[lit-ideas] Re: 2006 reading lists/Can virtue be taught?
- From: david ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 13:39:57 -0800
On Jan 4, 2006, at 1:14 PM, Stan Spiegel wrote:
Now isn't that something, Judy! I am SO glad they bar them thar
atheists. Why, they're worse than pedophiles. How can you trust
anyone who doesn't believe in a supreme being? At least pedophiles
believe in God (that is, when they're not hard at work abusing
little children).
It's just the same here. My daughter is a girl scout, but only
because the troop leader was a little rabbinical in her reasoning.
She argued that since Julia is a member of a humanist Jewish group
that doesn't specifically deny the existence of God, there was a
remote chance that she believes in God, or could come to believe in
God, and hence was not wholly atheistic. But for this, she would
have been barred from joining.
On the subject of whether virtue can be taught, may I recommend three
books:
John Chandos, "Boys Together; English Public Schools 1800-1864"
David Newsome, "Godliness and Good Learning"
Michael Rosenthal, "The Character Factory; Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts
and the Imperatives of Empire"
And you will see in, for example, Emmett A. Rice, "A Brief History of
Physical Education," that the late Victorian justification both in
Britain and the U.S. for including P.E. in the curriculum was not
that play was good for children or that a fit populace would provide
fine soldiers or reduce health care costs; it was that team sports
taught virtue.
Rosenthal's book made me very reluctant to let Julia join the Girl
Scouts, but she has enjoyed her years with the group.
David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon
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