[HSList] Definitions of success(was Why I homeschool)
Beth Bilynskyj
Dear Tim,
You have lured me out of my lurking! It is clear that you have been
thinking deeply and care very much about future generations and the future
of our nation. I have no idea where you are coming from, but I can only
make sense of the world as a Christian. As such, may I respond to some of
your ideas? (Those who are not Christians may want to delete now!)
At 03:45 AM 4/20/98 EDT, you wrote:
We have only a few families who
>have learned how to pass on success. Examples are the Rockefellers, the
Fords
>and the Forbes families. Most families begin falling soon after the original
>successful one passes on. Some manage to pass on a lower level of success to
>their children. Most highly successful people are self-made people such as
>Trump, Gates, Edison, Franklin, Carnegie, Sears, Kresge, and Penny.
Tim, have I misunderstood you? You seem to consider success to be a
material thing. by the examples you have given. Sorry, but my definition
is different, focusing on the spiritual over the material. I prefer to
speak of joy rather than success (a la C.S. Lewis). This does not mean
that I have no use for the material world! God created it, Jesus became
part of it, and so it is no illusion! It's just that I cannot understand
life *solely* in terms of the material; therefore "success" must include a
spiritual aspect.
> I have made a study of biographies. What I have learned is that poor
>children have a better shot at success than do the children of the
successful.
Again, if success=joy, I beg to disagree. Poverty does not necessarily
produce joy; though it does seem that materialism inhibits it. I have
known poor people who were miserable, and poor people who were joyous. I
have known rich folk who were miserable, and rich folk who were joyous.
There is some other factor at work here, I contend; and it has to do with
our relation to God, and to each other.
> America has produced what I call Youth Culture and this Youth Culture is
>spread by TV by Hollywood and by public school peer group culture.
Frankly, in my opinion, it is *primarily* spread by parents who are so busy
trying to be "successful" that they let "Youth Culture" be a substitute
for their own attention, involvement and love.
>Youth
>Culture should not exist.
What do you propose as its replacement? How will we dispose of "youth
culture" now that its here? (This kind of reminds me of black spot on my
roses. Once there, it is impossible to eradicate, unless I uproot the rose
bushes and plant something else! Does this mean we need to eradicate
youth???)
> It is counter productive.
Time for twenty questions....
What is its opposite? Whatever it is, is it any *more* productive? And,
finally, just what do you mean by "productive?" That which produces
prosperity, or joy or what?
> Youth Culture only
>exists among the wealthy democracies. Two things emerge among the wealthy
>democracies, Youth Culture and Left - Wing academic and intellectual culture.
And what do totalitarian regimes and third-world countries produce?
Elder culture and right-wing academic and intellectual culture? Or just
plain anti-intellectualism?
>America is the crown prince of both, Youth Culture and Left-wing university
>and intellectual culture. Youth culture has a philosophy. It is the
>philosophy that the very young gravitate toward naturally, hedonism.
Hedonism
>promotes pleasure as the purpose of life. The proper goal of life, according
>to the hedonist, is the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
Can't argue with this, except to say that, sadly, it describes not only
the very young, but plenty of adults who are well over voting age!
> The
>hedonist wants to watch TV, spend money--preferably someone else's money,
>play, hang out, play video games, avoid work and above all avoid any school
>work that requires any prolonged thought or prolonged development of skills.
>The hedonist holds good students and young people who work for their money in
>contempt, calling them four letter words such as geek, spazz, and nerd.
Above
>all, the hedonist pursues sex for the mere sake of sexual pleasure. Some
>hedonists appear to pursue positive goals but upon closer examination the
>hedonist pursues a goal, when he bothers to pursue any goal other than
that of
>immediate pleasure, only because he perceives that he can better pursue
>pleasure by achieving some level of success. Often, this hedonist is the
>underachiever, the one who does just enough to get by.
Not all hedonists are underachievers...some of them are even very
"successful!" (Witness various political figures...)
The C+ Computer
>Science major, whom everyone knows could easily have been an A student. The
>student who could have gone to med school but chooses nursing school
instead.
To me, all this indicates is that "The poor ye have always with you," and
"the lazy" as well!
