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Thanks for the essay, bookmarked. I would like to offer a perspective I don't think you should miss. Many English authors wrote about their horrible experiences in boarding schools and of life in stodgy, middle-to-upper-class Britain; I find that sentiments similar to theirs persist in many people who came out of what we would call "repressive youth systems". You can hear similar complaints from the children of Nigerian immigrants or of Indian students who came through the IIT network, namely that they were pushed too hard by cruel people and uncaring systems. However, I must notice that these people, especially the British authors, are often proud, learned, disciplined, well-spoken, and knowledgeable. The horrible memories they have of their past experiences are saddening, but I cannot deny that whatever repressive and authoritarian systems spawned them often did a damn fine job at raising extremely impressive men and women. I went through far less cruel or invasive schooling than they did, and cannot make the same assessment about the subjective worth of the vast majority of my peers, nor even for their parents. When I read prose of average middle-class thinkers, journalists, authors, etc. from more than 60 years ago to today, I see very plainly a marked downturn in the civic knowledge, moral backbone, and eloquence of these speakers and of the thoughts themselves as Western society moves away from its severe past into its "empathetic" future. I myself harbor extreme anti-school sentiments and do not ever intend to send my future children to school unless they desperately want to go, but I still believe that extreme, conservative societies tend to produce the most impressive human specimens. Orwell is considered one of the greatest writers in the English language--I often wonder whether or not contemporary society is capable of producing his equal, or even his less impressive peers' equal. When I read the letters and musing of my grandparents- normal American country folk born in the 1930s- I am taken aback by their knowledge and eloquence, and I mourn for what I perceive as a loss of societal standards. I suppose there are many who might mistake me for saying that I think it's worth returning to the cargo-cult corporal-punishment methods outline in the essay, but that is not what I wish to communicate. I would like to figure out what makes these citizens of strict and severe societies so impressive, and see if it's possible to yield similar results without all of the stupidity and cruelty. |