joeg
Full Member
Posts: 135
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Post by joeg on Aug 21, 2021 15:55:47 GMT
"the French Constitutional Court has approved a recent law that aims to fight “separatism,” validating heavy restrictions on home-schooling in France." www.lifesitenews.com/news/analysis-homeschooling-restricted-in-macrons-france/This seems consistent with what the godless left-wing control freaks traditionally want. They want to control all aspects of life so they can protect and increase their power. Your children belong to them. Catholics need to be familiar with the Church's principle of subsidiarity that protects against big government over-reach. There is more awareness of the principle of solidarity but like most areas of morality, a balance is required. Zeal and patience are both virtues but need to be in balance. Dr Mirus presents the thought of Pope Benedict on this balance. www.catholicculture.org/commentary/subsidiarity-and-solidarity-are-inseparable/
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Post by StellaMaris on Aug 22, 2021 0:54:15 GMT
Reading that article I've observed another example of how western traditionalism is shifting to a more tolerant relationship with Islamist fundamentalism. Has anyone else noticed that subtle shift? Their shared revulsion of 'modernism' seems to have triggered the enemy of my enemy principle.
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Post by katy777 on Aug 22, 2021 1:03:06 GMT
The church in the US does not protect government overreach.
The choice to be vaxxed is an apparant example.
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Post by homeschooldad on Aug 22, 2021 10:22:22 GMT
I have a prediction that, in twenty years, in-person generic "big old school" public school enrollment will be primarily for students who can't be homeschooled, for one reason or another. Students of exceptional ability will gravitate towards, and be steered towards by their parents, elite "magnet" programs, charter schools, and private schools of various stripes.
My son reads me the litany of all the things that are good about homeschooling:
No bullying No threats of school violence Don't have to get up before dawn Don't have to sit in a school run line ("carpool", though that term also means something quite different) No horrendous evening commutes after work, after-dark and in the cold during the winter Eat lunch on a relaxed schedule Eat what you wish for lunch, either at home or "from out" To some extent, study what interests you (our state has broad guidelines, but within those guidelines, parents and student have great leeway) - Doesn't take as long --- probably over half of a school day is devoted to superfluous, often non-instructional matters (class changes, "group dynamics", useless, repetitious exercises and "busy work", etc.)
- More casual learning --- our religion class very often consists of wide-ranging discussions on moral and doctrinal matters (Grade 6 consisted of the Baltimore Catechism to fill the many gaps in my son's religious education at his former "elite" Catholic academy, but I will give them credit, they began each day with a decade of the rosary, and one of the Grade 5 teachers showed the classic film on Our Lady of Fatima)
- Wear what you like, and grow your hair as you like. He prefers his hair long. As long as he keeps it clean and groomed, I'm fine with that. When we took our recent "nearcation", he wanted a hoodie with the name and logo of that town's local high school, possibly to have some sense of "wearing something from a 'real' school". And it does look sharp!
And I would remind him that, by definition, our homeschool is male-only, therefore in keeping with Pius XI's teaching against coeducation in Divini illius magistri (1929) --- note well, single-gender education was the traditional norm, and not just among Catholics (Harvard, Yale, et al.), the very term (and a dated term it is) "co-ed" speaks to the fact that this was once considered something extraordinary. He is aware of what Pius XI taught. (We do let Grandma sit in on some of our classes, she's learning a lot! She needs something to fill her days, though she insists on doing heavy housework and cleaning, all this at the youngest 90 years old you've ever seen. Trust me on that one.)
My son needed (and I needed it as well) a couple of weeks after his grandpa's passing last month, not to have to worry about school, so I granted this to him --- it is running us up into August, but that is fine, it was unavoidable, and we also have leeway to allow "summer vacation" to be in September, in our part of the country, summer-like temperatures last well into October and, from time to time, even beyond. I've worn a polo shirt and khaki shorts on Christmas Day. August is "stay in and crank that AC" month here anyway.
