The article starts out very well - the author is disturbed (as I was) by Richard Dawkins' contention that teaching children to believe in God is a form of child abuse. Talking about believers and atheists, the article points out that if you believe something to be unequivocally true and belief in it necessary to live a 'good' life, you are morally obliged to pass it along. It then hypothesizes about an extreme case - does that mean a committed Nazi is obliged to bring up his or her children as Nazis?
The answer suggested is - hell no, because Nazism is clearly wrong and its outcomes clearly evil, plus eugenics and the master race are discredited by real science. This is woolly logic at best however, because the latter is true of several belief systems that the author agrees are OK to pass along.
My take? Of course we're obliged to pass on what we believe - yes, even the Nazi! However, we are also obliged to present evidence that runs counter to our own argument, and more importantly we are obliged to change our mind if this evidence discredits our own belief.
Teaching one's children (or teaching or having a dialogue with anyone) is never just a learning experience for the 'recipient' of a discourse. Obviously it's a two way street, and we are obliged to learn from any unanswerable or contentious questions that get asked by the child.
As for that hypothetical Nazi - or the staunch fundamentalist that thinks all gay people are going to hell - or that racist that judges people based on the color of the skin? I think the line in the sand is not whether these beliefs pass muster with scientific consensus and fact. I think the line in the sand is whether these things close the child off from rational inquiry.
Look, the world's not a friendly place, right? The best ideas that anyone has ever had in the history of mankind have often led to bloodshed and mobs with pitchforks and torches either because of those ideas or against them. I'm also not saying we need to sanitize discourse and make it 'kid-friendly' by making it completely non-controversial.
The best - and the worst - ideas need presenting to any inquiring mind as one of various options to be held up to the light and scrutinized in the light of objective evidence, and one's own moral compass. Yes, even bigotry and Nazism!-I am not saying that therefore all parents everywhere need to teach their children everything, including those vile things. Nor am I saying that we need to take the idiotic 'balanced media' approach and present the counter-argument to a fairly settled matter now matter how flimsy and indefensible it may be (looking at you, Intelligent Design).
What I'm saying is the worst thing you can teach a child is axiomatic certainty about anything - even the certainty that science and objective evidence are the best way to think! The most useful thing to teach kids is doubt - and that begins by owning up to your own reasonable doubts about your deepest beliefs.
The US Declaration of Independence starts out with the phrase "we hold these truths to be self evident" - and because it goes on to make some rather noble (even benign) assertions that is OK. However when teaching a child, I think we're obliged to keep the axioms to a minimum, and qualify every assertion with a sense of "I think so and so , but if you think otherwise that's OK. Let's talk about why you think it is so (or isn't)".
Yes, there's the risk of this approach resulting in your kid growing up to be a blogger that does a lot of navel-gazing on the internet when s/he really should be going to work (as my parents discovered to their chagrin). But hey - I turned out OK enough, really, and therefore present the approach for your consideration. Not as the best possible one - but as one to think about!
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