Category Archives: Philosophy

Why We Don’t Carry Wheatgrass (don’t read if offended by racist material)

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Discussion about why we don’t name any ingredient a “super” anything and really really offensive material about Oprah and White people farther down. First, let’s get this wheatgrass debate settled.

We don’t carry wheatgrass, despite demand for it.  Here’s why:

From random uncredentialed guy writing on Skeptico blog: Wheatgrass is for Cows
Summary: Wheatgrass is for cows, not humans, as humans are unable to digest it as cows do.

But why should we trust some random guy on random blogsite?

From Webmd: Wheatgrass Claims
Summary: Review of independent peer reviewed studies of wheatgrass show that there’s little or no evidence of its purported health benefits to those who drink it.

But that’s just another website, the article isn’t peer reviewed,  and we don’t know if author left out studies in his review.  So let’s go with a renown Naturopath who is also an MD.

From Dr. Andrew Weil, MD (from Harvard),  undergrad in Botany (from Harvard); founder of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine. Currently Clinical Professor of Medicine, a Professor of Public Health, and the Lovell-Jones Professor of Integrative Rheumatology at University of Arizona School of Medicine: Wheatgrass Does Not Deliver
Summary: Wheatgrass is bullshit.  Key quotes:

On benefits of chlorophyll: chlorophyll, the green pigment that gives plants their color, has no nutritional role in the human body, a fact that hasn’t stopped promoters from making extravagant claims for it. Secondly, there’s no evidence to suggest that wheatgrass or chlorophyll are substitutes for 2.2 pounds of vegetables. If you search the medical literature for “wheatgrass,” you find very few entries and none at all suggesting that it has any health benefits for humans.

Nutritionally speaking, wheatgrass simply doesn’t deliver on the promoters’ promises. I certainly wouldn’t recommend substituting it for any of the fresh vegetables and fruits in your diet. Spend your money on good, organically produced food, not on wheatgrass or other sprouts or grasses marketed as “super-foods.”

From American Cancer Society, which has provided funding to 47 Nobel Lauretes: Review of Wheatgrass
Summary: No evidence AND beware of supplements general, as actual amount of ingredient consumer wants varies. Person who made wheatgrass a health fad was a quack and batshit crazy.

In 1982, the Massachusetts Attorney General sued Wigmore for claiming that her program could reduce or eliminate the need for insulin in diabetics. She later retracted her claims. In 1988, the Massachusetts Attorney General sued Wigmore again, this time for claiming that an “energy enzyme soup” she invented could cure AIDS. Wigmore was ordered to stop representing herself as a physician or person licensed to treat disease. Although Wigmore died in 1993, her Creative Health Institute is still active. Wheatgrass is readily available, and her diet is still in use.

So what is it about human nature that allows so many people — the highly intelligent included, even Steve Jobs gets duped — to buy snake-oils like wheatgrass, to believe in bullshit?

Human Nature
If there’s anything to be learned from Cultural Anthropology (and there’s not much), it’s that as social structure evolves — feudalism to capitalism, for instance — social codes and archetypes from one era reappear in another in a different form. Example: Aunt Jemima, year 1900.  She’s loved by White people because she takes good care of them.  Mammy, the “house nigger” archetype. Oprah Winfrey, year 2000.  Same shit, different form.  Look at her audience — mostly middle-class White women. Oprah is their Mammy, telling them which books to read, which diets to follow, which causes to get worked up about. Only difference is that Oprah makes coin because she lives in a more advanced (or different) stage of capitalism than did those who represented Aunt J in minstrel shows a century ago.

Not saying those who don’t like rap (code) necessarily hate Black people.  Not saying those with Free Tibet stickers (code) dislike Chinese people or Asians in general.  Just saying it’s human nature to classify and differentiate, to codify and regulate identities. Telling people it’s socially unacceptable to call a Chinaman (archetype) a Chinaman (code) doesn’t mean people will stop thinking of or treat the Chinaman as a Chinaman, or a Wetback a Wetback, a Dago Wop a Dago Wop.  They’ll just find a more socially acceptable way to express difference.

