Isolationism makes you stupid
There’s examples all over the place of isolationism running rampant. From Lou Dobbs whining about illegal immigrants taking jobs to fellow parents talking about homeschooling their kids to religious people getting visibly annoyed when they’re questioned. While the actors in those examples are different, the central tenet is the same: new ideas are scary.
This is a terrible approach, and in my experience leads to slower development. America seemed to develop quickly (relatively) among other countries in the world. This can be attributed to a few things, each of which helps ideas mature and develop faster, like the first amendment and welcoming immigration policies. We welcomed people escaping religious persecution and promised poor people a new life upon arrival. This led to a healthy growth in our population and introduced lots of great ideas to our culture.
Lou Dobbs bitching about immigration drives me crazy largely because he’s crying about competition. Competition makes life harder, sure, but it also leads to improvements in the quality of products and jobs. Two hundred years ago, we were farming wheat fields by hand. Then came scythes, and eventually came machines. Now a single farmer can harvest huge fields each season, and the world’s the better for it.
Homeschooling is another example of isolationism. I don’t have any real data, largely because I’m lazy and it wasn’t in the top 5 google responses, but the people I’ve known who were homeschooled were fairly religious. And by “fairly” I mean “they thought Jesus talked to them.” Which is a lot. Anyways, the impetus behind the religious homeschooling their kids is to avoid those nasty detractors and mean kids at public school - somehow ignorant that they’re going to show up as soon as the kid goes out in public. Sure, kids can be meaner than others, but really, the overall impact is usually a lot smaller for what kids do to each other. Little Johnny might call you a douche, but Big Johnny will get you fired.
I’ve brought up religious paradoxes to people I know, usually not provoked (except to my wife, sorry about that), and it’s pretty clear it bothers them. The whole notion that someone could question their ideas seems wrong, and they act in ways to avoid it or confront it so forcefully that it doesn’t happen again.
Clearly, in all of these cases, taking a different stance has the potential to significantly improve our culture/country/life/etc. If more people thoroughly questioned their religious beliefs, they’d be less likely to say things like “you took a cracker from our church, and threatened to desecrate it. Therefore, I should bomb your house.”
If parents decided that, though it’s painful, subjecting their kids to foreign ideas at a younger age than, say, 20, is a good idea, we’d have more developed kids. This wouldn’t prevent atrocities like the Columbine or Virginia Tech shootings, but it would provide a better foundation for kids to be more accepting of other cultures and social norms.
If Lou Dobbs wasn’t ugly, CNN wouldn’t suck so much. But also, if workers started to embrace competition and instead of turning to the government to protect their jobs, asked for the government to create new jobs, or worked to get better at their existing jobs or introduce new technologies, we’d have a more exciting and creative economy going.
Societies that have flourished and conquered, either through might or money, have encouraged a marketplace of ideas. Rome was the first, and the US is the most recent. Blind, uncompromising nationalism and religion run counter to an open dialogue in a society, and accordingly their actors should be rebuked when discouraging discourse.
meezy said:
Aug 11, 08 at 4:43 pmOne time China hosted the olympics and they were like “we have more than 1 billion people and don’t have to give our people basic liberties so we can basically spend as much money/man power as we want to show other countries how badass we are”. And that produced a pretty good opening ceremony. I don’t think China encourages a marketplace of ideas. They mainly encourage you to agree to one idea. And by encourage, I mean threaten. And that one idea is “China is the greatest, now do what you are told and stop questioning me before I kill you and rape your family”. So I think its possible to produce good things without encouraging ideas.
However, I prefer an idea marketplace as well. I do my part to encourage progress by making fun of people who don’t like new things. I’m like a China of One. Except I didn’t loan the United States 300 billion dollars. Wow I just tried to exaggerate and actually fell short of the actual number.
Somehow this comment went way wrong. I think its when, after reading a post on isolationism, my first sentence was “One time China hosted the olympics” and then I tried to tie it back from there. I think I came close.
terry said:
Aug 11, 08 at 8:22 pmSo on the way to the Ginger Man I only read your first paragraph, and my reply was going to be:
“Did you really just measure a culture by its Olympic opening ceremony?”
But then you fixed that yourself, so no need.
