posted
Over in the Obama thread, Mucus posted this link to a story on Palin.
If at all possible, I'd like to side step the whole issue of Palin. We really don't need another flame war about her. But this part of the article caught my attention.
quote:But CLSA, an arm of French bank Credit Agricole, decided to close Palin's session to the media after the former Alaska governor indicated that she would have to adjust her speech if reporters were present, Slone said.
"We are very pleased with her attitude towards us. Sarah could have come here and made a media circus," he said.
"But we said to her, 'Look, we want you to give the most information to our clients. Do you feel comfortable doing that with the press around?'
"She said, 'If I do that with the press in the room, I will have to say different things.'"
Slone said they decided to close the event to media because the primary objective of the annual forum was to let their clients get hold of as much industry-related information from the speakers as possible.
First off, I should note that although it isn't evident from the above quote, this is not an intimate closed meeting with a few select clients. This is a major industrial forum that will have thousands of attendees. Sarah Palin was invited to be keynote speaker because she is perceived to be a top candidate in the next US presidential elections. Previous keynote speakers have included Bill Clinton, Alan Greenspan, Al Gore, and Desmond Tutu. These forums, including the keynote address, have not historically been closed to the media. With the exception of Palin's keynote address, this forum is not closed to the media.
Putting Palin and her media issues aside, It raises a red flag for me when any politician announces that they are willing to say things to a closed audience that they won't say in public. It hints not only of duplicity but of a penchant for secrecy that threatens the roots of democracy. Perhaps the Bush administration's near obsession has made me paranoid, but it worries me deeply when politicians and industry leaders want to restrict the flow of information. The free flow of information is essential to democracy and to good decision making in general.
I understand why Sarah Palin is perhaps gun shy about speaking to the media. I also understand exactly why politicians in general want to manipulate what is reported about them in the press. The media is a very very powerful tool. But there is a difference between manipulating the media in order to ensure your message is clearly and fairly presented and locking out the media so you can say things to power brokers you don't want Joe the Plumber to hear.
I don't have any idea which of these is happening at the CSLA meeting and don't particularly care since I doubt Sarah Palin has a realistic future in national politics, but I am interested in discussing the basic questions.
What is the appropriate roll of the media in politics?
When does a politician have the right to speak off the record and when do we as the public have a right to know what is said?
To what extent should we blame sensationalist, biased or just plane bad journalism for politicians reticence to speak frankly when the media is present?
How do we balance legitimate needs for secrecy (or simple privacy) with the need for free access to information that is essential to democracy?
[ September 22, 2009, 05:09 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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posted
Excellent questions, The Rabbit. Another one is how culpable are we as consumers and whether a for profit model for news is a good one.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: [QB] Previous keynote speakers have included Bill Clinton, Alan Greenspan, Al Gore, and Desmond Tutu.
...and Sarah Palin. Which of these don't belong?
I couldn't resist. But let's move on.
quote: Putting Palin and her media issues aside, It raises a red flag for me when any politician announces that they are willing to say things to a closed audience that they won't say in public. It hints not only of duplicity but of a penchant for secrecy that threatens the roots of democracy.
A few thoughts, not necessarily related:
I'm not a fan of closed audience speeches by such public figures. That said, Palin currently holds no office.
It is a public speech. As noted, it will have thousands of attendees. Why exclude the media? This way we'll just wind up with clips from everyone's Blackberrys on YouTube.
The mass media, generally speaking, is a terrible way to convey anything of substance. Soundbites reduce every statement to near meaninglessness. Being taken out of context so often must be a strain on those in the constant media spotlight.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Excellent questions, The Rabbit. Another one is how culpable are we as consumers and whether a for profit model for news is a good one.
Also excellent questions. I personally don't think I'm culpable as a consumer since I go out of my way to avoid sensationalist media and actively seek news from a wide range of media sources. I also try to verify the accuracy of many of the more outlandish things the media reports before I react to them. One of the reasons I like participating in hatrack is that I we get a lot of different perspectives here that help balance out the biases of both media and my social circle. On the other hand, I and many hatrackers seem to be unusual in this regard. I'm told that the National Enquirer is the number one selling newspaper in the US.
You have a point about the for profit news model but I'm not sure what alternatives there are. I think the US broadcast media did a much better job back in the days when news was required as a public service than they have done in recent years. I think public TV and radio still do a much better job of accurate investigative journalism than any of the for profit broadcast news media.
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posted
Personally I'm thrilled by this. You have to expect that someone there will record the conversation, so it'll get out. And when it does come out, it'll be unfiltered, so we can hear Palin's crazy in its purest, most undiluted and entertaining form.
What is the role of the media in politics though? Talk about a loaded question. I think it's three basic parts:
1. Report what the candidates are saying, claiming, and doing in an objective fashion.
2. Pursuant to that reporting, check to see if what they are saying is actually true or not, and instead of presenting everything in an equal, third party manner, call a spade a spade as often as you possibly can.
3. Don't play up personal foibles at the expense of substantive policy issues. In other words, report that Candidate X had an affair with a mistress when he was in his mid-20s, but don't make the the focus of constant coverage. Mention it, and then move on to something else that actually matters to the running of the country so it's more of a presidential election and less of a high school popularity contest.
The essence of my media-political driven philosophy is one of information. The media should be there to inform the public so the public can make informed decisions. The biggest flaws in the media of the past several elections have been to overhype meaningless information, to perpetuate unsubstantiated claims from opposing groups, and to present all information from opposing sides as equal when even a cursory glance at the facts says that one or both sides is obviously wrong.
The problem there is credibility. Despite all evidence to disprove its worth, the media actually has some credibility left, and people take their presentation of the facts often at face value. When Candidate X says the sky is blue and Candidate Y says the sky is yellow, and the news presents both sides in a fair and balanced matter, the public assumes there must be some sort of equality in the matter. It's far too rare to have a journalist actually stand up and say "Candidate Y is wrong, Candidate X is right," and it's often because they're afraid of being tagged with the Scarlet B: "Bias."
When fact checking became bias is I think we started our rapid descent into media madness. Now it's a 24 hour endless stream of he said she said from every end of the country with no context with which to frame truth from fiction, belief from reality.
In a world where there's no filter to differentiate belief from reality, when belief is in fact presented as reality, then belief becomes reality in the minds of the people, and at that point, we've already lost.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: On the other hand, I and many hatrackers seem to be unusual in this regard. I'm told that the National Enquirer is the number one selling newspaper in the US.