> Many church denominations are seeing their youth and young adult
>population decline sharply. On close examination one may find that this is
>because Youth Culture is a national phenomenon, infecting anyone who
watches a
>lot of TV, listens to pop music, and \or attends public school.
Wow! This makes it so simple! Let's just take away every TV, radio, CD
player and close all the schools and life will be rosy! Sorry again, but I
think theses are just externals. If things are to change, something must
happen WITHIN the souls of people to change their desires and direction of
life...and this must begin with PARENTS.
> Socialists (and socialists who deny they are socialists, claiming
>instead that they are liberals). Support Youth Culture. Socialists seek to
>break up family life and spiritual life.
Perhaps this is true of "socialists," but I also notice some disturbing
trends among those who do not consider themselves socialists.I find it
fascinating that in practice, very often Christians place their family life
above their spiritual life. That is, they think their family life=their
spiritual life, and vice versa. It's as if they forget Luke 12:49-53.
"Oh, we can't do X at church...that would conflict with our family
plans/soccer game/trip to the coast..."
> They see both as formidable enemies,
>as powerful barriers to the realization of their political agenda. There has
>been, to date, no communist or socialist state whose party members have not
>been hostile to religion, except for new age religion which appears to be
very
>receptive to socialist and communist ideology.
New Age thought is so befuddled that can only be said to be receptive to
socialism and communism as much as it is to capitalism or fascism. Being
rooted Eastern thought, it does not recognize the law of non-contradiction;
and as Alvin Plantinga has said, "anything follows from a contradiction!"
So New Agers are (not surprisingly) receptive to every wind of doctrine and
ideology....
Communism and Socialism
>(communism light) require that the individual give supreme loyalty to the
>state.
No argument. But what about Enlightenment political thought? It requires
the individual to give supreme loyalty to the individual. Ultimately,
Enlightenment thought boils down to egoism (what are MY rights? what is MY
happiness? what is MY freedom?) Ultimately, notions of persons, common
good and community cannot be sustained within just an Enlightenment
metaphysic. (Cf. James Sire, *The Universe Next Door,* and Alisdair
MacIntyre, *Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry.*) I am always a bit
uneasy when I recall that the Constitution and the Declaration of
Independence are Enlightenment documents....and that my faith teaches me
that the God I serve is not just an individual, but a Divine Community of
Three Persons (a.k.a. "The Trinity.")
Religion and family are powerful agencies which prevent the state from
>obtaining the direct loyalty which communism and socialism require in
order to
>operate.
You do well to point us to the dangers of socialism and communism; but as
Malcolm Muggeridge long ago pointed out, the dangers of materialism are no
less threatening to faith and family.You yourself made the point well in
speaking about the heirs of Franklin, Sears and Roebuck.
> Who else will exchange individual freedom for a political party which
>teaches that all business is theft, that success is achieved only at some
>unfortunate person's expense and that the haves owe something to the have
>nots?
I seem to be missing some premises in your argument here...
Furthermore, as a Christian, I *have* exchanged my individual freedom...not
for a political party, but for a Savior. He had a lot to say about money
and posessions, but not a lot about business...
> Who else but the young hedonist can be counted on to support a
>socialist agenda? The hedonist expects something for nothing and will often
>accept a low standard of living, so long as they are able to party and live a
>life of leisure and work just sometimes.
Work is important, but is it the be-all and end all of life? Sorry, but
again, my catechism teaches me that the reason I have been created is
ultimately not to be a worker, but to know God and love Him. Is that
hedonism? I don't think so! In fact, it is the communist philosophy that
understands human beings exclusively as workers, not Christianity!
Remember their cry, "WORKERS of the world unite?" (cf. Josef Pieper,
*Leisure as the Basis of Culture* for an excellent study on this topic.
Did you know that the words "school" and "scholastic" comes from the Greek,
"he skole" which means leisure, spare time, ease? In ancient times, it was
only those who were not workers who could afford the leisure for an
education.)
> This can be fought but only if we stop listening to the socialist
>dominated professions of sociology, psychology, social work, criminology, and
>the teachers unions.
