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Quote by Charles Horton Cooley

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Charles Horton Cooley
Charles Horton Cooley

Charles Horton Cooley was an American sociologist born on August 17, 1864, and died on May 7, 1929. His research focused on social interaction and the relationship between individuals and society, particularly through his symbolic interaction theory to explore this field. Cooley's work had a profound impact on the development of sociological theory. more

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“Owing to the shape of a bell curve, the education system is geared to the mean. Unfortunately, that kind of education is virtually calculated to bore and alienate gifted minds. But instead of making exceptions where it would do the most good, the educational bureaucracy often prefers not to be bothered. In my case, for example, much of the schooling to which I was subjected was probably worse than nothing. It consisted not of real education, but of repetition and oppressive socialization (entirely superfluous given the dose of oppression I was getting away from school). Had I been left alone, preferably with access to a good library and a minimal amount of high-quality instruction, I would at least have been free to learn without useless distractions and gratuitous indoctrination. But alas, no such luck. Let’s try to break the problem down a bit. The education system […] is committed to a warm and fuzzy but scientifically counterfactual form of egalitarianism which attributes all intellectual differences to environmental factors rather than biology, implying that the so-called 'gifted' are just pampered brats who, unless their parents can afford private schooling, should atone for their undeserved good fortune by staying behind and enriching the classroom environments of less privileged students. This approach may appear admirable, but its effects on our educational and intellectual standards, and all that depends on them, have already proven to be overwhelmingly negative. This clearly betrays an ulterior motive, suggesting that it has more to do with social engineering than education. There is an obvious difference between saying that poor students have all of the human dignity and basic rights of better students, and saying that there are no inherent educationally and socially relevant differences among students. The first statement makes sense, while the second does not. The gifted population accounts for a very large part of the world’s intellectual resources. As such, they can obviously be put to better use than smoothing the ruffled feathers of average or below-average students and their parents by decorating classroom environments which prevent the gifted from learning at their natural pace. The higher we go on the scale of intellectual brilliance – and we’re not necessarily talking just about IQ – the less support is offered by the education system, yet the more likely are conceptual syntheses and grand intellectual achievements of the kind seldom produced by any group of markedly less intelligent people. In some cases, the education system is discouraging or blocking such achievements, and thus cheating humanity of their benefits.”

ChildrenScienceKnowledgeYouthGeniusIntellectualSocial JusticeBrilliantGiftedBureaucracyBrillianceGood IntentionsSelf EducationIndoctrinationEducational SystemUnfairnessSocializationSad TruthEducation ReformGiftednessSimple TruthGifted PeopleAutodidacticismThe Road To Hell
Author:Christopher Langan
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“As obvious as it is, then, Jesus is bigger than any one religion. He didn't come to start a new religion, and he continually disrupted whatever conventions or systems or establishments that existed in his day. He will always transcend whatever cages and labels are created to contain him, especially the one called 'Christianity'.”

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“Yet despite the complexity of contemporary society, there are still some simple formulas we can use to distill the path to social and economic flourishing. One of these, labeled the “Success Sequence,” and credited to Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill of the left-of-center Brookings Institute, proposes a three-step rule book for modern American life: 1. Finish high school. 2. Get a job. (Any job. Because working leads to more working, which leads to better jobs.) 3. Get married before having children. When people follow this pattern—and crucially, in this order—life generally turns out pretty well.”

SuccessEducationMarriageLaborParenthoodModernitySocialization
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“To be effective as a liberation worker--that is, one who is committed to changing systems and institutions characterized by oppression to create greater equity and social justice--a crucial step is the development of a liberatory consciousness. A liberatory consciousness enables humans to live their lives in oppressive systems and institutions with awareness and intentionality, rather than on the basis of the socialization to which they have been subjected. A liberatory consciousness enables humans to maintain an awareness of the dynamics of oppression characterizing society without giving in to despair and hopelessness about that condition, to maintain an awareness of the role played by each individual in the maintenance of the system without blaming them for the roles they play, and at the same time practice intentionality about changing the systems of oppression. A liberatory consciousness enables humans to live "outside" the patterns of thought and behavior learned through the socialization process that helps to perpetuate oppressive systems.”

OppressionLiberationSocialization
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“The exploitative sexual caste system could not be perpetuated without the consent of the victims as well as of the dominant sex, and such consent if obtained through sex role socialization - a conditioning process which beings to operate the moment we are born, and which is enforced by most institutions. Parents, friends, teachers, textbook authors and illustrators, advertisers, those who control the mass media, toy and clothes manufacturers, professionals such a doctors and psychologists - all contribute to the socialization process. This happens through dynamics that are largely uncalculated and unconscious, yet which reinforce the assumptions, attitudes, stereotypes, customs, and arrangements of sexually hierarchical society. The fact of womne's low caste status has been - and is - disguised. It is masked, first of all, by sex role segregation, as in a ghetto, for it makes possible the delusion that women should be "equal but different". Sexual caste is hidden also by the fact that women have various forms of *derivative status* as a consequence of relationships with men. That is, women have duality of status, and the derivative aspect of this status - for example, as daughters and wives - divides us against each other and encourages identification with patriarchal institutions which serve the interests of men at the expense of women. Finally sexual caste is hidden by ideologies that bestow false identities upon women and men. Patriarchal religion has served to perpetuate all of these dynamics of delusion, naming them "natural" and bestowing its supernatural blessings upon them. The system has been advertised as "according to the divine plan".”

ReligionFeminismExploitationPatriarchySocializationOpressionSexiam
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