Maybe it's just a case of genre-blindness, but I really think an angel dies every time someone says that the majority of Americans believe X stupid thing, or Y stupid crap is the most popular whatever in the wherever. I just don't really believe that. What I mean to say is that I am simply not credulous of the idea that more people read the Enquirer than any other news source- I would be more inclined to believe that their sales numbers are somehow accounted for differently than those of other readerships, or that they simply ship to more locations than any other news source, but that in reality many more people just read a variety of news or their local papers, or whatever. If you think about it a second, if the NE sold 1 million copies, while the rest of newspapers and print journalism sold 100 million copies, spread amongst 10,000 papers, the NE could easily be "America's #1 News Source" without actually being at all widely read.
I feel inundated by this dissonant flood of information, that always fails to match anything like my own reality. It's like the endless TV shows that feature Americans failing basic trivia questions- I have never met anyone that couldn't point out Iraq on the map. The reason, maybe, that I haven't met any of those people is just that I haven't asked them- I've allowed them to reveal their interests and intelligence to me, and responded to that, rather than measured their worth on an arbitrary scale related to geography and awareness of current events. I could easily not expose myself to any American news whatsoever, and without much difficulty I could avoid ever even hearing who the President of the United States was, and that is not at all an exaggeration, because where I live, foreign politics is an interest only mostly foreigners have. Would that make me dumb, or apathetic in an honest person's eyes?
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You have a point Orincoro. Actually several good points but I was thinking specifically about how easily we (I) will accept the unflattering generalization about Americans. My entire adult life, US politics has been dominated by politicians who seemed to adhere to the maxim that 'no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.' I'm sick of politicians who are constantly simplifying issues to sound bites, catering to the least common denominator and presuming that Americans can't handle complexity or sacrifice. The one thing I truly like about Obama is his willingness to talk to the American people like we are intelligent adults. If there is only one thing he succeeds in as president I hope it is in changing the popular notion that you have to cater to the stupid to succeed in US politics.
And I think much of the same thing applies to the media. I think too many media outlets have embraced the idea that Americans want sensationalism rather than solid investigative reporting without question. I think if they took a harder look they'd find that sensationalism may win in the short term but in the long run it has simply driven people away from the news. When "The News" choses to be nothing more than entertainment, people will chose better forms of entertainment than "The News". People aren't going to choose to watch the news instead of the latest sitcom unless the news brings them something much more than simple entertainment.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Personally I'm thrilled by this. You have to expect that someone there will record the conversation, so it'll get out. And when it does come out, it'll be unfiltered, so we can hear Palin's crazy in its purest, most undiluted and entertaining form.
I'll be keeping an eye out.
(Although I must say, if even part of the audience uses translators, having to make some sense of Palin's comments and translating them to Cantonese or Mandarin must be one hell of a job)
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: ... It's like the endless TV shows that feature Americans failing basic trivia questions- I have never met anyone that couldn't point out Iraq on the map.
I don't think this was from a TV show.
quote:The study, which surveyed 510 young Americans from December 17 to January 20, showed that 88 percent of those questioned could not find Afghanistan on a map of Asia despite widespread coverage of the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 and the political rebirth of the country.
In the Middle East, 63 percent could not find Iraq or Saudi Arabia on a map, and 75 percent could not point out Iran or Israel. Forty-four percent couldn't find any one of those four countries. ... When the poll was conducted in 2002, "Americans scored second to last on overall geographic knowledge, trailing Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan and Sweden," the report said.
That said, I don't think that this is proof that Americans are on average dumb or apathetic, but it is more of a symptom of much larger problems at least when compared to those other countries.
Also more relevant to news:
quote:Fewer than three in 10 think it important to know the locations of countries in the news and just 14 percent believe speaking another language is a necessary skill.
posted
I wish they'd asked for relative importance. I think knowing the locations of countries in the news is somewhat important, but I don't think it's very important. Most of what I know about the Middle Eastern countries being discussed in the news has nothing to do with where they actually are. I'd argue that topography is far more important than geography in understanding the conflict in Afghanistan. I still think it's good to know though.
I also don't think that speaking another language is a necessary skill, at least not yet, but I would say an important or helpful one.
The basic problem isn't that Americans are dumb, it's that we live in a far more insular culture than we present to the world. While American society itself is vast, complex and confusing, it's almost entirely uni-lingual. You don't HAVE to know another language to get by, whereas in Europe, Africa or Asia, even within single countries there can be a half dozen languages necessary to get by on a daily basis, and other nations with separate languages are right next door, rather than a thousand miles away (Mexico excluded, but for a lot of the country, it IS a thousand miles away).
If American culture emphasized a more expansive world view, I have no doubt that you'd see a much higher international IQ among Americans than you do now. For now though, people go about their daily lives and so long as the light switches keep working, most of them always will.
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I think the geography problem and the language problem are indicative of a much larger problem in how the average American views the world. We are as a country still very isolationist. American history, for example, is taught with out any real context about the greater world. What was going on in the British colonies in Canada and Caribbean during the American revolution? What was going on in Mexico during the Mexican American war? What was going on in China that lead to Chinese emigration to the US in the 19th century. What was happening in Europe that lead to the Louisiana purchase? Why did Russia sell Alaska to the US? These are all very relevant questions that were never raised in an any American history class I took. In fact, most American history classes barely mention the Dutch, Spanish, Russian and French colonies that became part of the US.
Then look at US government classes. They make it seem like US invented democracy. They never acknowledge the development of democracy in England and its impact on US democracy. They never compare the US democratic system to other common modern forms of democracy.
Look at US newspapers. even the international News is highly US centric. The events that happen around the world are only covered if there is a clear US angle.
The fact that Americans can't find certain countries on a map is barely the tip of the iceberg. Americans tend to see America as the center of the world and don't recognize the importance of other countries and places. Even in an era of globalization, most Americans really don't see America as part of a world community and its unthinkable to certain segments of society to consider the US as simply one of many countries rather than the world leader.
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posted
The language issues is yet different. It isn't simply an issue of living in a very large mono-lingual country (which isn't even strictly true). English is the language of international commerce. If you live in China, Germany, or Africa and you are thinking of learning a second language, there is no debate about which language to learn. You learn English. Then maybe if you want a third or fourth language you consider other possibilities. But if you have an interest in travel, or science, or trade, or pretty much anything outside the borders of your own country -- you learn English because it has become the default "common tongue" for international commerce.
