WyBlog

The dangers of indoctrination and youthful arrogance

Matthew LaClair must be the world's smartest teenager. The seventeen year old Kearny High School senior is raising a ruckus because he believes he has found factual errors in the textbook used by his Advanced Placement Government class.

"I just realized from my own knowledge that some of this stuff in the book is just plain wrong," LaClair said.

Kearny High must be one heck of a school. At age 17 Mr. LaClair has already garnered enough scientific knowledge to declare with absolute certainty that something "is just plain wrong". We're not talking about a simple misstatement of fact here, such as a typographical error. Oh, no. This is much bigger -- the textbook dares to question the Gospel of Global Warming:

To Mr. LaClair this is prima facie evidence of (gasp!) conservative bias in the textbook, and it must be eradicated forthwith. At the ripe old age of 17 he has already been sufficiently indoctrinated into the liberal orthodoxy of global warming that he cannot countenance a statement implying we might not have all the facts yet. Instead of opening his mind to the possibility of new information, he is absolutely certain that his textbook must be corrected.

Up until his Senior year Mr. LaClair has remained firmly ensconced in the protective cocoon of his teachers' authority. They have imparted onto him Absolute Truth while neglecting to refine his ability to think critically and remain open to new, possibly contradictory information. When he is confronted with a statement at odds with the comfortable axioms seared into his brain his first reaction is to stamp it out before it infects his carefully constructed palace of knowledge.

Why? What is so earth-shakingly terrible about questioning the causes and long term effects of global warming? Is it not possible that we do not yet have all the facts? Of course it is, just as there is indeed ongoing scientific debate regarding this very complex phenomenon. It is unfortunate that Kearny High has not exposed Mr. LaClair to both sides of this issue until now, but that should not preclude him or his classmates from a willingness to consider alternative interpretations of the situation.

That's not very likely now. The publishers have already kowtowed to the negative publicity and agreed to "review" the textbook. We all know what that means, the heresy will be stricken and only the politically correct "facts" will be presented in the future. Dissent from the official dogma cannot be tolerated, and the students will be denied the opportunity to think for themselves.

Posted at 12:52 by Chris Wysocki   [/rants]   Comments | Archived | Perm Link |   |   Tweet