Tim Berglund said:
Aug 12, 08 at 9:48 amI think Lou Dobbs’ immigration rants may irritate me as much as they do you, but your post went south when you made the argument—without any apparent irony—that homeschooling makes kids stupid. You obviously didn’t so much as Google this, much less get to know any homeschooled families well. Yes, there are freaky isolationist homeschoolers in the world, but they are few. Most are normal people with polite, well-mannered, and well-educated children, even if a plurality of them don’t join you in your enlightened rejection of religious belief. Love it or hate it, homeschooling produces good academic results. I am surprised to find a serious skeptic of this claim in 2008.
Also, while I know and am embarrassed by my coreligionists (even my fellow Evangelicals) who chafe at having their religious beliefs subjected to critical scrutiny, to suggest that intellectually robust religious faith avoids contact with new ideas is simply to be ignorant of the history of intellectually robust religious faith. Which is no cause for shame in itself; I’m ignorant of all kinds of things, but I try to avoid making assertions into those spaces in which my ignorance gets the better of my knowledge.
Also, the implication that contemporary Roman Catholics are terrorists (”you took a cracker from my church/I’ll blow up your house”) is just a bit over the top. Seriously, who says that? I truly respect your desire to put forth arguments against religion in a public forum, and authentically enjoy dialog on this topic, but this kind of thing just makes you look angry and bigoted. If you want to compare the Crusades to terrorism, fine, but to my knowledge Rome is no longer sending armies against noncombatants. For goodness’ sake, they even opposed the war in Iraq.
And your qualifications (”this wouldn’t prevent Columbine”) notwithstanding, it was a shameful rhetorical overreach to make any connection at all between Columbine et al. and homeschooling. Harris and Klebold named—unjustifiably, in my opinion, but they were their words—the social pathologies of a public high school as their casus belli, not their fear and suspicion of the Scary Secular Humanicist Other from which they were cut off since their youth.
terry said:
Aug 12, 08 at 10:02 amWoot, more comments.
Academic results aren’t entirely useful. I knew plenty of people who were in public school and did great with their grades, but that doesn’t translate to someone who comes up with good ideas. Public school encourages stupidity too, but I think the most valuable education coming from public schools lies in the social aspects - not in the books.
Religious groups do not welcome new ideas. I’d say that anyone arguing against that is ignoring this whole intelligent design “controversy.” The idea that humans evolved from simpler organisms has been around for a long time, and I even have people in my family who say that “it doesn’t happen.”
As for the cracker terrorist link, I’d say that making death threats against a person who steals a cracker is pretty scary. Who says that? How about this guy? http://community.livejournal.com/convert_me/1003652.html
You can call it angry and bigoted, but I think being angry against death threats is the appropriate reaction. This isn’t a straw man here, it seems pretty clear that this guy arrived at the conclusion that “death threats by email are ok” by not seriously questioning his beliefs.
I’d say a strong argument for homeschooling is that it keeps kids safe, and any time school safety is thought of, Columbine and Va Tech are thought of (at least for me). As a consequence, I explained that I don’t think those are preventable, and this doesn’t really relate to those. It wasn’t meant at all to compare to two, which I’d say was reasonably explained in the post.
Janet Marcum said:
Aug 12, 08 at 10:50 amI read Terry’s blog and interpreted it to mean that homeschooling can make you socially stupid, not academically stupid. I think one of your commenters might’ve missed that point. I’ve seen lots of research that shows that home schooled kids score higher than public school students on academic tests. That seems pretty logical considering the one-on-one (or close to it) attention a kid will get at home. And I’m sure they are well-mannered since mom or dad is watching their every move at all times, BUT, being “well-mannered” and “smart” aren’t the only things you need to be upon graduation. As Terry pointed out, you’ve got to have relationships with people to be prepared for the real world. I’ve worked at three different companies in my professional career, and I can tell you that personality plays a big role in getting hired. And then from there, how well you play with others and how well you are liked, plays a huge role in promotional opportunities. That’s just the way it is. Of course you need a strong skill set as the base for your career, but if you are up against another coworker who is just as technically savvy as you are, the one who relates best to peers, subordinates, superiors, etc, will be the one chosen. I’m not saying homeschooled kids don’t necessarily have good personalities, but I seriously doubt they’ve had the opportunity to see dozens of different teaching styles and thousands of different students and all the important things that come along with that experience.