If you are native English speaker, there is no obvious choice of a second language and for most people there is no obvious need to learn a second language even if you travel and interact globally. You are simply more likely to find English speakers in every part of the world than any other single language.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: ... The fact that Americans can't find certain countries on a map is barely the tip of the iceberg.
Yep, like I said, symptom.
I totally agree with what you said, but I would add that the current situation didn't simply arrive by accident.
As much as we ridicule Palin, she still has a following (as did Bush, we should never forget) and she is a very good representative of a specific anti-intellectual, anti-science, and anti-urban demographic which has been pushing these viewpoints for quite some time.
Now to be clear, we have weaker versions of this problem in Canada, the current Liberal leader was recently under attack (by the reigning party) for merely having spent much of his time living abroad in a radically different society.
But the intensity and dare I say it, pride in ignorance that is present in these movements has its consequences.
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quote:Americans tend to see America as the center of the world and don't recognize the importance of other countries and places. Even in an era of globalization, most Americans really don't see America as part of a world community and its unthinkable to certain segments of society to consider the US as simply one of many countries rather than the world leader.
National rhetoric is the fault of that, I think. When you have every person on television saying how awesome you are because you're an American, and how awesome the place you live is because it's America, you're going to start believing it unless you find some pretty compelling evidence, and maybe not even then. Once we stop repeating the fairy tale of America's singular awesomeness (American exceptionalism for you academic types), successive generations won't enter into the realm of world relations with the idea that America starts at the top and everyone else inhabits a circle beneath it, in varying levels.
quote:These are all very relevant questions that were never raised in an any American history class I took.
When did you take American history last? Just curious. The last time I took American history at the high school level would have been the 2000-2001 school year. I took government the year before that, and World History the year after.
Government Class - They spend a lot of time talking about the roots of world democracy in Greece and Spain, but spend most of the time getting you to understand how American government works, rather than discussing comparative governmental theory, which frankly I think is probably beyond most American 9th and 10th graders. Personally I don't know how you'd fit everything you'd have to into a single high school semester if you wanted it to be as inclusive as you suggest. I suppose you could shorten things by having them watch "I'm Just a Bill," from School House Rocks, but that only saves a day or two. Generally we were taught Greco-Roman roots, then a lengthy discussion on how the government itself was formed through the two constitutional conventions, then we discussed the changes that were made, we talked about the process of legislating, how the presidency and SCOTUS worked, and a brief history of how government has changed from Revolution to now. I think talking about Locke and Montesquieu are beyond kids in that age group, and I think comparative governmental theory is outside the scope of the class (and probably also beyond the kids at that age level).
American History - We actually did talk about a lot of the stuff you mention, and a lot of what we didn't talk about was covered in World History. We didn't go in depth, but like I said before, you only have so much time!
This leads me back to the fact that I think American social studies are drastically underrepresented in our education curriculum. The focus is on math and science, math and science, math and science, pounded into your brain so you become good little engineers, inventors and rocket scientists when you grow up! But in the process, I think creating an intelligent citizenry has fallen by the wayside. The fact is, most of your complaints would be easily ameliorated by simply devoting more time to history and government, and expanding the curriculum to cover more topics.
I have this discussion with my engineer best friend all the time, and her argument is constantly that engineers know perfectly well how to think, thank you very much, and don't need a more liberal dominated education to be good citizens. Well, that's up for debate, and I think anyone in higher education (especially when forced into a liberal education), is going to be more cognizant of civic duty than the average bear, especially my friend, whose dream it is to work for an international NGO, or the UN. She's hardly representative of the wider population, and her writing skills leave a lot to be desired.
I think a nation that actively discourages social studies and focuses on math and science will find themselves in decline (as I think we are currently in a decline).
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: What is the role of the media in politics though? Talk about a loaded question. I think it's three basic parts:
1. Report what the candidates are saying, claiming, and doing in an objective fashion.
I think this needs to be amended to include "accurately". Whenever I have been involved in any news story, I've been highly disappointed by the accuracy of what is reported. Sometimes its that the reporters are so ignorant of the basics (usually science) that they can't accurately write about it. Sometimes its bias, sometimes its looking for a sensational angle but mostly I think its just shoddy lazy reporting. Reporters and writers simply don't pay enough attention to get the facts straight. I think that happens in part because of lack of competition and in part because news consumers don't demand better. I don't know how to change that but its a real problem.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: ... I think a nation that actively discourages social studies and focuses on math and science will find themselves in decline (as I think we are currently in a decline).
Hmmm, from a totally different perspective, I don't think a culture that creates a Palin or a Bush as potential or actual leaders is one that is simply over-emphasizing math and science.
Surely, it is not as though Congress is dominated by scientists and engineers!
(I think the nation is actively discouraging both aspects really)
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A huge part of the reason the focus is on math and science is because kids graduate high school with far more history and literature and language than math and science, and we're really suffering in the international marketplace because we don't have enough engineers, and have far too many lawyers.
I also agree with your engineering friend: I meet far more people who can't tell a good argument from bad who have a liberal arts background than a science or engineering background. We're not the people who are afraid to call a spade a spade on TV... that would be the liberal arts people who go into journalism Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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Well, first off, it's not as if our basic education is the only factor in such a result. In other words, I'm not blaming the fact that we're the culture we are on an overemphasis on math and science. But I do think that part of the problem with who gets sent to Congress is related.
No, Congress isn't dominated by scientists and engineers, it's dominated by selfish politicians who care more about reelection than their constituents. But what about the constituents? They're the fools who sent them there, and they're the ones who need to do a better job. I blame both parties; the elected, and those that elect. But I think it's far more important that we fix the systemic problem in our citizenry that leads to such people both being elected and being retained than it is to wring our hands at national politicians and to expect better of them. We get what we vote for.
