Learning habits

I don't think that people can escape being a slave to their instincts and emotions any more than they can escape being human. Some people punish themselves throughout their lives trying to free themselves from human emotions and instics -- eg, priests, monks, nuns, and other non-religious extremists...but I think it is clear that this only manifests itself in more disturbing, yet equally human, desires.

So I don't find the statement of such a separation offensive- I find it to be factual and truthful.

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Rather, what I find offensive is the fiction that "society" represents one generic status quo to begin with.

I understand now.

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For example, Coberst wrote that "We have all spent 12 to 18 years in our school system, which is designed to produce graduates who can easily fit into the industrial work place and quickly become maximum producers and consumers."
The use of the royal "we" serves to disguise the fact that the statement assumes certain minimum of material comfort and social standing.

Yes, except in the US where public education is free and compulsory.

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The same could be said of his claim about "universal" ommissions in American education, or that colleges and universities no longer care about scholarship (!),

I have several friends who are professors- a couple who are my contemporaries (40's) and a couple who were actually my professors so who are older (60's-70's) and they do say that the level of preparedness of the student and willingness of the student to apply anything approaching scholarly effort has changed since either they were in school themselves or teaching students twenty or thirty years ago.
I realize this doesn't indicate that colleges and universities no longer care about scholarship- in fact quite the opposite in that these people who are teaching these students express frustration and almost a kind of professional despair about the situation. But they do speak of the fact that there has been a general lowering of standards, out of a kind of sad necessity.

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In an effort to bolster his own position (and maintain his "outside-the-status-quo" status), Coberst constantly lumps all of "society" into one giant and suitably evil category. That was why I brought up Hurricane Katrina, which demonstrated in painful terms that America might not be completely composed of the complacent, luxury-distracted consumers that Coberst frequently rails against.

Yes, I see what you're saying. But I'm wondering if the attitudes of complacence and the distractions of luxuries and consumerism are not so pervasive in popular American culture that it wouldn't be true that those who can't afford to indulge at this point would if they could afford to.
And I say this out of experience. My entire work life, I've worked with people from disadvantaged backgrounds in one setting or another, and I have to say that the majority of the people with whom I've worked (and they've always been young adults- I've never worked with elderly impoverished people) feel the allure of all that just as strongly, if not more so than those who have the money to indulge themselves. It's not a case of "wouldn't if they could"- it's more a case of "can't so they don't".
But I have to admit, I do have a negative view of the most visible aspects of American society, which I agree is in no way totally inclusive, and the status quo in their current states. Maybe that's why it's easy for me to buy into those generalizations or stereotypes- not right to do-but easy.

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This is why I don't think all "would be well" if only us participants would supply real-life examples to Coberst's models. What most of us are saying is that Coberst's models don't work if real-life examples are taken into account, because the models rely on the grossest caricatures of reality.

Again, I see what you're saying. And I feel guilty that because his "caricatures" often conform to what I'm experiencing in my priveleged middle class reality and I can easily apply them to my own experience, I haven't noticed or been bothered by the lack of nuance or inclusion of recognition of differences.

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All we're trying to do is get Coberst to paint his pictures of "society" with less broader strokes and a little more nuance, but he continues to be resistant to this idea.

Again, I don't know what Coberst's situation is, but I know that if I hadn't worked with people who came from different situations than I did, I wouldn't have known or been aware of the extreme differences that people of varying socioeconomic classes experience within the US. TV and newspaper coverage aside- because it's way too easy to turn that off and forget that that's the reality for certain people. I think it's easier to try to forget that reality because it's too uncomfortable to ponder for very long without feeling that you need to actively do something to try to change something.
But I understand what you're saying.
I guess my question is whether there is any next step required when we think about these issues. When does it become inherent upon us to turn some of these thoughts into action. And if we don't turn them into some kind of positive action, what do we do with all of these thoughts and ideas?

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(Coberst--I hate the feeling of talking about someone as if they weren't there, so feel free to pipe in.)

Me too- sorry about that.

Joe

Until one learns how to become a self-learner they will continually have little means in which to guide them in recognizing drivel from solid thinking.

Joe

Your judgment may be good or may be poor. Who can tell?

My statements are inductive conjectures. I go from the particular to the general.

Only by creating a general conclusions can we take action.

I disagree with that coberst. The "sciences" of psychology, sociology and psychiatry have not mapped anything it a way that is conclusively proven to be true.

Coberst

Those are not the rules of this game. I am not the one making false claims in this thread. I do not need to read Becker to know that a lot of the so called scientific works of psychology and psychiatry are not substantiated.

Now, will you keep evading the question?
What proof do you have that human nature has been mapped?


And please don't offer quotes from a guy dead for more that thirty years. Has it never occured to you that a lot of what he wrote just might be a bit outdated?

Cyracuz wrote:

Coberst

Those are not the rules of this game. I am not the one making false claims in this thread. I do not need to read Becker to know that a lot of the so called scientific works of psychology and psychiatry are not substantiated.

Now, will you keep evading the question?
What proof do you have that human nature has been mapped?


And please don't offer quotes from a guy dead for more that thirty years. Has it never occured to you that a lot of what he wrote just might be a bit outdated?

I have no proof that human nature has been mapped.