This is mostly the traditional, old-fashioned moral practice of counting your blessings. Maybe before you eat dinner, you should say grace and reflect for one second about how there are people in this world who are hungry.
Hey, here's a bedtime story, kids, "The Great Gatsby." It begins:
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.It's very stodgy, very old-fashioned advice, this thinking about the less privileged. I know Rush and The National Review are acting like the professor is a big, old lefty, but I'm trying to remember that maybe they didn't have all the advantages I have had. I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, and as a consequence, I've been unjustly accused of being a politician....
“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
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176 comments:
When I read to/with my kids, my focus was on them entirely (mostly looking for a sign that they were ready to sleep ;)) I didn't have time -- or energy -- to ponder other things.
Mavis Staples, singing Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More".
Um. That wasn't the advice. What was said was "they are unfairly disadvantaging other people’s children".
That isn't thinking about how others have it harder than you. That is you are making it harder for others. Way WAY different.
And very stupid as well.
Counting one's blessings is not at all the same as being mindful that one has unfairly disadvantaged other people's children.
It's a lovely Marxist idea, however, if those are the fairy tales to be told.
the old Prof isn't saying be grateful for what you have and that you're not disadvantaged - he's saying reading to your kids is unfair in that it gives them some type of privilege that hurts the less fortunate. That's hardly true to the point of banality.
No, the professor's comments were not "mostly the traditional, old-fashioned moral practice of counting your blessings." It's one thing to say, "be thankful for what you have," but quite another thing to say that you are "unfairly disadvantaging" someone else by reading to your kids -- as if that other person's life would be improved if you DIDN'T read to your kids.
They should NEVER have a thought that being good parents is unfair, BECAUSE IT'S NOT!!!!
It's the parents who don't read to their children that should be thinking that they are disadvantaging their own kids.
I'm disappointed in your analysis of the quote. Typically, you do a great job of dissecting the language, which you fail to do here.Her active phrase "disadvantaging other people's children" is the problem. By being a good parent, one is not hurting other children. By feeding your children, you're not taking food away from hungry children. You can feel blessed and acknowledge your good fortune without feeling like you contributed to the deprivations of others.
At one point, Swift even flirted with the idea of “simply abolishing the family” as a way of “solving the social justice problem” because “there would be a more level playing field”
Too many clips in the quote. But if true, Swift needs to be taken out back and shot.
"all the advantages I have had"
I do not comprehend that. thinking that you had advantages in the first place is arrogant
Whatever happened to Cruel Neutrality?
Are you thinking in context now? Or were you always thinking in context?
I agree... once the professor put it in terms of creating an "unfair" advantage through one's actions as a parent he was no longer advising us to recognize our good luck.
Ann hits the lefty "line"/hook like a starving 90lb Muskie going full-tilt boogie.
"And the trees were all kept equal
by hatchet, axe and saw."
Fen said...
...Swift needs to be taken out back and shot.
I strongly disagree. The shooting should take place out front.
The problem is he's proposing that we should hurt privileged children in order to bring them down to the same level as disadvantaged children. This is not okay. This is violent-rebellion-level not okay.
He concludes that the only reason not to ban nighttime stories is that they produce desired "familial relationship goods". The fact that it benefits them by instilling a love of reading would otherwise be a reason to ban it.
He supports the banning of private schools, because they help some children escape public schools without helping all children. He supports the banning of all inheritance.
He toys with the idea of simply abolishing family as a solution to the social justice problem.
This goes *way* beyond urging people to count their blessings and be understanding of those with fewer or different blessings.
I get that he's mostly coming at this as a philosopher trying to explore the consequences of taking inequality as the prime good, but, still.
(For people wondering about how fairly NRO picked quotes -- click through, the original is a short and readable article.)
((I'm surprised no one has made a clever joke out of a guy named Swift proposing that we hurt children for a good cause. A Modest Proposal.))
So...being a good parent is now disadvantaging other kids?
Fen has my endorsement to be the next Attorney General. And Ignorance Is Bliss should be his top aide.
The shooting should take place out front.
BTW, this is the new black. If Pamella Geller "had it coming" because of her speech, then the same applies to SJW lefties like Swift. You write stuff that offends us? We shoot you dead.
I thought we were playing under a different, better set of rules - violence is never allowed in response to speech. But apparently I was wrong.
Making a list now, checking it twice.
Read this before you decide that that's all that was being said:
Is having a loving family an unfair advantage?
Excerpts:
The power of the family to tilt equality hasn’t gone unnoticed, and academics and public commentators have been blowing the whistle for some time.
Blowing the whistle?
One way philosophers might think about solving the social justice problem would be by simply abolishing the family.
Simply?
What we realised we needed was a way of thinking about what it was we wanted to allow parents to do for their children, and what it was that we didn’t need to allow parents to do for their children...
Allow?
For Swift and Brighouse, our society is curiously stuck in a time warp of proprietorial rights: if you biologically produce a child you own it.
Stuck?
Although it’s controversial, it seems that Swift and Brighouse are philosophically inching their way to a novel accommodation for a weathered institution ever more in need of a rationale for existing.
Do I even need to say anything? Okay, I can't help it. IN NEED OF A RATIONALE FOR EXISTING?
The problem is he's proposing that we should hurt privileged children in order to bring them down to the same level as disadvantaged children.
Isn't this the Leftist position on everything?
Your average Lefty would prefer to hurt successful people rather than improve the lives of unsuccessful people.
"Unfair."
Prof. Althouse,
I can't imagine you missed that what Prof. Swift said was that being a good parent to your child (reading to them) causes injustice to families who are not.
Why did you defend him by misrepresenting him? His statements are in no way the "old-fashioned moral practice of counting your blessings".
"Ann hits the lefty "line"/hook like a starving 90lb Muskie going full-tilt boogie."
Yup, I saw that, too.
I always thought I was raising my kids to be taxpayers because we are a vanishing breed.
I cried because I had no bedtime story until I met a man who had no red meat.
Gahrie said:
"Your average Lefty would prefer to hurt successful people rather than improve the lives of unsuccessful people."
