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"At 11:00 on Sunday morning when we stand and sing and Christ has no east or west, we stand at the most segregated hour in this nation." It's difficult for me

by bsanr2 5y ago

"At 11:00 on Sunday morning when we stand and sing and Christ has no east or west, we stand at the most segregated hour in this nation." It's difficult for me to justify buying into the idea of Christian social life as the source of American unity when 10 years ago participating would have seen me bombarded with the reasons why my homosexuality would see me burn in hell for all eternity, or when 200 years ago it would have seen me bombarded with all the point of scripture that justified my being treated as property. This is as someone whose grandfather was a deacon; I can't imagine what people whose families don't have a church tradition at all must think of this suggestion. I do think that the segregation of social life is at the heart of much of this country's ills. However, perhaps that has more to do with things like, say, Bill and Sally's frankly hysterical fear of sharing a street with the Freemans. How to reduce social division in America in the long-term: ban private schools, fund public schools at the national level, and do it quickly, utterly, and irrevocably. I don't know if you would end up with a single, continental American nation, but the part left still known as "The United States of America" would be profoundly united. Even if you disagree, you must understand that the notion that everyone must attend church for America to achieve some measure of unity is about as radical. The focus must be on the bringing together of disparate communities, secularly.

war1025 5y ago
> How to reduce social division in America in the long-term: ban private schools, fund public schools at the national level, and do it quickly, utterly, and irrevocably. We tried this to tame the savages [1], and I don't think people really look back kindly or positively on that choice. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_American_Indian_schools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_American_Indian_sch...
iammisc 5y ago
> The focus must be on the bringing together of disparate communities, secularly. Except the 'United' states of America has never been about that kind of community. That's more of the fraternite of the French revolution than the spirit of America. American unity has been due to the result of multiple different organizations and factions all participating in a common undertaking, rather than one centralized organization doing the planning and execution (as would be the case if we 'nationalized' education and did away with private schooling). My view of America as one in which everyone can belong to different organizations, but still work together is the historical norm. In de Tocqueville's 'Democracy in America', written at the founding of the USA, de Tocqueville (an outside french observer) writes: > Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of dispositions are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different types—religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute. > > Americans combine to give fetes, found seminaries, build churches, distribute books, and send missionaries to the antipodes. Hospitals, prisons, and schools take shape in that way... In every case, at the head of any new undertaking, where in France you would find the government or in England some territorial magnate, in the United States you are sure to find an association. By asking the government to 'fund public schools at the national level' you are making America like France or England rather than what it historically has been, which is highly decentralized and disjointed, but still unified. This in my opinion is the great disconnect between 'progressives' and 'conservatives' (for lack of better terms). There's a certain type of person that, when they see a problem, immediately asks how government can be leveraged to solve it. Whereas, for me, personally, and others I know, my response would be ... how could I get my local church men's club to help out. Because I can't control the government, and by the time I lobby and campaign, the problem will still have affected a bunch of other people. Whereas it's pretty easy to gather a group of guys to fix it. One obvious example of this is -- as you mentioned -- schools. Before public schools were a thing, catholic communities all across the country pooled together parish money to start affordable schools, with great academic results. In response, the government started the public school system so people wouldn't have to deal with the church. That's fine and dandy, but we need to accept the fact that private organizations worked better than the government to immediately provide the service of education. The same is true of hospitals. Go to any US city of any import, and you'll be sure to find a Catholic hospital. Where is the government if it's so useful. Even in Europe, where the healthcare systems are nationalized, half the hospitals used to be ones run by the Church. It remains to be seen how these nationalized healthcare systems will play out over the long-term (thousands of years), but we know how it works when the Church runs them... they stay around for a long time.
- gilbetron 5y ago
  > That's fine and dandy, but we need to accept the fact that private organizations worked better than the government to immediately provide the service of education. There's much wrong with what you have posted here and elsewhere, but I'll just focus on this one. There are numerous studies looking at private vs public schools, and public schools are just as good as private if you get rid of confounding factors (private school students tend to come from wealthier families, for instance). There are many, many sources for this, here's a good start: https://www.upworthy.com/public-versus-private-school-a-study-found-just-one-factor-can-make-all-the-difference https://www.upworthy.com/public-versus-private-school-a-stud... https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherrim/2019/07/03/why-wealthy-parents-are-increasingly-choosing-public-over-private-schools/?sh=3dee83233425 https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherrim/2019/07/03/why-w... https://www.hepg.org/hel-home/issues/31_1/helarticle/turning-conventional-wisdom-on-its-head-public-sch https://www.hepg.org/hel-home/issues/31_1/helarticle/turning...
  - iammisc 5y ago
    You are arguing something completely different. I pointed out that before public schools, there were large networks of private schools. Public schooling started as a response to the success of catholic schools. I am not arguing for superiority of one over the other. I'm just pointing out that decentralized, distributed decision making led to people's educational needs being met before government got with the program. Also, your articles are on public v generic private. Catholic schools are outliers in the private school space. They tend to be significantly cheaper, have a different set of outcomes, and tend to be more socioeconomically representative of society at large.

