More on Thinking v Faith
Stephen Law said the same things (as Anthony Grayling said, and as I said about that survey) back in June. They’re not very startling things to say, in fact they’re the good old bleeding obvious, but they’re not very fashionable at the moment, and they tend to get lost in all the droning about faith this and faith that.
“The liberal approach,” he says, “is entirely consistent with drilling and the instilling of good habits.” Indeed, thinking critically, challenging political or religious orthodoxies, is a highly disciplined intellectual activity…Many secular parents try to get their children into faith schools because they believe the discipline and order is better in a Christian environment. Law argues that this is a fallacy. In fact, many faith schools flourish by being selective. The authoritarian intellectual climate leaves children bereft of the intellectual and emotional skills necessary to deal with the modern world.
See that’s the problem. Even if it’s true that religious schools do better at discipline and order, that’s discipline and order bought at a very high price. If, for instance, that ‘discipline and order’ is achieved partly or wholly by means of intellectual authoritarianism, well, then it’s a case of getting the tools in order and then calling the job done. ‘Discipline and order’ in school aren’t the actual goal of education, they’re only a tool for the purpose of education. If discipline and order were the goal, it would be simpler just to gag the students and put them in irons for the day and let it go at that. The goal is education, including the use of a flexible mind. A mind that has been trained to accept assertions delivered by authorities as a matter of faith is not a flexible or a useful mind.
On one level, Law’s objective is simple – to insist on the value of clear and rational thinking. He says schools need to “teach young people to question underlying assumptions, diagnose faulty reasoning, weigh up evidence, listen to other people’s points of view”. It all sounds uncontroversial. But Law is convinced that basic Enlightenment values are under serious threat from the new authoritarians of New Labour and America’s Republican right. Blair’s faith schools, and conservative educationalists, are taking us back to the bad old days when children were told to take things on trust and never question authority…Law is profoundly opposed to moral relativism, and gets annoyed when people see it as synonymous with liberalism or a by-product of liberal modes of thought. One of his objectives is to “slay the dragon of relativism”. It’s not true, Law argues, that liberals regard all beliefs as equally valid . The disciplines of critical thought, the values of rational scientific inquiry, are non-negotiable elements in the true liberal world-view. They don’t just “believe in everything and nothing”. They believe only in what is reasonable.
Well, not in practice, probably, but in principle. Anyway the point is clear enough. Authority and faith and no questions, no good; critical thought and inquiry and questions, good. Don’t take my word for it: inquire.
Unfortunately, faith is a non-negotiable element in much of the current conservative worldview. One does not inquire as to whether or not it is a positive virtue – except in the case where conservatives miss the point entirely and criticize someone’s “faith” in evolution.
OB: “‘Discipline and order’ in school aren’t the actual goal of education, they’re only a tool for the purpose of education. If discipline and order were the goal, it would be simpler just to gag the students and put them in irons for the day and let it go at that.”
OB, I *know* you know this but I think it’s a point worth making explicitly here: For some people “discipline and order” ARE goals of education.
Matt: “Unfortunately, faith is a non-negotiable element in much of the current conservative worldview.”
I don’t know whether you are using the word “faith” in a religous sense or more broadly; I presume the former.
In any case, faith, religous or otherwise, can be just as much an element of left-wing worldviews.
Keith makes a good point. A lot of schooling (not education, really) is about teaching youngsters to be dutiful workers. Much of it is about training them to be at certain places at certain times with the proper equipment and the “right” attitude towards authority.
WAY, WAY too simplistic.
I am a christian, but do not send my kids to a ‘faith school’ – I wanted them to be among the real world not a cloisered little subset.
However, I now KNOW some friends teaching at those schools and some utterly fantastic people who went through them. Quality teachers, involved parents and high expectations will get good results whichever system. Narrow and stupid ideas of teachers are seen through by kids.
What kind of schools do you think the great liberal minds we admire went through?
Does teaching faith constitute child abuse? As long as we include faith in any dogma including naturopathy, political correctness and the secular totalitarianisms, you have a point. Even scientism – as opposed to the practise of science – is a tool of the abuse of faith.
Faith in what is agreed to be established is a very effective survival tool. If your basic beliefs include faith in the group worldview, you can operate effectively within the group and this applies even more in our information-rich, choice-overloaded western society.
I’ve often thought that the following lyrics from Devo applied to the godmongers:
Freedom of choice
Is what you got
Freedom from choice
Is what you want
Keith – I was using it in the religious sense but I agree that it can be a major element of left-wing worldviews (as well as other worldviews – Freud?).
“For some people “discipline and order” ARE goals of education.”
“A lot of schooling (not education, really) is about teaching youngsters to be dutiful workers.”
I should have said ‘education properly understood’ or something. Genunine education; real education; education worthy of the name, as opposed to vocational training or socialization – which are both good things, indeed essential things, but not identical with education.
“As long as we include faith in any dogma including naturopathy, political correctness and the secular totalitarianisms, you have a point.”
Well, of course. But I was using ‘faith’ in that particular post in the sense in which it was cited by students quoted in ‘No Reason to Doubt’ – as something that fights off evidence. As in: “If you have faith in God you can believe he has done it, whether there is evidence or not.” and “the holy Qur’an – that’s our proper evidence,” she says. It does bother her when this conflicts with other kinds of evidence, but “it just comes down to the way you have been brought up and your beliefs and values and how strong they are”.
Faith, beliefs and values as something(s) strong enough to resist conflicting evidence.
‘Does teaching faith constitute child abuse?’
It depends, does this teaching include threats of eternal punishment and accompanying imagery? If so then yes.
‘Even scientism – as opposed to the practise of science – is a tool of the abuse of faith.’
This smells of BS. Scientism smacks of a word religious wahoos use hoping to attack those who rely on science as a real world view as opposed to woo-woo land.
I find it hard to believe that all those to be educated are up to the degree of critical thinking we expect of them. Some theories simply can’t be made to work in practice.
I tried to teach my own several children that the most important question is “how do you know?” (aliter: “What makes you think/believe that?”) — but I never succeeded in really getting them into the habit.
Moreover, there’s a lot to be said for telling the children to “obey the order first, ask questions afterwards”; but of course that’s not always appropriate — they may no something you don’t. Which is where a bit of relativity comes in.