Except for themselves of course. They still will live in the gated areas and attend Ideas Confabs in places like Aspen, from which incidentally we almost never hear about any new great ideas.
Professor, are you aware that you have been listed as one of the 100 most popular conservative sites for 2015?
http://rightwingnews.com/john-hawkins/the-100-most-popular-conservative-websites-of-2015/
You're 87.
As for "unfairly disadvantaging other people's children" the formulation seems to be that not reading to your children is the norm and that doing so is some how pernicious.
I'm reminded of a comment I saw where someone stated they knew of an English professor at a community college who stated that she would not grade minority students on grammar because good grammar was a weapon of the rich and powerful.
Surely someone as perspicacious as you can see the flaw in that reasoning.
It is a good idea to count one's blessings, but phrasing it the way the author does, that you are actively "disadvantaging" other people's children, is not a healthy perspective.
If you are causing harm (for what else can "disadvantaging" mean) to someone else, then you should stop what you are doing. It's wrong to cause harm.
By taking that perspective, he's not saying "count your blessings," he's saying you should consider NOT reading to your children, to provide a level playing field for the unfortunate children whose parents cannot or will not read to them. And that's just stupid.
Althouse provided inadequate food for thought.
The links provided by other commenters (thanks kcom) certainly feeds the notion that the left is anti-family. As if we needed more evidence.
In a vacuum, or at least on an island somewhere that modern progressive navel-gazing hasn't taken root, your point would probably be well taken, AA.
In our current culture, however, no. Not so much. The left says so themselves. Everything is political.
I think the outrage *is* justified. "Counting your blessings" is a good thing. But "counting your blessings" is not the equivalent to asserting that doing good for your own children is to act "unfairly." To act unfairly is wrong. Reading to your children is not wrong.
This is an extreme kind of leveling, to hate anything that differentiates. This sounds like Vonnegut's short-story, "Harrison Bergeron."
the professor's quote was perfectly true (to the point of banality) and his proposal was modest and apt
Would that be the proposal to abolish the family? Or to outlaw all private schooling? Or simply the proposal to address inequality by making your own kids stupider? Yes, very modest, banal even.
I know Rush and The National Review are acting like the professor is a big, old lefty, but I'm trying to remember that maybe they didn't have all the advantages I have had.
Call me crazy, but if someone wants to outlaw private schooling, and thinks getting rid of the family would be an awesome way to reduce inequality, I kinda think the "big, old lefty" label fits. But I didn't have the benefit of all those "advantages" Althouse humble-brags about when I was growing up.
Of course, Althouse is just trolling.
"she would not grade minority students on grammar because good grammar was a weapon of the rich and powerful"
Which leads to the obvious response from a minority student:
Professor, please grade me on grammar because I want to be rich and powerful one day. Or do you want me to be stuck here for the rest of my life?
@Althouse: Sometimes, pushing the rock uphill all the time is just silly. Think in terms of thermodynamics.
You've got it flat wrong, Ann. He's not suggesting that parents count their blessings that they are able to give their children advantages. He's not even suggesting that parents of advantaged children should remember that not all children have the same advantages. He's stating that giving your children advantages affirmatively harms other children -- that reading to a child "unfairly disadvantages" another child. That's pernicious and ridiculous.
There isn't some finite supply of advantages in the world, for crying out loud, so that if I use some of them on my child, they'll get used up and there won't be any left for other people's children. If anything, it's the opposite -- kids who are read to or otherwise "advantaged" in childhood may be more likely to grow up into good teachers, good doctors, good homebuilders, whatever -- which is good for everybody, including the people who didn't get read to as kids. If I disadvantage my child by throwing away all of his books so he won't "unfairly" get ahead of the kid next door, well then, we have two kids who won't grow up to do as well, rather than one. They'll be competing with each other for minimum wage jobs or prison cell space. How does that help the disadvantaged kid next door?
I'm surprised at you, Ann, for abandoning your usual sharp reading skills and falling for this one.
At some point the Marxist/liberal/progressive/Democrat argument becomes so perverse that it's obvious to all - perhaps even them.
Giving your children an advantage because you have more money is always obscene in their minds, now the simple exercise of parental attention is unfair and obscene and thus must be regulated.
I cherish fondly my memories of when I was a child and my mother's boyfriend would read the cartoons and jokes of the latest 'Playboy' to me.
Sometimes he had to explain things, and sometimes we just looked at the pictures.
I can't help it if that put me ahead of the others.
I am Laslo.
"Although it’s controversial, it seems that Swift and Brighouse are philosophically inching their way to a novel accommodation for a weathered institution ever more in need of a rationale for existing."
Oh, they're that kind of maleducated nitwits.
With all due respect Professor, you are wrong. I will argue from my own experience. In the 60's, after 3rd grade, the KC public schools selected the top IQ students and placed them in classes called Academically Talented. One of these children was me. We had cutting edge math books that were created in response to Sputnik; extra reading; more vocabulary; and an annual term paper requirement. This program made the difference between me becoming an engineer with advanced degrees or me becoming someone with a less math intensive profession. As an evangelical, I have never failed to count my blessings for this program, but somehow it never occurred to me that I disadvantaged the students at the school I left.
But take heart! In the 70's the KCPS eliminated this program because it was racist. If I recall the language, which I'm sure you will appreciate, was, "unintended resegregative effects." Getting rid of the program for working class students has had no effect on wealthier students who can obtain private schooling, or move to a better school district. For those of us who were stuck in the public schools, however, this was a Godsend.
I've got a rationale for you. It's called BIOLOGY.
And maleducated is so apt.
Ramzpaul covered this in Neighbor's goat, too, must die.
Children starving in China is all we ever heard about.
It had to do mostly with peas.
Sorry, the professor is an idiot and is one of those people that make normal folks wonder why any taxpayer is funding higher ed as is.
It's very stodgy, very old-fashioned advice, this thinking about the less privileged.
But what if the prof is privileged over me? I cannot comment? Then what is the point of noticing "privilege" (whatever the hell it means)?