The codes and archetypes evolve to reflect the aims and needs of the political economy. Slavery (code) in the US didn’t end because enough people *finally* recognized such bondage as immoral. You really think white abolitionists (archetype) gave a shit about “Negroes” anymore than they cared about the “free” Irish immigrants who lived a mile away from them in conditions, according to a University of Chicago economist, even worse than those of Southern slaves? Slavery ended because enough people figured out that it doesn’t work well with industrial capitalism. Slavery became immoral because it was becoming inefficient — less productive than wage labor — and not because the temptation to exploit other people in such a way had waned. Just because material life has gotten better and society more civil doesn’t mean human nature has changed. People are still scared and vain and will seek short-cuts to the Kingdom of Heaven by trying to create Heaven on Earth, with disastrous consequences.  People will forever do some fucked up shit to each other, with most justifying, rationalizing as good and just what they’ve done, from carpet bombing a village to interrogation by torture to massacre. Instead of burning the witch at the stake, now we post compromising photos of that bitch on Instagram.

History and Human Nature
Why is it we can laugh at or be horrified by instances of human depravity and degeneracy throughout history, yet not recognize our own sins and follies? We can laugh at Ponce DeLeon for being a dumbass for searching for the Fountain of Youth (AND believe in this story which likely isn’t true), yet we fall for wheatgrass, spirulina, weight-loss pills, cock enlargement pumps, reverse-aging creams, those metal bracelets that do whatever it is they’re supposed to do, and ionized water?

Medical doctors and scientists would probably blame low scientific literacy as the source of the problem.  Sure sure, most people don’t understand the scientific method or how clinical trials work or the difference between correlation and causation or how problematic observational studies are and what can be concluded from a mice study or what “double blind peer review” means.  But I don’t think a person needs to be familiar with any of the above to detect bullshit. We have built-in bullshit detectors.  We just don’t use them.

So why don’t we use our bullshit detectors? What makes it so tempting to hear only what we want to hear, to see only what we want to see in ourselves and others?  When do we become susceptible to believing fantastic promises that appeal to our vanities?

Part of it is how history is often taught, how we understand it.  “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” Thanks for the reminder, George, but forgetting the past ISN’T the reason why history repeats itself. History repeats itself especially when it’s NOT forgotten. Guy sentenced to life in jail for vehicular homicide didn’t forget his three DUIs, he was just being human, a dumbass creature of habit.  And I’m not claiming “progress” hasn’t been made, I’ll take my toilet over whatever Jesus used. I’m saying that thinking of the trajectory of history as “moral progress”  — qualified by “if we study history” — makes us blind to ourselves, our Original Sin. Unable to see ourselves in Pol Pot, Hitler, Henry V, Catherine the Great, Stalin, Caligula, Judas Iscariot, we become arrogant, vain, self-righteous and self-satisfied.  “I would never have owned slaves,” the American Apparel clad college girl tells herself as she reads Howard Zinn’s People’s History. “I would’ve released them, then teach them how to read, to start a glorious revolution.” Twenty years later she’s living in a nearly Black-less neighborhood, and the closest she’s ever come to helping anyone Black has been her purchase of tunes from Aaliyah and a Richard Sherman jersey. How’s that for ironic living?

Superfood as Colonial Narrative
Is there an Anthropologist in the house?  We’re going to need one soon.

(Artistic license taken) “Acai berries for super duper healthy living AND to empower the peasants, save them from greedy capitalists!”  In May 2009, Bloomberg reported that the expanding popularity of açaí in the United States was “depriving Brazilian jungle dwellers of a protein-rich nutrient they’ve relied on for generations.” From Reality Check: “False claims include reversal of diabetes and other chronic illnesses, as well as expanding size of the penis and increasing men’s sexual virility.” Oops, we fucked up.

