Tuesday 4 August 2020
The sincere lie
Oh, I felt that she was lying (though sincerely, for one can lie sincerely).
Fyodor Dostoevsky – The Raw Youth (1875)
Imagine an adult talking to a child about aspects of the child’s school syllabus which the adult knows to be dubious or even untrue. Yet the adult is naturally aware of an obligation to do everything possible to help the child grasp the essentials of the syllabus.
Does our imaginary adult offer the slightest hint that aspects of the syllabus are not all they should be? Even a bright child could easily run into difficulties at school if the syllabus cannot be questioned safely. Any adult may prefer not to introduce those subversive hints if to do so would put obstacles in the way of achievement.
In other words even a responsible adult confronted with this situation may reluctantly decide to lie sincerely even if merely lying by omission. Which in turn suggests that allegiance towards the approved narrative avoids these dilemmas in the first place. Just read the Guardian, watch the BBC and become thoroughly woke. So much easier. Boris does it.
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4 comments:
When do parents STOP lying to their children?
It starts with Santa and sky-fairies and the tooth fairy, with all the Common Purpose indoctrination thrown it for good measure at schools.
Fully intending to reject all this for my children, I was soon overwhelmed by family & peer pressure to, "Go along with it, it's all a bit of fun".
But when they came home from school full of idiotic climate nonsense, I explained some alternative ideas (which resulted in an interesting parent-teacher 'discussion')!
I am an atheist and our lad ended up going to a Catholic primary school, it rolled off him like water from a duck's back.
"Imagine an adult talking to a child about aspects of the child’s school syllabus which the adult knows to be dubious or even untrue. Yet the adult is naturally aware of an obligation to do everything possible to help the child grasp the essentials of the syllabus."
We had a lot of fun in "Black History Month". Thank goodness it was during lockdown and I could get my say in.
Ed - one or two kids at our grandson's school were told from the beginning that there is no Santa. Although we didn't do that, I suspect it is the right way to begin. Haven't come up against the idiotic climate nonsense yet but I suspect it may be in the pipeline.
Mark - although he has never attended an overtly religious school, our grandson has always been dismissive when it comes to religious belief. As presented in schools, maybe it is now too remote from the modern world.
Sam - lots of discussion about black on black slavery perhaps?
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