Otto

Documenting the horrifying reality of the ideological origins of modern education

Reviewed: 01-05-23

Dr. James Lindsay, a leading expert on social constructivist critical studies, explains in this carefully researched book how modern education has been influenced by the brazilian marxist ideologue Paulo Freire and his theory of education. By extensive quotes from Freire’s main works such as Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and The Politics of Education, the author makes it easy to understand how Freire’s method works and what its is set out to achieve.

Freire aims at making people realize how they are oppressed, so that they can learn to read the political realities of their lives and have their social consciousness raised. Freire has a method of turning situations where people learn to read into discussions where people learn to read their lives politically. This is how seemingly innocuous tools and settings can be used to turn people into political activists.

For Freire the goal of education is not to make people competent and productive in the society, as for him the current social order is pathological and oppressive. Thus education doesn’t have a focus on equipping people to understand, analyze and build on their social and physical surroundings. Rather the focus will be on turning people into social and political revolutionaries.

Lindsay also goes on to show how this Freirean pedagogy has infiltrated the modern school system, and how it predictably produces unskilled political activists.

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3 people found this helpful

A deep dive into understanding the hypernovelty of first world problems

Reviewed: 02-05-22

The book provides a fresh approach to understanging the rapidly changing world we live in, and provides both healthy skepticism and some first principles approaches for solutions towards nobel technologies and changes in our living. We too often fail to pay attention for how our new ways of life are too often making us worse of rather than better, and by better understanding the natural purposes of our biological and psychological faculties and even long enduring cultural practices, the book provides a corrective perspective from the point of view of two evolutionary biologists.

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A defence of a hyperbolic interpretation of the flood

Reviewed: 04-24-19

Makes a compelling case for the usage of hyperbole in the historical passages of the Bible. However, when applied to the Flood account, this is less than compelling.

For example, it is not well established that the original Israelite audience could have recognized the relevant details as an obvious hyperbole. And should we really think that people from the age of megalithic architecture were incapable of constructing large wooden structures, even to the degree that such descriptions would be seen as hyperbole? After all, it is not that easy to cut through and move monumental blocks of stone.

The book also covers most of the relevant fields of evidence, including biblical interpretation, mesopotamian flood narratives, archaeology, universal flood mythology as well as a scientific critique of Flood Geology.

I found the arguments weak or superficial on multiple points, especially the critique of alternative theories. The arguments against the local flood interpretation have a number of important points, but don't engage in a dialog with more sophisticated versions of the local flood account, so some options are abandoned on weak evidential grounds. A similar tendency can be seen when discussing global flood accounts.

However, this lack of depth seems to be a common problem with books on the topic, and in comparison The Lost World of the Flood is a fairly good introduction to the topic.

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7 people found this helpful