“Quinoa for super duper healthy living AND to empower the peasants, save them from greedy capitalists!”  From UK Guardian: “Ethical consumers should be aware poor Bolivians can no longer afford their staple grain, due to western demand raising prices.” Oops, we fucked up.

(From Runa website, word for word) “Runa is a social enterprise supporting indigenous farmers and reforestation in the Amazon. Runa brews beverages from guayusa, a super-leaf from the Amazon …”  We should know how this “social enterprise” (social fucking enterprise!) is going to end.  But we get duped by the same message over and over again: Fountain of Youth! Bigger Penis! Save the Peasants from Greedy Capitalists! We fall for the same pick up line because it makes us feel good, and because deep down, we don’t give a shit about those jungle dwelling brown motherfuckers, which is why we can conveniently forget — no, ignore — what happened to them last time we tried to help them. We just like to believe we care about them, and that their big big smiles are for real when they take photos with us. It’s as if colonialism never ended. Instead of gold and guns, now the imperialists use superfoods to fuck things up in their own fucked up way.  The colonial narrative, that trifecta of: glory and riches, more pussy, and White burden, continues on in American grocery stores and on dining tables.

Here’s where an Anthropologist may be of help. Instead of studying  how superfood agriculture affects the environment and culture, instead of studying the Other, let’s study White people.  By White people, I don’t mean genotype or White individuals.  I mean White people as trope, as inheritors of a colonial legacy. As consumers of *all races* unwilling to recognize the colonial past in their post-colonial present. Let’s get to the source of the problem.

History and Human Nature Part II: Self Interest vs. Vanity

Most schools and media teach history as the story about good people as victims of bad people and that we have moral obligation to help the victims of present and past and punish the bad. Put simply, propaganda. The Aliens watching us from Alpha Centauri don’t see good versus evil, they only see people doing fucked up shit to each other, just as we see animals in the wild do fucked up shit to each other but don’t assign moral value to their actions.  That’s precisely the kind of story Thucydides wrote about in History of the Peloponnesian Wars. It’s a seminal historical text because it’s the first to be so cold, detached, impartial; because it isn’t a story about good and evil, it’s about *human nature* and how we can best protect ourselves from other people. It’s a story about how there are NEITHER victims NOR volunteers.  There are only competing self-interests that sometimes come in conflict with another.

Santayana’s “remember the past so you don’t make the same mistakes,” is an alluring way to read history because it appeals to our vanity. “Those bad bad people are them, and I’m me, who would never do that, I’m better than that” we’re led to think.  Really?  The only reason why the 19 year old girl who worships Ayn Rand (a Fuck You conservative) can declare herself a Communist (combo = psychobitch, guaranteed) without a hint of irony is because she doesn’t have the power to round people up and work them to death at a labor camp. And she’s too chickenshit to do anything more than tell her Facebook friends that that bitch is not her mom. Send her back in time — give her power, make her Catherine the Great — then we’ll see who she really is. There will be blood everywhere.

If Santayana’s version of history takes down the proverbial mirror we need to recognize ourselves in our readings of the past, reading history as the codification of identity and the study of human nature nails it back up for us to see who we really are.  With history as the study of human nature on repeat, every cheat, murderer, dumbass, fool, coward, and psychopath we read about becomes a story about our present condition, a reflection of who we are. It helps us recognize our own follies, our venality and arrogance, our total depravity. It may help us to smell present-day bullshit like this:

Ignored Since the 1950s – Is Spirulina Now a ‘Miracle’ High-Protein Super Food?

Imagine a plant that can nourish your body by providing most of the protein you need to live, help prevent the annoying sniffling and sneezing of allergies, reinforce your immune system, help you control high blood pressure and cholesterol, and help protect you from cancer. Does such a “super food” exist?

Yes. It’s called spirulina.

Which isn’t much different from bullshit from the past, like this:

004_Snake_Oil_Ad

The ingredients may change, but human nature remains.

