Some reasons why skeptics like me are losing the battle
I don’t know what causes a child to develop skepticism. I do know it can serve a person well in travels through life and that we have far too few skeptics in America.
One of the dictionary definitions of a skeptic is “a person who maintains a doubting attitude toward values, plans, statements, or the character of others.” I hope that describes me as both a child and adult. I remember myself during the ’40s and ’50s as a child skeptic. I didn’t like anyone telling me what to believe or not believe. I found the most powerful word in my or any language was WHY.
I’m far from a math wizard so in addition to finding more complicated math difficult, I also wanted to understand WHY I was supposed to take the directed steps. When I asked WHY too many times, I got the answer from my teacher I disliked most, and still do, BECAUSE.
I know I had a great advantage becoming a skeptic over many kids today in that I was raised in very safe communities in Montana and North Dakota, my first being Havre, Montana. Havre, a town of about 7,000 people, was my domain where as a five-year-old, I could go anywhere I wanted including to the store for a popsicle or the movies or down to the Milk river. My mom only required I be home for supper. My mom, who worked as a clerk at many places, was not so happy with my independence the day I walked into the grocery store where she was working swinging a discarded rubber filled with rocks.
My buddies and I played any sport or game devoid of adult supervision. My buddies were boys and girls since I had a twin sister who also liked being a tomboy. We had to make up or own ground rules and be our own referees. We even created group games and adjusted the rules as necessary.
That is not the world most children live in today. It is nearly impossible to develop into a skeptic if you are dependent on adults to tell you what to do, where to go and how to act. Thanks to our scare media that refuses to tell their audience or readers the actual odds of something bad happening, children today have to be very determined to develop sufficient skepticism. Our educational system stressing memorized facts for tests instead of teaching thinking, especially skeptical thinking, increases the difficulty for children to use skepticism as a basis for learning and to love to learn for its own sake. I spent innumerable hours at our town library not because my parents or a teacher sent me there, but because with only radio and few movies, I wanted to explore the world that was out there on my own at my own pace.
Living in farming communities and visiting relatives’ farms frequently, also aided my skepticism outlook. When my grandmother started in a sod house on the windy, cold god forsaken plains of North Dakota where understanding personal responsibility was a given because neither god or others would allow you to survive, I had supporters who insisted that I forget blaming others for my screw-ups. Unless genetics plays a much bigger role than I envision, it is extremely difficult to become a true skeptic while blaming others when things go wrong.
Many of today’s parents won’t even allow their children to make the most elemental of life’s decisions, whether they are hot or cold. That really hit home to me when I was walking in a Chicago community on a spring day after a long winter. A father and four-year-old son came out on their porch relishing the fifty degree weather and a bright, warming sun. Both were smiling and stretching with only short sleeved shirts on. Then the father looked down at his son putting an immediate chill on their happiness by scolding the child and yelling, “Get back in the house and get a jacket on!”
This kind idiocy stems from the pervasive mother’s tale that you can get a cold from being cold. That myth pervades even when scientists around the world have done extensive testing making subjects very cold and wet in germ free rooms and found not one subject got a cold. When I took my six-month old grandson out for a fifty degree sunny walk Thursday, my wife was insisting he have a huge blanket over him even though I had been walking with him for 1 1/2 hours while he soundly slept with only a small towel covering four inches of bare legs due to short pants. Maybe I am foolish, but I am skeptical that Ronan was suffering from the cold when he was able to sleep for so long. I reluctantly accepted the blanket and after it kept getting caught in the stroller’s wheels several times I put it on the stroller hood.
If you think that sounds crazy, my most vivid “he’ll get a cold” experience was in that same Chicago neighborhood where I was walking children on a forty-four degree day and as their bodies warmed up from the long walk, I told my students it was OK to take off their wool caps and scarves and even coats because they had a human right to decide if they were hot or cold. Then we heard the screeching of brakes and the door of a car in middle of the street open, out flew an enraged mother who totally ignored the traffic jam she was creating so that she could redress her son with all those trappings he had just freed himself from. It never occurred to her to ask how he felt or wanted to dress.
I don’t see how I could have developed my skepticism under the kind of insults to logic that children are subjected to today. The crazy adults assaulting all logic when they protest in favor of government decisions that will improve their lives must have had authoritarian parents who didn’t allow them to think for themselves. When you are taught to always blame other things or people you only know how to be skeptical of others and never yourself. You become so frightened of looking within yourself that, just like a spouse batterer, you are afraid you will emotionally implode, so your fear and hatred grows out of control.