by bsanr2 5y ago

war1025 5y ago

> How to reduce social division in America in the long-term: ban private schools, fund public schools at the national level, and do it quickly, utterly, and irrevocably. We tried this to tame the savages [1], and I don't think people really look back kindly or positively on that choice. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_American_Indian_schools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_American_Indian_sch...

iammisc 5y ago

> The focus must be on the bringing together of disparate communities, secularly. Except the 'United' states of America has never been about that kind of community. That's more of the fraternite of the French revolution than the spirit of America. American unity has been due to the result of multiple different organizations and factions all participating in a common undertaking, rather than one centralized organization doing the planning and execution (as would be the case if we 'nationalized' education and did away with private schooling). My view of America as one in which everyone can belong to different organizations, but still work together is the historical norm. In de Tocqueville's 'Democracy in America', written at the founding of the USA, de Tocqueville (an outside french observer) writes: > Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of dispositions are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different types—religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute. > > Americans combine to give fetes, found seminaries, build churches, distribute books, and send missionaries to the antipodes. Hospitals, prisons, and schools take shape in that way... In every case, at the head of any new undertaking, where in France you would find the government or in England some territorial magnate, in the United States you are sure to find an association. By asking the government to 'fund public schools at the national level' you are making America like France or England rather than what it historically has been, which is highly decentralized and disjointed, but still unified. This in my opinion is the great disconnect between 'progressives' and 'conservatives' (for lack of better terms). There's a certain type of person that, when they see a problem, immediately asks how government can be leveraged to solve it. Whereas, for me, personally, and others I know, my response would be ... how could I get my local church men's club to help out. Because I can't control the government, and by the time I lobby and campaign, the problem will still have affected a bunch of other people. Whereas it's pretty easy to gather a group of guys to fix it. One obvious example of this is -- as you mentioned -- schools. Before public schools were a thing, catholic communities all across the country pooled together parish money to start affordable schools, with great academic results. In response, the government started the public school system so people wouldn't have to deal with the church. That's fine and dandy, but we need to accept the fact that private organizations worked better than the government to immediately provide the service of education. The same is true of hospitals. Go to any US city of any import, and you'll be sure to find a Catholic hospital. Where is the government if it's so useful. Even in Europe, where the healthcare systems are nationalized, half the hospitals used to be ones run by the Church. It remains to be seen how these nationalized healthcare systems will play out over the long-term (thousands of years), but we know how it works when the Church runs them... they stay around for a long time.

gilbetron 5y ago
> That's fine and dandy, but we need to accept the fact that private organizations worked better than the government to immediately provide the service of education. There's much wrong with what you have posted here and elsewhere, but I'll just focus on this one. There are numerous studies looking at private vs public schools, and public schools are just as good as private if you get rid of confounding factors (private school students tend to come from wealthier families, for instance). There are many, many sources for this, here's a good start: https://www.upworthy.com/public-versus-private-school-a-study-found-just-one-factor-can-make-all-the-difference https://www.upworthy.com/public-versus-private-school-a-stud... https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherrim/2019/07/03/why-wealthy-parents-are-increasingly-choosing-public-over-private-schools/?sh=3dee83233425 https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherrim/2019/07/03/why-w... https://www.hepg.org/hel-home/issues/31_1/helarticle/turning-conventional-wisdom-on-its-head-public-sch https://www.hepg.org/hel-home/issues/31_1/helarticle/turning...
- iammisc 5y ago
  You are arguing something completely different. I pointed out that before public schools, there were large networks of private schools. Public schooling started as a response to the success of catholic schools. I am not arguing for superiority of one over the other. I'm just pointing out that decentralized, distributed decision making led to people's educational needs being met before government got with the program. Also, your articles are on public v generic private. Catholic schools are outliers in the private school space. They tend to be significantly cheaper, have a different set of outcomes, and tend to be more socioeconomically representative of society at large.