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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32820 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023

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So what makes something indoctrination, rather than merely teaching?

I wanted to go with something like "indoctrination is about values, teaching is about facts", but I think it's broader than that. If I had to boil it down to a single thing, I'd call it something like "openness to critical examination". Economics is superficially about facts, but a Marxist is going to be hostile to the idea that capitalism is good, Keynesian-descendant economists are going to be hostile to the idea that government stimulus might be counter productive, and libertarian-descendant economists will be hostile to the idea that a bad outcome could come out of anything other than government intervention.

I'm pretty sure a significant portion of the population ends up being indoctrinated into ideas that are true, rather than taught them. Everybody knows the Earth is round, but the average person would probably make a fool of themselves trying to debate a devoted Flat Earther.

That seems like a fine definition as long as you're okay with some indoctrination being just fine to do, which I think the previous poster would not have liked.

Yeah, when it comes to values I don't think it's possible to do anything other than indoctrination. I suppose you could do "Group X believes in A, B, and C, while group Y believes in D, E, and F", but you do have to teach what is the right thing to do at some point.

For me the issue is that I consider it to be the fundamental right and duty of the parents, not the state, or any private institution not authorized by the parents. The state indoctrinating children kind of makes a mockery of the very idea of democracy.

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