If you stop and think about it, all of the online resources alone, make homeschooling far easier, if only one parent can find their way free to stay home and teach, as well as to keep house, prepare nutritious home-cooked meals, and so on. It is easy for me to sit back and say this --- as one who is situated so as to make this possible, many cannot --- but one huge benefit of the pandemic, may be that people have rediscovered home life, how relaxed it is compared to office work and commuting (for both parents and children), and if they can find a way to do so, one parent will stay home. The statistics on people wanting to do this are huge. You can find all kinds of ways to economize. And the house stays cleaner and better-organized. Again, easy to sit back and say.
Under any circumstances, parents are the primary educators of their children. When they employ teachers outside the home, they are just "subbing out" that education task which logistics don't allow them to do themselves, and they are ultimately responsible for the outcome.
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Post by StellaMaris on Aug 22, 2021 17:56:16 GMT
Under any circumstances, parents are the primary educators of their children. When they employ teachers outside the home, they are just "subbing out" that education task which logistics don't allow them to do themselves, and they are ultimately responsible for the outcome.
The French government believes (rightly in my opinion) that a child and the common good is not served by a 'separatist' approach to education by fundamentalist Muslims in France. The evidence is strong that children are brainwashed with antisocial attitudes that are dangerous for society. Adhering to a general curriculum gives a child a chance to see a big picture and be socialised to appreciate the common good.
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Post by ralfy on Aug 23, 2021 1:13:12 GMT
Check out writers like John Taylor Gatto, who argues that the public school system was borrowed from Prussia and follows the same policies used for training factory workers and military personnel. It was not inspired by educators like Horace Mann and John Dewey but by industrialists like Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller, and its purpose is to teach people to become obedient workers and eager consumers.
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Post by homeschooldad on Aug 23, 2021 11:15:51 GMT
Under any circumstances, parents are the primary educators of their children. When they employ teachers outside the home, they are just "subbing out" that education task which logistics don't allow them to do themselves, and they are ultimately responsible for the outcome.
The French government believes (rightly in my opinion) that a child and the common good is not served by a 'separatist' approach to education by fundamentalist Muslims in France. The evidence is strong that children are brainwashed with antisocial attitudes that are dangerous for society. Adhering to a general curriculum gives a child a chance to see a big picture and be socialised to appreciate the common good. I do not entirely disagree with you. Our state forces, within broad limits, a type of "general curriculum", though how you get to that point, is largely up to you. I am all in favor of recognizing a canon of literature --- something, that, incidentally, gets lost in these "politically correct" literature anthologies, designed more to boost the "self-esteem" of this intersectional group or that one, than to pass on stories and ideals that our entire society has generally agreed are important. I'd like to be clear, too, that in our homeschool, we present a wide variety of points of view, and part of this has been African American culture, history, the performing arts, and literature. We have read Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou, as well as Poe and Faulkner. And the "common good" is a huge concept that I hammer away over and over. I emphasize that if you adopt a mindset and a lifestyle that is "all about me", you will have few if any friends, and you will have a very hard time getting by, out in the adult world.
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Post by homeschooldad on Aug 23, 2021 11:26:51 GMT
Check out writers like John Taylor Gatto, who argues that the public school system was borrowed from Prussia and follows the same policies used for training factory workers and military personnel. It was not inspired by educators like Horace Mann and John Dewey but by industrialists like Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller, and its purpose is to teach people to become obedient workers and eager consumers. I am well aware of the Prussian model. Not all students are cut out for a conventional day school, where you arrive at the crack of dawn, sit still all day, and absorb instruction sitting in rows of desks with thirty other pupils. Everyone is different. Some people, especially boys if you ask me, may be destined to be entrepreneurs, independent contractors, artisans, or more devoted to the mechanical arts, with a livelier and more individualistic spirit that often goes with such things. Plumbers and electricians can make huge money --- not that we get an education solely to make money and be "useful", that's the Prussian error rearing its head which, incidentally, squashes all thought of being educated to guide your intellect and will towards eternal union with Almighty God --- and as long as my son cooperates in my best efforts to give him a fundamental, home-based, classical and liberal education, nothing would make me happier. It'd probably be healthier than being forced to sit indoors, hunched over a desk, bathed in fluorescent light overhead, for 30 years (which is basically how it turned out for me).
