“Incidentally, this is one reason why all forms of cyber-education will necessarily be second best. Certain learning can be acquaried at a distance, and in one sense every book ever written is a form of ‘distance learning.’ Consequently, what can be place on a page and withdrawn from that page many years later can also …
The Man Ain”t Got No Culture
“Culture, like religion, is a name given from outside to activities which are not themselves interested in culture at all, and would be ruined the moment they were. I do not mean that we are never to talk of things from the outside. But when the things are of high value and very easily destroyed, …
Foundational Gratitude
“A biblical aesthetic requires that true creativity be built upon an inheritance. Perpetual revolution is as destructive to the arts as it is to civil order” (The Case for Classical Christian Education, p. 158).
So Call Now
“Like biblical parables, commercial messages invade our consciousness, seep into our souls. Even if you are half-awake when commercials run, thirty thousand of them will begin to penetrate your indifference. In the end, it is hard not to believe.” (Neil Postman, How To Watch TV News, p. 124).
Not That Long Ago
“We live our lives like fruit flies, measuring everything by the length of our own little span, which isn’t that long. We then assume that ancient history really was a long time ago, but it was not. No doubt somewhere in your town lives a person who is 100 years old. When that person was …
Scripted Authenticity
“A considerable number of events are staged to attract television cameras. When a political candidate goes to a closed factory or stands outside the slums so that a camera can capture the scene, the candidate is manipulating television coverage. Some people get so good at figuring out how to do this that they get paid …
Learning Respect At Home
“[Y]ou cannot teach children to appreciate other cultures by teaching (by default) contempt for your own. As I have said before, a man who dearly loves his own mother will understand (fully) why another man regards his mother so highly. But a man who has contempt for his own mother will hardly rise to the …
More a Sign of Desperation Than Mastery and Control
“In the blink of a tease you are enticed to stay tuned with promises of exclusive stories and tape, good-looking anchors, helicopters, team coverage, hidden cameras, uniform blazers, and even, yes, better journalism. It is all designed to stop you from using the remote-control button to switch channels. But the teasing doesn’t stop there. During …
Silence Can Err Also
“We also have to tell childre n the history of their people. We must be careful here because we do not have the protections of inspiration. But silence does not really help because we do not have the protection of inspired silence either. We must speak or not speak as fallible persons, and the best …
Worship In the Temple of High Brow
“Until quite modern times—I think, until the time of the Romantics—nobody ever suggested that literature and the arts were an end in themselves. They ‘belonged to the ornamental part of life’, they provided ‘innocent diversion’; or else they ‘refined our manners’ or ‘incited us to virtue’ or glorified the gods. The great music had been …