The Fourth "R"

[Carborendum]

We're familiar with the "Three Rs" (Reading, writing, and Arithmetic).  Only one R.  And that is part of the joke.  But classically, education always included a fourth R that was so fundamental that it was not explicitly stated.

Righteousness/Religion

There were dual reasons for this as being the most important and yet considered so obvious that it didn't need reiterating.

• The purpose of education was to train people to become virtuous individuals.  It allows us to be able to express our understanding of good v. evil.  And it encourages us to choose the good.
• If you educate an individual to have power and understanding, we would rather such a person be virtuous as well.  We don't want someone empowered with education to NOT have virtue.

Once we took the ten commandments and prayer out of school, there was a void that took a full generation or more for it to completely disappear.  But during that phase-out era, a different R crept in.  If you take God out of school, guess who comes walking in by default?

There is never any such thing as education without teaching morality.  The only question is "whose morality?"

The Greek philosophers believed that morality consisted of determining what is "Good, True, and Beautiful."  While that is not absolute, I think it is a good point of agreement among so many different religions and ideologies.

Today, we have a whole bunch of morality (both good and bad) with so little education on "why".  Without having to explain why, there is no requirement to know what the heck you're talking about.

I saw a CNN article about the "democracy vs republic" spat where reporters were interviewing Trumpsters who were yelling "we live in a republic, not a democracy."  Then the reporter asked, what's the difference.  At least one sample that they gave indicated that the few they interviewed had no idea.  I have no idea how many people cannot verbalize this difference, and IMHO, this is just a nitpick that means nothing in common parlance.  But I do believe that liberals use it incorrectly.

Likewise, the entire left cannot even define what a woman is... even though their rally cry is "a trans-woman is a woman."  If you can't even define a woman, what exactly does that mean?

Where are principles of righteousness today?

Edited June 25, 2024 by Carborendum

[NeuroTypical]

2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

Where are principles of righteousness today?

During COVID, when my peers started signing their emails with their personal pronouns, I took the opportunity to go hang with a bunch of woke millennials in order to answer this question.  I basically put on my most friendly smile, shouted "Hi there, I'm a white Christian heterosexual cisgendered man, who wants to cancel me?", and jumped into the deep end to see if anyone would try to drown me.   I was accepted, and I ended up hanging with them for 2+ years.  I made friends, and also arch-enemies.  

The principles of righteousness today are taught in many (perhaps most, but hardly all) public schools, and most (but again, hardly all) universities that receive public funding. And many of the private ones.  Their grauduates, having been successfully indoctrinated, value them to such an extent that as they enter the workforce, they demand to see their employers value the principles.  This has caused corporate America to make various attempts to instill woke messaging into their materials and workforces. 

The principles of righteousness are diversity, equity, and inclusion.   Topics associated with these principles include antiracism, unconscious bias, the patriarchy, alt-right fascist danger, white privilege, institutional racism, anti-choice legislation, historical and current oppressions, the list is inexhaustible. 

D and I is where everything is divisively politicized and race is expanded into an all-encompassing beast.  It expresses as impassioned effort to appear accepting of anyone identifying with one of two communities: the LGBTQIA+ community, which is basically anyone who isn't happily straight.   And the "historically marginalized people", which are women and all the nonwhite skin tones out there.  White people are encouraged to learn about all the oppressions, think about their ancestral guilt, and do better.   The 1990's "liberal guilt" is very much alive and well.  Guilt over the environment has fallen to lows, guilt over race and power and wealth takes center stage. 

Equity is where the marxist activism occurs.  Out of my dozen or so woke buddies, perhaps one understood, the rest were, well, all excited about the notion, but not exactly the most educated or reasoned on the details.   It originally started in the emotional aftermath of the George Floyd event as D&I, diversity and inclusion.  But quickly, it became DEI, with the E meaning "equality".   Then they dumped the "equality" in favor of "equity".  When I asked my woke buddies about the difference, they gave me this picture and stumbled through their attempts to express coherent thoughts:

There tends to be little understanding of, or even awareness of, the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. 

Corporate America tries hard to look like it's embracing the collective Equity, but its policies and procedures basically define it as "everyone has equal access to advancement in the company", followed by a litany of popular things they do not discriminate against.

 

I hung out with these folks to learn the lingo, find ways to love my neighbor, understand my children's online culture, and see if there was anything valuable and worthy to learn and adopt.  I accomplished the first three.  Almost nothing on that fourth one.   Some of my siblings, my fellow sons and daughters of God, are quite confused, scared, and misguided.  Some of them are angry and trying to guide.  At their best, they're just people to love.  At their worst, they represent the most deadly threat to the constitution of the United sates and our institutions, families, and ways of life, that I've ever encountered.  

Edited June 25, 2024 by NeuroTypical

[Vort]

34 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

DEI

Didn't Earn It.

[Ironhold]

On 6/25/2024 at 10:30 AM, Carborendum said:

Where are principles of righteousness today?

They're still around, but you have to look a lot harder to find them because modern society has, once again, decided that such classic ideas of morality and beauty are passe. 

It's a big part of why, for example, the mainstream US comic book publishers are getting annihilated while indie publishers, foreign publishers, and publishers of non-traditional fare (like bound collections of comic strips) are seeing big bucks. 