To be honest, I could give two fucks about anybody else's kids. If they don't read to them, I don't care. My father in law called me a racist for moving to avoid going to a ghetto school. Told him that I'm not sacrificing MY kids for HIS feelings.
And, as the others said, it's not saying "Be thankful". It's saying "you're fucking over other people's kids". And to that I respond "Yup. Sucks their parents don't care about them, but I can't raise the world"
This is the same "privilege" shit that has killed academia even more in the eyes of society. I'd prefer to zero out the budget of universities completely.
Your average Lefty would prefer to hurt successful people rather than improve the lives of unsuccessful people.
No joke. Conservatives prefer mass success. Progs prefer mass failure with a few (always them) being fabulously successful.
I know some of you have not had the advantages that I have had. It's not that I'm constantly thinking about what I have that puts you at a disadvantage, but sometimes I pause for a moment to reflect.
Eric the Fruit Bat said...
I cried because I had no bedtime story until I met a man who had no red meat.
I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.
So I asked him, "Hey dude, can I have your shoes?"
"...but I think they should have that thought occasionally."
No, because it remains to be shown that reading stories to children has any long-term positive effect on them.
I would encourage you to read the original article at ABC Australia. There is a lot of talk about what we should "allow" families to do for their children. I am thankful the world for the most part is not run by Marxist philosophers.
What I found most amazing is that Professor Althouse didn't say that she agreed with this crap. She said it was true. As if it were some well-accepted fact.
She needs to get away from Madison more often. Her worldview is getting seriously skewed.
Reading to your kids isn't unfair and doesn't disadvantage anyone. It actually tends to improve the well-being of all people by helping to add more people capable of ideas that help.
Why did you defend him by misrepresenting him? His statements are in no way the "old-fashioned moral practice of counting your blessings
"One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool."
- Orwell, Notes on Nationalism, October 1945
Althouse desperately needs to listen to this talk. She'll learn more of value than the average UW student learns in a semester.
http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_ridley_when_ideas_have_sex?language=en
Lateral thinking is hard.
But it's fun and very useful.
Try it. It's to your advantage.
Every time you read to your child you cause garage to tumble down another rung.
I know some of you have not had the advantages that I have had. It's not that I'm constantly thinking about what I have that puts you at a disadvantage, but sometimes I pause for a moment to reflect.
Buy a mirror. You are being savaged in your own comment thread.
And if you think you are trolling us here, you're doing it wrong.
Why is he a professor at the University instead of teaching in the ghetto?
Red meat eaten by red meat eaters.
"I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that... made me the victim of not a few veteran bores"
"But take heart! In the 70's the KCPS eliminated this program because it was racist. If I recall the language, which I'm sure you will appreciate, was, "unintended resegregative effects.""
These days they don't have such programs because it is "unfair" to the other students. The reasoning is that exceptionally intelligent kids need to stay in the classroom with median IQ and mainstreamed children so that they can help educate them. And with limited resources the school system chooses to devote the resources they do have to the less intelligent because, they reason, the smarter kids can take care of themselves.
Also, IQ tests are racist and don't measure anything innate.
Parents of smarter kids and the ambitious get around this with AP classes.
That is, if they are well to do. Smart kids from working class backgrounds need to become plumbers and stop competing with medium IQ kids from well connected families for slots in Ivy League schools.
The guy teaches about Plato. Ever heard of him? Hello???
Althouse: "Lateral thinking is hard."
Not really. But is it true that each time you engage in lateral thinking that you disadvantage non-lateral thinkers?
The key here is that Ann naturally falls into this left-wing assumption that life is zero sum.
That is the most interesting aspect of the post. She has left-wing default assumptions.
I must say, if you can look at this fellow and rationalize it as the age-old 'count your blessings'...
... then I need to do a little more reflecting about how grateful I am I didn't have all of your advantages, either.
I think it's terribly Euro-centric and structurally racist to assumes that reading to children gives them an advantage. It devalues the wonderful diversity of oral traditions that have flourished outside of the colonialist West.
I've been nano-traumatized by this micro-aggression.
If you do read to them though, start with Vonnegut's "The Handicapper General".
Everyone else has already made all the pints and then some that I would have made except emphasizing the use of the word "fair" in all its forms nearly always means that which the author wants rather than any sense of actual equity. I despise the word.
The links provided by other commenters (thanks kcom) certainly feeds the notion that the left is anti-family. As if we needed more evidence.
Is it obvious to everyone that its because they want the State to replace family? They want more "Julias" dependent on the government?
It just seems like the moves of the Statists always telegraph that they view the family as competition for something...
The article is an admission that "cultural equality" is a real problem for the left. They feel it just isn't fair that one group imposes social values on themselves such as staying married, educating your kids etc... which have a byproduct of economic success for that group which further results in economic inequality. Thus, one way to create more economic equality is to tear down the cultural values of these groups (the white middle class). It reminds me of discrimination against Jews. People discriminate/envy against Jews because of their economic success, when much of that economic success is the result of culture (i.e., Jews sticking together.)
I was too busy worrying that raising my two daughters in a stable family was unfairly disadvantaging other kids. Now I'm concerned that my oldest daughter, who is off to college in the Fall to study engineering, will unfairly disadvantage others who might not have dirty water or horrible conditions because of something she might design or build.
It's true. You never stop worrying about your kids.
Professor Swift said, "One way philosophers might think about solving the social justice problem would be by simply abolishing the family. If the family is this source of unfairness in society then it looks plausible to think that if we abolished the family there would be a more level playing field.’
Well, we in the colonies are way ahead of the crown on this as evidenced in the black communities. And with gay marriage, we are now working on families as a whole. I feel sure that with the pace we have established in the past decade or so, we will soon catch the mother country in this area.
The guy teaches about Plato. Ever heard of him? Hello???
I teach about Plato, ergo you should accept whatever bullshit comes out my mouth.
Has someone hijacked your account?
How "they are unfairly disadvantaging other people’s children" can be equated with counting your blessings is beyond me. Hopefully, I'm not capable of thinking that absurdly.
Professor at 9:42.