The Vanity of Vanities
According to Socrates, there are two types of people: dumbasses who know they’re dumbasses, and dumbasses who don’t.  The former ask more questions and make fewer assumptions because of their insecure knowledge. The latter ask few questions and rely on belief, bullshit, and bromides to sustain their vain sense of self. The former go with what sounds right.  The latter with what sounds good.

Vanity is self-interest turned on its side, that desire for a sense of progress and self-esteem rather than actual improvement. Pay up and pop the pill to feel like effort and progress has been made, even though it’d cost less and be more effective to consistently eat diverse and balanced meals and to exercise daily.  Vanity and its dampening affect on our bullshit detectors, not poor science literacy, is what feeds the pseudoscience and anti-science industries. Michael Schulson, on the importance of keeping our vanity in check when thinking about the politics of science (from  Whole Foods: America’s Temple of Pseudoscience):

It’s that whenever we talk about science and society, it helps to keep two rather humbling premises in mind: very few of us are anywhere near rational. And pretty much all of us are hypocrites.

And dumbasses.

SnakeOilGirl2

What if They Spend the Money on Heroin?

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So what if people spend their $1000/month guaranteed income — Andrew Yang’s “Freedom Dividend” — on heroin? We already spend money on stupid shit like schools. Teacher John Taylor Gatto:

School is a twelve-year jail sentence where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned. I teach school and win awards doing it. I should know. (from Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling)

Which use of money nets a better return on investment, funding schools or giving a heroin addict $1000/month? It’s not clear to me.

To begin with, how many heroin addicts steal to pay for their habit? How many car windows do they break? How many FEWER car windows will they break if we give them $1000/month? Let’s say ten fewer per month per junkie. That’s ~$3000 worth of damage avoided. Add the cost of police work, the cost of inconvenience, the value of items stolen, and the $1000 given to the heroin addict is an awesome deal for society.

Meanwhile, there’s considerable evidence that most of school is at best a waste of time and resources, and at worst a breeding ground of drug addicts (how many kids take Ritalin — legal meth — for school induced ADHD because they won’t pay attention to lousy lectures and complete lame assignments?) and incompetent, incomplete narcissists who learn to never ask questions except for perfunctory ones like “how are you,” to which they only want to hear perfunctory responses such as “I’m fine, thank you.” With conversations so scripted and unimaginative, it’s no wonder so many people are lonely and turn to drug abuse. Watch 3-5 year olds, they’re constantly asking questions and exploring. After even a few years of schooling, most of them will be addicted to affirmation and only know how to beg, brag, complain, and compliment when conversing.

This guy is a behavioral economist. Meaning, he’s a lot less biased than educators when evaluating the merits of education.

What if They Won’t Work?
That’s fine too, why should everyone work? The “dignity of work” is bullshit. There’s no dignity in working a job you hate and don’t see the point to other than to make money. Seventy percent of Americans say they hate their jobs. As they should: most people hate selling things they don’t believe in; following procedures that don’t require creativity; doing tasks that don’t accomplish anything; working for bosses who don’t care about them. Why force people to endure abuse? Would we force someone to play in the NFL because we think doing so builds character? Do retirees lack dignity? Or do most people find meaning outside of work — as stay at home parents, as volunteers, gardeners, grandparents, and so forth?

Universal Basic Income versus Welfare
Welfare requires a bureaucracy of administrators and social workers and god knows who else to enforce rules and regulations. Bureaucracies aren’t cheap, and their primary goal is to keep themselves alive — a lot of jobs at stake here — rather than fix the problems they’re supposed to fix. That may be why the rapid expansion of welfare programs — LBJ’s War on Poverty — starting in 1965 haven’t reduced poverty.

Note that poverty rate was declining rapidly until…the War on Poverty began. Coincidence?

The above chart claims that poverty rate would be LOWER today without the War on Poverty programs, just as some think that the literacy rate — which was increasing before the popularization of public schools — would be higher today without compulsory education. Let’s look at the cost of failed programs:

Yikes, what if we’d spent that on updating our infrastructure? How many fewer manufacturing and heavy industry jobs would we have outsourced if we’d had a modern transportation infrastructure?

