Chess Grandmaster Kasparov on Mob Mentality and Groupthink

It is not appropriate in families. It just does less harm, because parents are more likely to notice harm and change.

When I wrote "I have seen it" originally I meant siblings in families. At this point, I have seen dynamic three times. Each time one kid ended up being systematic aggressor and other victim. The victim was pushed to submissivity and aggressor honestly believed he/she is entitled to act like that. And that victim is bad for defending own toys or boundaries.

And each time it went on, until parents changed approach.

"majority of school boards ... are conservative / on the right" - If you;d said police/sheriff I wouldn't even think about it, but as far as school boards (and teachers in general) - I've always felt that those folks were more high-brow / liberal / progressive / book types, or at least more moderate than say conservative... but I could see looking at the map of US and seeing that a lot of square miles are more likely conservative folks in general - so I asked startpage/goodle..

It would appear that the average school board in the US is only about 31% conservative ( https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2017/... ) at least as of 2017 - I expect this to shift a bit post 2022.

"The whole "Critical Race Theory" stuff going on is just the newest push by the right to reshape education into their mold" - not sure I disagree with this, but the way it comes off is like 'the left' and 'the moderates' have not been trying to reshape education in their mold.. and I would say I think since about 12 years ago there has been an aggressive pursual of more liberal pushing within the halls of various academia.

I am glad that more parents are taking a look at what our schools are teaching - I think it had been assumed the education we got it was today's kids are getting, and I think now more eyes are open that today's lessons may be very different - in some areas that is great and in some areas we may not want out schools teaching certain things in certain ways or at certain ages - we should all pay more attention and have more transparency across the board.

I see you mention the Thomas Jefferson thing again like it's an abomination that some conservative folks wanted it removed - this even after I showed you details of your own linking that says that headline was overblown and used in pop culture wars in a way to make conservatives look extreme / outrageous - when the actual doing was leaving all the history of Jefferson in the books, yet removing him from a list of very influential American originalists or whatever.

The funny thing is that the far left has been more active in removing historically famous old school folks from statues to murals, school names and more. There are those saying that washington and jefferson should be removed from public places the same as confederate generals. - So if cancelling Jefferson is an example of an extremist thing to be shocked by, there is, I believe, more demand from the far left to remove / cancel him than there is the far right.

RE your GP comment:

I don't know much about the Texas school board being conservative or liberal - I do recall some years ago that Texas' decisions about what goes into their school books had national repercussions, as the book inclusions they chose ended up making reprints the most affordable and so most or many of the school systems in the US ended up buying the same books -

The good thing is that brought national attention to subject matter included - and lots of discussions about supplemental material that should be xeroxed and added to the classes.

You mention the school board and censoring in Texas, but the article you cited is not talking about school board demands, it talks about a Texas lawmaker wanting to know about books in public schools..

I don't know enough about the list of books you cited or the others mentioned in the article.. although "V" is one of my two favorite movies, and I think everyone should see it more than once.. I can understand that different types of parents may have objections to certain types of books that may be available to all the kids.

I don't see transparency about books in high/middle/elementary schools as a bad thing - and I don't think if some books were blocked from access in those schools is really the kind of censorship we should worry about.

If lawmakers were demanding that Amazon, Barnes and noble, etc are to remove books - then it's stand to make noise.

"The Underground Guide to Teenage Sexuality: An Essential Handbook for Today's Teens" - mentioned in the article - I would advocate that all schools should have multiple copies of such a book - however I would not object to it being only available to students who's parents have opted in to allowing such material.. and the cover being on the shelf, but the book being being the library counter.

What is right for each kid is going to be different for each kid and each family and at different ages. Each local school needs to take those things into consideration.

"Censorship, especially censorship applied to schools and education, is simply a tool of those in power to remain in power. In my experience, the conservative states seem to do it the most." - I wonder what you really mean by 'those in power' - is this a racial thing? a church vs non-church thing?

I'm not sure I am buying into the conservative state vs liberal here - I think it depends on each district within and even teacher by teacher.

"conservative states also force upon the textbook writers things like "Intelligent Design" or whatnot." - I'll need to research this more.. I did see an article where Louisiana made a law saying it had to also be offered, and maybe other states have done similar -

However most of the country teaches evolution as settled science - (around 59% ) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/evolution-educati... )) - the ban on teaching that in TN ended in 1970 - a lot has changed since then.

I've got to add that I'm more concerned about what colleges are banning, and what they are not teaching... It's one thing to ban / burn a book.. but it's not much different to have all your faculty pushing exclusively a certain set of books.

Parents should be more involved in providing additional / limiting certain things for kids / teens.. but that option is not really a thing after 18.

I think we all need to know more about what the various schools are offering children and young adults, and what they are not offering - our collective future is certainly being affected by it unfortunately.

Because universities are culturally regarded as havens of free speech and the sharing of ideas.

If I don't want to listen to somebodies ideas (or read their books), I will make that decision thakyou. Not the students union!

What is is about "I disprove of what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it" that YOU do not understand?

>BLM's problem[1] is that it's a national movement about local problems. It's city cops, not the FBI, that kill people with impunity. The presidential election is generally not the right place to take action, IMHO [2].

and there are some cities which have done some minimalist attempts to help the situation. I think though it's not a per-state thing. So federal I guess is appropriate but yes so divided from the actual level of government responsible.

>In any event, it seems to me that BLM should focus on police money, and ways to put that money in the hands of people who feel that killing unarmed civilians is wrong, the militarization of the police is wrong, and who is willing to peel off some of that money to fund wholly independent police accountability policies, and non-police solutions to community problems (e.g. community intervention, mental health, etc.)

I think we are divided here. The whole 'defund the police' thing is such a bad approach. If the black community is already interacting with law enforcement so often. Defunding will only harm them.

What's more important to note is there is a problem. There are countless studies and real life examples proving the problem. Even wider, you can clearly prove the bias. Do some action as a white dude and police drive by and nod. Do example the same action as a black guy and you will have a dozen cop cars.

Yet here we are with BLM and they are 99% ineffective. That's an impossible task. In fact like I said in my first post, the only person to have actually done something for them is Trump and he's painted as racist. The democrats who control the government entirely have done absolutely nothing. This is intentional. This is expected. If the democrats solve the problem, blm goes away and then they have to figure out another way to attract the black vote.

So they are intentionally doing nothing.

I hope you noticed it's from Salon.