In particular, Japanese comic anthology magazine Weekly Shonen Jump is making bank right now because a great number of their titles are hot sellers despite the content making most of them PG-13 in nature. Many of those titles are premised on the classic hero's journey, showing someone who is down on their luck but who has good moral character getting a chance to prove themselves and in the process discover a hidden talent; they are typically rewarded for their diligence and determination by acquiring some combination of fortune, friends, mentors, and at least one lover. Others take their premise and deliver on it by way of characters that feel truly human in their struggles and desires, allowing people the opportunity to reflect upon themselves and their own decisions. 

Then of course it's got rather quirky numbers in the mix as well to give it a bit of variety. For example, this week is the debut of a new supernatural comedy series called "Shiba Inu Rooms". When animal welfare authorities discover horrible conditions at a dog mill that specializes in breeding Shiba Inu dogs, they shut it down. The property is purchased by a developer who builds an apartment complex on the site, but now every single apartment in the building is home to a talking ghostly Shiba Inu that just wants pets and cuddles from a kind human and will cross over to the other side once they've come to know pure happiness. Looks like this series will be encouraging people to consider the well-being of their animal pals. 

[LDSGator]

9 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

a big part of why, for example, the mainstream US comic book publishers are getting annihilated while indie publishers, foreign publishers, and publishers of non-traditional fare (like bound collections of comic strips) are seeing big bucks. 

Actually the mainstream guys still overwhelmingly dominate the comic book market. It’s not even close.   

Edited June 26, 2024 by LDSGator

[LDSGator]

lifelong comic fan here. Have friends who own comic stores too. I’m either misreading you @Ironhold or your figures go against 99% of what the comic book world industry thinks.  

If 100 guys go into comic store, 60 of them don’t even care about indies. They’ll leave with an issue from Marvel or DC. The remaining 40 will buy an indie comic or anime, and a Marvel or DC comic. That 60 I spoke about first will not buy an indie unless forced upon them of to gain hipster cred. 

Edited June 26, 2024 by LDSGator

[Ironhold]

9 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

Actually the mainstream guys still overwhelmingly dominate the comic book market. It’s not even close.   

Lies & statistics and all that.

Manga (Japanese comics), Manhua (South Korean comics), graphic novels, and those bound comic compilations can be had at just about any Wal-Mart or Target in the United States, and they utterly dominate dedicated book retailers like Barnes & Noble. 

Meanwhile, indie publishers like Alterna have either moved to direct-to-customer sales or have been working to get their product stocked in more traditional retail outlets like convenience stores. 

Most mainstream comics are... generally exclusive *to* comic book shops unless you're talking about random bags of overstock being liquidated via Wal-Mart or Ollie's. 

Once you go macro and look at the total actual numbers, it's pretty apocalyptic. 

In fact, Dark Horse actually *admitted* a few months back that their manga division is only a single-digit percentage of operations yet represents 66% of their annual sales. Meanwhile, IDW very nearly went bust a few years ago due to a series of poor business decisions combined with an active boycott of their products over the toxic public behavior of one of their writers, and Boom literally just saw a top executive step down in what people fear is the first step of a reorganization. 

Oh, and comic shops themselves are in danger, as for the last few years more have closed than opened. 

[Ironhold]

2 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

lifelong comic fan here. Have friends who own comic stores too. I’m either misreading you @Ironhold or your figures go against 99% of what the comic book world industry thinks.  

If 100 guys go into comic store, 60 of them don’t even care about indies. They’ll leave with an issue from Marvel or DC. The remaining 40 will buy an indie comic or anime, and a Marvel or DC comic. That 60 I spoke about first will not buy an indie unless forced upon them of to gain hipster cred. 

Next time you go to your local Wal-Mart, browse the book section. 

If your store is large enough, you *will* see about 1 - 2 dozen Japanese comic titles, South Korean comic titles, bound collections of comic strips, graphic novels, and so forth. 

You won't see Marvel or DC unless it's something being published *by* one of the above publishers or bound blind-packed bags of overstock comics that are being liquidated. 

That's the thing your chart isn't telling you, that more and more people are skipping the comic book shops. 

[LDSGator]

2 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

Lies & statistics and all that.

Manga (Japanese comics), Manhua (South Korean comics), graphic novels, and those bound comic compilations can be had at just about any Wal-Mart or Target in the United States, and they utterly dominate dedicated book retailers like Barnes & Noble. 

Meanwhile, indie publishers like Alterna have either moved to direct-to-customer sales or have been working to get their product stocked in more traditional retail outlets like convenience stores. 

Most mainstream comics are... generally exclusive *to* comic book shops unless you're talking about random bags of overstock being liquidated via Wal-Mart or Ollie's. 

Once you go macro and look at the total actual numbers, it's pretty apocalyptic. 

In fact, Dark Horse actually *admitted* a few months back that their manga division is only a single-digit percentage of operations yet represents 66% of their annual sales. Meanwhile, IDW very nearly went bust a few years ago due to a series of poor business decisions combined with an active boycott of their products over the toxic public behavior of one of their writers, and Boom literally just saw a top executive step down in what people fear is the first step of a reorganization. 

Oh, and comic shops themselves are in danger, as for the last few years more have closed than opened. 

 

Just now, Ironhold said:

Next time you go to your local Wal-Mart, browse the book section. 

If your store is large enough, you *will* see about 1 - 2 dozen Japanese comic titles, South Korean comic titles, bound collections of comic strips, graphic novels, and so forth. 

You won't see Marvel or DC unless it's something being published *by* one of the above publishers or bound blind-packed bags of overstock comics that are being liquidated. 

That's the thing your chart isn't telling you, that more and more people are skipping the comic book shops. 

Okay.