May I disagree with you in order to agree with you? In the interest of
precision, I would prefer to use the word "naturalist" or "post-modernist"
instead of "socialist."
Generation gap, the notion of the domineering parent, the
>demand that parents give even young children "choses," the advice that only
>very happy parents should remain together, spoon fed education, and so forth
>-- all this and more comes from "experts" who harbor a left wing political
>bias and who make extravagant claims for their professions, calling political
>opinion "political science," third rate philosophy is called "Psychology,"
>poorly done statistical research is called "sociology," and left wing
politics
>is called "criminology."
"What we have here is a failure to communicate," is the old line; but what
we have here (in my humble opinion) is something much more alarming: the
impossibility of communication. That is, what we have here are two
competing world views, each with its own standards of rationality and
morality-- two paradigms, if you will, competing for the hearts, minds and
souls of America. Thus, to you, "political science" is opinion; but for
those in the other paradigm, it is given an entirely different definition.
It's as if each speaks its own language, and the languages are unable to be
translated. Incommensurability is the fancy philosophical word for this
phenomenon. We can only stand and stare at each other, or beat each other
over the heads. Rational discussion is impossible.
> The most natural thing a family can do is to seek to pass on to the
young
>the religious and political and economic beliefs of the parent generation.
Just because something is "natural," is it right? (Sorry, just had to ask!
I personally find a lot of things that "come naturally" to me--like looking
out for #1--are not always the right and good thing to do/to be.) It would
be helpful to me if we could find a different approach here...
>When the Founding Fathers spoke of individual freedom, they understood
freedom
>to mean freedom to pursue freedom as your family taught it.
Well....they understood individual freedom from a purely Enlightenment
point of view; it was their "paradigm." What has happened is that the
concept of "individual freedom" mutated as the Enlightenment ship began to
hit the rocks after Kant. We call those treacherous shores
"Postmodernism," and they are the haunts of folks like Nietzsche, Sartre
and Derrida. So, technically, yes, they understood freedom to mean what it
meant within that Enlightenment paradigm that they imbibed with their
mother's milk. But there is a whole lot more to the story than just
"freedom as your family taught it."
They mean
>community freedom, which is why they were concerned and discussed at great
>length the dangers and pitfalls of a strong central government. The concern
>was that Federal government not undermine local government as they recognized
>local government as the supreme good, as the path to freedom. When they
>discussed freedom of religion, they did not have in mind that government
>should provide freedom from religion.
James Sire (see above) does an excellent job of outlining Enlightenment
philosophy in his chapter on Deism. He calls Deism "the isthmus between
two great continent--theism and naturalism." Our Founding Fathers
understood freedom as "community freedom," only because they uncritically
retained this concept from the very worldview they were repudiating! "In
intellectual terms, the route is this," writes Sire. "In theism God is the
infinite-personal Creator and Sustainer of the cosmos. In deism God is
'reduced'; he begins to lose his personality, though he remains Creator and
(by implication) sustainer of the cosmos. In naturalism, God is further
'reduced'; he loses his very existence." I cannot help but wonder, as a
Christian, if our Deist founding fathers built this house on shifting sand.
Now the rains are coming down, and our very foundations are, not
suprisingly, cracking!
> The common citizen needs to stop being afraid of teaching their children
>as they see fit. Respectable people need to be morally courageous and stop
>being afraid to teach their children right and wrong as they know it to be.
>Good people must stop being afraid to take action to keep their family
>together. Family loyalty and unity is the necessary anchor of a free people.
Yes, but truth is even more foundational for freedom. All the family
loyalty and unity in the world means nothing if people are not grounded
first in what is True. Moral courage is possible only where there is moral
truth. Having taught ethics in a couple of evangelical Christian colleges
for a while now I am amazed at how deeply moral and epistemological
relativism has taken root in our country--even in even Christians!
>To a major extent, public school attendance has become a serious threat to
the
>American family and to freedom itself.
or maybe it is a symptom of a deeper dysfunction...as a Christian, again my
primary allegiance must be to Jesus Christ, and not to family or even
"freedom." (cf. Romans 6:15-23).