I totally understand your sentiment. I will add in, speaking only for myself, that I have a genetic endowment that is worth a ton of IQ points, figuratively speaking. but, that is not the argument that the Canadian Professor is making. It appears to me that he would be making the "noblesse oblige" argument. But, he doesn't say: you've had advantages other's haven't; so you have responsibilities. He says: by using your advantages, you are harming others.
When my mother tried to get us to eat green peas, she would advise us that millions of Chinese people were starving.
I'm not sure where this idea of getting us to eat them came from, but it didn't work.
We'd tell her: "Name five!"
"I've been nano-traumatized by this micro-aggression."
And I'm pico-sympathetic.
Ann Althouse said...
I know some of you have not had the advantages that I have had. It's not that I'm constantly thinking about what I have that puts you at a disadvantage, but sometimes I pause for a moment to reflect.
And then I often think of the things I've had that put you at a disadvantage.
Usually when you get on your not so cruelly neutral high horse.
"The guy teaches about Plato. Ever heard of him? Hello???"
Yeah, yeah. The Republic. We get it.
Here is a link to a pdf in case anyone hasn't read it.
http://www.aprendendoingles.com.br/ebooks/republic.pdf
I do equilateral thinking because it's fairer.
Ralph Hyatt
I wanted to be an airline mechanic like my Father. He wanted me to be an engineer. He won.
Nah, Althouse is trying to troll us again. She's all pissy again. Did someone yawn at another one of her posts on homosexuals? Fess up.
I take retroactive pleasure in striking daily blows against the Progs by reading to my kids. If this foolishness takes off, sensible parents will be even more motivated: "Fuck the left. We'll read another hour."
Of course, Asian-American parents are in a rat race trying to overcome the bias against their kids in college admissions. They don't "count their blessings." They try to cope with a system stacked against them
"I don’t think parents reading their children bedtime stories should constantly have in their minds the way that they are unfairly disadvantaging other people’s children, but I think they should have that thought occasionally."
-----------
The phrasing is so weird. I can see how one might write: "Reading to your child provides him or her with advantages in cognitive development ..."
but I would never think of it in the negative as "Reading to your child disadvantages other children."
Is the professor afraid to be seen as "punching down", not wanting to blame poor parents for not reading to their children and thus being the cause of their academic failures?
What rot. I've never heard that when I studied all night for an exam or completed my homework I was disadvantaging my lazy fellow students!
It appears to me that he would be making the "noblesse oblige"
That's the other problem with this Swift joker - he's a teacher and a writer, but somehow just can't exactly communicate what's he's on about here... lots of space left to weasel out of.
Perhaps "good looking" people should cut their faces so that we can have more equality when it comes to finding potential mates and jobs. In the name of fairness.
Naturally thin people should not be allowed to exercise, so that they plump out. Its only fair.
The guy teaches about Plato. Ever heard of him? Hello???
This guy's answer is to snuff out the light so everyone chained in the cave is equally blind. Because, Equality! -CP
Why should only white, middle class people count their blessings? Shouldn't black people be instructed to take note that in a time when they were forced to travel in the back of the bus, other disadvantaged minorities were forced to travel in boxcars enroute to gulags and concentration camps?
Exactly, Boltforge.
Not even close to being reminded to count your blessings.
"That is the most interesting aspect of the post. She has left-wing default assumptions."
I disagree - it is her most boring trait. Fortunately, it does not surface every day.
""I don’t think parents reading their children bedtime stories should constantly have in their minds the way that they are unfairly disadvantaging other people’s children, but I think they should have that thought occasionally.""
Nonsense. The best thing you can do for other people's children is to give your children all the advantages you can, so that when they grow up they'll be in a better position to support all those other peoples' worthless loser slacker brats.
I see the point. Acting white like a father who does not abandon his sons is racist. Ergo: being born into a sane Christian family causes guilt requiring reparations payments.
We hold this truth to be self-evident, that Plato and his Republic are the answer to all of mankind's questions.
I learned that in school.
I know some of you have not had the advantages that I have had. It's not that I'm constantly thinking about what I have that puts you at a disadvantage, but sometimes I pause for a moment to reflect.
Lateral thinking is hard. But it's fun and very useful. Try it. It's to your advantage.
What time is it in Wisconsin? 'Cause it's a little early to be hitting the bottle.
Althouse - there was a story the other day that claimed learning new things gave one a high equal to cocaine. If that were true, I wondered why only certain groups seem to get the learning bug while others tend to use real cocaine instead?
You can lead ghetto kids to free audible Great Courses downloaded on ipads, but you cannot get them to listen.
The fathers are the missing link.
I have a theory about the English public schools like Eton and Harrow. They existed not to give the children of the wealthy and the privileged a childhood of comfort and cosseting, but rather the opposite. Bad food, cold baths, endless bullying, memorizing the irregular verbs of dead languages, and the occasional caning or act sodomy all served to guarantee a miserable childhood. The children thus exposed to this early suffering were hardened to life's travails and could go on to rule India with a steady hand and clear conscience.
Having read the comments, the professor appears to have, at the very least, a problem with tone. I don't read his comments so much as being about counting one's blessings, but a lament that wanting the best for your children isn't viewed more often as a problem.
Taken to the extreme, why don't we also say that it's an unfair advantage that we send our kids to school when other kids can't go to school? That we provide food for them, and social services, and sports activities? Are food stamps a social injustice?
Are we supposed to think how we're disadvantaging other kids every time we send our kids to school? Should Althouse feel guilty teaching law students because it's an unfair disadvantage to law students not so lucky?
Not exactly a fair analogy.
Good parents don't "disadvantage" the children of bad parents. Bad parents "disadvantage" their children.
Time to stop making excuses for behavior that leads to bad outcomes.
The philosophy professor takes a banal point and twists it into the absurd. It is a neat trick of logic in how it was done, but the point (either intended or unintended) is so ridiculous that it is no longer useful to the conversation.
Perhaps (to quote Rush), the philosophy professor was illustrating absurdity by being absurd...but I doubt it.
Bill and Hillary Clinton reading to little Chelsea in Little Rock did not make her privileged and disadvantage others. Sending her to Sidwell Friends or Stanford didn't do that either. Bill and Hillary getting her six-figure jobs for not doing anything makes her privileged and disadvantages others.