I would also add that it is really, really good life advice, for faithful, believing, practicing, orthodox Catholics --- whether their sensus catholicus leads them more in a TLM direction, a "conservative Novus Ordo" direction, or towards something else such as the Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgy --- to build skills, and to get into a line of work, where moral questions and dilemmas are either non-existent, or few and far between. That way, the risk of being presented with an option --- "either do X, or lose your job", where X is something evil --- is minimized. The likelihood of an individual plumber or electrician, for instance, having to go and make repairs at any one particular abortion clinic is very minimal, and if that contractor owns their own business, if that abortion clinic does call, you can always say "sorry, I don't have anyone who can come and do that", which is no lie, you don't have anyone "who can come and do that", because we don't provide even remote material cooperation to abortion clinics (but you don't have to tell them that). To say to oneself, "I'll go and do that if the cooperation is so remote and material, as not to be sinful", is beside the point. Some people are content to go out on that kind of razor's edge. I wouldn't do it, sinful or not sinful, because these are people I don't want to help. Sin doesn't even enter into it. It's pretty far-fetched, to think they are going to come back and say, "you just don't want to come out here because we're an abortion clinic, so we're gonna sue you, Mister, see you in court!". But on the off chance they do, I say, bring it on. Quite right, we'll see one another in court. I'd file something like that, non-sinful remote and material cooperation that one nonetheless finds distasteful, under the categories, as I've discussed elsewhere, of the Muslim makruh ("disliked") or Kant's categorical imperative. Might be without sin, but there is more to life than just avoiding sin, you certainly do have to avoid sin, but that's not all there is in life.
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Post by ralfy on Aug 24, 2021 2:35:09 GMT
Check out writers like John Taylor Gatto, who argues that the public school system was borrowed from Prussia and follows the same policies used for training factory workers and military personnel. It was not inspired by educators like Horace Mann and John Dewey but by industrialists like Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller, and its purpose is to teach people to become obedient workers and eager consumers. I am well aware of the Prussian model. Not all students are cut out for a conventional day school, where you arrive at the crack of dawn, sit still all day, and absorb instruction sitting in rows of desks with thirty other pupils. Everyone is different. Some people, especially boys if you ask me, may be destined to be entrepreneurs, independent contractors, artisans, or more devoted to the mechanical arts, with a livelier and more individualistic spirit that often goes with such things. Plumbers and electricians can make huge money --- not that we get an education solely to make money and be "useful", that's the Prussian error rearing its head which, incidentally, squashes all thought of being educated to guide your intellect and will towards eternal union with Almighty God --- and as long as my son cooperates in my best efforts to give him a fundamental, home-based, classical and liberal education, nothing would make me happier. It'd probably be healthier than being forced to sit indoors, hunched over a desk, bathed in fluorescent light overhead, for 30 years (which is basically how it turned out for me).
I would also add that it is really, really good life advice, for faithful, believing, practicing, orthodox Catholics --- whether their sensus catholicus leads them more in a TLM direction, a "conservative Novus Ordo" direction, or towards something else such as the Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgy --- to build skills, and to get into a line of work, where moral questions and dilemmas are either non-existent, or few and far between. That way, the risk of being presented with an option --- "either do X, or lose your job", where X is something evil --- is minimized. The likelihood of an individual plumber or electrician, for instance, having to go and make repairs at any one particular abortion clinic is very minimal, and if that contractor owns their own business, if that abortion clinic does call, you can always say "sorry, I don't have anyone who can come and do that", which is no lie, you don't have anyone "who can come and do that", because we don't provide even remote material cooperation to abortion clinics (but you don't have to tell them that). To say to oneself, "I'll go and do that if the cooperation is so remote and material, as not to be sinful", is beside the point. Some people are content to go out on that kind of razor's edge. I wouldn't do it, sinful or not sinful, because these are people I don't want to help. Sin doesn't even enter into it. It's pretty far-fetched, to think they are going to come back and say, "you just don't want to come out here because we're an abortion clinic, so we're gonna sue you, Mister, see you in court!". But on the off chance they do, I say, bring it on. Quite right, we'll see one another in court. I'd file something like that, non-sinful remote and material cooperation that one nonetheless finds distasteful, under the categories, as I've discussed elsewhere, of the Muslim makruh ("disliked") or Kant's categorical imperative. Might be without sin, but there is more to life than just avoiding sin, you certainly do have to avoid sin, but that's not all there is in life.
