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I had access to Mein Kampf in my elementary school. > The few exceptions I can think of were based on religious objections (e.g. Harry Potter) I wasn't allowe

I had access to Mein Kampf in my elementary school. > The few exceptions I can think of were based on religious objections (e.g. Harry Potter) I wasn't allowed to read Harry Potter at my home, but my librarian allowed me to anyway. I wasn't allowed to read books with sexual content, but my librarian allowed me to anyway. I was raised by massively abusive religious extremists. I didn't give a fuck about their attempts to control my mind then, and as an adult now I don't give a fuck about other idiots' attempts to control their kids minds now. My guardians did every single thing they could think of to stunt my growth and turn me into a good little Catholic extremist. You simply won't understand unless you have been through such a horrible experience, as a curious mind with a voracious appetite for knowledge.

WillPostForFood 2y ago
"I had access to Mein Kampf in my elementary school." What's the best case for giving k-5 Mein Kampf? Makes no sense, doubt it's true, and obviously inappropriate just at a difficulty level, let alone content.
- Animats 2y ago
  It's not a difficult read. It's the historical context that's hard to get. The major political players of a century ago are mostly gone now. In the early 20th century, there were still a lot of kings, emperors, and princes hanging onto power. The era of monarchy was on the way out, but it wasn't over yet. WWI started after an archduke was killed by an inept but lucky assassin. The ancient noble families still mattered. The Marxists were quite active. They were the anti-monarchists. Today, Marxists are nearly extinct. There are still some Communist states around, but no Marxist mass movements. The Catholic Church was still a major political power. That's gone. Hitler was a competent craftsman and had done construction work. This was an era which required a huge number of people doing manual labor in big groups to get things done. That's when unions arise, by the way. "Working class" was very real, and that's where Hitler started. The term "macho" wasn't available yet, so he wrote: "In times when not the mind but the fist decides, the purely intellectual emphasis of our education in the upper classes makes them incapable of defending themselves, let alone enforcing their will. Not infrequently the first reason for personal cowardice lies in physical weaknesses." There's a long rant about Jews, which seems to come from clerk jobs in the WWI German army being dominated by Jews, described as physically weak and overly intellectual. Today, that might be a rant about AI. There's a similar grumble about parliamentarians, elected legislators and their staffs, who talk too much and don't exercise enough. The ideal is a muscular, disciplined society run by strong working people. He writes approvingly of how the US exercises quality control on immigrants, rejecting the sick and weak ones. Now, this is where a librarian can help. Someone reading this needs background reading on Europe from 1900 to 1925. Searching with Google for "The World in 1900" turns up a terrible essay on Medium that looks like LLM-generated clickbait. A good librarian will offer better choices. Kids who get all that background will question the way things are today, of course. Which scares some people.
  - greenavocado 2y ago
    This is a gross misrepresentation of the text. Anyway, there is absolutely no point to having such a text in an elementary school. It should be required reading in high school so everyone can property understand the attitude that led to WW2. The only English translation worth its salt is the Dalton translation.
- int_19h 2y ago
  The best case for giving them Mein Kampf is that it's so tedious and boring, if you force kids to read it, they'll learn to hate Nazis early on.
- soulofmischief 2y ago