I think most conservatives realize that liberals live in a bubble and therefore lack our more informed perspective.
I have to believe that Professor Althouse is being ironic in a super deadpan meta way. She likes to put ideas out there for dissection and debate. It's fun and a brain-stretcher.
Presumably Professor Adam Swift is doing the same. Who can possibly know what he really believes? Intellectuals don't need to believe anything, they just need to generate ideas and get people talking.
I am reminded of Athens story written by Prifessor Swift's namesake. No, not "A Modest Proposal" (although that is also very apt). But rather the flying island of Laputa in "Gulliver's Travels."
The inhabitants were the quintessential intellectuals.
From Althouse's post earlier this morning, titled "Teaching your children about the history of the United States -- through reading and travel":
Is this something you've done or will do for your children? Did your parents do it for you? Mine did, a bit, with trips to Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia. I appreciate what they did, and I wish I'd done more.
There you have it, Althouse wishes her parents had disadvantaged even more poor kids.
I think Ann should reflect on who she is disadvantaging when she reads her students some con law stories. Not constantly, just occasionally.
Because only educating some is disadvantaging others.
"memorizing the irregular verbs of dead languages"
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=monty+python+life+of+brian+grammar&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=2C902F41BD0B3A3FF7E72C902F41BD0B3A3FF7E7
Sorry, typo. "Athens story" should be "another story."
Smilin' Jack writes: "The best thing you can do for other people's children is to give your children all the advantages you can, so that when they grow up they'll be in a better position to support all those other peoples' worthless loser slacker brats."
When my sibs and I were "youths" with the normal occasional urges to devote our lives to helping others, our father usually reminded us that if we wanted to do that, our first obligation was to not be a burden ourselves.
Also: what Mrs Whatsit said, x10.
Also: When I read Republic at Cal, the prof pointed out to us the section where Socrates launches into the whole thing in response to the question about how one should order one's own life. I took this literally, and ignored the "politics", which are absurd to anyone with any kind of historical perspective.
I wish he would have said people who do not read to their children should constantly have in their minds that they are unfairly disadvantaging their own children.
That's true. And that's something that would encourage a positive solution.
Imagine if everyone simply did right by their own kids!
Imagine the world then!
Swift is right. In fact, we've been working at closing the achievement gap from the wrong angle all along. Lowering grades and test scores of whites is easier than raising blacks. We need to start a campaign to get whites to discourage their kids from academics. We could run targeted ads with slogans like, "Whatcha readin' for, faggot?", and "You ain't gonna find a boyfriend in a geometry book." Not targeted at blacks or hispanics of course. And not at Jews or Asians, either, cuz we still need doctors and shit.
Owen said...
"I have to believe that Professor Althouse is being ironic in a super deadpan meta way. ... Presumably Professor Adam Swift is doing the same."
No. They really think that way. You need to understand that Intelligence, Knowledge, and Wisdom is a three set Venn Diagram. Very very few people are in all three sets. Almost none of those people are in academia.
The modern academic is in the intelligent-knowledgeable-fools region.
To steal from Chesterton (and replace Eugenist with Academic) ...
Most [Academics] are Euphemists. I mean merely that short words startle them, while long words soothe them. And they are utterly incapable of translating the one into the other, however obviously they mean the same thing. Say to them "The persuasive and even coercive powers of the citizen should enable him to make sure that the burden of longevity in the previous generation does not become disproportionate and intolerable, especially to the females"; say this to them and they will sway slightly to and fro like babies sent to sleep in cradles. Say to them "Murder your mother," and they sit up quite suddenly. Yet the two sentences, in cold logic, are exactly the same. Say to them "It is not improbable that a period may arrive when the narrow if once useful distinction between the anthropoid homo and the other animals, which has been modified on so many moral points, may be modified also even in regard to the important question of the extension of human diet"; say this to them, and beauty born of murmuring sound will pass into their face. But say to them, in a simple, manly, hearty way "Let's eat a man!" and their surprise is quite surprising. Yet the sentences say just the same thing.
The phrasing is the problem. It would be fine to think about all those children who are disadvantaged by not having parents who read to them (a disadvantage that is surprisingly large--those children hear literally millions fewer words during their most formative years).
It is not fine to suggest (as he clearly is) that parents should feel a little guilty about reading to their children. His intention might be good, but his emphasis is completely wrong.
No, no, no, no, you could not be more wrong. We should be thankful for our advantages, we should not let them go to waste, but we do not have to feel guilty about them.
I have ZERO responsibility for other people's children. Let "other people" look out for their own children or not have them. You and Michelle Obama (Museums are unfair to blacks")will not be happy until we are all living in dirt huts, grunting and falling upon each other in public in order to create new little hunter-gatherers. To hell with both of you. Or should I say, "to Africa with both of you." They appear to be pretty equal there.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=idiocracy+president+camacho+quotes&FORM=HDRSC3#view=detail&mid=544CB900D2AA4DC41F86544CB900D2AA4DC41F86
It's becoming almost impossible to satirize the left.
Ok, fine, Professor. It always does help to go to the original sources. I concede your point, now that I read the original article.
No offense, but living in Seattle has girded my loins, may even have made the issue somewhat personal for me, but I also fancy myself to have a pretty good Leftist/collectivist bullshit detector by now, too.
From the actual Commie fresh off his tour from Peru, with a black beret, hawking his Commie book...
...To the huge and wasteful Department of L & I...
...To an actual socialist on the City Council and endless, often childish demands, crises, and protests In the papers...
...To the public transport that will never pay for itself...and the green 'upper class' do gooderism that's almost always for thee and never for me...
...for a recent day in a bookstore near campus, where one older 'liberated' lady, in front of her younger cohort, suggested me and the guy in front of me 'fight it out' half-jokingly to see who was in line first and then suggested we duel (almost always lesbians, such women, projecting their aggression)....then went back to their conversation about class oppression...
This is Leftist bullshit, Althouse, impossible, ideological Utopianism with rigid authoritarian/totalitarian consequences in the real world trotted out in broader context.