The Prussian model called for standardization, quantification, hierarchy, certification, and so on. In short, it's part of industrialization and influences every aspect of formal education, from general to technical education. I think the idea of focusing on technical training is a related issue.
Here's what I remember: the Prussians noted that they had something like this for manufacturing, and then realized that they could defeat highly professional armies like those of France through a more brief but standardized training for troops, and then deploying them quickly and en masse using rail and other means. Later, they realized that the same could be done for schooling: turn the whole population into not only military but industrial armies. And it worked.
The U.S. copied that by introducing a public school system that many other countries also copied and that has been in place for more than a century.
Given that, one would like to think that people would be free if they were allowed to educate themselves in any way they please. But that's not the system that controls modern man. That's because the public school system only mirrors an industrialized society that is characterized by the same Prussian model, and simply because the former would not have been able to exist without the latter.
And beyond that is a need for societies to maintain order on all levels. Hence, the ban on homeschooling to avoid the rise of things like radical Islam.
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Post by homeschooldad on Aug 24, 2021 3:59:23 GMT
I am well aware of the Prussian model. Not all students are cut out for a conventional day school, where you arrive at the crack of dawn, sit still all day, and absorb instruction sitting in rows of desks with thirty other pupils. Everyone is different. Some people, especially boys if you ask me, may be destined to be entrepreneurs, independent contractors, artisans, or more devoted to the mechanical arts, with a livelier and more individualistic spirit that often goes with such things. Plumbers and electricians can make huge money --- not that we get an education solely to make money and be "useful", that's the Prussian error rearing its head which, incidentally, squashes all thought of being educated to guide your intellect and will towards eternal union with Almighty God --- and as long as my son cooperates in my best efforts to give him a fundamental, home-based, classical and liberal education, nothing would make me happier. It'd probably be healthier than being forced to sit indoors, hunched over a desk, bathed in fluorescent light overhead, for 30 years (which is basically how it turned out for me).
I would also add that it is really, really good life advice, for faithful, believing, practicing, orthodox Catholics --- whether their sensus catholicus leads them more in a TLM direction, a "conservative Novus Ordo" direction, or towards something else such as the Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgy --- to build skills, and to get into a line of work, where moral questions and dilemmas are either non-existent, or few and far between. That way, the risk of being presented with an option --- "either do X, or lose your job", where X is something evil --- is minimized. The likelihood of an individual plumber or electrician, for instance, having to go and make repairs at any one particular abortion clinic is very minimal, and if that contractor owns their own business, if that abortion clinic does call, you can always say "sorry, I don't have anyone who can come and do that", which is no lie, you don't have anyone "who can come and do that", because we don't provide even remote material cooperation to abortion clinics (but you don't have to tell them that). To say to oneself, "I'll go and do that if the cooperation is so remote and material, as not to be sinful", is beside the point. Some people are content to go out on that kind of razor's edge. I wouldn't do it, sinful or not sinful, because these are people I don't want to help. Sin doesn't even enter into it. It's pretty far-fetched, to think they are going to come back and say, "you just don't want to come out here because we're an abortion clinic, so we're gonna sue you, Mister, see you in court!". But on the off chance they do, I say, bring it on. Quite right, we'll see one another in court. I'd file something like that, non-sinful remote and material cooperation that one nonetheless finds distasteful, under the categories, as I've discussed elsewhere, of the Muslim makruh ("disliked") or Kant's categorical imperative. Might be without sin, but there is more to life than just avoiding sin, you certainly do have to avoid sin, but that's not all there is in life.
The Prussian model called for standardization, quantification, hierarchy, certification, and so on. In short, it's part of industrialization and influences every aspect of formal education, from general to technical education. I think the idea of focusing on technical training is a related issue.
