caroljane

It's a pity the parent's don't use this more often. I don't know what I'd do without it in my job as a teacher of 3 to 6 year olds. I'm using it all the time and get the direct feedback how well it works. But sadly, the human capacity to feel empathy can also be crushed by indoctrination. Children who are e. g. raised in an environment where it is constantly hammered into their heads that certain groups of people are "the enemy" who has to be destroyed, are not likely to develop empathy toward these individuals as fellow humans. Especially infamous was the propaganda used by the Hitler regime in labeling those not belonging to the allegedly "superior Arian race" as "sub-human", even as "vermin". The cruel intention was to 'remove' the idea in people's minds that we are all fellow human beings. Yes, unfortunately people are very suggestive in terms of what they are taught. Isn't there a song from "South Pacific" about that? You have to be taught to hate. Most people do go along with their culture, some out of fear, some out of belief. But Nazi Germany and now the Taliban and portions of the Middle East show us that people are capable of monstrous acts if they are taught that certain groups are evil. The huge cultural differences certainly suggest that whatever component of empathy may have genetic influences (and some psychologists think it does) is pretty weak compared to the power of cultural learning. "Happy Talk." --Brant edit: wrong song Right musical though. "You've got to be Carefully Taught". Except not in Australian schools, per SD.

Jackie had an affair with William Holden? All the years I've been reading the National Enquirer, how did I miss that one?

As I think I said repeatedly, I have no desire to ban school sports (either curricular or extracurricular). Whilst I believe they frequently encourage and perpetuate the same attitudes that beauty pageants for children do, my primary problem with them is the coercion. I think that if participation were voluntary, we'd probably have less of the beauty-pageant-esque attitudes about sport as well. Your clarification puts us on the same page about the sports. The question of coercion is a tough one. There is certainly the coercion of legally requiring everyone to attend school, or be state-sanctioned home-schooled, until age 16, and schools are institutions and all institutions have rules and protocols. The ideal goal is ensuring the least compulsion and best learning results for each individual student. What are your thoughts on how this could best be achieved in practice? What do you think schools should actually do? (I think more of them should do the folk dancing. It provided a treasured memory for my son and his friends in later years. The gym teacher, Mr Papadakis,who doubled as the football coach, did not enjoy teaching it any more than the kids enjoyed learning it, and it has inspired many a delightful re-enactment over the years). Sorry for the frivolous parenthesis but my previous question is serious.

The piece was discussing extracurricular sports. There are ways of doing that other than sports, but lets look at another factor; Compulsion means force, and after all the humiliation I endured due to compulsory curricular sports, I am unlikely to be sympathetic. If you want to attempt to justify the forcing me through all the suffering I endured, go ahead. Noting the efficacy of physical activity in the schoolday is not the same as justifying coercion and suffering. As you say, there are other means than sports (I assume you mean team sports), and ideally each child might get a choice of squash, gymnastics, the loneliness of the long-distance runner, Tae-bo or whatever along with the team options; how the schools could organize and pay for such programs beats me. The issue of compulsory curricular team sports must be a private school thing. As far as I know, at least here, the school teams are extracurricular and voluntary , though they teach and practice the basics of a variety of sports among other things in the public school phys ed programs. I remember how my older son really, really hated folk dancing which was on the Grade 8 gym curriculum.

Interesting piece, Andrew. I agree that there should be no banning of these profitable enterprises. I think they're grotesque, and undoubtedoubtedly exploitive, and I'd rather read Finnegans Wake again than watch one of those pageants and that's the worst alternative I can think of. But no banning because of any group's presumptive moral outrage. The sports comparison is a little wobbly though. Compulsory sports in school are part of the phys.ed/exercise component that kids need now more than ever; of course there should be equal emphasis on individual sports or physical activities, but the schools have to get those kids moving. It's as important to their future lives and health as history or geography.

Brant goes haiku, imitating Shayne. Adds two cents. Not vile, I tell you!

I don't see the point of the less/fewer rule. Do you? Shayne Weelll..I see its point in the ever-evolving artifact that is English grammar. For some reason we distingish between countables and noncountables, and mark the distinctions for reasons lost to time. But usage-wise, I think it probably is on the way out. But not in my classroom!

Um, Shayne, that's fewer lawyers not less. Carol interim pedant

Well now, for the record, I have been compared to a Donkey before, albeit in a very different context. aargh DH, we all know you are the Demoniac Shape-Shifter, stop the torture now!