  > doubt it's true Do you always immediately disregard what people say in favor of your own beliefs? > obviously inappropriate just at a difficulty level I had a collegiate reading level in first grade... I taught myself to read at age 3 in order to escape my situation. I should not have to suffer because other people did not invest the same amount of time and energy into their literacy. > What's the best case for giving k-5 Mein Kampf? I learned about Hitler and why he was a massive piece of shit, but also formed my viewpoint while considering all available information and opinions, instead of just internalizing what other people told me.
  - selimthegrim 2y ago
    Oh hi, I too was in the same boat with reading level.
  - gonzobonzo 2y ago
    > Do you always immediately disregard what people say in favor of your own beliefs? It's the internet, it's easy for people to make claims, and we have to use our own faculties to try to guess at the accuracy of these claims. These might not even be outright lies, but they could be exaggerations, partial truths, or simply misremembering (most people can't clearly remember things that happened to them when they were 6 years old). You claimed both that the books available to you at your elementary school weren't advanced enough for your 6 year old self, and that your elementary school made Mein Kampf available to you. I'm not going to make a judgement on the veracity of your claims, but I will say that looking at both of your claims together, I'm entirely unable to tell what level of books your elementary school actually made available to students.
    - soulofmischief 2y ago
      > You claimed both that the books available to you at your elementary school weren't advanced enough for your 6 year old self I did not. I said "I had a collegiate reading level since i was 6 or 7", and I also said "the books available to us in our school library just weren't cutting it". This does not imply that at 6/7 the books weren't cutting it. This conversation was about the role of the library throughout my schooling, and as I got older, I wanted more than the library could offer. > I will say that looking at both of your claims together, I'm entirely unable to tell what level of books your elementary school actually made available to students. Look again, with more precise reading comprehension.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
toasterlovin 2y ago
Sorry that you had a bad childhood, but the answer to you, personally, having a bad childhood is not “the state should subvert the primacy of the nuclear family and the parent/child relationship.” Just consider things under Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance: would you want a hypothetical extremist Catholic state to be able to subvert your relationship with your own (hypothetical) children?
- soulofmischief 2y ago
  > the state should subvert the primacy of the nuclear family and the parent/child relationship No, the State needs to get the fuck out of my business. That's the point. > would you want a hypothetical extremist Catholic state to be able to subvert your relationship with your own (hypothetical) children? See the above. Providing protections for open access to information is translatable across both situations you've described. Access is access. Censorship is censorship. This isn't about the "nuclear family". It's about me, an individual, and my inalienable rights for self-determination, regardless of what others around me want. Make no mistake, I am not using my anecdotal experience as the basis for my beliefs. I am using it as supplementary evidence for why this is all so important. My heart goes out to every child who has been or is currently in the situation I faced growing up. I don't want them to be like me, holding a gun in their mouth with the finger on the trigger at the ripe age of 9, wishing to escape a seemingly unending violent war for control of my thoughts. The represented majority will never understand the struggle of the unrepresented minority.
  - milesrout 2y ago
    When you are a child you are not an individual. You are a child. What your parents want matters more than what you want.
    - 77pt77 2y ago
      No.
    - soulofmischief 2y ago
      Yes, that's what my guardians told me, too. I contend otherwise. Now, who is right? On what foundation do you rest your claim that I lack the protections of an individual as a child?

