Monday, August 31, 2009
The course RCT school unanimism politically correct, by Francis Chartrand
There was a time when progressives differ in opinion, be a dissident, was the highest form of patriotism. The formula, falsely attributed to Jefferson, is of Howard Zinn, historian, anarchist left. It appeared when the American left tried to denounce the war against terrorism.
This freedom of thought, this rebellious spirit were encouraged not only in politics but also in religion, morals and values. Dissent sometimes very aggressive or in poor taste, but this is democracy, right?
But then, when "progressives" who claim to have pluralistic power, as is the case in the small world of education experts in Quebec must now begin to learn and practice consensus. More praise for the protest, cynicism, of dissent, no, no. This would show a little narrow-minded and open to others, their religions, their atheism, moral values, sex, sexual orientation, their political and social prejudices. In short, lack of openness to the values of these same progressives.
A report recently published by the Assessment Board Training Program for Quebec schools (an offshoot of the MELS) welcomed even this format: children of educational reform are somewhat autonomous, mediocre in French, can not focus during a lecture, but they are "open", "world citizens" and work well in teams.
It was therefore preferred in the rehabilitation of the behavior at the expense of the investigation of facts and knowledge.
This re-education, this spirit of unanimity are also encouraged in the program of ethics and religious culture.
You must all agree
Thus we find in textbooks and notebooks RCT exercises designed to teach students to interact with others and to reach consensus within a group.
First example from a primary textbook: a group of people to sit in a bus as the "fairest" possible. Stand: a pregnant woman (not to be macho to sit), a veiled woman tanned and (not to be seated racist), an older woman (sexist, ageist?), a white man's jacket and tie (victim presents no risk). We then asked the young student that "All members of your team must agree with the choices. Warning, at the end of the work, you will need to justify."
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Share into a group and consensus about Israel and Palestine
Another example of exercise, this time in high school, in the book Dialogues II editions of Thinking for Secondary V, it is this time to establish a plan for fair sharing of Palestine through dialogue to achieve consensus.
We are stunned before so smug irenicism: what will be learned to students? Than adults who do not agree and can not justly shared by consensus and dialogue have been really poorly educated? Ah! If only they had the course of ECR! What would happen if he class, thanks to the increasing intermingling of Quebec, there is a Jewish and an Arab? Hopefully you really honestly they arrive at a consensus?
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Yet objectivity does not exist?
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What is most surprising is that the same notebook (shown above) seems to recognize this, the solutions proposed and referred to the teacher, that objectivity does not exist! But beware, says the government, the ERC program is nothing relativistic and is given in an objective and neutral.
This admission that objectivity is probably unattainable leaves imply that some solutions are intractable.
What good then try to fairly resolve a situation like the partition of Palestine through dialogue and consensus? To show the futility of the project?
Deliberation
Do not believe that these two activities are the result of chance. They scrupulously respect the program requires that the child is familiar with each cycle of training with its deliberation.
But what is the debate for the Monopoly of Education?
It is a form of "dialogue". That "discussion with other people from different sides of an issue (facts, interests, norms and values, the probable consequences of a decision, etc..) To arrive at a joint decision.
Indifference hunted
And do not believe that the child may take refuge in indifference in such activities. Because we all know what leads to indifference ... Nazism. The Grand Duke publish editions as well (p. 13, Manual Secondary IV) in a very predictable poem by Martin Niemöller:
"When the Nazis came for the communists I Shout myself, I was not a Communist."
We must commit to have his opinion on everything politically correct on ererything.
A highly intrusive approach
Students are not only required to give its opinion and must also make judgments on the normative beliefs of others.
"He called behaviors or attitudes that help or hinder the group life. It recognizes the needs and appoints its responsibilities towards others. He considers some options or possible actions and recognizes the effects on himself and others. He emphasizes measures to encourage the group life based on living together. He links with other similar situations. He is back on his learning and his approach."
(Program Primary p. 297) As noted in the French philosopher, David Mascré, about the ERC program, "The child is then asked to make judgments about other normative. Gradually but surely, he is called to report for the good of everyone concerned, including relatives (playmates, siblings or parents) may develop beliefs or religious practices do not conform to the value system promoted by the proponents of the religion of democracy. He is summoned to highlight this in the belief that these relatives - and, what is more laughable and over again conditioning - is harmful to his little perspective of eight year old child to group life."
