Essence of Conservatism

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narhwal90
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Re: Essence of Conservatism

Post by narhwal90 »

Speaking of a parent of a 4th grader in the midst of Common Core, personally I like it. I review the homework and help as/where needed and meet with her teachers occasionally. I've sat in on a few classroom sessions to watch the class dynamic. Its a whole lot more constructive and efficient than elementary school was when I was a kid. Take long division; I recall how painful that was in 5th grade; just going over and over and over the same lesson until you figure it out... uninspired and rote. My daughter had a tough time with it as well, however the small-unit worksheets emphasizing alternative techniques were helpful and reduced the frustration somewhat- handing this unit was all about managing her frustration so we could stay on-task. In the classroom sessions there was a lot more involvement, teacher poses the question and kids put their hand up to answer, when chosen the went to the board to work out the answer; class & teacher discuss. There is a much wider diversity of reading going on now, and they are starting classroom reading where the whole class reads the same chapters as homework rather than independently reading- which they also are encouraged to do.

So I don't understand the hysteria over Common Core- its a lot more diverse and nuanced than school was when I was a kid and its not like schools were somehow "better" then. Clearly some schools are better than others and some do CC better than others... but thats true regardless of the curriculum- nothing new. Maybe a lot of the critiques of CC come from people who are not involved in it yet assume their opinions are correct.

Personally given the importance of teachers I think they are obscenely underpaid. But people will get what they pay for- if they want cheap schools they'll get poorly educated kids. No teaching technology or political doctrine is going to change that equation.
Iconodule
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Re: Essence of Conservatism

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Johnny Dangerous wrote:
In CA the Calif. Teachers Ass. has had a fine arrangement for 30? years or so with the state's pols. This state has been run by Dems for that time at least. So whether the CTA union pushed the pols to drop civics classes and the state Dems said fine or vice versa, the union was heavily involved.
Do you have some proof, or even reason to suspect the union was involved in dropping civics classes, or did you just make that up? If you do, I'd be interested in reading it. If you don't then your logic seems ridiculous: CTA is democratic> democrats run CA> civics classes gone >therefore CTA got rid of civics classes. Is that about it or is there a deeper story?
I would be happy to be proven wrong.
Prove what wrong? You haven't made any concrete assertion. You are the one making a claim that state democrats conspired top get rid of Civics, if that's so, it's your burden to prove that happened. I don't doubt it's possible at all, but it really sounds you just pulled in out of your....hat.
my wife for one. So stop with the 'people like you' crap.
I meant "people who want to defund public education", if that's not you, then great, it seems to fit with your general PoV though.
Crickets?
Enter eagerly into the treasure house that lies within you, and so you will see the treasure house of heaven. For the two are the same, and there is but on single entry to them both. The ladder that leads to the Kingdom is hidden within you, and is found in your soul. Dive into yourself, and in your soul you will discover the rungs by which you are to ascend. - Saint Isaac of Syria
Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Essence of Conservatism

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May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: Essence of Conservatism

Post by Kim O'Hara »

Nicholas Weeks wrote:With all the unfinished books on my shelves, time to add one by Russell Kirk (which I will finish). Which one though?

This article of his put me in mind to take action:

http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/det ... agination/
What then is the end, object, or purpose of humane letters? Why, the expression of the moral imagination; or, to put this truth in a more familiar phrase, the end of great books is ethical—to teach us what it means to be genuinely human.
:twothumbsup:
I like the quote - must share it with the bookish people in my life.

:namaste:
Kim
Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Essence of Conservatism

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

The Essential Russell Kirk, ed. by George Panichas arrived and into the Preface we dive.
The Essential Russell Kirk has as its chief purpose the task of offering to a new generation of readers representative writings of a distinguished American man of letters of the twentieth century. The crises of modern civilization that Kirk confronted head-on in his lifetime have not abated and now continue into the twenty-first century in forms and with a force and thrust perhaps different from but surely no less threatening than in the preceding century.

