Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Indoctrinating Children


7 comments:

Head Usher said...

"The biggest atrocity of all is to indoctrinate our children into a system that does not value their creative expression, nor encourage their unique abilities."
-Benjamin Greene


The biggest atrocity of Armstrongism, certainly, is the stunting of a human life before it's hardly begun. It fills their heads with all sorts of superstitious nonsense about imaginary deities who are sitting in judgment of them, accusing them of being full of "sin", telling them that at their best they're still no better than filthy rags. Then he turns around and says that everyone has all this potential and that they're squandering it, and they're probably not going to live up to it anyway, and will probably end up coming to a shameful, agonizing end. Especially when as a child you hear many different men saying all this indoctrination, who all the grown-ups, including your parents, look up to and aspire to be, it seems very believable and very real to you.

It just leads to a young people who start out mixed up, turned around, with no sense of who they really are, sent off in the wrong direction believing that life is about wild goose chases, with their priorities completely scrambled, trying to make sense out of what cannot be made sense of. And then watch them struggle to be "normal" after teaching them that everything normal is wrong.

DennisCDiehl said...

Rare is the parent that exposes their children to a broad range of ideas and then encourages them to find their own path and do their own homework on the topics of their choice.

Holding children in the box the parents came in or have moved into when they are young can put off self discovery for a very long time.

"Bring up a child in the way the SHOULD go." can be a tool to stiffle exploration and personal growth in life. What's the chance WE and not them were born into or actually discovered the only real wa to be in life?

almost zero...

Unknown said...

All of society and culture is indoctrination.

Most of life is chasing wild goose chases , and trying to make sense of it, from expectations and goals that are foisted on people from outside of themselves.

Yes, nearly all mankind is stunted, enslaved, and put into little boxes. This is not just "Armstrongism" either.

I thank God I have the ranch, and freedom of the soul. Any of the rest of you who are stuck in the rat race, ... you are in my prayers.

Joe Moeller
Cody, WY

Anonymous said...

And the people in the boxes
All went to the university,
Where they were put into little boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.

Anonymous said...

Any ranch that is free of the United Church of God and any semblance of reverence toward it's lying asshole scumbag leaders is indeed a ranch that's taken a step toward freedom.

Byker Bob said...

WCG parents didn't know how to encourage, they only knew how to threaten with punishment, because that's what they heard themselves from the pulpit. Yet, this is one of the very basics in mentoring!

Like some others I met, my own talents were in technical fields. However, much emphasis was made at home, in Spokesman's Club, and at Ambassador College towards a calling in the ministry. Frankly, before I left WCG and developed some people skills, I couldn't imagine being able to help people in the field. But, of course, that's what "authority" was for, to compensate for inadequate people handling skills.

It's all good, though. From a career standpoint, what the Beastie Boys rapped a couple of decades ago proved to ring true, "You've got to fight for your right to parteeeeee!" And, that's pretty much what I did, ending up successful in a highly technical field. Sometimes working against a negative can be just as effective a motivator as having an encouraging mentor.

BB

Anonymous said...

"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently"

Are you a homesteader Joe?