I would encourage youngsters approaching me on this issue to examine the subject on an epistemological level first. Young minds look for guidance in the jumble of possibilities. This also explains that the young are far more susceptible to following gurus than the old. Xray, Boring. There are young and old who can think for themselves. Some minds - would you believe it? - have escaped the fascist-progressive jail. This need to control ("for your own good") is what I loathe about the nanny-State called Europe. And yes, oh guardian of the youth, they will hear all about the epistemology from me, and since I oppose individualism and glorify authority, I will force their unquestioning acceptance of it. Tony way to go Frowny Face! I enjoy the idea of you and my bff Xray squaring off in your separate corners. I and my motley crew of middle-aged students will be cheering on the sidelines.

I hate having to hear about other people's dreams, don't you? On and on,"and then And I hate novels that intersperse the characters' dreams with the action, thus illustrating their psychology. But here I am to say, the power of the emotion felt in dreams, can be so much stronger and longer-lasting than the emotions we feel in conscious daily life. It distills everything we have felt, and maybe dared not feel, in our waking life, and sometimes one dream is remembered all one's life. My dream distilled the emotion of homesickness. This was something I felt only once in my life. I have not looked it up; I remember how we laughed at the kids who had to be taken home from camp in the first two or three days because of it. I laughed less when I saw adult friends break down when separated from home, and unable to function outside their known native area. It is a unique emotion, and when I felt it at age 18 it struck me like a monsoon in the Arctic. It did not last long and I actively fought it. But at 18 I thought I had already felt all the emotions there were to feel (I was wrong; jealousy was still to come). Here's the dream. I am alone on a spaceship above Earth. I'm sure this is influenced by a scifi story I read, in which a hitchhiking sister has to be jettisoned from such a spacecraft by her brother; the story was wonderful and conveyed such a chilly sense of loneliness, I wish I could remember who wrote it. In my dream there is no action, I'm just there, knowing I am going further and further from earth. I only had this dream once, many years ago, but remember it so strongly, and the unearthly,inhuman, dread and despair of how it felt. I have my own interpretations of course. I had always wanted to be on my own, explore the rest of the world, prove myself without the recommendations of those who had always known me. Go beyond. Now, of course, I know there is no beyond, no beyond myself. Alone spinning further and further away, I was no pioneer. I was losing myself, which consisted of those who had made me and shaped me and taught me, and without them there was no me. Without context there are no dreams.

It's a fictional drug. The doctor explicitly told me to stop. Of course, if it was making you feel worse, he would tell you to stop. He knows you are feeling worse. What does he propose next?

I really wish things were that simple, that I could just go to a doctor and get better. I don't believe they are. If I were having problems with psychosis of some kind, I imagine their meds would help. I am not. I am simply unhappy and hopeless. Pills just make me feel more hopeless. When I get a surge of energy and optimism, I hit a brick wall and crash. The problem is that I don't know how to turn my life around and I have lost my youth trying to. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to find out what to do. That is all there is to it. I don't have some brain defect. Unless you can get me some NZT. What is NZT? Kat advised you to give your meds at least a month to work. Have you done that? There are many meds which might work if your present ones don't. There are also many people who have truly lost their youth, and don't know what to do next, but are trying out things because they are not depressed. Depression is not a brain defect anymore than a broken leg is a bone defect. Overthinking, the vicious cycle of self-blame and rational thought, is the most exhausting side-effect of depression. Get through the next hour, and then the next, and maintain medical contact.

Mike, Adam, don't fret about your silly old football. Up here we play a superior form of football and you could refine your taste by watching it. And then the hockey season starts....

[. . . ] I see now that expressing my misgivings along with approval and optimistic anticipation constitutes "bashing." In fairness to Dennis, Roger, I think you have to acknowledge that it would certainly seem that way to a donkey from Argentina. I mean, they've had severe problems down there with the beasts losing their motivation so utterly that they stop eating the vegetation that grows on those vast, grassy plains they have down there (I can't remember what they're called, just offhand), and the result is mass starvation - literally, piles of corpses. Under the circumstances, anything that looks even slightly like bashing - the scurrilous remarks Brian Doherty has made about Ayn Rand, for example - is likely to be taken perhaps a bit more seriously than you or I might be inclined to take it. Just sayin' . . . Helpfully, JR I suspect a little drinkin' here, JR. Brains plus booze, the best combination. But Dennis ain't a donkey. --Brant me, too I've heard of pink elephants, but anthopomorphic donkeys -- thankfully I have not reached that stage yet. If I do, farewell sweet Moosehead. Distant be the day!

