on indoctrination

There is some validity to indoctrination. There's a slippery slope to every arbitrary value we embrace as a society – if the haphazard act of marriage isn't strictly a man-woman thing, we might just renew that old Biblical habit of making love to sheep. So, we collectively indoctrinate, consciously or otherwise. And indeed, the Puritanism hasn't really gone away – every new concept to hit America is regarded as some level of smut. Liberal smut. Feminist smut. Darwinian smut. Nobody wants to see the erosion of arbitrary values to smut, after all.

This, however, isn't me trying to reinvent a dumb and never-ending discourse on Puritanical societies – we try to keep it ignant here at Devdoot.com. [Yeah, I just did that.] Reason I bring all this up is that I'm okay with indoctrination, it's just how white people deal with diversity.

The place for no-holds-bar indoctrination is clearly the elementary school classroom, but where did it all go wrong? We had a “red ribbon day” every year, commemorating some form of dead people. We had a talking puppet called "harmony the bear" teach us self-esteem. And hell, the pledge of allegiance – not really the most penetrable ode to liberty and freedom.

So my message to educators and indocrinators alike: go easier on the symbolism. Stick with “We love freedom. Gay marriage is bad. Brush your teeth daily. Jesus loves you.” That way, we wouldn’t even have an ACLU to worry about in the first place.

More later. Out to dinner with roommate & fambly.