnipeg in the 1970s and 1980s is now unavailable to my daughter - unavailable anywhere, not simply unavailable for less than $30,000 a year tuition. When I point this out to people I get a shrug of the shoulders. Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.

qualcosa di bello said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
qualcosa di bello said...

I recently found my mother's report card from high school (graduated class of 1948). She was a below-average student who carried a course load that was considered in my high school years (class of 1984) to be a rather high-end, college-prep, AP course load. she was not daunted by those classes; they were the norm of *all* students in her high school. Her C's & D's (2.0 & 1.0) were sufficient for passing onto higher grades & graduating. She was *exposed* to these traditional, classical education courses, even if she did not retain college-bound student amounts of information. She passed along her exposure, her love of learning, & pointed me in the direction of the endless supply of books through our library system....thank God! Between my own high school education (which was, sadly, inferior to my mother's but still had a fairly decent college-prep track & allowed for dual enrollment at the local college) & that of our children's, a massive breakdown occurred, as your post notes. Our children graduated between 2006 & 2012. I knew 20 years ago that if they were to be truly educated, I would need to homeschool them. I am not exceptional or brilliant, but there is a well-trod path of education before us that is accessible (for now, at least). I just could not abide this trend of which you write to swallow my children.

Anonymous said...

Too bad the female impersonator didn't get a good education in anything but courtesan tricks. How exactly wives at home are supposed to educate children to a high enough standard to SAVE THE WEST while simultaneously doing all the shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and fancy boudoir activities has never been clear to me, especially when the alt-right is full of anti-immigrant sentiment not so much because they like white people but because they hate and fear the idea of ladies having maids. - Karen

Hilary Jane Margaret White said...

Yeah, I don't get the anti-maid thing. It's not prevalent at all in Italy, and there are a lot of domestics around. Not living in so much, but plenty of twice-a-week.

In fact, while I was sick and really unable to do a lot of housework, things kind of got ahead of me, and I gave some thought to hiring someone to come in and just do the heavy stuff, the floors, the shopping, the carpets, the windows and the bathroom.

A lot of Anglo-expats have house help, and the rates are really amazingly good. In fact, I would probably be tempted to overpay someone. I can't imagine that the going rate for an English-speaking Philippina is anything like a just wage.

Don't get what the left has against it. I needed the help, and they need the job. And it's not like you do it your whole life. Most people look at it as a leg up, or a foot in the door. Beats the hell out of welfare.

Anonymous said...

I'd wipe your floor anyday, your Hilaryness.

-Rico S.

Anonymous said...

It appears as if the modern types are attempting to erase the idea that human nature is constant (although human behaviour is not), and the knowledge of how evil was justified.

Anyone who reads the classics understands that human nature - jealousy, pride, passion, greed - are innate in all humans, and can be the downfall of us. We understand that we can modify behaviour: contrary to what we are told in 'sex-ed', it is possible to not hump everything with two legs. What we cannot modify is our desires, sinful nature, passions, and also desire for achievement.

Likewise, some very evil acts were justified in the loftiest of tones. Slavery in the American South was justified as a way to avoid starvation, and, counterintuitively, as the good of the slave. Since slaveowners purchased slaves, they had a financial interest in the health and physical well-being of their slaves, which was, oddly, a much better situation than wage-payers who were happy to use up one worker's body and then hire someone else to fill the role. The starvation/food production/etc. argument was simply that, in an agrarian/non-industrial farm setting, you need slaves to produce enough food for people to live, or enough goods (e.g. cotton) to sell for food.

Pure evil, justified as avoiding starvation and as promoting the well-being of the oppressed. Modern 'education' takes that away from us and, in its preening way, pretends that we are an enlightened society and above such evil. Rarely does 'education' bother to ask us if we justify evil in modern society, or what enduring principles prevent us from coming to such a grotesque conclusion.

~bridget

Anonymous said...

The left is only against the domestic part of domestic service. Childcare centers are good, and no one cleans their own toilet at the office, and everyone eats out or reheats stuff made a factory. They might be evil but they're not stupid.

The establishment right just keeps spending their capital and/or leveraging themselves to fund fewer and fewer proper private households which get more and more impossible to pay for, and therefore cannot be begun at the proper biological time. They might be evil, or maybe just stupid.

But it's the altright that deliberately enstupids itself because of its evil misogyny. I know you don't like that word, but it's appropriate. They hate women, by which I mean they have intense negative feelings against *all women,* regardless of politics, marital status, motherhood, or whatever, which lead them to identify with ideological positions which place women in danger, age them prematurely, destroy their health, certainly destroy their looks, and ensure that the ignorance bequeathed to us by the boomers will only be eradicated in individual families and there will be no homeschool renaissance.

At least not in the Anglosphere; I hear it's better in France and Germany. - Karen

Dymphna said...

My mother was a housekeeper for 30 years. I've thought about hiring someone to come in once a week but I'd be too ashamed. It's a poor, useless sort of woman who can't even clean her own toilet and there is something about having a maid to order around that seems to make middle class women incredibly mean. I don't want to be like that.

Anonymous said...

THANK GOD I'M NOT MIDDLE CLASS THEN - Karen

C. said...

"It's a poor, useless sort of woman who can't even clean her own toilet"

Or one in poor health, or sleep-deprived with young children, who might have to choose that day between cleaning that toilet and showering...

You seem far too nice to be one of those Americans to whom sick/weak/exhausted people don't exist (and if they do, they should just take their America vitamins and buck up, or something) so I hope you didn't really mean it.

Anonymous said...

It's a poor, useless sort of woman who doesn't feel any obligation to provide employment. - Karen

qualcosa di bello said...

"Too bad the female impersonator didn't get a good education in anything but courtesan tricks. How exactly wives at home are supposed to educate children to a high enough standard to SAVE THE WEST while simultaneously doing all the shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and fancy boudoir activities has never been clear to me..." ---Karen

Karen, that is quite a judgmental statement against the life i've been living these past 25.5 yrs as a wife & mother. For me the "how" is a matter of living my Catholic faith. I am the child of working class immigrants (first generation American) who sees no shame in either working as a maid or hiring one. There is no shame in honest labor. It's a crying shame that you cannot meet my 4 successful adult children who give us hope that the WEST MIGHT BE SAVED. & for the record the have all cleaned toilets in their homes (both ours & their own homes) & as part of various jobs which they have held.

Anonymous said...

I was talking about the "woman" and the dragon blogger, it was a reference to a previous thread. - Karen