Re: SV: The Censhorship Kings Strike Again

On Mon, Aug 25, 2003 at 09:46:40PM +0100, Daniel Cassidy wrote:
> '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.

Wow. With opinions like these, it's no miracle Hitler got so far in the
first place.

> 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.

I agree that compulsory education is not the most effective one and -
especially with teenagers - can be counter-productive. But as long as that's
what we do in schools, Mein Kampf qualifies as something that should be
included.

Rob

PS: I for one am very glad that my school had a huge focus on 20th century
events (main themes Germany and the US) instead of what tribes settled
here eons ago.
-- 
Rob Kaper     | "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
[email protected] | temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
www.capsi.com | - Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

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