We’ve seen a myriad of examples just this year from the crazy antics and illogical thinking of our congress critters. I’ll rest my case with a link to:
10 of the Nuttiest Statements Elected Officials Have Made in the Health Care Battle: Wild, over-the-top rhetoric and bizarre conspiracy theories about health reform aren’t just coming from the right-wing blogs and talk-radio loudmouths.
My mother was a firm believer in the “catching cold” theory; even throughout my adult life I never had to buy a winter coat…. she bought them for me, thinking that otherwise I’d run naked through the snow. She did, however, believe that we were smart enough to find our way to school, various lessons, and church unsupervised, from kindergarten on. I do think it’s sad that the generations after me are so supervised and overprotected; it does them no good to be infantilized up to age 18…. What’s supposed to happen then? I liked that article; although I think it’s more an illustration of standard righty “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” politicking, than lack of critical thinking on the part of the politicians. They’re not stupid, well, most of them; but they’ve a pretty good idea their audience is. Dick Armey admitted as much in the NYT magazine today, saying that he knows that “death panels” are phony, but they “work,” so who cares?
I agree some of the Repug congress critters are smart. I’m sure you would agree that they are cruel and inhumane to take advantage of the sheep and feed the wealthy so they too can be wealthy. 237 congress critters are millionaires. If they were skeptics that loved and revered the truth above all else and had compassion for the less fortunate, they would never become the extreme assholes they are and lead.
I have to share an email that I just received from author Robert Gordon that I got because I had emailed him a few months ago on an earlier inspirational article he wrote:
Dear Friends:
“Stiletto Road” was published by the Huffington Post on October 28th. If you wish to read the piece, just click on the link below.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-e-gordon/stiletto-road_b_337504.html
If “Stiletto Road” resonates to such an extent that you are moved to pass the link along to your friends and loved ones, I won’t stand in your way. And if your friends and loved ones are moved to pass the link along, I won’t stand in their way either.
Why? Well, I’m old enough to know that fame is ephemeral and that I don’t want any part of it. Indeed, at this juncture I treasure the privacy afforded by my literary obscurity. That having been said, there is a repeating motif that permeates the history of this nation: the people lead and the wise leaders follow.
I am dismayed, as are so many, by the hatred that is running rampant, un-checked. And more dismayed yet by those who exploit fear, fear being the womb of violence.
Yet the aforementioned motif, so consistent for more than 200 years, gives me hope. It leads me to believe that in the end, if the people speak as one, our better angels will prevail. Thank you for taking the time to read “Stiletto Road” and, if you are so inclined, for passing the link along.
Robert
What a great article, RMP, and I’m impressed, though hardly surprised, that Robert wrote back to you. It is a sad day when such an appeal to morality seems so radical, and therefore newsworthy.
Back to the question of assholes, who are they?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/11/just_ugly.php#more?ref=fpblg
I, too, worry and wonder about the way American kids grow up with so much of their time scheduled and monitored and fretfully regulated by anxious parents. It’s a radical change in the experience of growing up, a change which has occurred over just 2 or 3 generations. Is it bad, good? This kind of change has almost got to be important, but in what ways?
Shout it out …
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/11/09/whos_afraid_of_the_big_bad_fairness_doctrine/
As much as I would like some saneness return to talk radio, the fairness cows have been out of the barn door for far too long and I think it would be a nightmare to try and coax or force them back in. Can you imagine what it might take to enforce a Fairness Doctrine or get one without congress throwing the biggest fit in history? Then you have the Internet which also greatly complicates any attempt at enforcement.
By any “reasonable” measure, the connection between the excesses of unregulated media, including the demise of the fairness doctrine, and the near riotous, clearly demagogic behavior of popular radio talkers, is pretty clear.
There are real dangers now to the idea of balanced public debate. It’s hiding in plain sight; and they surely will keep refusing to take any responsibility. The gravy train is just too lucrative to jump from, to say nothing of delicious taste of power and influence over so many “inquiring minds.”
Has this media phenomenon become a “clear and present danger” to the idea of civil debate in this country?
Well, du-uh …
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/opinion/09krugman.html?ref=opinion
But I agree the fairness horse is out of the barn, and getting real balance back into daily “debate” on the American broadcast spectrum is probably pie in the sky.
New media makes this all much more problematic too.
But I think I said before, somewhere here, that at least, the “Reaganite” policies relating to media, have ruined local radio across the country as a source of close to the bone debate, debate and discussion conducted where people live. That’s done and gone, as is viable local radio news as a form.