Universal basic income, on the other hand, is *universal*, meaning, it’s given to all citizens above the age of 18 regardless of individual financial circumstance. It treats citizens as shareholders of a company (ie USA) who deserve a dividend, a small share of the company’s profits. Put differently, it gives taxes to the people instead of government bureaucrats who’ve proven over and over again that they mostly waste the resources they’re given and will subconsciously sabotage poor people’s lives to keep their jobs. Programs that tell the poor that they have poor diets and shitty lives because they’re poor is an example of sabotage — how can one have hope when life is so simply and easily determined and salvation is possible not from that struggle within but only from government aid?

What if They Spend the Money on Heroin?
Who knows, and at this point, why care? We don’t have enough data about the consequences of each spending habit and I showed above how spending on heroin might be better — against popular opinion — than spending on school. But we do have lots of data that suggests American government bureaucrats are, as a whole, incompetent narcissists who create stupid lobby influenced guidelines like the Food Pyramid that some think contributed to the obesity crises. Let’s suspend judgment for now and see what happens when the government stops telling people how to live their lives and we let people figure out how to live the life they want to live.

How many more like Steve Jobs would we have if we didn’t have compulsory schooling?

Why People Get Fat

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For the same reason people get hooked on meds and/or heroin.  From an NIH study:

 And yet there is substantial experimental evidence that refined sugar can promote addictive behaviours by activating the brain’s rewards centres in much the same way as addictive drugs…These connections have led to questions of whether excessive consumption of refined sugar may affect vulnerability to opioid addiction.

So sugar could be a gate-way drug to heroin.  Kevin Cann on the similarities between sugar and heroin:

High sugar foods can cause similar reactions as what we see with heroin.  Excessive amounts of sugar (as well as fat) can lead to the release of increased amounts of dopamine.

Sugar works like an opiate.  Like heroin, it reduces emotional suffering (anxiety and/or depression), and makes physical pain tolerable.

Obesity Rate and Mental Illness
Obesity rate in the US has tripled since 1980.  Same with mental illness.  Not claiming there’s a link.  Just saying.

Emotional Eaters
Self-control isn’t the problem, there’s something else going on. The person who spends more time fantasizing about carbs than does a 17 year old boy about genitals is emotionally similar to the 20 year old who can’t get it up anymore when the real deal happens because of his porn addiction. You can’t truly enjoy food when you’re obsessed with it, just as you can’t enjoy sex when it’s all you think about.

Who are Emotional Eaters?
They’re comparable to those who get PTSD.  University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson on who gets PTSD:

 

Summary for those of you who don’t want to watch it:

  • The naive get PTSD because they’re not emotionally ready to face monsters, especially the monster within.
  • The naive aren’t virtuous.  They’re emotionally corrupt infantalized adults who want a life they don’t deserve and will never happen.
  • Monsters are everywhere.  When the circumstances are right, they appear.
  • Those who don’t get PTSD recognize the monster within and in others. They’ve spent their lives preparing to face monsters.
  • The ones who blame the Monsters for their trauma will never recover.
  • Become virtuous by recognizing the monster within — “become dangerous” — and taming it to serve the greater good.

Similarly, emotional eating is an infantile reaction to “Fear and Trembling” (Kierkegaard), the anxiety and depression that sets in when life doesn’t happen as expected.  Food addiction is just a socially more acceptable version of heroin addiction — both make pain tolerable and are premised on living life as a series of escapes from, instead of engagement with, the harsh realities of life.

How to Lose Weight

What do you tell a fat person to help her lose weight?
a) Exercise more self- control
b) Stop trying to be happy
c) Start eating at Alive Juice Bar

Correct answer is B.  Jordan Peterson on why trying to be happy *all the time* makes people fat and/or batshit crazy:

Summary: The addicted are those who believe that one’s “natural” state should be one of happiness. When you think you’re supposed to be happy most of the time, an idea reinforced by much of American society — consider the moronic “Hi, how are you…I’m fine, how are you?  I’m fine too, thank you…” babble that the emotionally corrupt exchange with each other everyday — you’ll do whatever it takes to make what you think is “normal” a reality.  This is the mindset behind our addictions.