I should take a side step to acknowledge that the anti-science rhetoric that has cropped up recently in our national discourse is of particular concern, and that I recognize fully that the ability to reason is not solely within the realm of the social sciences. In fact, my argument isn't really with scientists and engineers at all. I said as much in my previous post by excepting many with a higher education because, being exposed to a liberal education in general, most engineers and scientists have already learned at the college level what I want in the high school and lower levels. The argument isn't about scientists and engineers; it's about carpenters and grocery baggers. People who graduate and live their lives with ONLY a high school education need those tools to prepare them to be good, reasoning citizens capable of executing their civic duty. I think our current national slide into decay is in part caused by the fact that a growing number of citizens are ill equipped to do so. (As a disclaimer, I'm not bashing all Republicans here. I think you could have voted for John McCain or George Bush and still be a rational, functional citizen, but it's the REASON for that vote, rather than the vote itself, that matters).
Paul -
I didn't intend for this to turn into a liberal arts versus science debate, nor do I wish to partake in one. It's useless. Personally I don't think the problem is with kids graduating with too much of the social sciences and not enough math and science, I think it's because what is taught is taught extremely poorly. I think the study of history at the high school level is awful. Far too much emphasis on rote memorization of many useless facts, and when people come out of it, they forget the grand majority of it, then carp about how useless and boring history is because it's all just names and dates. The names and dates might be important, yeah, but they are often far less important than process and ideas. None of that gets taught until the college level, and I think that's a crime.
If we continue to misteach social studies, and even worse, teach less of it and teach that lessened amount wrong, we'll enjoy a boon from math and science as society crumbles all around us. I really do believe that. I'd rather have a society of reasoning, functional citizens than a society that can balance its checkbook.
Furthermore, you talking about a liberal arts versus a science or math background is beyond the point. "Background" suggests further schooling beyond the high school level, which I'm not addressing. Lastly, the people who are afraid to call a spade a spade on TV aren't journalists, they're in the entertainment business. Wishing doesn't make it so.
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"I think the study of history at the high school level is awful. Far too much emphasis on rote memorization of many useless facts,"
I think this is factually wrong in many places around the country.
"The names and dates might be important, yeah, but they are often far less important than process and ideas. None of that gets taught until the college level, "
I think this is factually wrong in many places around the country.
I'm not saying
"I'd rather have a society of reasoning, functional citizens than a society that can balance its checkbook."
I think that without the skills taught in math and science, there's no such thing as a reasoning, functioning citizen. (Or without history and literature).
" Lastly, the people who are afraid to call a spade a spade on TV aren't journalists, they're in the entertainment business."
They THINK they are journalists, because that is the college education they have. And they are, almost without exception, people who took math and science in college because they had to, and once requirements were met, they washed their hands of the whole matter. And I believe that this is WHY they won't call a spade a spade.
*shrug* Study of history and literature is important. So is the study of math and science. People are idiots, though, and it takes an awful lot to overcome that. In most cases, even a good education won't do it. And increasing the amount of history and literature education high school students have isn't really possible without decreasing the amount of math and science (or finding tens of billions of dollars for schools)... and our math and science education lags well behind history and literature and language education without further skewing the ratio.
Sidebar: I didn't mean to come across like a jerk in my initial post. Smiley was there to try to indicate that. I apologize if I failed, and I sense I did, because your post came across, to me, as intentionally reciprocally hostile.
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quote: I think the study of history at the high school level is awful. Far too much emphasis on rote memorization of many useless facts, and when people come out of it, they forget the grand majority of it, then carp about how useless and boring history is because it's all just names and dates. The names and dates might be important, yeah, but they are often far less important than process and ideas. None of that gets taught until the college level, and I think that's a crime.
This is not at all an accurate description of my high school history classes My high school humanities and social science teachers were excellent, far far above the quality of teaching in math and science. We did lots of assignments that required analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Science and Math tend to peak out with application.
I personally think that the idea that liberal arts education develops critical thinking skills is seriously over blown. Its a line the liberal artists have develop in self defense in a world where scientific thinking has largely won the war. Its a nice line, but it really isn't consistent with the facts. I've known plenty of liberal arts graduates, even a few liberal arts professors, whose critical reasoning skills were appalling. I've also known some a few who were brilliant with sharp reasoning skills, I'm just saying the liberal art education is not sufficient to produce that outcome.
I've also seen the studies which have tested people's critical reasoning ability enter and leaving college. For the most part, college graduates in all fields have relatively low critical reasoning ability. For the most part, there is a negligible increase in critical reasoning ability between high school graduation and a bachelors degree. Only Ph.D. graduates showed consistently high critical reasoning skills.
Given those results, I have to say that expecting high school to teach people high level critical thinking ability is simply unrealistic. We could probably do better at the University level but it would take some fairly radical restructuring of education and assessment procedures.
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It wasn't hostile. It was a cornucopia of emotions, none of them anger directed at you. I'm frustrated with American education, and probably overly defensive of my own discipline, which I think we're all prone to from time to time. I continually endeavor to not be that way, but I frequently fail. Apologies if I came off as hostile
As for "factually wrong in many..." Okay, in a country where the curriculum of a million school districts is set independently at the local level, I'm 100% sure that's going to be the case. Without an exhaustive study, neither of us can make such a determination. Though I'd love to read such a study. I was speaking in generalities, based on anecdotal evidence, personal experience, and some of what I've read and heard from history teachers. Consider my original statement thus qualified. I also think, to add this on, that by and large, with the exception of AP classes, there's too much testing based on multiple choice answers when essay tests are required. Multiple choice CAN be useful for a number of things, but it misses the mark on a great deal when it comes to evaluating whether some really understands certain material and WHY that material is important. I think this is a tiny bit true of math and science as well, though not nearly as much. Only insofar as logical reasoning goes, but we never had a class like that at my school (well, we might have, but I avoided math like I avoid running with scissors).
quote:I think that without the skills taught in math and science, there's no such thing as a reasoning, functioning citizen. (Or without history and literature).
'm not, by the way, advocating a cut in the amount of math and science taught, I'm saying that social sciences shouldn't be sacrificed in order to teach more math and science. I'd like to see the way we teach history improved in a uniform matter. Both are very important to the health of our society. But what do you sacrifice? American history already gets crushed into a single semester at some schools, which can't possibly do it justice. I don't expect schools to spend an entire semester on say Victorian America, the way we do in college, but American history can't be covered in any meaningful way in a single semester unless the only purpose is to indoctrinate students with a set of thematic nationalistic beliefs to hold on to. I actually do think that serves SOME function, but I also think that's equally disastrous, and leads to a lot of American exceptionalist chest thumping with no means of refutation.
