Our best efforts at sound and honest thinking are needed for the well-being of our communities for two reasons. First, people are deeply invested in thinking to their own advantage, which leads to destructive thought. Second, we are people.
Consequently, good and sound ideas are continually abused for political or economic advantages. Recently, I have come to appreciate an idea expressed as “nature deficit disorder,” explained in the book Last Child in the Woods. It’s a good idea, calling for children to spend more time outside. Unfortunately, people with inadequate humility have adopted it for their own purposes.
Read this article, reviewing a program at an extension of the University of Chicago that radicalizes children through a corruption of this concept. There are lessons to be learned, of which I mention a couple.
1. Cherish the truth for the truth that it is. Something in you and in those around you will always want to enslave it.
2. Be aware that the normal restraints that prevent pied pipers from accessing our children have been thrown away. Especially those antiquated technologies called fathers and mothers.