You don't have to be in bed with Rush to see that.
I believe Kurt Vonnegut addressed this argument in "Harrison Bergeron."
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
One does not reflect upon the starving children of Africa while the blessing is being said before the meal.
One properly reflects upon starving children when only Brussels Sprouts remain on one's plate, and desert is withheld until they are eaten.
"Good parents don't "disadvantage" the children of bad parents. Bad parents "disadvantage" their children."
By fostering crime, ignorance, dependency and failure, bad parents disadvantage everyone in a society.
[He] wouldn’t want to ban [bedtime stories], but [said]: “I don’t think parents reading their children bedtime stories should constantly have in their minds the way that they are unfairly disadvantaging other people’s children, but I think they should have that thought occasionally.”
Well maybe you do think "his proposal is modest and apt" but I don't. He's off by 180 degrees, as most big old lefties are, with two specific points in this quote above illustrating his deficiencies nicely. First, parents who read to their own children are in no way "unfairly disadvantaging other people’s children" at all. They are providing enrichment to their own children, which is exactly what we (used to) expect "good" parents to do. It has no effect on OTHER people's children. It can't. It's impossible. In this existing universe only the other people and their children can effect those children with respect to bedtime reading. It's up to those loser parents to step up and raise their kids properly.
Which brings up my second point. Liberal guilt. That the "modest and apt" proposal I see him offering but it's the same old leftist first impulse. Somehow it's always someone else's fault that so many parents are satisfied with putting less effort than necessary to raise their children and provide the proper environment for success. It's my fault their lazy bastards? I don't think so, Swifty! And the best reason for rejecting this nascent argument is that it is always and forever only the first step towards the totalitarianism driving the desires of progressives like Mr. Swift. Rush was right (as usual) that this is just setting the stage for an outright ban on bedtime stories. How many times do you have to see this sitcom-like plot before you can see where it's headed?
The problem with so much progressivism is that their solutions are regressive: tear down the achievers, lower standards, dumb-ass the tests, waive requirements, dilute definitions. Fifty years of the war on poverty proves that throwing money at the problem won't lift the poor. We still have 16% mired in poverty, the exact same proportion we had in 1964. Not even a 1% change after $30 Trillion spent. Because the goal wasn't to end poverty but to extract wealth from the other end of the economic spectrum. Every progressive plan ends up being a way to punish earners and savers and drag the average down so we are all a little closer to poverty, and no one on the bottom rung is lifted out.
Modest and apt my ass. He's another loon with stupid ideas that will become mainstream if progs have their way.
If he used the term "unfairly disadvantaging" then this is beyond even the "check your privilege" crap and going into "you're being unfair".
If you save up and send your kid to prep school and then Harvard, and hire him tutors, then you are giving him privileges that most others don't have, but there's nothing wrong with that (though there is something wrong with pretending your kid is competing on a level playing field with others who don't have such advantages). However, there is NOTHING unfair about this. Are you preventing other kids from having such advantages? No.
And to expand that to something as elemental as spending time with your kid, reading to them--considering anything like that "unfair" because other kids might have neglectful parents--is offensive.
What's next--"if you don't beat your kids, you're unfairly giving them a leg up on kids who are getting beaten"? If you feed your kids, you're giving them unfair advantages over starving children?
Perhaps this exposes the leftist mind for what it is when you strip it of all moderation--a hateful, nihilistic ideology that must destroy in the name of mindless "equality" to spread the misery.
Social Darwinism - meet Social Procrusteanism.
There is a difference between imagining that you are disadvantaging other people’s children, and counting your blessings. In what conceivable way are you disadvantaging anyone by reading to your child?
A sense of the fundamental decencies has been parceled out unequally at birth.
New grandma here--except for the old children's books, which are generally readily available for free at library book sales, and probably 10 for 1.00 at garage sales and thrift stores, you'd be shocked at the "new" children's books (I'm talking target audience of 1-2 year-olds) laden with subtle indoctrination on global warming, gender neutrality, conservation, etc. (As are the cartoons!)
They underprivileged are better off using the free old ragged books to spur their child's creativity and curiosity, versus the crap bs in the new books.
Ugh. This is what I get for commenting before I've had my second cup of coffee.
Professor Althouse writes: "... his proposal was modest..." about something written by a Swift.
She's already making the Jonathan Swift "A Modest Proposal" joke, and it just flew over my head before.
The menopause strikes hard today in Madison apparently.
I occasionally have the thought that Anne's lack of both an X and Y chromosome disadvantages her intellectual and logical reasoning abilities.
Such disadvantages are "ugly."
Theranter,
The old books were propaganda as well. My parents read me the Great Gatsby instead.
I read my kids Blood Meridian. They loved it.
I'm beginning o see that NotQuiteBuckley may be onto something.
Usually I'm the dense one around here, but today it turns out all the rest of you are the slow ones.
Now you'll excuse me while I go eat my baby for lunch - sure he all gristle, but money's tight right now.
dreams said...
I think most conservatives realize that liberals live in a bubble and therefore lack our more informed perspective.
I do not think our lovely and charming hostess is a liberal. I think she is struggling mightily to be a classical liberal. There are just some holdover prejudices she has to overcome.
I know some of you have not had the advantages that I have had. It's not that I'm constantly thinking about what I have that puts you at a disadvantage, but sometimes I pause for a moment to reflect.
I don't think any of what you have puts me or mine at a disadvantage.
When I feed my children healthy food, am I disadvantaging the children who will only eat unhealthy food today?
Or am I simply doing something ever parent could easily be doing, and count my blessings that I know enough to do it?
It's the latter.
It puts you at a stupidity disadvantage, yes. But only progressives seem to want to compete on stupidity.
This guy isn't saying to count your blessings. His own words are that by reading your kids bedtime stories, you are "unfairly disadvantaging other people's children". You're cheating. You're hurting others. By practicing good habits.
Actually, it's not the "unfair" part that is incorrect--it's the idea that it is the parent doing the "good" thing that "puts" the unfortunate kid (the one with the lousy parent) at the disadvantage.