I'm curious though, what were the requirements for everyone here when they went to school? We had to have seven years of combined math and science before we could graduate high school. We also had to have I think three years of English (includes writing, lit, argumentation, etc), maybe one year of mandated foreign language, and I think two years of history, which had to include a semester of government and a semester of econ. Then we had electives.
For math, that got most of us generally through I think trig, and for science, well it depended on what you wanted to do with it, but it got most people through chemistry, biology and some basic environmental science. For people who wanted it, there were another half dozen various math and science classes, and a half dozen math or science related AP classes. The only AP classes for liberal arts were US History and English. There are more NOW I believe, but not when I was actually there.
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I suspect a great deal of this is going to be anecdotal, and this applies to me as well, but "MY school wasn't like that..." is hardly representative of a larger population. As a future disclaimer, I never suggest that my particular experience was either. You seem to be contradicting yourself though. A few posts up you were appalled at how little you were taught in school, now you speak of it in such glowing terms. So you had great, awesome teachers who gave you an extremely narrow, Ameri-centric view of history? I'm not saying that isn't possible, I'm just trying to get a hold of your experience.
I'm not, by the way, suggesting that people should all leave high school being able to score a 180 on the LSAT. But our country is in the midst of a slow decline punctuated by a serious confusion between belief and reality. I think part of that is cultural, I think part of the solution is better education, and I don't think trig and chemistry are going to going to take up the bulk of the role in fixing it. I do think, however, they are very important overall.
I'm wondering if you've ever read Cardinal Newman's "The Idea of a University," and if so, what your thoughts on it are.
PS. In case there's any confusion, I think there are a huge number of issues that ONLY engineers, scientists, etc can solve, and that being an historian or philosopher are totally insufficient for. I'm talking about a specific issue, not about career paths of Americans at large, for which I think the increased production of engineers and scientists would be a great and necessary thing.
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As someone who learned enough math and science to get by, but who was always more interested in history then either, and as someone who studied English, theatre, and history at a liberal arts university, I actually think that the "liberal arts teaches you to reason" attitude is a big part of what's wrong with American (High School) education.
the liberal arts tradition doesn't value reasoning, per se, so much as it values exposure to lots of different types of reasoning. I've found that, in liberal arts, there tends to be lots of lip service given to reasoning, but the conclusion that you are expected to reach is always the same, "Value is relative."
Which is a load of garbage. "Value is relative" is fine in a classroom, and it's a very convenient way to avoid offending anyone (perish the thought!) but in the real world value judgments are essential. What else is an election but a value judgment?
It's already been mentioned that the need to be balanced leads to reporting that sounds more like conflict mediation: "Everyone makes some very good points."
I think the problem with the entire liberal tradition is that is has become the easiest way of AVOIDING real reasoning. Ultimately, the actions that change the world for the better are always based on choices, and if you've been taught that everything is just shades of gray, how can you discern the black from the white? How can you ever make a choice?
Posts: 368 | Registered: Dec 2005
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Some news, nothing spectacular like a transcript or audio yet. Surprisingly, it seems that she did pretty well (a measure of how low expectations are?):
quote:Former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin called for closer cooperation with China, criticizing the Obama administration’s decision to impose duties on Chinese tires, according to people who heard her closed-door speech to fund managers in Hong Kong. ... “She started the speech with the Alaskan fishing industry, which I think is a safe topic for her,” said Suyeon An of RCM Asia Pacific Ltd, who left before Palin stopped talking. “She was avoiding the important economic issues. She tried to talk some about Hong Kong in general, but it was nothing specific. It was a very safe speech, boring I have to say.”
quote:“She was against the Obama administration’s tariff on importing tires from China,” Nicola Maino, head of equity team, at Euromobiliare Asset Management SGR based in Milan. “In her opinion it was the wrong approach. Her approach would be more cooperation with China. ... CLSA, the regional brokerage unit of Paris-based Credit Agricole SA, has declined to say if or how much Palin will get paid. It closed the speech to the press because Palin indicated she would say different things if reporters were present, Agence France-Presse reported Sept. 21, citing Jonathan Slone, CLSA’s chief executive officer.
Reading between the lines, I wonder if her minders are instructing her to give a message of co-operation to the Chinese while limiting how much her base in Middle America hears about that co-operation.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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At least the one issue she seems to have taken a position on is a good one. The tire tariff is a bad idea, and is going to cost American consumers millions upon millions of dollars that they wouldn't have to spend otherwise. As with almost all "job protecting" tariffs, it will probably be the case that the government could avoid costing consumers millions and still not hurt a single tire worker by just giving every tire worker whose job would be "saved" an amount equal to their total compensation.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Generally we were taught Greco-Roman roots, then a lengthy discussion on how the government itself was formed through the two constitutional conventions, then we discussed the changes that were made, we talked about the process of legislating, how the presidency and SCOTUS worked, and a brief history of how government has changed from Revolution to now.
We talked plenty about the Greco-Roman roots of democracy in my various classes. What was never discussed, but far more relevant, was the development of democracy in England and the very direct impact that had on the American revolution and the American constitution.
quote:You seem to be contradicting yourself though. A few posts up you were appalled at how little you were taught in school, now you speak of it in such glowing terms.
As an historian you are supposed to have a better appreciation for the details than that. My criticism of education was very specific, that American history and government are taught with out putting it a greater context of global events. It's as if American history happens in a vacuum. Your criticism was also very specific but quite different, that high school history classes focused too much on memorizing names and dates with almost no emphasis on higher level cognitive skills. In that particular respect, my high school history education was quite excellent and in fact far superior to my math and science education. And while my experience is certainly only one data point, I have enough experience to know it was reasonably representative of the history education most college bound US students receive in most parts of the US.
This is not the first time I’ve had this type of discussion. I have had these discussions with a number of history professors and on several university committees. I have a sister who is a history teacher and a couple of close friend’s with graduate degrees in history. I spent 15 years teaching and advising University students who’ve come through the US educational system. I may not be an expert in history education but ’m not basing my comments solely on my own experience. I know enough to know that what I have said is not seen as particularly controversial among experts in history education.
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It would definitely be nice to see a lot more discussion of the development of common law and county governance structures in English history in US schools.