Not content to summon the child to expose his comrades in identifying what their beliefs might be contrary to respect for others or facilitation of community life, the text also asked to make judgments on the normative Funds same beliefs, denouncing what it is in the stereotype or prejudice. The child is thus required:
"Identify the causes and effects of prejudice and stereotypes in the situation."
(Program Primary p. 298)
This is not the teacher himself, he is "neutral" is now the child who is summoned to assume the role of inquisitor and order to question the friend who had the audacity or the temerity to continue to profess beliefs incompatible with the values of our time.
Absolute respect for the views "open to diversity"
The official program book and the apologist of the courts of the imposition of the RCT, Georges Leroux, remind us that children must learn to have absolute respect for the views expressed in other, provided that they are open to the world and diversity. Two code words meaning pluralistic, progressive and not for all the differences, but those valued by these same progressive pluralistic, namely the ethnic diversity (and if necessary then the religious diversity, although some "secular" n 'not necessarily accept the value of this diversity there), the diversity of family forms (eg. the sex families) and sexual behavior. Paradoxically, those who rely on this diversity usually reject the views too different on some issues it was calling "backward" and not acceptable.
On page 41 of his expertise made the process of Drummondville and Loyola (same), Georges Leroux said: "As such, students are encouraged to develop attitudes of absolute respect, dialogue interpreting (understanding the meaning beliefs or unbelief)."
To draw a parallel with the attitude required of students in the program, but the State is careful not to engage with opponents during RCT (especially not more religion classes, or exemptions):
"Get students to participate in the democratic life of the school or classroom [!??] and adopt an attitude of openness to the world and respect for diversity"
(Program Primary, p. 284)
"Demonstrate openness and respect for what is expressed."
Forms of dialogue and conditions
Notes for teachers
Respect people, yes we agree, but respect what is expressed, the same error, even that goes against what is believed true and sacred?
Revealing the non-verbal expressions of reluctance
The search dialogue forced rejection of indifference or disapproval of what is socially acceptable by the group appears in numerous injunctions against children or teachers:
"Pay attention to its manifestations of non-verbal communication and those of others."
(Program Primary page 283)
"Caring for others and consider their feelings, perceptions or ideas."
"In their interactions, verbal or nonverbal, it is important that they [the students] are carried out gradually to listen to others attentively."
The child is now directed not only to criticize the ideas of others when they do not conform to live together, but also to probe their ulterior motives. He was ordered to pay attention to events nonverbal communication of his classmates. A disapproving silence, a shifty look, an attitude of silence are all signs of poor adhesion or worse disapproval potential, and judged as such. The child will splinter even the ability or right to take refuge in the privacy of his heart or to escape into the wonderful imagination since the very signs of withdrawal into the inner or outer world the world politically correct will be reviewed, monitored, tracked and interpreted as such.
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Labels: Francis Chartrand, Québec, Religion and fanaticism
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Are Atheists Communists, by Anne Humphreys
Are atheists communists? Of course not. Some atheists are communists, and communists have been taught to be atheists, but becoming an atheist doesn't affect your politics.
Many people who have been classified as atheists have simply been raised under a communist regime. These are atheists by default or convenience, not atheists by conviction, personal experience or logical deduction. They are wide open for conversion, partly because they haven't been exposed to any religions, they have very little natural immunity like children raised in over-clean houses. In contrast atheists in Europe and America tend to be atheists by personal choice. Very few people are forced to be atheists against their will, while they are impressionable. Religious indoctrination of children will, one day, be accepted as the crime against humanity that it is.
I regularly get accused of being a communist, this is usually by American Christians. Nobody else seems to be that stupid. They seem to accept the idea that if you are not for capitalist freedom in infinite amounts you are a dangerous subversive who gets his sealed orders from Satan at the KGB (and only the complacent think they've gone away).
In America there are three powerful interlocking myths. The first is The Big Lie, the idea that belief in a god (preferably one with Semitic heritage) is a sign of morality, that people who do not share a belief in God are either amoral, immoral or lead by the nose by the scarlet horned goat himself. The second myth is the American Dream, the fantasy that in America, and only in America, anybody make it to the top and become wealthy, even phenomenally wealthy, simply by being prepared to work hard. The corollary of that is the idea that those Americans who are not wealthy obviously haven't worked hard and so don't deserve any sympathy, or welfare, or soup, or spare change. The third myth is that evil communists are planning to take over the world.