Here's what I remember: the Prussians noted that they had something like this for manufacturing, and then realized that they could defeat highly professional armies like those of France through a more brief but standardized training for troops, and then deploying them quickly and en masse using rail and other means. Later, they realized that the same could be done for schooling: turn the whole population into not only military but industrial armies. And it worked.
The U.S. copied that by introducing a public school system that many other countries also copied and that has been in place for more than a century.
Given that, one would like to think that people would be free if they were allowed to educate themselves in any way they please. But that's not the system that controls modern man. That's because the public school system only mirrors an industrialized society that is characterized by the same Prussian model, and simply because the former would not have been able to exist without the latter.
And beyond that is a need for societies to maintain order on all levels. Hence, the ban on homeschooling to avoid the rise of things like radical Islam.
Kind of like attempting to place severe restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass to avoid the rise of things like sedevacantism and rejection of Vatican II?
Sorry, that was too pregnant with need to be said, to leave it unsaid.
You make some very good observations. It's a matter of public policy and, as you say, order, to ensure that all pupils get an education, by the state if necessary. If large portions of the young population were left uneducated, because they don't want to be there, or their labor is needed for the family, or what have you, this would result in sharp and dramatic social stratification, with creation of a perpetual underclass. And at least in this country, in the present day, that would fall most heavily upon minorities of color, and public policy wouldn't tolerate that either (with good reason!).
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Post by ralfy on Aug 25, 2021 2:25:36 GMT
The Prussian model called for standardization, quantification, hierarchy, certification, and so on. In short, it's part of industrialization and influences every aspect of formal education, from general to technical education. I think the idea of focusing on technical training is a related issue.
Here's what I remember: the Prussians noted that they had something like this for manufacturing, and then realized that they could defeat highly professional armies like those of France through a more brief but standardized training for troops, and then deploying them quickly and en masse using rail and other means. Later, they realized that the same could be done for schooling: turn the whole population into not only military but industrial armies. And it worked.
The U.S. copied that by introducing a public school system that many other countries also copied and that has been in place for more than a century.
Given that, one would like to think that people would be free if they were allowed to educate themselves in any way they please. But that's not the system that controls modern man. That's because the public school system only mirrors an industrialized society that is characterized by the same Prussian model, and simply because the former would not have been able to exist without the latter.
And beyond that is a need for societies to maintain order on all levels. Hence, the ban on homeschooling to avoid the rise of things like radical Islam.
Kind of like attempting to place severe restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass to avoid the rise of things like sedevacantism and rejection of Vatican II?
Sorry, that was too pregnant with need to be said, to leave it unsaid.
You make some very good observations. It's a matter of public policy and, as you say, order, to ensure that all pupils get an education, by the state if necessary. If large portions of the young population were left uneducated, because they don't want to be there, or their labor is needed for the family, or what have you, this would result in sharp and dramatic social stratification, with creation of a perpetual underclass. And at least in this country, in the present day, that would fall most heavily upon minorities of color, and public policy wouldn't tolerate that either (with good reason!).
Probably not, as Vatican II is part of a tradition that is around 2,000 years old.
About education as a public policy, my understanding is that mandatory education took place in some places as early as ancient times, but they were usually imposed for religious or military purposes. That may be the case here: homeschooling to promote radical Islam.
It was in the 18th century that the Prussians used it as part of nation-building, and everyone else followed suit. But it took the likes of Carnegie and Rockefeller to turn it into state policy to serve the interests of industrialists. Thus, the goal of education is to make people more productive, with increased consumption logically stemming from that.
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Post by homeschooldad on Aug 25, 2021 7:00:49 GMT
Kind of like attempting to place severe restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass to avoid the rise of things like sedevacantism and rejection of Vatican II?
Sorry, that was too pregnant with need to be said, to leave it unsaid.
You make some very good observations. It's a matter of public policy and, as you say, order, to ensure that all pupils get an education, by the state if necessary. If large portions of the young population were left uneducated, because they don't want to be there, or their labor is needed for the family, or what have you, this would result in sharp and dramatic social stratification, with creation of a perpetual underclass. And at least in this country, in the present day, that would fall most heavily upon minorities of color, and public policy wouldn't tolerate that either (with good reason!).