> A young people with poor reading
>skills, poor thinking skills, young people who embrace hedonism to the point
>that they have no chance for ever standing proud on their own two feet,
people
>who are taught that students are divided into the few who have it and can
>learn basic academic skills and the many who simply do not have it, students
>who learn that their history consists of villains and victims, and students
>who Cannot express themselves in writing cannot long remain free. They will
>tire of a life of squalor and will be attracted to demagogues who teach them
>that they desire better and better will be taken from the successful and
given
>to them, if they merely vote for the right candidate....
No argument from me here!
> At least, this is
>the way is seems to me...
And this is how it seems to me. Thanks for a stimulating discussion, Tim.
I will now resume lurker mode, having said way too much already...
In Christ,
Beth
Dan Holsopple
Beth Bilynskyj wrote:
>
> Dear Tim,
>
>
> > America has produced what I call Youth Culture and this Youth Culture is
> >spread by TV by Hollywood and by public school peer group culture.
>
> Frankly, in my opinion, it is *primarily* spread by parents who are so busy
> trying to be "successful" that they let "Youth Culture" be a substitute
> for their own attention, involvement and love.
>
good, what is fun.
Parents job is to take the energy and put proper boundaries and
protocol around self gratification.
This protocol includes putting the needs of others on a higher level.
This is where parents have
failed. Parents have failed to put the needs of their children above
their own desires for the current
definition of SUCCESS.
It is no wonder the public schools are in such disarray! It only takes
one or two headonist to throw a classroom
into futility. The PS is just a mirror and we see the reflection of
American's own culture...don't
get man at the mirror, FIX YOUR FACE!
> >Youth
> >Culture should not exist.
>
> What do you propose as its replacement? How will we dispose of "youth
> culture" now that its here? (This kind of reminds me of black spot on my
> roses. Once there, it is impossible to eradicate, unless I uproot the rose
> bushes and plant something else! Does this mean we need to eradicate
> youth???)
>
[ You replace it with God-and-family culture. This is why we home-school
AND home-church. The "cultural church"
is ususlly about 20 years behind the flow of culture....but they come
along eventually! Let the spotted roses die.
What Jesus raised up was truly a counter cultural way of life. If we
are not, we may not be in what He began.
Christians should just let the general culture go it's way and go about
the minitries God has given us. Reform will
come from within. When things get so bad...the ear is opened thru
adversity...there will be a hunger for what is
good, one family at a time. We need to be there, ready to get our hands
dirty in the process of helping to pick up
pieces and, like Christ, show them God's way.
We are not going to drag America into heaven with us....however special
our heritage. The only "chosen" nation was Israel.
Some love their country more than God and don't realize it.]
Dan
b...@webtv.net
Parents have become extremely selfish, to the point that they have
neglected their children so that they can satisfy their needs and wants.
Who says that we have to have two cars, or cable, or a VCR in every
room, or a TV in every room. Who says that one has to live in a 150,000
house? Some things are not all the necessary, but people and society
have deemed in necessary. If someone doesn't have cable, people consider
them poor. So, for people to pay for these luxeries, both parents have
to work. Therefore, by both parents working, the children are becoming
latch-key, or in many cases, or being left by themselves.
Why is fashion and materialistic things so much more important than our
childrens spiritual and emotionsl needs?
By allowing our society to come to this point we have allowed our
childrens future to be an unsure one. Our children and their problems
are our faults. Children are only acting out for reasons. Why? Because
they themselves are not happy with what they see as their future. they
are not happy with the here and now. We need to stop focusing on our
wants and start focusing on our childrens needs.
So, the children bring this problem into the school sytem. So, what
then? this only creates more problems. Our society is the reason we have
a messed up schools sytem. This is only the trickle down method. It has
finally reached the schools, ad until we hugely overhaul our society,
our school system cannot be fixed. We need to look long and hard at our
society, and see where it has gone. Look at what our children are
watching and learning. Look at what is on TV. What the music on the
radion is saying, and also all those wonderful Nintendo games that
promote violence. This is what our children are learnig. They are
learnig that violence is acceptable, that sex, drugs and immorality is
aceptable. Why? Because, we parents are watching it, and buying it for
our children. Where has the morality gone, and how can we get it back?
Zehra