Communism is real and it was a powerful force in the twentieth century. But much of the force of communism was really a bastardized form of The Great Game, Russia's eternal quest for more territory and an escape from encirclement. To understand this fear just meditate for a few minutes, imagining that you are in Russia, imagine the wider world around you. It is around you. Yes, Russia is surrounded on all sides by potentially hostile powers, but this is simply a product of Russia being so big, covering so great an area that it has more time zones than seems fair. In contrast imagining yourself in America is much more soothing, an open ocean to each side and non-threatening neighbours to the north and south. But then ramp up the paranoia and you start to see the whole western hemisphere in the same way Israel regarded southern Lebanon or the Golan Heights.
Many things that were done by dictators in the name of communism were and are thoroughly reprehensible. To call them evil is acceptable usage as long as the word evil is used as an adjective, there is no such thing as evil as a noun. The noun form of evil belongs only in myth and other fiction. Actions can be evil, people can have a high propensity to allow or commit evil acts but there is no such thing as evil people or motivations to act out of evil. The idea of an evil empire is therefore ridiculous. Even Adolf Hitler was not evil. He wanted to achieve great and laudable aims (among others) and was ruthless in his methods. The evil was largely in the ruthlessness. Consider the long term aspirations of Hitler compared to those of Churchill, were they really so very different? Churchill spoke (in his “Finest Hour” speech) of a British Empire lasting a thousand years, is that so very different from a Thousand Year Reich? There were plenty of other nationalist leaders around who thought they had a God-given destiny to lead their country to power, prosperity and a supreme position in the world due to the superiority of its people's genetics. In a way Germany and Japan did the world a favour by showing the moral bankruptcy of this concept as well as the danger to liberty and justice of pursuing it. The downside of the war was the fact that it was justified, which has led Americans in particular to wrongly link the idea of war and justice. World War II was a just war, perhaps the just war, very much the exception rather than the rule. Most wars are fought for bad reasons: greed, aggression, plunder, not for justice and righteous indignation.
In what ways is communism evil?
To the rich of America the threat of communism was expropriation, taking their obscene private wealth and the capital that generated it into social ownership. Of course nationalization and expropriation of privately owned property was a major concern of the American government in regard to the communist revolution in Cuba as lots of Americans owned those assets. It was not a concern in Egypt the year before because those foreign investors were largely French and British, and hadn't Europe learned that the days of (their) empires was over? Didn't they get it? This was the dawn of the American Empire.
Atheism and Communism
Atheism is the official religion of communist countries. Of course atheism is not a religion, it is an absence of theistic beliefs. If atheism is a religion not fishing is a hobby. Atheism is not well placed to be the formal religion of a state. In practice religion in communist countries is replaced by political ideology and the celebration of heroes. Across the former Soviet empire there are thousands of statues of Lenin. Strangely in Cuba they seem to be more Lennonists than Leninists these days.
Communist states also adopted certain philosophical ideas and raised them to the status of dogma. This was particularly damaging in the case of the ideas of Lysenko, whose harebrained (but ever so orthodoxly Marxist-Leninist) biological ideas set back the agriculture and biology of the Soviet Union by decades.
Comrade Lysenko held that conditioning was more important than genetics. If you treated the grandsons of serfs as socialist heroes you get a socialist worker's paradise so it follows that if you treat summer cropping wheat correctly it will happily grow in a Siberian winter. There was only one minor problem with the theory. It was total bollocks. It was also state approved orthodoxy and therefore officially correct. Lysenko's ideas were not allowed to be questioned, so evidence needed to be produced to fit the conclusions that were pre-ordained. The result was as pathetic as the efforts of Young Earth Creationists. Nothing good ever comes from forcing people to accept lies as the truth.
Indoctrination of children, whether with your lies about God or propaganda about the party or the Great Leader is always wrong, dangerous and evil. Unquestionable concepts are always evil. And yes, you are free to question that idea!
In what way is atheism useful to communism?
It isn't. The point is that religion provides an alternative source of authority and moral teachings. A communist or any totalitarian regime wants all authority, morality and virtue to come from the party and the people following the party's guidance. A church, any church, is a rival to the authority of the state.
Hitler was not, as is so often portrayed by Christians, an atheist. He was raised as a Catholic and continued to believe in some kind of a god or divine providence throughout his life, but he didn't have many dealings with the church. Hitler hated communism partly because of its atheism.
For communists it was much simpler, Marxism was always atheistic. Marx was an atheist and God had no role in his thoughts or his teachings. Not only did Marx not believe in any gods but he made atheism a vital part of his ideology. He cast religion as a tool of oppression.
