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Quote of the Day: The Barbarian Invasion
“Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.” – Thomas Sowell
The truth of this observation is being made plain by the failure of the United States education system. Instead of being centers to educate and civilize our next generation they have become centers to indoctrinate and foster barbarism.
Janet and I saw the trend starting back in the 1990s and opted to homeschool our children. They are now adults — in every sense of that word, not just physically mature humans — and leading productive and civilized lives.
As for some of our nieces and nephews? I fear it is too late.
Published in General
Yes!
Yes!
Yes!
And did you do this same post awhile back? I think you must have said this before, maybe in a comment. It sounds so familiar.
Mrs. Augustine and I are homeschooling our little barbarians.
I’m glad you’re attributing it to Sowell. That’s what I thought.
@JonahGoldberg keeps referencing Hannah Arendt on this quote. If I err with Seawriter, I’m in good company.
I have done similar quotes, but this is new.
I keep all of the quotes I plan to use and have used in a file in my Ricochet folder. When I use a quote I change the text from black to red. When I add a quote of the day I only take the black text.
It is possible someone else used it and I missed that quote of the day. That has happened before. (Most recently with a quote of Orwell’s I planned to use. When that happens and I see it, I mark that text brown.)
Yeah but it’s not the job of the educational system to civilize barbarians. That’s up to their family.
OH goody! Another post to make me feel guilty that I don’t have the time or money to homeschool my kids.
Come on, Bryan. If I recall from past posts, you are doing fine as a parent. Homeschooling can be great, but not necessarily for everyone. No guilt implied here.
But its nice if the village is not trying so hard to work against the parents. After all we are paying for it.
So say the advocates of barbarism – whether they realize they are advocates of barbarism or merely useful idiots.
Here in Indiana, you can get vouchers to send you kids to parochial school if you don’t have the money. When donating to the scholarship program, you receive a 50% Indiana Income Tax credit, and you can also deduct your marginal Federal Income Tax rate (now 22% for most people), making it 72% subsidized.
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“Yeah but it’s not the job of the educational system to civilize barbarians. That’s up to their family.”
Some questions Freddie boy.
A. What is the constitutional basis for the State to demand that your children be sent to school?
I believe the State is actually on shaky grounds here . But if there were a good argument it would be to make our children good citizens in order to preserve our Constitutional Republic.
That said, while the quote is about civilizing barbarians, many children with proper parents have by age 5 been instilled with proper America loving values only to have our educational system try to overturn those values and instill and indoctrinate instead values that promote the Progressive Fascist State more to your liking. That the State is violating the Equal Protection Clause with impunity all over the place by not respecting the spectrum of values of it’s citizenry and in fact not respecting the values instilled by the Parents seemingly at all does not seem to give you Progressives any pause. What a shock.
B. To give you Freddie the benefit of the doubt, do you have any concerns over the indoctrination system that our schools and Universities have become?
How ’bout you stop calling him “Freddie” unless he has asked you to be called that? Otherwise it looks as though you are trying to be deliberately rude.
I agree that it is the parents’ ultimate job to educate their offspring, but many believe that the public school system is a benign tool for them to do so, without realizing the failures of the school system let alone its outright wickedness.
Our civil society is one that is intended for adults with a high degree of civilization.
It’s ridiculous to expect public schools to teach children to act properly. That’s not their purpose.
The school system should be expected to not teach them to act inproperly either. The problem of public schools today, is they can work against what the parents are teaching.
Further, it is right and proper to expect the school actually teach real facts about history and politically correct ones.
Finally, and I expect you will disagree here, it is reasonable for schools to teach civics, how a republic works, and love of country.
You hold it is the parents’ responsibility to civilize their their children. And if the parents are barbarians? How do they civilize their children? Part of education is providing civilization. It is the responsibility of the schools to civilize children. The non-sequitur in your argument is the insertion of “public” into it.
That’s certainly partially true.
But I’d like my fellow Americans to understand little details like the presumption of innocence, the rule of law and due process, the nature of Constitutional governance, etc. — all stuff typically taught in school. Otherwise they end up like Senator Feinstein.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7344747-every-generation-civilization-is-invaded-by-barbarians—we-call
I wonder who said it first.
The two quotes while similar in spirit are different.
If you like the quote in the O.P., check out the most recent Remnent podcast.
Tell that to the schools.
I quote from my school district’s website:
Blech, retch, gag.No wonder the kids can’t read.
I regret that I didn’t realize where the public school system was going in their efforts to educate our children until the moment in 1991 when my then sophomore in HS son told me that it had been exciting in history class that day.
Then he went on to recount how the Native Americans had won the battle against Gen Custer, but for me not to worry. After all, everything the Indians did to Custer and his troops was done in a humane way.
Since I happened to be reading the autobiography “Black Elk Speaks” at the same time, I was rather horrified at this rearrangement of the truth.
Bryan did you mean to say, “and not politically correct ones.” ??
yes
Teachers haven’t the time, backbone, moral authority, nor mother wit to teach children to be civilized. The best they can do is oppose bad behavior in their sight and hearing.
But they can teach about civilization – indeed, that is their entire purpose (other than warehousing).
Yes. That’s a big part of my job as a philosophy teacher.
Oooooohhh!
I should have caught on ages ago. Right on! Two quotes.
Indeed.
Literally, though, it does take a village. What it doesn’t take is a bigger federal government. (My old post on that.)
GET YOUR CHILDREN OUT OF THAT SCHOOL NOW!
And yet if they really meant it and knew what they were talking about, think what this would mean.
–healthy lifestyle: sexual restraint.
–empowerment: liberty for the individual.
–participation in local, national, and global communities: buyers and sellers in free markets (as Von Mises explains).
As far as schools acting to civilize little (or even not so little) barbarians: To Sir, With Love.