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On the issue of closed speeches... I think there a definitely instances where you could say a comment to a certain audience and have the audience understand what you mean, while the public at large would misinterpret your comment and draw false conclusions from it. For instance, if a politician says "I like rap music", such a statement might be wrongly taken by the public at large to imply various sorts of things about the politician's character. Yet in a closed meeting with inner city musicians, it might be more accurately understood. In situations like that, I think there is nothing dishonest about wanting a given audience to hear something you have to say without wanting it to be made public.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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On the issue of history education..... I was taught dates and facts, but the emphasis was on understanding why and how things happened. I don't think that's the problem with history education.
I think the problem is that schools and society does a poor job of getting students to understand why they should care about knowing any history. It's easier simply to remember something for a test and then forget it, especially when there is so much history to cover and many events only come up once or twice over the course of one's entire education.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:American History - We actually did talk about a lot of the stuff you mention, and a lot of what we didn't talk about was covered in World History. We didn't go in depth, but like I said before, you only have so much time.
I'm quite skeptical of that claim. You're a history major and if I remember correctly your emphasis is American history. So without looking it up.
1. What important role did the British Caribbean colonies play in the lead up to the American revolution?
2. How much authority did King George have in the American Colonies?
3. In what ways did American democracy established in the US constitution differ from British democracy at that time?
4. Why didn't the British colonies in Canada join the revolution?
5. How did Mexican independence impact on growth and development of the US?
These aren't trivia questions. The answers to all these questions shed important light on what was going on in America.
American history is taught almost entirely in a vacuum. I suppose it isn't just a reflection of American isolationism and exceptionalism, it as much a reflection of scientific reductionism and the philosophy that the Universe can be accurately understood by studying its parts in isolation. But nations aren't some kind of fundamental particle that can be understood independent of their interaction with other nations. It isn 't simply a question of what details are most important to include in a curriculum, it is far more fundamental question of how we view ourselves as a nation.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: On the issue of closed speeches... I think there a definitely instances where you could say a comment to a certain audience and have the audience understand what you mean, while the public at large would misinterpret your comment and draw false conclusions from it. For instance, if a politician says "I like rap music", such a statement might be wrongly taken by the public at large to imply various sorts of things about the politician's character. Yet in a closed meeting with inner city musicians, it might be more accurately understood. In situations like that, I think there is nothing dishonest about wanting a given audience to hear something you have to say without wanting it to be made public.
Yes, but where and how do you draw the line between targeting an audience and duplicity? There maybe legitimate reasons to seek privacy, but there are unquestionable illegitimate reasons as well. Privacy is often designed to hide collusion. I'd like to know if our leaders are sending contradictory messages to different audiences or making under the table deals when doors are closed. That information is relevant to the democratic process. How can we know whether what interests our leaders truly represent if the media is excluded from certain forums?
I think much of the problem you refer to comes not simply because the message for a specific audience can't be understood by the general public but because the news media strip the comments from their original context. I think much of this problem could be resolved if the media were more responsible in reporting the context in which statements are made.
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quote:Reading between the lines, I wonder if her minders are instructing her to give a message of co-operation to the Chinese while limiting how much her base in Middle America hears about that co-operation.
That is what concerns me. It isn't simply a matter of wanting to properly package your message for different audiences, its a question of whether a politician is trying to deliver contradictory messages to different audiences. That is duplicity and it something the voters need to know about.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: At least the one issue she seems to have taken a position on is a good one. The tire tariff is a bad idea, and is going to cost American consumers millions upon millions of dollars that they wouldn't have to spend otherwise. As with almost all "job protecting" tariffs, it will probably be the case that the government could avoid costing consumers millions and still not hurt a single tire worker by just giving every tire worker whose job would be "saved" an amount equal to their total compensation.
The issue is much more complex than you indicate. There are some very serious quality control issues with Chinese tires that are a safety concern on the roads. Part of the reason China is able produce tires cheaper than the US is that China is producing lower quality tires. Those quality and safety issues aren't something that a typical consumer can identify when buying tires. There are very legitimate reasons outside economics to want to keep China from flooding the US market with cheap low quality tires. I don't know the details of this particular tariff or what other avenues are being explored to keep low quality potentially dangerous tires out of the US. But I do know that the picture is bigger than just protecting an uncompetitive industry.
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And the right way to deal with that is to require appropriate levels of quality inspection to ensure they meet any relevant US legal requirements.
Slapping penalty tariffs on is not the way. Especially when the stated goal is to protect jobs. The effect is the opposite.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:And the right way to deal with that is to require appropriate levels of quality inspection to ensure they meet any relevant US legal requirements
Easier said than done.
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I may point out that it has noted that two-thirds of the tires that are affected by the tariff are produced by American companies anyways, they're just operating in China.
Simply forcing these companies to switch production to a Vietnam or a Thailand won't solve the problem because the problem (if indeed the problem is with quality, which I don't really believe is the case) would be with the companies themselves not enforcing proper tire quality.
(In any case, it has been noted in the American news that the gesture was aimed at American unions in an attempt to get them alongside other legislation like healthcare, so this whole thing may be a red herring anyways)
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Whenever I have been involved in any news story, I've been highly disappointed by the accuracy of what is reported. Sometimes its that the reporters are so ignorant of the basics (usually science) that they can't accurately write about it. Sometimes its bias, sometimes its looking for a sensational angle but mostly I think its just shoddy lazy reporting. Reporters and writers simply don't pay enough attention to get the facts straight. I think that happens in part because of lack of competition and in part because news consumers don't demand better. I don't know how to change that but its a real problem.
Don't forget the "rush, rush, rush" of deadlines... I used to date a reporter who, when she did find an interest in a story, wanted to research/learn more about it to report on it better, but more often than not was constrained by time limits.
Posts: 382 | Registered: Jan 2008
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The Rabbit: not much harder than it is to have such a tariff. The ability to enforce the tariff implies the ability to know about the existence of the imports, and I rather suspect we have a wide array of mechanism for testing tire safety. That this would involve some outlay to conduct the inspections does not change that it would be far more cost effective than a large tariff at keeping out defective tires, and actually have a positive effect (unlike the large tariff's large negative effects).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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fugu13, If you think that knowing about the existence of imports is the most significant barrier to assuring the quality of imports you are truly ignorant. There are significant and expensive technological barriers involved. Its not simply a question of whether the technology for testing tires exists, it does. It is a question of implementing that technology in a way that can be effectively used to screen imports at a reasonable cost.