Tim Berglund said:
Aug 12, 08 at 2:31 pmJanet and Terry, do you know any homeschooled children, or adults who were homeschooled when they were kids? I find that it helps in debates like this to maintain real life relationships with people on the opposite side of the fence. It seems that you’re granting the academic effectiveness of homeschooling, but now saying that it falls short on preparing children to interact socially with their world. I can see how, if you didn’t actually *know* any, you might maintain prejudices about them that lead you to believe that they are all backward, inept dolts, kind of like social Gollums with pale skin and eyes swollen from years of isolation from the sun. This is, again, profoundly unmoored from reality, but in the absence of any experience of yours to the contrary, I might have to let you hang on to your prejudice. If you bet that probably homeschooling makes you socially stupid, because it seems like it should, but haven’t actually evaluated any homeschooled people in comparison with their publicly-educated peers, then fine: keep believing that homeschooling makes you socially stupid. Just don’t commend it to the blog-reading public as a justified belief. Truth in advertising would mark it as the prejudice and unexamined thinking-aloud that it is.
The story about the death threat doesn’t link to the Pharyngula posting in question, so I don’t know what crackers have to do with any of this. Did PZ, in a fit of naughtiness, steal a communion wafer or something? Regardless, that a public and bombastic personality like Myers would receive the occasional [criminal!] death threat from a crackpot does not establish that Christianity promotes terrorism or encourages its adherents to harm their enemies. If you mean to say that it does, then as with the assertion that homeschooling produces socially inept adults, I will let you hang on to that belief and let the discussion end there. I can’t imagine us making much progress under those conditions.
terry said:
Aug 12, 08 at 2:45 pmI know of 4 people who were homeschooled. None are well adapted. That said, I think anecdotal references are bad here, and I didn’t see any studies to back up what either of us are saying, I’m just explaining that in my experience (which backs up my hypothesis), people kept in more social environments tend to be more social, to their advantage.
It’s possible that there are others who were homeschooled and I don’t know about it, but obviously I’m not going to assume that. If there were some concrete numbers on how well homeschooled children do after they grow up, that’d probably be pretty helpful. I didn’t see any (after only a little bit of searching, admittedly).
PZ endured death threats for asking for a communion wafer to desecrate. The student who actually took a communion wafer was threatened with violence (little recap on the story here http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_education_edblog/2008/07/ucf-communion-w.html). Further, the Catholic League urged the president of the University of Minnesota to fire PZ. And, to add on top of things, there was no denouncing of violence or threats of violence from the Catholic League or from other religious leaders involved.
While not denouncing isn’t the same as encouraging, I’d go as far to say that creating an atmosphere where that line of thinking is accepted (and not overtly shunned) does the same thing. I’d suggest that the first step in creating such an atmosphere is to find a way to dismiss reason and logic, and then go from there.
Janet Marcum said:
Aug 12, 08 at 3:16 pmTo quote Tim “I can see how, if you didn’t actually *know* any, you might maintain prejudices about them that lead you to believe that they are all backward, inept dolts, kind of like social Gollums with pale skin and eyes swollen from years of isolation from the sun.” I made no inferences of the sort in my comment and I don’t think your sarcasm brings anything beneficial to the conversation. I very clearly said that home-schooled children don’t have the same OPPORTUNITY to experience the relationships that kids in school do. I don’t think I need to know any home-schooled people to come up with that hypothesis. From that, I postured that since most adults venture into jobs that put them next to dozens or hundreds of coworkers (students), underneath supervisors (teachers), all reporting to a President (principal), that having already had 14+ years of experience in this setup would give them a leg up on someone who didn’t. I think it’s a valid stance until I’m shown otherwise. And if, like Terry, I knew four homeschooled people and they lent credence to my hypothesis, THEN is it okay for me to think this way? Then are my beliefs justified? Please don’t try to insinuate that my beliefs aren’t justified, but yours are.
Tim Berglund said:
Aug 12, 08 at 8:35 pmTerry,
I will not be drawn into a debate over whether the applicable Catholic diocese is handling the situation properly. Let me just say that no one, ever, should have threatened Myers’ life for his churlish behavior. It is enough to conclude that he is rude and childish. And if you really believe that Christianity promotes terrorism (or doesn’t avoid not discouraging it, or whatever), I’m sure I won’t be able to dislodge you from the point.
And if the sum total of your experience with homeschooled people is that they are socially maladjusted, then you can be forgiven for thinking they are socially maladjusted. This is a hasty generalization, though. More on this below.