Probably not, as Vatican II is part of a tradition that is around 2,000 years old.
About education as a public policy, my understanding is that mandatory education took place in some places as early as ancient times, but they were usually imposed for religious or military purposes. That may be the case here: homeschooling to promote radical Islam.
It was in the 18th century that the Prussians used it as part of nation-building, and everyone else followed suit. But it took the likes of Carnegie and Rockefeller to turn it into state policy to serve the interests of industrialists. Thus, the goal of education is to make people more productive, with increased consumption logically stemming from that.
I was simply referring to the irony of getting rid of, or placing severe restrictions on, something very good, to prevent the spread of something very bad. The American English idiom is "throwing the baby out with the bath water". FWIW, the bishops in the countries where the TLM is most prevalent (USA, France, et al), and where the most good can be demonstrated to have come from it --- something about letting the wheat grow amidst the cockles, eh? --- are using their canon law prerogative, to dispense from this discipline, and to keep things as they are in their dioceses.
But not to let this thread spin off into yet another colloquy on the merits and alleged demerits of allowing free access to the TLM. There is a certain stripe of educator, or even citizen for that matter, who would like to see all education become uniform, in the name of having a citizenry who have all learned the same things and, within broad parameters, all think the same way. Even Catholic schools historically wanted to "turn out" faithful Catholics who were all of one mind with the magisterium of the Church. Useful as the Baltimore Catechism was (and is) in the religious development of youth, it was not exactly a springboard for legitimate religious debate or even discussion. Question-and-answer didactic catechisms, by their very design and nature, channel the instruction into one direction, and one direction only --- they supply the questions and the answers to those questions, rather than allowing the questions to arise organically.
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Post by katy777 on Aug 25, 2021 18:35:11 GMT
My youngest here in USA has a variable schedule.
She can zoom some days and go into class others, her choice. The entire school wears a mask and temps are taken b fire entering.
Since she's extroverted it's important for her to socialize.
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Post by ralfy on Aug 25, 2021 22:57:11 GMT
Probably not, as Vatican II is part of a tradition that is around 2,000 years old.
About education as a public policy, my understanding is that mandatory education took place in some places as early as ancient times, but they were usually imposed for religious or military purposes. That may be the case here: homeschooling to promote radical Islam.
It was in the 18th century that the Prussians used it as part of nation-building, and everyone else followed suit. But it took the likes of Carnegie and Rockefeller to turn it into state policy to serve the interests of industrialists. Thus, the goal of education is to make people more productive, with increased consumption logically stemming from that.
I was simply referring to the irony of getting rid of, or placing severe restrictions on, something very good, to prevent the spread of something very bad. The American English idiom is "throwing the baby out with the bath water". FWIW, the bishops in the countries where the TLM is most prevalent (USA, France, et al), and where the most good can be demonstrated to have come from it --- something about letting the wheat grow amidst the cockles, eh? --- are using their canon law prerogative, to dispense from this discipline, and to keep things as they are in their dioceses.
But not to let this thread spin off into yet another colloquy on the merits and alleged demerits of allowing free access to the TLM. There is a certain stripe of educator, or even citizen for that matter, who would like to see all education become uniform, in the name of having a citizenry who have all learned the same things and, within broad parameters, all think the same way. Even Catholic schools historically wanted to "turn out" faithful Catholics who were all of one mind with the magisterium of the Church. Useful as the Baltimore Catechism was (and is) in the religious development of youth, it was not exactly a springboard for legitimate religious debate or even discussion. Question-and-answer didactic catechisms, by their very design and nature, channel the instruction into one direction, and one direction only --- they supply the questions and the answers to those questions, rather than allowing the questions to arise organically.
I don't think they're restricting the EF because it's bad but because it's supposed to follow a liturgy that was revised following Vatican II. That should not be hard to do as the EF was revised many times across the centuries.
I don't understand why you want to avoid going off-topic by referring to that when you were the one who brought it up.
As for this topic, as I pointed out earlier, the main driver of uniformity appears to be industrialists.