That it’s bad for you to try to make happiness our default state of mind isn’t a new idea, Peterson’s advice is based on readings of Classical philosophy and theology.  From the Bible to Plato to Buddhism to Kierkegaard to Nietzsche, there isn’t one significant philosopher and religion that tells people that life is supposed to be mostly happy.  All the great philosophers, all the great religions remind us that life is supposed to be cruel, lonely, and filled with random acts of violence.

The NFL player who is elated after winning a championship isn’t happy 99 percent of the time he’s playing and training.  He’s in pain, more pain than most people will ever experience.  Neither is the Olympic gymnast who wins a gold medal. Or Taylor Swift.  Or Madonna. Or the Nobel Laureate. Or the marathon runner.  The good life is supposed to be mostly pain and frustration and suffering with a few moments of happiness and even fewer ones of euphoria.  Those who understand how life is supposed to be will make something out of it, while the rest become addicts.

An employee who was on depression meds was missing work 3-4 times a month because of migraines (a symptom of depression).  She stopped getting migraines after I told her that “we’re all playing in pain.” How we understand our pain and suffering, not the pain and suffering itself, is what matters.

Nihilism
If life is supposed to be varying degrees pain with fleeting moment of pleasure, what’s the point? Albert Camus asked this question and he answered with a reading of the Myth of Sisyphus, the dumbass (that’s us!) who pushed a rock up a mountain only to watch it roll back to the bottom time over and over.  Summary of his reading:

You can either watch other people’s rocks roll down or be pushing yours up and up, despite knowing that someday and often it too will roll down the hill.

In the end, we die. The rock wins, we lose.  Unless you believe in God’s grace.

How to Love Monsters
Not that hard.  Imagine you get the cutest puppy in the world.

Which one of the Monsters do you pick?

First week she pisses and shits on your new rug.  Second week she chews up your Bottega Venetta bag and Zanotti sandals. Third week she chews the passenger seat of your new car.  Fourth week she steals your steak dinner while you take a piss.  Fifth week she sneaks off and brings back a dead chicken, likely from a house three blocks away.  Hate your Monster yet?

Yet it’s possible to love her.  You house-train her.  You teach her to chew on her toys and not your fashion.  You build a yard that includes a six foot fence and chicken wire underground so she doesn’t sneak off to wreck havoc. You run with her and take her to dog parks so she unleashes her energy constructively. And you learn to never, ever leave your food unattended while she’s around.

Point is, you learn to love by working with human nature and not by trusting anyone 100 percent.  You don’t let your boyfriend go on vacation to Bangkok with his buddies because you know what they’re going to do there.  You don’t marry the stripper half your age without making her sign a prenup agreement.  You don’t let your husband drive your drunk sister home. You’re not surprised to find barely legal porn in your just deceased grandfather’s collection.  You just keep pushing the rock up and up and start over when you lose grip and it falls back to the bottom, which is going to happen a lot.  So don’t take it personally when your wife fucks your best friend, just as you shouldn’t kick your dog for eating your dinner.

How do you build a child’s immune system so she doesn’t become a sickly adult?

Pick:

a) Protect her from germs and bacteria
b) Expose her to germs and bacteria
c) Educate her about germs and bacteria so she can make her own decisions

Correct answer is B.  How resilient an immune system a person has is determined by the range of germs and bacteria he’s exposed to in the first 5 years of life.  That’s why babies who grow up in homes with dogs and cats become healthier adults than counterparts without pets.  So how do you build a child’s tolerance for stress and trauma so she doesn’t end up an addict?

Final Thought

Philosopher Theodor Adorno, living in the US after fleeing Nazi Germany, called Walt Disney the most dangerous man in America.  Why would he say that?

Walt-Disney-disney-35619887-492-492

Was Walt Disney as dangerous as Hitler?