Marx's idea that religion is caused by class conflict doesn't make much sense to me but it has always been obvious to various thinkers that religion can be extremely useful to any leader who knows how to ride that particular tiger.
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true,by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” - Seneca
Religion is an alterative source of legitimacy, if that alternative source bolsters the power of the prince or emperor happy days. Conflicts between church and state are very bad news, each will tend to lean over backwards to avoid conflict, resulting in some of the grubbier episodes of history.
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Labels: Anne Humphreys, Atheism, Religion and fanaticism
Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno gets temporary reprieve on caning sentence, by Francis Chartrand
The muslim model sentenced to be caned for drinking beer won a surprise reprieve when religious officials delayed her punishment until after the fasting month of Ramadan.
Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, 32, was sentenced by a religious court last month to six strokes, making her the first woman to face caning under Islamic law in Malaysia, a moderate Muslim-majority country.
She was taken into custody in northern Perak state by religious officials who were to transport her to a jail outside Kuala Lumpur where the sentence was to be carried out.
But after travelling a short distance, the vehicle returned and she was abruptly freed.
"I am speechless," Kartika told reporters, adding that the Islamic officials had not told her whether she would be caned later. "I want to know what my status is. I want a black and white statement from them."
The mother-of-two has stared down religious authorities by saying she is ready to be caned, refusing to appeal against her sentence, and challenging them to cane her in public.
"I do not know in what situation I'm in. I'm clueless. I do not know if I am freed, I am in limbo," said the part-time model, who was dressed in a purple Muslim headscarf and a flowing traditional "baju kurung" outfit.
Sahfri Abdul Aziz, a legislator from Pahang in charge of religious affairs, said the punishment had been suspended on the order of the Attorney-General until after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began last week.
"However, the sentence will remain the same," he said according to state media.
But a senior government official suggested the reprieve could be a step towards burying the whole affair.
"Leave it to the sharia court, they know how to decide. The court has the power to revise the sentence and there are also laws that allow the sultan to pardon her," the top official said.
Human rights group Amnesty International has urged Malaysia to abolish the "cruel and degrading punishment" and critics have said the case threatens to damage Malaysia's international standing.
Kartika's father Shukarno Mutalib, 60, reacted angrily to the about-face and the confusion over whether the caning would go ahead, and said it would reflect badly on Islam, which forbids drinking alcohol.
"My daughter wants the sentence to be done. I'm afraid that people will mock the religion," he said. "Don't make my daughter a toy to play with," he said.
Kartika, who has lived in neighbouring Singapore for many years, had pleaded guilty to drinking alcohol at a hotel nightclub.
Her case has caused a national sensation, and at her family's village more than 50 supporters turned out and chanted "God is Great" and "There is no God except Allah."
"I have known Kartika since she was a small girl," said one 64-year-old villager, Wan Alawiah.
"She is a good girl and I'm sad she will be caned but I ask myself why Kartika is being caned when a lot of other Muslims drink. I feel she has been victimised," she said.
Alcohol is widely available in Malaysia but is forbidden for Muslim Malays, who make up 60 percent of the population. They can be fined, caned, or jailed for up to three years but prosecutions are extremely rare.
Malaysia, a multicultural country with large Chinese and Indian communities, has a dual-track legal system and sharia courts can try Muslims for religious and moral offences.
Islamic scholars have mostly backed the sentence, and said it would be carried out when Kartika was fully clothed and with a cane that is smaller and lighter than the heavy length of rattan used in criminal cases.
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Labels: Francis Chartrand, Islam, Malaysia, Religion and fanaticism
After "Yippee, my religion!", "My religion of my Dream", by Francis Chartrand
We reproduced above, for the record, the CAS ''Yippee, my religion to me!" proposed in 1st year of the secondary activity books LIDEC Let the adventure. More details about this activity here and there.
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Labels: Francis Chartrand, Québec, Religion and fanaticism
After "Yippee, my religion!", "My religion of my Dream", by Francis Chartrand
This LSE (learning situation and evaluation) is used in secondary I and II in the School Board of Oak (Drummondville).
Gleaned on Youtube, this video of a proposed RCT of students of the College Sainte-Anne (which uses many textbooks LIDEC in RCTs) dealing with the monotheistic religion of "judoïtes" whose God is the actor in films Action Chuck Norris:
Labels: Francis Chartrand, Québec, Religion and fanaticism
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