It is unfair that some kids are born to parents that cannot or will not provide advantages. It is not the parent who does provide such advantages for their kid that is at fault for this difference.
This exposes the leftist mind--their reach for "equality" is all bringing everyone down to the same level. We've seen how societies operate when they adopt this goal.
Maybe this fool will feel guilty every time he does something nice (or refrains from doing something abusive) for his kid. But he can keep his mental problems to himself.
No. Professor Althouse is very wrong on this one.
This is not a suggestion to "count your blessings," which is an act of gratitude and humility, it's a suggestion to 1) feel guilty and 2) an implied suggestion that you should read to your children less because other children are not as privileged as yours.
They are two very different things.
Some things are so stupid only a "liberal" would believe them.
Actually, it's not the "unfair" part that is incorrect--it's the idea that it is the parent doing the "good" thing that "puts" the unfortunate kid (the one with the lousy parent) at the disadvantage.
It is unfair that some kids are born to parents that cannot or will not provide advantages. It is not the parent who does provide such advantages for their kid that is at fault for this difference.
Exactly1
"Left" = 4 letter word.
"Envy" = 4 letter word.
Coincidence? I don't think so.
My lateral thinking skills were also a little slow this morning, leaving me desensitized to irony. I too failed to pick up on our hostess' sly juxtaposition of Swift / proposal / modest...
Nicely, done Althouse. Nicely done. “Fine words! I wonder where you stole them.”
Althouse,
It is not the same as "count your blessings." As someone who makes a study of word choices, you have to know that. It is particularly evil because it attempts to turn a virtue (reading to one's kids) into a vice (disadvantaging others).
To what end, Althouse? For what purpose do you contemplate how some do not have it as good as did you? This could prove to be useful to you and those around you.
Now do you feel guilty about those advantages? This cannot be good for you or anybody else.
Therein lies the difference.
Apparently the Swift family has squandered their genetic inheritance, while keeping the coffers full.
Who knew that the old man's thesis could be improved so simply by proposing to eat the English babies too? Not to mention the German ones, the Italian ones . . .
These days, though, the closer they get to gestation, the more market value they have. The chefs simply require more flesh for appetizers and entrees, though with the right sear on the skin and proper seasoning, the country of origin can be disguised. Those who require strict organic meals will happily pay extra for the USDA label.
R.I.P. Jonathan.
So Althouse thinks this was a homage to Jonathan Swift, and the rest of this think this is a typical Lefty.
It'll be interesting to see who was right.
He could have taken it another provocative direction:
Rejoice! For every page you read is yet another step ahead in the human race. For a race it is, and to read is but to win.
Our culture is in desperate need of clever, unpredictable provocateurs.
P.S. -- Only two impediments stand in the way to ramping up production and harvest: counteracting oxytocin (potential yield and herd loss) and hyping muffin-top fashion (current trends limit size and speed of output).
The proof of the pudding is in the author's loose (homeschooling) or strict (parochial, for-profit) definition of private schooling.
Maybe wrote;
That's true. And that's something that would encourage a positive solution.
Imagine if everyone simply did right by their own kids!
Imagine the world then!
Then gay people would marry someone of the opposite sex so that their children could have both a mother and a father.
Thinking laterally:
1. I disagree with the following un examined premises in this Swiftian modest proposal:
A. Equality is more important than excellence.
B. Society is more important than family or individuals
C. Nurture defines outcomes over nature.
D. Society has the moral authority to dictate the raising of children beyond the basic safety neglect issues it is entrusted with.
E. Biological bonds do not exist
F. People will not try to find a way around rules like this.
I worked especially hard to disadvantage other people's children. Not only did I read to my kids, I read my youngest son the Iliad front to back. Plus I spoke to him a lot, many hundreds of thousands of words were uttered in his presence and even to him in conversation. To really fuck with other people's children I sent mine to private schools and tutors when they struggled. I took them on trips knowing that some poor black kid somewhere was getting an extra dose of disadvantage as a result. I drove old cars and was a penny pincher so that other people's kids would do poorly.
I have those thoughts occasionally.
Our culture is in desperate need of clever, unpredictable provocateurs.
Indeed!
Because if he and/or Althouse are trying to be provocateurs, they sound too much like the people who actually, literally believe these thoughts. Too predictable!
"The proof of the pudding is in the author's loose (homeschooling) or strict (parochial, for-profit) definition of private schooling."
Keep in mind that he's British. I get from reading him that his definition of private schooling is Eton and the like, where the aristocrats of England sent their children. Truly the 1% or 1/2% or 1/4% or higher. I think in that sense, he's fighting a fight (with a chip on his shoulder) that doesn't have much direct translation here.
‘Politicians love to talk about family values, but meanwhile the family is in flux and so we [Swift and his co-author named Brighouse (!)] wanted to go back to philosophical basics to work out what are families for and what’s so great about them and then we can start to figure out whether it matters whether you have two parents or three or one, or whether they’re heterosexual etcetera.’
It's always about reinventing the wheel with these eggheads. Sheesh.
I've decided the true privilege I have is "functional privilege". I was raised in a loving functional family, I was sheltered from all types of dysfunction, I have no mental illness, I was provided with a moral compass and I was loved, encouraged and valued. I am unable to understand dysfunction in all it's forms: from addiction to violence to victim hood to low self esteem. I am unable too see or feel microaggressions. I have no empathy for those overwhelmed by the minor challenges of daily life. I am incapable of checking this privilege. And the last sign of functional privilege: I could not care less what social justice warriors think of me and will not humor those who refuse to acknowledge reality. I try to function-Splain to them.
"they should have that thought occasionally" and gloat.
I should also note that I disadvantaged the children of others by exposing my own to classical music both live and recorded. I also do not say motherfucker near my children.
Althouse: "This is mostly the traditional, old-fashioned moral practice of counting your blessings. Maybe before you eat dinner, you should say grace and reflect for one second about how there are people in this world who are hungry."
Actually, this is how Marxists count their blessings. People who actually believe in God give thanks without implying that because God has blessed them, he has withheld his blessing from others.