How Schools Produce Fuck Ups

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Imagine two approaches to teaching students: either impart centuries old time tested wisdom and approaches to learning disciplines, as taught by Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Da Vinci, Sun-Tzu,  Al-Khwarizmi, and so forth. Or rely on poorly tested pedagogical theories produced by academics from relatively new disciplines (eg. Education) that are based on problematic methodologies.

Most schools choose the latter. The best schools the former.  Here’s what students learn at each (latter = New; former = Classical):

New Philosophy: Be happy. Happiness is ultimate goal of life.
Classical Philosophy: You’re a dumbass, you don’t know jack shit.  Those who don’t realize they’re dumbasses who don’t know jack shit are dangerous, will never grow, and will be miserable (summary of Plato’s Republic and Socratic dialogues, which are foundations of Western philosophy).

New History: Bad people do terrible things to good people.  Good people are victims.  Be good and help these victims.
Classical History: People do some fucked up shit to each other.  Figure out ways to protect yourself from other people.  (Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian Wars).

New Science: Nature is beautiful and thus should be left alone, protected from human intrusions.
Classical Science: Nature is fascinating and unpredictable and thus will do some fucked up shit to people.  Figure out a way to work with nature, to protect yourself from its whims. (Francis Bacon).

New Math: Math is for boring people who are not creative.
Classical Math: Use of numbers is the most precise way to map and describe the world. It’s a language and critical to understanding many fields, including music and art.  (Leonardo Da Vinci).

New Literature: It’s wrong to feel hate, rage, and anger.  Such emotions must be repressed.
Classical Literature: Life is cruel, lonely, and painful.  Deal with it by embracing full spectrum of emotions, including hate, rage, and anger. Use such emotions to motivate oneself, to fight against failure.   (Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night).

New Writing: Good writing uses lots of big words, many adverbs, and strings of long sentences.  Good writing is an expression of one’s feelings.
Classical Writing: Good writing is succinct, concise, and precise.  Good writing is simple and focused on effective communication.  (Common Fucking Sense)

New Social Studies: Make the world a better place by protecting people, especially children, from stress, so they can maximize their potential and create a fair world.
Classical Social Studies: People, especially children, must be exposed to frustration and pain, and learn to embrace a wide range of experiences and emotions in order to prepare them for reality that’s often cruel and unfair. (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile).

The reason so many schools choose new, untested, theories is because they promise dramatic improvement with less work.  Figuring out what the best schools do right and emulating them is too much work and likely too offensive to too many parents. The best schools are run by leaders who understand the value of and the extraordinary effort it takes to improve on time-tested wisdom.  It takes a lot more than simply being “nice” — easy to do — to a kid to make him capable of learning how to learn, to be sentient, compassionate, and passionate.  That’s why the best schools — public and private — expose their students to pressure packed environments that test their resolve, both in the classroom and on the field. The rest instead complain that students are too overworked, too stressed from this, that, and whatever.

Consider the above distinctions carefully, how they produce different results.  For instance, the kid who thinks nature is merely beautiful is NOT going to become a scientist working to solve problems that arise from climate change because she will NOT have the same sense of urgency as that kid who thinks nature is fascinating and sometimes cruel.  She will more likely become a self-righteous activist. That’s because the “nature is beautiful” narrative feeds one’s narcissism —  “so nature is meant for my enjoyment, my pleasure, and I must defend that which is made for my pleasure.” Nature as “fascinating and cruel” motivates because it understands science as the race against disaster.  Starting to see how a public school like Stuyvesant, full of working class students, can consistently produce world changing scientists from each one of its classes, while ours mostly produce activists?

Alright, so I’m exaggerating — I was trying to get your attention — our schools don’t produce mostly fuck ups.  The point is, they’re mostly producing mediocrities and we have to figure out why that’s the case.  Unless we’re fine with mediocre, which in this rapidly globalizing and competitive world can quickly become the new Fail.  Now that’s fucked up.