To the office of the man of letters Kirk brought considerable distinction, and for which he will be principally remembered and honored. He exemplifies “the supreme importance of the Man of Letters in modern Society,” about which the nineteenth-century Scots social prophet and historian, Thomas Carlyle, has valuable things to say. The man of letters, he states, is a “heroic seeker” who proclaims that “life must be pitched on a higher plane.” Above all, he struggles against the ravages of “spiritual paralysis” in a world in which “the battle of Belief against Unbelief is the never-ending battle.” These pregnant words of his famous Scots forefather help us to gauge Kirk’s calling as a modern man of letters who discharges his function as “a guardian of old truths and old rights,” and who strains to push things up to their first principles.
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: Essence of Conservatism

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I will happily acknowledge merit where I find it, Nicholas, but that Preface smacks of hagiography. It also - strangely - seems even more old-fashioned than Kirk himself. If you told me the second paragraph had been written in (say) 1910, I wouldn't have any real reason to doubt you.

:thinking:
Kim
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Re: Essence of Conservatism

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Kim O'Hara wrote:I will happily acknowledge merit where I find it, Nicholas, but that Preface smacks of hagiography. It also - strangely - seems even more old-fashioned than Kirk himself. If you told me the second paragraph had been written in (say) 1910, I wouldn't have any real reason to doubt you.

:thinking:
Kim
How pitiable, a modern conservative Sage finds value and inspiration in old sages.

Unlike we Buddhists, who only admire 21st century sages. :rolleye:
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Essence of Conservatism

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It is hoped that [this book of essays] will provide a detailed index to Kirk’s multiple efforts to expose the profane dialectics of a modern cosmology and to defend the values and principles of a humane civilization. It is hoped, too, that they will substantiate his unfolding vision of order and virtue, which he steadfastly avowed as a moral historian, a political philosopher, a conservative humanist, and a social and cultural critic.
Excerpt From: George A. Panichas' Preface to The Essential Russell Kirk.
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
Malcolm
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Re: Essence of Conservatism

Post by Malcolm »

Nicholas Weeks wrote:
Kim O'Hara wrote:I will happily acknowledge merit where I find it, Nicholas, but that Preface smacks of hagiography. It also - strangely - seems even more old-fashioned than Kirk himself. If you told me the second paragraph had been written in (say) 1910, I wouldn't have any real reason to doubt you.

:thinking:
Kim
How pitiable, a modern conservative Sage finds value and inspiration in old sages.

Unlike we Buddhists, who only admire 21st century sages. :rolleye:
I don't about that, I am rather fond of sages from Fifth Century BCE -- to the 19th century CE.
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Virgo
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Re: Essence of Conservatism

Post by Virgo »

Malcolm wrote:
I don't about that, I am rather fond of sages from Fifth Century BCE -- to the 19th century CE.
:thumbsup:

Kevin
Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Essence of Conservatism

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

No need on my part to promote this wonderful man of letters anymore. Go to ISI bookshop online and get the book and/or the e-book if you want to have your mind enriched.
Again and again, Kirk calls us back to Plato’s belief that the elevation of the life of the soul must be the ultimate goal of discourse. For only when we acknowledge the needs of the soul, he keeps saying, will we be able to resist the intrusions of imperious ideologies on human existence. No ideological scheme can possibly be complete, or authentic, that ignores spiritual questions—or worse, that strives to suffocate the soul. In the clearest of terms, Kirk also shows how the life of the soul, in conjunction with the life of the community, remains in a technosecular social system a largely unacknowledged subject of concern.
Excerpt From: George A. Panichas, Preface to The Essential Russell Kirk.
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: Essence of Conservatism

Post by Kim O'Hara »

Nicholas Weeks wrote:
Kim O'Hara wrote:I will happily acknowledge merit where I find it, Nicholas, but that Preface smacks of hagiography. It also - strangely - seems even more old-fashioned than Kirk himself. If you told me the second paragraph had been written in (say) 1910, I wouldn't have any real reason to doubt you.

:thinking:
Kim
How pitiable, a modern conservative Sage finds value and inspiration in old sages.

Unlike we Buddhists, who only admire 21st century sages. :rolleye:
There's a significant difference between finding "value and inspiration" and writing hagiography. I approve of the first - and, of course, do it all the time - but not the second.

:namaste:
Kim
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maybay
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Re: Essence of Conservatism

Post by maybay »

Our more immediate ancestors will always suffer greater scrutiny and critique than those more distant in the past.
People will know nothing and everything
Remember nothing and everything
Think nothing and everything
Do nothing and everything
- Machig Labdron
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