Re: SV: The Censhorship Kings Strike Again
Daniel Cassidy <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.kde.cafe |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
On Sunday 24 August 2003 5:20 pm, Matt Douhan wrote: > >No way. Mein Kampf is supposed to be one of the most boring books you > > could possibly read. It'd kill all interest in history. > > "supposed" as in you have not read it and still pass judgement?, go read it > and form your own educated opinion before slagging something you have no > clue about, do you also think Hitler was a bad speaker and a bad polititian > ? 'Supposed' as in people who have read it and are informed have expressed that opinion to me. I don't think expressing the educated opinion of others I have met constitutes having 'no clue' about a particular subject, although it certainly constitutes second hand knowledge. In particular, in this context I think it is more than valid to consider the opinions of others perhaps even above your own opinion, since in education it is essential to capture and keep the interest of a class if you wish for them to learn anything at all. Of course, the people I have met who have read Mein Kampf constitute a small sample of the population. On the other hand, the people on this list who have read Mein Kampf constitute an even smaller sample. Both sets of people (and I am assuming the following applies also to you) are of above average intelligence, good education, and presumably have a strong interest in the subject, to have started reading it in the first place. It does not seem unreasonable to me to assume that the uneducated masses will find the text less educational and less interesting than you or I. Forcing a class to read a text which most people find unmanageably boring is probably not an effective way to use time, probably not any more useful than giving a detailed summary of the text, and certainly a sure fire way to kill any interest in the subject, especially if the class is a compulsory one taught in school to students who are mostly not interested to start with. If you want people to learn from history, then the first and most important hurdle to cross is getting them interested in history. -- Dan. DISCLAIMER: Please do not take my statements wildly out of context and attribute to me opinions which I do not hold. Kde-cafe mailing list - [email protected] http://ofb.biz/lists/listinfo.cgi/kde-cafe DISCLAIMER: The views expressed on this mailinglist are the personal opinions of the author and do not represent OfB.biz: Open for Business, KDE or the author's employer.