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YES YES YES! The elephant in the room here is our deteriorating ability to engage in civil dialogue. Philosophy is dangerous... It opens up possibility! And sheds light on different ways of thinking. I say there is a connection between us playing it safe in our classrooms and communities and the political messes we are in. Could someone research how the mandatory TWO philosophy courses in high school (and ethics in lower secondary) in Finland are adding to the kind of political climate that allowed for the incredibly civil presidential election there between 9 candidates last week, each of the candidates being a fine option? 

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I’m not sure Finland is a fair comparison. All Scandinavian countries were forcibly unified a millennia ago, have state churches and fairly uniform culture. They’re wonderful people places to live— if you fit in. One my friends moved back to Denmark during COVID, rhapsodized about the civility— then just came back to the US for the dynamism.

We can’t go back to mere cultural solidarity. We have to move forward. But to what?

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Feb 23Liked by Brandon Hendrickson

But that’s the whole point - it’s not important to agree on everything, but to know how to disagree (something I attempt to express in my comment above). Studying philosophy (or bringing philosophical discourse into the classrooms of various subjects, as Brandon I think is suggesting) could help to do just that. And may I point out, the US presidential elections will, in the end, have 2 white octogenarian males running against each other. When it comes to diversity, other than the political kind, there is not much there.

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Feb 23Liked by Brandon Hendrickson

I think you are agreeing with me :-)

We have lost the ability to disagree constructively across our current fragmented political context, which is precisely why we are clinging to tenaciously to dysfunctional visions of the past.

We can observe the Scandinavians to learn techniques, but this is a values and cultural identity problem. Which feels like something philosophy ought to be able to solve…

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author

Nice civil disagreement here, folks! I'll chime in to add that I think philosophy is like what Homer said of beer — "The cause of, and solution to, all of life's difficulties".

I'll further request that we steer the online conversation away from direct mentions of real-world politics. It's been my observation that The Culture War is where great educational ideas go to die, and I want to keep Egan out of it for as long as possible.

Which isn't to say I think we shouldn't engage politics directly in education — I lead an in-person political fight club where I help people do that (www.RochesterTag.com/divide). But text-based media make this much more likely to disintegrate.

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Strongly second all this! One funny invitation into this in our house came from "Let it Go" (our girls haven't see _Frozen_ but they know the song).

My 4yo was very confused by Elsa claiming "no right, no wrong; no rules for me. I'm free!" Didn't that make her a Bad Guy?

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Perhaps that line is there because when the song "Let It Go" was first written, Elsa was intended to be the villain: https://screenrant.com/frozen-let-it-go-song-elsa-disney-villain/.

What did you tell your 4yo?

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We talk a lot about rules as being like sidewalks, giving us a safe place to walk and play and a clear differentiation from the street where cars are. B thinks Elsa got confused about rules, rather than malicious.

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I’m feeling what appears to be a contradiction here. Maybe I’m missing something.

On the one hand, Egan is encouraging us to use all the traditional tools of culture.

On the other, you are encouraging us to explicitly focus on the philosophic.

I’m no scholar, but I seem to remember Socrates’ attempt to teach philosophy to the youth led to some very awkward interactions with the culture, that didn’t end particularly well for him.

Am I being overly paranoid? Or do you have a solution for mixing philosophy and culture they doesn’t lead to Hemlock? :-)

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