Beyond that, the simple economic reasons you put forth do not acknowledge the full complexity of questions and difficulties arising from globalization. But that is a debate for another thread.
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Screening all imports would be difficult, but that isn't the appropriate way to proceed, which is to screen a sample of imports (especially as the numbers of Chinese tires with problems have been small, and involved batches that had a manufacturing defect, not random errors; randomized sampling of imported products is quite likely to catch groups of tires with errors). That is not nearly such a barrier, and is already done on products of many types. Even if it costs thousands of dollars to test a single tire (and I would bet quite a bit it does not cost that much), screening a few thousand sample tires every year would still cost US consumers less than this tariff will -- and that's more than enough to make it not cost effective to attempt to import batches of defective tires.
edit: and feel free to start any thread you wish Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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What is the role of the media in politics though? Talk about a loaded question. I think it's three basic parts:
1. Report what the candidates are saying, claiming, and doing in an objective fashion.
2. Pursuant to that reporting, check to see if what they are saying is actually true or not, and instead of presenting everything in an equal, third party manner, call a spade a spade as often as you possibly can.
3. Don't play up personal foibles at the expense of substantive policy issues. In other words, report that Candidate X had an affair with a mistress when he was in his mid-20s, but don't make the the focus of constant coverage. Mention it, and then move on to something else that actually matters to the running of the country so it's more of a presidential election and less of a high school popularity contest.
The essence of my media-political driven philosophy is one of information. The media should be there to inform the public so the public can make informed decisions. The biggest flaws in the media of the past several elections have been to overhype meaningless information, to perpetuate unsubstantiated claims from opposing groups, and to present all information from opposing sides as equal when even a cursory glance at the facts says that one or both sides is obviously wrong.
The problem there is credibility. Despite all evidence to disprove its worth, the media actually has some credibility left, and people take their presentation of the facts often at face value. When Candidate X says the sky is blue and Candidate Y says the sky is yellow, and the news presents both sides in a fair and balanced matter, the public assumes there must be some sort of equality in the matter. It's far too rare to have a journalist actually stand up and say "Candidate Y is wrong, Candidate X is right," and it's often because they're afraid of being tagged with the Scarlet B: "Bias."
When fact checking became bias is I think we started our rapid descent into media madness. Now it's a 24 hour endless stream of he said she said from every end of the country with no context with which to frame truth from fiction, belief from reality.
In a world where there's no filter to differentiate belief from reality, when belief is in fact presented as reality, then belief becomes reality in the minds of the people, and at that point, we've already lost.
I agree with this. The only thing I would add is that the media spends too much time talking about the reaction to a given bill, rather than what is actually in the bill.
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quote:Originally posted by natural_mystic: The only thing I would add is that the media spends too much time talking about the reaction to a given bill, rather than what is actually in the bill.
Isn't that what C-SPAN is for? And what are their Nielsen numbers? Posts: 382 | Registered: Jan 2008
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quote:Originally posted by natural_mystic: The only thing I would add is that the media spends too much time talking about the reaction to a given bill, rather than what is actually in the bill.
Isn't that what C-SPAN is for? And what are their Nielsen numbers?
I agree - this is probably why they don't do it. Sadly, good theater does not make for good news.
Posts: 644 | Registered: Sep 2008
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" But our country is in the midst of a slow decline punctuated by a serious confusion between belief and reality. I think part of that is cultural, I think part of the solution is better education, and I don't think trig and chemistry are going to going to take up the bulk of the role in fixing it. "
I disagree. A well taught science course thumps you upside the head, repeatedly, with how your beliefs do not match reality.
People tend to come out of history and literature courses with the belief that there are no wrong answers as long as you can back up your beliefs with evidence. They tend to come out of math and science courses knowing there is a right answer.
Part of this is because of the principle of falsifiability, which is, in a good science class, heavily stressed. But I don't know that it is stressed at all in any history or literature classes. Maybe it is deep into the university catalogue in a history department, but certainly not in literature. I really dislike quoting swbarnes, but his point about falsifiability is a true one. You can only discard a false belief if you have a system for picking out false beliefs, and I don't think history and literature really do. Not on a systematic level. I could be wrong about that, particularly with history, but I don't think I am when it comes to literature.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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I think the very idea that American education is in decline is a myth. For the most part, I think American education is significantly better than it was 30 or 60 years ago. My father's high school didn't offer trigonometry. My mother's rural high school never did Shakespeare. When I was in High School, we read Shakespeare in every grade. Trig was a Junior level class. Most seniors were in Pre-Calc, Top students took AP calculus. My nieces and nephews have access to a couple dozen AP classes. Nearly all of them have taken calculus, often in their junior year. They have the option of IB programs.
I know those options still aren't available in every part of the US. I know not all students benefit from these programs and there are areas where schools are failing. But 60 years ago, these opportunities weren't available anywhere.
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*Nod* Students are learning more, in more areas, then they ever have, and there is substantial literature to back that up. I think they also are learning more critical thinking skills, and problem solving skills, then they ever have. That is harder to check, because its only recently we started testing for those skills in our general body of students.
The problem isn't so much that education is in decline, as its not keeping up with the increase in accumulated knowledge and the spread of information. There are more fundamental skills to learn, and there is more basic knowledge to possess, then there was 50 years ago. There is more misinformation to sift through, which requires significantly greater reasoning skills. We are bombarded by BAD information, constantly, and fighting against that bombardment is, at best, a rear guard action.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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I for one, never said that American education was in decline. I said America itself is in decline. Apologies if you weren't referencing me, you might have just been putting that forth randomly (which is fine I suppose).
quote:From Paul: I disagree. A well taught science course thumps you upside the head, repeatedly, with how your beliefs do not match reality.
People tend to come out of history and literature courses with the belief that there are no wrong answers as long as you can back up your beliefs with evidence. They tend to come out of math and science courses knowing there is a right answer.
Part of this is because of the principle of falsifiability, which is, in a good science class, heavily stressed. But I don't know that it is stressed at all in any history or literature classes. Maybe it is deep into the university catalogue in a history department, but certainly not in literature. I really dislike quoting swbarnes, but his point about falsifiability is a true one. You can only discard a false belief if you have a system for picking out false beliefs, and I don't think history and literature really do. Not on a systematic level. I could be wrong about that, particularly with history, but I don't think I am when it comes to literature.
