Breweriana For Me

Every single human being who has ever lived has done bad things. Every single one.

However, there are human beings who have also done good things. Some of them, even spectacular things. Things that they ought to be honored and respected for, so that way we know to try to emulate those.

Our industrial model of education leaves no room for nuance. Children are taught that the right answer on the test is “c.” They’re taught that Isaac Newton discovered gravity, that Galileo discovered that the earth goes around the sun, that Columbus discovered America. They’re taught that there are bad guys—The British in the Revolutionary War, the South in the Civil War, the Germans in WWII—and that there are good guys—the Americans, the Union, the Allies.

For the grammatical stage, that is all well and good. But the classical triumvate begins transitioning children out of that line of thinking around middle school or so: we still can’t quite explain gravity, and at times it seems to be little more than a more refined explanation of the Aristotelian “Law of attraction.” Galileo’s heliocentric model couldn’t account for various phenomena then observable to astronomers. Columbus only discovered America because his math was terribly off, and he thought the Earth’s circumference was far less than it was known to be.

In a test-based model, we don’t have time to teach children to explore these nuances. Instead of being taught “So-and-so said this, which we believe is true because it holds up when we consider this and that and the other, but when he said this we don’t believe it’s true because it breaks down when we consider this and that and the other,” children are being taught “This is the right answer.”

This applies to people too. Instead of being taught, “This historical figure did this and this, which is good and why we should try to emulate them, and also this and this, which is shameful and should be avoided in our own lives,” children are being taught “this historical figure is a hero, this historical figure is a villain.” Which immediately turns into propaganda.

It is no better to say “this person did nothing wrong” than to say “this person did nothing right.” But it is very dangerous to be in the habit of dividing the human race into “good guys” (my side) and “bad guys” (their side).

The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones. The practice of statues and memorials and biographies have always been an attempt to redress this trend. To remember and honor the good and worthy of being emulated of somebody’s life, in the hopes that future generations will be able to do the same. John Brown’s body lies a’mouldering in the grave, but his soul goes marching on. But what we’re seeing in today’s iconoclasm is a deeply engrained belief that there are not people who do both good and bad things, only good guys and bad guys. And that should alarm you.

During my first month with my therapist, I was given this worksheet to read and work on. She noticed that while I was talking with her, that my thoughts followed a lot of these. I wasn’t aware that my anxiety had brought me down paths of low self-worth and stinky thinking.  After a couple of weeks of talking with her, she gave me this worksheet to work on. 

7 QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD ASK AT THE END OF EVERY JOB INTERVIEW.

—

Mortimer  J Adler (1902-2001) American philosopher.

This is why a portion of every truly adequate education must consist of self learning. Nothing can replace the experience gained by wrestling with a difficult text for hours or days until you understand it. What you gain from it cannot by fed into you by any professor.

windows 10 is garbage so every time i boot up the computer i have to run command prompt and enter

net.exe stop “Windows Search”

after

REBLOG AND LIKE PLEASE

National Guard units seeking to confiscate a cache of recently banned assault weapons were ambushed by elements of a Para-military extremist faction. Military and law enforcement sources estimate that 72 were killed and more than 200 injured before government forces were compelled to withdraw.

Speaking after the clash, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Gage declared that the extremist faction, which was made up of local citizens, has links to the radical right-wing tax protest movement.

Gage blamed the extremists for recent incidents of vandalism directed against internal revenue offices. The governor, who described the group’s organizers as “criminals,” issued an executive order authorizing the summary arrest of any individual who has interfered with the government’s efforts to secure law and order.

The military raid on the extremist arsenal followed wide-spread refusal by the local citizenry to turn over recently outlawed assault weapons.

Gage issued a ban on military-style assault weapons and ammunition earlier in the week. This decision followed a meeting in early this month between government and military leaders at which the governor authorized the forcible confiscation of illegal arms.

One government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, pointed out that “none of these people would have been killed had the extremists obeyed the law and turned over their weapons voluntarily.”

Government troops initially succeeded in confiscating a large supply of outlawed weapons and ammunition. However, troops attempting to seize arms and ammunition in Lexington met with resistance from heavily-armed extremists who had been tipped off regarding the government’s plans.

During a tense standoff in the Lexington town park, National Guard Colonel Francis Smith, commander of the government operation, ordered the armed group to surrender and return to their homes. The impasse was broken by a single shot, which was reportedly fired by one of the right-wing extremists.

Eight civilians were killed in the ensuing exchange.

Ironically, the local citizenry blamed government forces rather than the extremists for the civilian deaths. Before order could be restored, armed citizens from surrounding areas had descended upon the guard units. Colonel Smith, finding his forces over matched by the armed mob, ordered a retreat.

Governor Gage has called upon citizens to support the state/national joint task force in its effort to restore law and order. The governor also demanded the surrender of those responsible for planning and leading the attack against the government troops.

Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and John Hancock, who have been identified as “ringleaders” of the extremist faction, remain at large.

And this fellow Americans, is how the American Revolution began, April 20, 1775.