The last straw for me as a radio news reporter was, as I think I’ve mentioned, in New Haven, where Clear Channel took over several stations. They consolidated across the board, gutting especially the news operations. They went into talk big time, showcasing Limbaugh as their marquee offering. And along the way, Glenn Beck, who was almost at the end of the trail in his career, working in one of the Clear Channel stations as a deranged morning “personality,” evolved into a talker in New Haven. Clear Channel enabled Beck; and the rest is history.
I wouldn’t walk around the corner to listen to Beck, Limbaugh, or any other of these fakers.
They are blabby, flabby little boys; and the idea that these adolescent mentalities, marketed as a form of media programming, could threaten to upset real political give and take in this country – real give and take aimed at workable political solutions – is troubling and very real.
They’re hiding in their studios, skulking out amongst us every day.
They’re cowards, and I’m pointedly skeptical.
Yeah, rmp, I grew up without Little League Syndrome*,although in a less isolated place( & ~ 25 yrs later;). (Binghamton had ~65k then, also the smaller towns of Chenango Bridge, & where I am again, Port Crane) The only rules were 1) Be Home For Dinner
2)Don’t Go tho the River Without Adult Supervision ( Age 9-12 changed to don’t go alone, & @ 12 to Leave a note, & take the dogs with you[because of the Energizer Bunny-Dalmatian?:)
3) If you go anywhere out of the ordinary, tell someone, or leave a note.
( & 1a – leave enough time to get homework done)
We organized our own activities with no adult help. Maybe it’s just my imagination,but seems as though we had a better time doing it too.
My first (that I remember) big episode of skepticism , was sitting in church at age 10 or 11?, the day after watching a National Geographic special on the Tasaday people, a stone age people (technologically) in the Phillipines , that (supposedly) had no words for war, or hate, or any possessive concept. The normally sedate, New Testament-type priest ( Yes , I’m a “recovering” Catholic – probably a never-to-be-finished process
was giving an Old Testament, fire & brimstone sermon, on the damnation of non-believers. So,.. here are some people who are living what Jesus ( is attributed to have) preached, maybe the best human beings on the planet, who are going straight to hell because they haven’t heard of some Middle Eastern prophet, from ~2000 years ago, so aren’t believing in HIM, and practicing the proper rituals, (& stuff). Somethin’ wrong with that. ( & if HE is so all-powerful, & knowing & loving, how come they don’t know? & why would HE set up such good people to be screwed over like that? 
* The idea of it as Little League Syndrome, occured to me during my time umpiring, & coaching & officiating soccer (futbol). I tried to mitigate it whenever I could, by keeping the adults at arms length,& with humor ( often @ the expense of overly serious/domineering adults ) . I started when I was 16 ( football ruined my shoulder for playing baseball), and was coching when I was 23, so maybe it helped me see it more from the kids perspective.
As for the Tea Partiers, & health care ( & other issues), Arthur Silber has some ideas,that make real change almost seem possible. ( In part, referring back to the British anti-slavery campaign)
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2009/11/tribalism-and-destructive-politics-of.html
I have had some conversations with tea-partyers, Beckists, and sympathizers. There is some common ground, but geez!,getting through the unreality is a tedious, and not thoroughly successful enterprise. Any suggestions?
Thanks for that link. It will take some time to read and digest. Talking to closed minds is not my area of expertise. I discovered how useless it is back in 1968 when I was attending Squadron Officers School in Birmingham AL. Two high school senior girls who had never ventured 50 miles beyond Birmingham said to me that their city was the greatest in the world. I spent two fruitless hours trying to explain their crazy logic to them and failed miserably. So I have seldom try to get into a discussion when the mind is sealed shut along with the ears.
What could have some degree of success if the mind is open just a little is to explain how history has shown that those they support have not had much success with their policies. Here is a link of a Washington Journal discussion today that makes that point about failed Repug economic politicies:
Washington Journal: Bruce Bartlett talked about his argument that supply-side economics, though effective in Reagan’s day, has outlived its usefulness. He also contends that Conservatives need to accept programs that assist the “welfare state” (health care, for example) and that in an effort to fund those programs, a change in tax policy should be considered. (45 min c-span video)
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/215125
OT, sort of , ran across something yesterday – Theme Song for American Politics, & the Empire ?
(Pandora said I should like it)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Juy_kLCV2_s&feature=related
(or if you prefer it acoustic :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivLT0hTxV6E&feature=fvw
)