I think you frame things in an interesting way. It would seem you're saying that History/Lit teach you to think in gray, whereas Math/Science teach you to think in black and white, but (and this is where I sort of extrapolate from your thinking) a totally rational person would have both tools.
I guess the problem is, for a lot of issues we discuss dealing with politics and with what to do as a nation, falsifiability/right/wrong don't always apply. It would seem obvious for some things. If a sewer system is in a state of disrepair, you fix it. But what if your city also has some other sort of problem, say a large number of hungry citizens who need a soup kitchen funded. What do you do, fix the sewer, or help the people? The example itself doesn't matter, the point is that we have to make decisions on what is more important to us when sometimes there is no clear answer (maybe in that case it's feeding the hungry, but if there's no moral imperative, or if that imperative isn't universally agreed upon, what do you do?) Abortion: right or wrong? Gay marriage: right or wrong? Polygamy: right or wrong? What is the role of the United States in the world, highly militarized force for American ideals, taking a backseat role, something else?
Like I said, some stuff is easy. You can look at data and say "well obvious there's not enough evidence to prove there are WMDs in Iraq" or "Clearly there's a preponderance of data out there to suggest climate change is real and caused by man." And yes, for that sort of thing, having a scientifically literate nation is utterly essential, otherwise we're highly susceptible to the sorts of fear mongering attempts to curry popularity at the expense of logic (or, when we confuse belief with reality).
I think you're right, at least in general, in how the different disciplines train people to think about things, and I'm thankful for that diversity. If we didn't live in a nation that taught people that there was more than one possible valid answer to things, how would we ever make social progress as a nation? Well, historically the answer to that is that it comes slowly, and with a great deal of blood. But it also teaches a degree of tolerance, rather than the belief that your answer is the ONLY RIGHT answer that could be.
Edit to add:
Alright I'm back, now, I can't really say for literature, as I'm not really sure what realm of thinking they employ. But I have to take issue with your use of "false belief." What's a false belief? Change that to "bad belief," and we're just fine. I don't think it's true that people come out of history with a belief that any view is right so long as you back it up. What are you backing it up with? Some things are going to be easy, like what days a particular battle were fought on, but some things aren't, like who won the battle? That might be easy too, but what about more controversial battles? Was Gettysburg a Union victory because it repulsed a Confederate attack, or a Confederate victory because of the high number of Union casualties? Was it a turning point in the war, or did it not matter given later campaigns fought by Sherman and Grant? You can come up with an answer for either side, yes, but that's the problem with applying scientific thinking to the historical question: There isn't always going to be falsifiability in every given question!
That doesn't mean that ANY answer is okay though just because you have evidence to support it. The discipline of history, I think much like science, teaches students to look at the evidence and evaluate it. Is the historian fairly interpreting the data? Is there enough data? Is she drawing conclusions that aren't supported by the data? You also get changing interpretations over time, which leads to historiography, or the history of history, where a view might change on a given event because social norms or morality have changed, but that's valuable in a number of ways too, both in attempting to evaluate how a society has changed based on their views, and also allows us to view a topic with fresh eyes. When you get past names and dates, you find that history is chock full of questions with no clearly defined answers, and in fact, the mistake of many historians in the past has been to gloss over the problematic details in order to get to a clearly definable answer.
In that sense, history teaches us to look for bad arguments as well as good ones, to not take things at face value, to delve into the supporting evidence behind a claim to fully evaluate that claim. In the end we realize that tomorrow someone could unearth new evidence that totally undoes everything we believe, which is why it's impossible to hold fast to the idea that there's an absolute truth to historical questions, but that doesn't mean that any answer is okay, it means we have to work that much harder to gather enough evidence to make our thesis correct, otherwise you're just making stuff up, and you should get called on it.
quote:I for one, never said that American education was in decline. I said America itself is in decline.
I'm not sure what you mean by that or even it is a bad thing. By many standards, people are better off in America today than they have ever been before. That's true in terms of education, material possessions, civil liberties, life span and likely many other things. I am not saying everything is great, we certainly have many problems facing us but we are not in a state of general decline.
I think it is fair to say that there are many aspects in which America is not keeping pace with other industrial nations, say in terms of health care or social justice -- but that isn't because America has been declining in these areas its because others have been progressing faster than we have. We should be striving to do better, but failing to keep pace isn't the same as going backwards.
I think it is fair to say American world dominance is in decline, but I also think that is largely a positive thing. It means, at least in part, that the well being of people in places like India in China is catching up. It means more of the world population have the basic necessities. It means more people in the world enjoy material prosperity. It means more of the world's people are making important contributions to science, culture, thought and social justice. Its hard to view that as a negative unless you are obsessed with amassing power and control.
I think it is fair to say that America's reputation in the world has declined badly over the past 8 years, but from what I've seen Obama has reversed that trend and I have hopes we are now on an upward swing.
I think it is fair to say that American infrastructure is in a state of serious decline. Over the past 30 years we have failed to invest in even adequate maintenance for roads, utilities, and public property. In many of these areas were aren't just failing to keep pace with other nations but we really are heading backwards. I doubt, however, that you were referring to problems with the sewer systems, bridges, buildings and parks when you said America was in decline.
There are those who would argue that America is a state of moral decline, but once again that really depends on the specific issue and your particular moral code. I think that in terms of civil liberties and economic equality, we have and are improving. If you are talking about honesty, integrity, and work ethic, its hard to say. People have been arguing that the previous generation was more honest, more hard working more "moral" than the coming generation since ancient greece, probably earlier. I'm skeptical of those claims.
The question of moral decline gets even more complex because where one man sees moral decline, another may see moral progress. If you are looking at "family values" and "sexual morality", those are certainly changing and many see that as moral decline. But I should add that others see those same changes as progress rather than decline. I see the fact that American society is even discussing whether "torture" is acceptable as evidence of serious moral decline but I know others would strongly disagree.
I think America has many serious problems, some of which threaten catastrophic change if we don't deal with them properly. But facing problems, even facing crises scale problems, isn't the same as being in general decline. Failure to adequately deal with certain problems were are facing could lead to general decline, but we aren't there yet.
[ September 25, 2009, 12:09 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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I'm going off the original post here. I seem to recall Obama making a remark about people being "bitter" and it got all blown up, and his excuse was that he says different things depending on his perceived audience. Does that make him undemocratically non-transparent?
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