Janet, I was honestly trying to use hyperbole, not sarcasm, with the “Gollum” bit, but I can certainly understand how you read me as being sarcastic. I apologize for coming too close to the line. However, I still take issue with your open theorizing about the downsides of homeschooling in the absence of much experience with homeschoolers themselves. The IRL relationships that are important to me involve many people who homeschool, some people who pay to send their children to private schools (parochial and otherwise), and many who send their children to public schools. I see instances of successful parenting and good kids in all three cases, but what is socially remarkable about the homeschoolers is their relative ease in relating both to adults and to other children not their same age, in addition to their immediate peers. Now I don’t expect you to rearrange your life to try to gain the same experience, but I’m very sure this impression is shared by people who have occasion to mix with homeschoolers a lot. No, this isn’t peer-reviewed research, but it *is* how we form beliefs about all kinds of things every day, and it never seems to bother us any other time.
And even if any of the three of us were adducing peer-reviewed studies on the topic, we still wouldn’t agree. We’d argue about the methodology, the sample, researcher bias, how “that study was debunked,” and the like. You know the drill. It’s been like this since before Usenet. I think your opinions on things like this have a lot more to do with who your friends are than what academics say.
terry said:
Aug 12, 08 at 9:55 pmThere are several examples of religious organizations supporting or acquiescing to extremist behavior. This is another example. Religion encourages blindness, and blindness allows for extremism. It’s a pretty good red herring to explain that I’m immovable in this argument when you haven’t really introduced counter points, instead just said “well that’s not religion.”
While a hasty generalization from the data, I think the hypothesis is sound. Isolationism doesn’t encourage new thinking, and the few cases I’ve seen have demonstrated that. I think, again, you provide a pretty blatant red herring by explaining that our understanding is irreconcilable because we wouldn’t accept studies counter our arguments. First, if a study is introduced that shows something is correct, I’d say that’s a pretty strong argument. Second, it would be dumb not to question how the study was conducted. That said, there have been some pretty strong conclusions reached over the last few decades in the scientific community, and they question studies all the time.
I’m open to debate and reason, and welcome it. I’d rather know the truth than be right, it’s really not that important to me. I’ve got several friends with kids, lots of them seriously considered or do homeschool. The majority of my friends are Christian. My wife’s Christian. I think my opinion speaks from facts and reason more than what my friends think, seeing how I fairly regularly jab at religious craziness.
meezy said:
Aug 12, 08 at 11:42 pmthese comments have gotten way better than my sarcastic joke, so i feel obliged to retort.
Although I read it as a tangent, I too, briefly, want to go down the road of homeschooling and first hand knowledge. Terry claims to know 4 home schooled people that are not well adjusted, Tim claims to know that ‘most are well-mannered, polite, well-educated, and non-anti-religious’ (paraphrasing) and Janet doesn’t claim to know any but reasons that they have less experience in a work-type environment. I (claim to) know 2 — my cousins, who I’ll call J and O — who were home schooled by my aunt. O is very shy around new people, but outgoing to people younger than her and she is of normal intelligence (assumption made from my interaction with her). She seems to me like she would have the same issues in social environments that any shy (public, private, or home schooled) person would. J is outgoing, has a knack for memorizing facts, plays on several sports teams and is quirky. Cool, now we have all mentioned either generalizations or specific cases about homeschooling. I hope from here we can all agree that no conclusive evidence has been given that validates anyone’s assertions about homeschooling. While, without conclusive evidence, we can make assumptions based on reasoning, sometimes truth is contrary to educated guessing. Therefore, anything said about homeschooling from any of us would be a generalization that may apply in specific cases, but ultimately just an opinion.
That being said, I think focusing on homeschooling misses the main point of the post. “Isolating someone from new ideas is a bad thing”. If a parent home schools their children BECAUSE they want to shelter them from new ideas, I believe that is a great injustice on the child. This isn’t a disparagement of home schooling, it is a detraction on the parent.
The means isn’t what is important here (home schooling, religious oppression, brain washing), it is the purpose and the end.
In the post, Terry points out several means of isolating people from new ideas. That doesn’t conclude that anytime someone performs one of these activities it is with the sole purpose of suppressing new ideas. However, there is evidence that each of these actions (home schooling, religion, nationalism, repressive parenting, hell even Lou Dobbs) has been used to isolate people from new ideas. And when the means is taken with the purpose of blindly suppressing the exposure to or acceptance of new ideas, the end is negative. So I think that supports his claim.