If you mean me and my egregious Latin, sorry. It's not my fault! I was bombarded and indoctrinated with Latin by a coercive education system at a vulnerable age and I've never really got over it. OK, it's a rant against religion. But thinking that religion causes bipolar disorders is too much like thinking that vaccinations cause autism, to go unremarked. What's PC about calling you on a side remark about causation?

Xray makes good sense, I strongly agree with her points. Aristo, I hope you're listening open-mindedly. Bipolar disorders can be exacerbated, but not caused, by societal or religious influences. Post hoc is not propter hoc.

Aristocrates, possibly you are making here a cause-effect connection between two issues where it may not apply. It is therefore possible that your brothers may have been diagnosed as bipolar even without having been subjected to the detrimental influeces of religious doctrine. Depression often runs in families, which could point to a genetic disposition. But if damaging religious influence comes into play as an additional factor, this can aggravate things immenensely. The existence of term "ecceslesiogenic neurosis" shows to what extent religious doctrine can wreak havoc on an individual's psyche. A classic example is the demonization of sexuality in several religions, where this natural biologocal drive is labeled as "evil". So while it does make sense to liberate humans from the shackles of religious doctrine here, it is also important not to throw ut the baby with the bathwater in a zeal to propagate sexuality: I'd use caution here with the term "encourage". Since sexuality is a biological drive, it will manifest itself anyway, and no encouragement is needed. Encouraging kids to have sex can lead to premature sexualization; as opposed to former times where people suffered from rigid sexual morality, today we are often confronted with the opposite problem, like children watching on TV films where sexuality is openly displayed. There exist children's beauty pageants where parents dress up their five year-old daughters in sexualizing outfits; imo this borders on child abuse.

Michael, I'm glad that for you at least, though there are always parallels if you look for them, they aren't always ominous-- at least of doom. Do you think the Syrian situation is the same as Egypt's, especially re Iran?

There's a new book on the role of empathy in human action by Baron-Cohen (Simon, not Sacha). He has been working on it from the aspect of neuroscience. The book was titled , I think, Zero Empathy in Britain but for American publication it's called something with Evil in the title. US readers are more attracted by Evil in the title than empathy apparently. The book was called "naive" by the Wall Street Journal - which is, of course, owned by one R. Murdoch. I know you are very interested in the concept of empathy Angela, so I wondered if you may have come across it or Baron-Cohen's work. Thanks for directing me to Baron-Cohen, Carol. While I do have quite a bit of practical experience working with the empathy principle since it has always been one of the pillars my pedagocical concept rests on, there's much yet for me to absorb when it comes to the various theories on empathy. You're very welcome. Your comment on pedagogy made me realize that though I teach adults, in a very different context from yours, it is in fact the unifying factor of empathy that makes it easier for me to teach these culture-shocked, entirely different people, and for them to learn. The basics of language begin with the basics of life, and the students, many of whom have never heard of each others' countries, have to learn Canada and English at the same time. The basic underlying humanities get us through.

\Predicting the future on the basis of the past is the only way we know to do it. That leaves us only with hope. Hope that Brazil is not Egypt, that 2011 need not necessarily replicate 1911, that there may indeed be "something new under the sun". It happened in 1776, at least the beginning did.

Think of a particular tone of voice and smirk when you read the widely used expression, "my dear fellow..." It doesn't matter what follows. You know with 100% certainty that the Brit isn't going to tell you how awesome you are. Michael It is a great quote. I think Hemingway zinged poor F. Scott by saying laconically, "Yes, they're different. They have more money."

The character maybe is musing on that (the character is a Barbara Cartland type) but the author himself explores these themes with great power and artistry in all his books. This particular one is a mystery whose ultimate theme (among others) is the value, monetarily, of love. I felt some echo of Fitzgerald in the "whose function we have somehow forgotten", but I think Dickinson is better in his way than Fitzgerald was in his.

Whoever he thought you were, I hope he would check out that contraption in your garage!

Michael, I lived in Britain for two years and I would not call it so much snobbery as total pervasive class-consciousness. Coincidentally I was just re-reading one of my favourite Brit authors and came across this: (Luncheon between bestselling Brit novelist and American film producer) "I shall never get used to moguls. My mogul turned out to be one of the overly-civilised sort. He had a Dutch-sounding name but ordered in easy Italian a very well-judged meal at a restaurant where he was obviously a valued customer, and so on. But still there was a sense of almost manic competitiveness about him, as though doing these things was a way of scoring points in an immensely elaborate game. I suppose we all do that more or less, but in his culture they seem to regard the game as actually winnable, whereas in ours it is more in the nature of a ritual, whose function, if any, we've somehow forgotten." -Peter Dickinson Death of a Unicorn