WillPostForFood 2y ago

"I had access to Mein Kampf in my elementary school." What's the best case for giving k-5 Mein Kampf? Makes no sense, doubt it's true, and obviously inappropriate just at a difficulty level, let alone content.

Animats 2y ago
It's not a difficult read. It's the historical context that's hard to get. The major political players of a century ago are mostly gone now. In the early 20th century, there were still a lot of kings, emperors, and princes hanging onto power. The era of monarchy was on the way out, but it wasn't over yet. WWI started after an archduke was killed by an inept but lucky assassin. The ancient noble families still mattered. The Marxists were quite active. They were the anti-monarchists. Today, Marxists are nearly extinct. There are still some Communist states around, but no Marxist mass movements. The Catholic Church was still a major political power. That's gone. Hitler was a competent craftsman and had done construction work. This was an era which required a huge number of people doing manual labor in big groups to get things done. That's when unions arise, by the way. "Working class" was very real, and that's where Hitler started. The term "macho" wasn't available yet, so he wrote: "In times when not the mind but the fist decides, the purely intellectual emphasis of our education in the upper classes makes them incapable of defending themselves, let alone enforcing their will. Not infrequently the first reason for personal cowardice lies in physical weaknesses." There's a long rant about Jews, which seems to come from clerk jobs in the WWI German army being dominated by Jews, described as physically weak and overly intellectual. Today, that might be a rant about AI. There's a similar grumble about parliamentarians, elected legislators and their staffs, who talk too much and don't exercise enough. The ideal is a muscular, disciplined society run by strong working people. He writes approvingly of how the US exercises quality control on immigrants, rejecting the sick and weak ones. Now, this is where a librarian can help. Someone reading this needs background reading on Europe from 1900 to 1925. Searching with Google for "The World in 1900" turns up a terrible essay on Medium that looks like LLM-generated clickbait. A good librarian will offer better choices. Kids who get all that background will question the way things are today, of course. Which scares some people.
- greenavocado 2y ago
  This is a gross misrepresentation of the text. Anyway, there is absolutely no point to having such a text in an elementary school. It should be required reading in high school so everyone can property understand the attitude that led to WW2. The only English translation worth its salt is the Dalton translation.
int_19h 2y ago
The best case for giving them Mein Kampf is that it's so tedious and boring, if you force kids to read it, they'll learn to hate Nazis early on.
soulofmischief 2y ago
> doubt it's true Do you always immediately disregard what people say in favor of your own beliefs? > obviously inappropriate just at a difficulty level I had a collegiate reading level in first grade... I taught myself to read at age 3 in order to escape my situation. I should not have to suffer because other people did not invest the same amount of time and energy into their literacy. > What's the best case for giving k-5 Mein Kampf? I learned about Hitler and why he was a massive piece of shit, but also formed my viewpoint while considering all available information and opinions, instead of just internalizing what other people told me.
- selimthegrim 2y ago
  Oh hi, I too was in the same boat with reading level.
- gonzobonzo 2y ago
  > Do you always immediately disregard what people say in favor of your own beliefs? It's the internet, it's easy for people to make claims, and we have to use our own faculties to try to guess at the accuracy of these claims. These might not even be outright lies, but they could be exaggerations, partial truths, or simply misremembering (most people can't clearly remember things that happened to them when they were 6 years old). You claimed both that the books available to you at your elementary school weren't advanced enough for your 6 year old self, and that your elementary school made Mein Kampf available to you. I'm not going to make a judgement on the veracity of your claims, but I will say that looking at both of your claims together, I'm entirely unable to tell what level of books your elementary school actually made available to students.
  - soulofmischief 2y ago
    > You claimed both that the books available to you at your elementary school weren't advanced enough for your 6 year old self I did not. I said "I had a collegiate reading level since i was 6 or 7", and I also said "the books available to us in our school library just weren't cutting it". This does not imply that at 6/7 the books weren't cutting it. This conversation was about the role of the library throughout my schooling, and as I got older, I wanted more than the library could offer. > I will say that looking at both of your claims together, I'm entirely unable to tell what level of books your elementary school actually made available to students. Look again, with more precise reading comprehension.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

toasterlovin 2y ago

Sorry that you had a bad childhood, but the answer to you, personally, having a bad childhood is not “the state should subvert the primacy of the nuclear family and the parent/child relationship.” Just consider things under Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance: would you want a hypothetical extremist Catholic state to be able to subvert your relationship with your own (hypothetical) children?

soulofmischief 2y ago
> the state should subvert the primacy of the nuclear family and the parent/child relationship No, the State needs to get the fuck out of my business. That's the point. > would you want a hypothetical extremist Catholic state to be able to subvert your relationship with your own (hypothetical) children? See the above. Providing protections for open access to information is translatable across both situations you've described. Access is access. Censorship is censorship. This isn't about the "nuclear family". It's about me, an individual, and my inalienable rights for self-determination, regardless of what others around me want. Make no mistake, I am not using my anecdotal experience as the basis for my beliefs. I am using it as supplementary evidence for why this is all so important. My heart goes out to every child who has been or is currently in the situation I faced growing up. I don't want them to be like me, holding a gun in their mouth with the finger on the trigger at the ripe age of 9, wishing to escape a seemingly unending violent war for control of my thoughts. The represented majority will never understand the struggle of the unrepresented minority.
- milesrout 2y ago
  When you are a child you are not an individual. You are a child. What your parents want matters more than what you want.
  - 77pt77 2y ago
    No.
  - soulofmischief 2y ago
    Yes, that's what my guardians told me, too. I contend otherwise. Now, who is right? On what foundation do you rest your claim that I lack the protections of an individual as a child?