This is not, however, an impediment to Christian generosity through which millions are fed and clothed every day.
http://www.hillcountrynews.com/news/article_77ff9eba-e127-11e3-a48e-0019bb2963f4.html
Or is reading to & with someone else's kid unfairly disadvantaging other peoples kids? Where dies it end? Making everyone illiterate?
It is long past time to stop granting people who say things like this the benefit of the doubt. Sorry, Professor, the soothing interpretation would have worked on me in the past. Not any more.
"It is long past time to stop granting people who say things like this the benefit of the doubt. Sorry, Professor, the soothing interpretation would have worked on me in the past. Not any more."
The thing is, there's not even any doubt here--this guy thinks it is the fault of good parents that other kids suffer from lousy parents. The only charitable interpretation is that he was in some fugue state from being bitten by a strange fly and started shouting gibberish.
What fucking business is it of this shit bag leftist professor in the first place?
These lefty douchebags have SERIOUS boundary issues.
In order for it to make sense that reading to one's own children unfairly disadvantages others', one has to assume that their is a fixed pot of bedtime story readings and that you are taking more than your share for your kids.
Seriously, Ann, his proposal is not moderate or reasonable at all. It's Harrison Bergeron, where they tie weights to the graceful and permanently attach face masks to the beautiful.
"I get that he's mostly coming at this as a philosopher trying to explore the consequences of taking [in]equality as the prime good" - The logical end point of taking equality as the primary social good is the Killing Fields. There, the Cambodian Communist Party endeavored to create the perfectly equal society by eliminating all who were too smart, too educated, too rich, too popular, too beautiful, too successful, too bourgeois or who in any way stood out.
I read my kids the Iliad and the Odyssey,
After all of L Frank Baum, some of Terry Pratchett, and etc. and etc.
I gave up in each case in the middle of Tom Wolfe, "The Right Stuff".
In all but one case each eventually saw it my way, despising Faulkner.
#winning
Seems like it's counting your blessings only if that means:
Maybe before you eat dinner, you should say grace and reflect for one second about how there are people in this world who are hungry and it's your fault.
kzookitty
I used to look for such subtleties when exposed to a academic nonsense in undergrad in the 1980s. Now I realize they were deadly serious advance parties prepping the ground for today's toxic university environment. These oh-so-clever ruminations and linguistic gymnastics are neither benign nor ironic. They are dangerous, but feel free to be amused and make whimsical connections all the while ignoring the glaringly evil philosophical underpinnings.
Ann Althouse said...
I know some of you have not had the advantages that I have had. It's not that I'm constantly thinking about what I have that puts you at a disadvantage, but sometimes I pause for a moment to reflect.
5/7/15, 9:42 AM
If you have such sterling advantages over us, such as being a university professor, then how come you say and write such stupid thoughtless drivel so frequently?
"Now I realize they were deadly serious advance parties prepping the ground for today's toxic university environment."
As I said in the "stealing from the university" thread, why would anyone expect subtlety or humor from the most humorless people on the planet? Listen to what they say. It's exactly what they mean.
Oh, come on. The world isn't zero sum, and what you do for your children does not harm other children. Are we at the point now where in order to be 'fair' we no longer seek to make the best of ourselves because it might make us more able than others?
>MayBee said...
>> Our culture is in desperate need of clever,
>>unpredictable provocateurs.
>Indeed!
>Because if he and/or Althouse are trying to be
>provocateurs, they sound too much like the people
>who actually, literally believe these thoughts. Too
>predictable!
Seconded. Althouse, take note.
Michael 5/7 at 2:37 pm
Thank you for that. Laughed. Hard.
Thanks, Ann, for the charitable reading of what Swift says.
To your commenters: The book that Swift and I wrote provides a philosophical defense of the family against various criticisms of the family. It also provides a maybe unduly detailed explanation of why reading bedtime stories to your children is to important that the government should not interfere with you doing it even if it does disadvantage others. The problem is that this story emanated from Rush Limbaugh, who doesn't bother to read what people say before he trashes them.
Well, we know that people succeed when they have to overcome adversity. Those with something to prove are motivated. so, to guarantee an upward trajectory just drink, do drugs, beat your partner and screw reading to 'em.
Mr Brighouse, but how can enriching your own children with a free or public good like storytelling possibly disadvantage other children? Does my reading The Little Match Girl to mine suck Hansel and Gretel out of the brains of yours? What do you mean? It's perfectly pernicious.
Who "teaches" this garbage?
It seemed to start with "Political Correctness", which I never understood, then expanded to other such garbage, such as so-called'micri-agression', "Social equality", fluoride in the water, literally to " dumb people down", then people pouring bleach into their eyes to blind themselves to "experience blindness"?
Who tells people this garbage is OK!?!?
These people are mentally ill!!!
Now reading to your children is " Disadvantaging others"???
Send the dipshits that are writing this garbage to the nearest mental health facility, put them in the padded room, lock them up and throw away the key! It'll take YEARS & YEARS to undo the insanity in people's heads that believe this crap!
These seem to be the same mentally ill people who are "afraid" of sidewalk chalk on a college campus supporting Donald Trump for President!
(They seem to be OK if the chalk says "Bernie 2016"!
Same idiots are those when asked would endorse Bernie Madeoff if Bernie Sanders chose him for his running mate! (I wish I were kidding! See Mark Dice's video on YouTube!)
For those who don't know, Mark Dice does Parody/Comedic interviews...
It's SOOO very sad to see the ignorance of our young people!!!
For Christ's sake, EDUCATE YOUR CHILDREN!
To deprive your children is neglect/abuse.
To take this crap seriously is the same kind of crap that was done in Nazi Germany!
Don't allow it to happen here!
If there were a tender-than-thou prize, this prof. would surely win it. I honestly just have to laugh at the sheer idiocy of proposing such a thing. The logical extension is that every time I encourage good behavior in my children I am somehow disadvantaging other children. It is just preposterous, laughable. Can someone revoke this prof's degree? He should be laughed out of the academy. Brush your teeth, Johnny. Oh! I just disadvantaged other children's teeth. Sorry!
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