Finally, why not talk about the catechism in another thread?
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Post by homeschooldad on Aug 26, 2021 3:08:05 GMT
I was simply referring to the irony of getting rid of, or placing severe restrictions on, something very good, to prevent the spread of something very bad. The American English idiom is "throwing the baby out with the bath water". FWIW, the bishops in the countries where the TLM is most prevalent (USA, France, et al), and where the most good can be demonstrated to have come from it --- something about letting the wheat grow amidst the cockles, eh? --- are using their canon law prerogative, to dispense from this discipline, and to keep things as they are in their dioceses.
But not to let this thread spin off into yet another colloquy on the merits and alleged demerits of allowing free access to the TLM. There is a certain stripe of educator, or even citizen for that matter, who would like to see all education become uniform, in the name of having a citizenry who have all learned the same things and, within broad parameters, all think the same way. Even Catholic schools historically wanted to "turn out" faithful Catholics who were all of one mind with the magisterium of the Church. Useful as the Baltimore Catechism was (and is) in the religious development of youth, it was not exactly a springboard for legitimate religious debate or even discussion. Question-and-answer didactic catechisms, by their very design and nature, channel the instruction into one direction, and one direction only --- they supply the questions and the answers to those questions, rather than allowing the questions to arise organically.
I don't think they're restricting the EF because it's bad but because it's supposed to follow a liturgy that was revised following Vatican II. That should not be hard to do as the EF was revised many times across the centuries.
I don't understand why you want to avoid going off-topic by referring to that when you were the one who brought it up.
As for this topic, as I pointed out earlier, the main driver of uniformity appears to be industrialists.
Finally, why not talk about the catechism in another thread?
Not going to get into the EF/OF wars tonight, sorry, I was the one who brought it up, making what I fancied a clever analogy, of when something good is suppressed because some bad things can come of it. Should grocery stores all close down just because some people are gluttons? Quit making cars because some people drive carelessly? Get rid of the Novus Ordo because some people approach it irreverently? I'm just going to tell you, while I will be a TLM adherent until the day I die, I sat in Mass, diocesan TLM, on Sunday, the quiet "you could hear a pin drop" environment, and thought "yes, HSD, you like this, it 'scratches you where it itches', it's consonant with your temperament, but honestly, now, would this really be the best worship experience for all Western Catholics?". For lack of a better way to put it, I have to wonder if it attracts certain personality types, whereas the OF/Novus Ordo attracts others. Again, I would have started with translating the Missale Romanum into dignified, hieratic vernaculars, and possibly would have removed some accretions like a furniture restorer removing paint and lacquer, but I would not have acted like Mr Muntz streamlining his television sets, yanking out this part and that part, to see if the TV set would still work without it, stripping it down to the bare minimum so he could manufacture TV receivers more cheaply. As it turned out, the "stuff he yanked out" made for a TV set that, when manufactured for the masses, "just didn't work right". I'm not saying that the Novus Ordo "just doesn't work right", but my point should be clear.
I was using the Baltimore Catechism as an example of how education (in this case, a specialized form of education, viz. catechesis) can take the form of directing the pupil's thinking in the desired direction, rather than creating an environment of free thought and free inquiry. TBH, that's one problem I've always had with question-and-answer catechisms --- "did you ever think that some people might have questions that go outside the bounds of this discussion?". I was referring to an educational philosophy, not necessarily religious orthodoxy.
As I stated elsewhere on this forum, I appreciate that our good moderators are not ultra-strict about keeping discussions entirely on the original topic, and that topic only. I was referring to a kind of self-discipline, recognizing that I have a fertile, multi-channel mind, can keep three or four trains of thought going on at once --- if there's such a thing as the opposite of autistic, maybe that's me --- and sometimes am content to let a good discussion take on a life of its own. That does, however, have to have its limits, and it's a sign of mental discipline to be able to sense when a topic needs to be directed back to its original thrust. That's what I was doing --- "we're getting too far afield, and I'm the one who did it, so let's stay more on topic". Just because a good discussion can take on a life of its own, doesn't mean that it always should.
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