I was shocked by a discussion I recently had with a number of students from the Faculty of Education at our University. I do not remember how the discussion started and progressed. However, at one point I asked, “Are you telling me that your lecturers teach you not to tell students in class that abortion, just to mention one example, is wrong.”

The answer was a definitive yes. On seeing my surprise, not to say shock, the students tried to elucidate their arguments and enlighten my throw-back-to the-Dark-Ages-mind. “They tell us that we have to be value free when we are teaching. … Abortion is a value-laden subject. There are people who say it is right and people who say that it is wrong. Therefore, we do not take positions. We just say that some say one thing while others say the opposite.”

That argument did not penetrate my thick mind. Therefore, I struggled on in an effort to achieve enlightenment. “If your students tell you that they throw on the ground every little bit of paper they get their hands on, will you tell them that dirtying streets is wrong?”

They looked at me as if I am the greatest ebete around. “Yes we will tell them that it is wrong. Should not that be obvious?”

“Oh”, I gulped, “While you are instructed to tell your students that throwing a piece of paper on the ground is wrong you are also instructed not to tell them that throwing an unborn baby into an incinerator, after aborting it, is wrong.”

I know through experience that it is the privilege of University students to misunderstand or twist upside down what we teach them. It happened to me umpteen times. Therefore, I would like to assume that this is what those students were doing. On the other hand, all of them had no doubt that this is what they are being taught at University.

If this is the case, then I think that whoever teaches such stuff is failing our young people and is helping to perpetuate the grave crisis of values that is bringing havoc to our culture. There is nothing more value laden and politically charged than education. Even this apparently value-free approach is similarly value laden and politically charged.

What I find more objectionable is that this kind of undermining of our youths is being subsidies by the taxes I pay. Our taxed money could surely be better spent or directed especially in these times of economic crisis that we are all passing through.

Frenzied laws are failing our young people

I recently read an interesting article written by the Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien. The article can be retrieved from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6078172.ece

I will quote profusely from that article which states about laws and public policy what I just stated about education.

“In recent weeks much coverage has been given to the decision by the Scottish government to limit sales of alcohol to young people by increasing the selling price through restrictions on a variety of retail offers and by asking local authorities to consider raising the age for alcohol purchases. This policy mirrors the approach taken by this and previous administrations to drug use, vandalism, anti-social behaviour, obesity, even promiscuity, and might usefully be called the “command and control” model of public governance.

Advocates of such a model take the view that “bad behaviour”, whether it be public drunkenness, health-threatening over-eating or teenage promiscuity, are all immutable and unchangeable. The urge and desire to commit acts of this type cannot be curbed, far less removed, goes the argument, therefore public, social and health policy must all be orientated towards mitigating the effects.

It is an approach that is deeply flawed and utterly discredited. It is also, however, the logical destination for a policy that refuses to judge or differentiate between actions conducive to the public good and those who threaten it.

When our fellow citizens err and lapse, we seldom focus on them or ask why they behaved as they did. Rather we rush to impose legal restraints, forgetting that no external restrictions can ever match the effectiveness of self-restraint. When a toddler is shot with an airgun, we regulate the sale of such weapons; alcohol abuse by our young people is met with legislation to restrict sales, and sexual promiscuity with regulations aimed at ensuring contraception and abortion are widely available. We do not as a society take action to tackle the underlying motivation; instead we limit our action to blunting the impact of our excesses. We obsess over the symptoms and ignore the cause.”

An anathema instead of a cherry

Instead of concluding this piece by a cherry I will conclude by another quotation from Cardinal O’Brien which would be anathema to every so called liberal who believes in the dogma of value free education, public policy and politics.

“We must educate a new generation in morality and objective truth.”

The alternative is disaster.