OK, so I assume most of you have listened to episode #13 by now (and scroll down if you haven’t, then skip ahead to the 36-minute mark for the relevant portion of the discussion).
As you will remember, Christian and I debated the issue of indoctrination (a discussion which stemmed from some great listener feedback we received at 213-97-DRUNK). We mostly focused on whether indoctrination is evil by definition, and whether it is something that religious people do exclusively. My goal here is to set forth the questions to which I have yet to hear a satisfactory answer.
What is the difference, in principle, between a religious home teaching their children religious ideas (like Jesus rose again) on the one hand, and a secular home teaching their children secular ideas (like don’t be racist or misogynistic) on the other? And for the sake of argument, let’s assume that both sets of parents are equally reasonable and open to being challenged, and patient when/if they are.
And no fair comparing the content of the instruction and siding with one home over the other (“The kid in the religious home is being taught about hell!”). The issue is not what is being taught, the issue is whether one home is engaging in indoctrination while the other isn’t.
My questions are: (1) Does the rejection of the manner in which the religious child is being taught, i.e., that he is being taught with much greater fervency and dogmatism than is his secular neighbor, stem from the denial that there are things that are objectively true about the universe? In other words, is disliking the seriousness with which a religious parent instructs her child the result of a (secular) rejection of objective truth? And if so, how is that not a textbook example of begging the question, of judging one paradigm by the rulebook of another? I mean, those religious ideas, if true, demand to be taught with greater seriousness than the idea that we should always say “please” and “thank you,” right?
And (2): If the secular child grows up into a well-adjusted secular adult who has always respected the dignity of people regardless of race or gender, and has never thought to question whether those values are good, would anyone ever think to say that he was indoctrinated as a child (rather than simply saying that his parents raised him well)?
I look forward to hearing your thoughts (and please feel free to share this on Facebook and elsewhere).
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The issue is at least partly what is being taught, whether you think it is or not. Take your two examples: “Jesus rose again” on one hand and “don’t be racist” on the other. What are the results of refusing to follow these beliefs in each household? Well, in the first household, it’s most likely that you will go to hell forever. That is at least part of the reason Jesus died and rose again, no? In the second household, it’s that you may end up as a racist. The difference between the underlying threats of not following these two beliefs are as far away from each other as you can get. When part of the definition of indoctrination is fear and being afraid to question what you are taught, these two things are not at all equal. At all.
Ruling out the content as what is actually part of indoctrination completely slants your argument.
Also, one household may teach that Jesus rose again and another may teach that you shouldn’t be racist. However, in general, Jesus rising from the dead is taught through catechism, verses, books, memorization, private schools perhaps, church, AWANA, singing verses over and over, sunday school, Veggie Tales, praise music, etc. Not being racist is most likely taught through a couple mentions of it and then by example hopefully. You don’t see a difference?
I understand, but that just begs the question in my view. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, and if hell is not real, then of course it is damaging to instill the hope/fear in our kids that those teachings demand.
But if those things are true, then it would be irresponsible NOT to teach them to our kids.
So I think you’re still just objecting from assumptions that the religious person doesn’t share, and thereby arguing in a circle (much like, “Since blacks aren’t fully human, slavery is not altogether unjustified”).
And our conversation was not about whether or not indoctrination is something done exclusively by religious people, but whether or not religious people are more guilty of it than non-religious people. The definition I read even included that indoctrination can be done for political purposes or even purposes of anti-religion.
True.
It’s not begging the question. I’m not assuming that hell is not real for your argument. I’m saying that whether it’s real or not, your teaching will at least partly be based on fear, and could probably be considered “indoctrination.” I realize that you like the transliterated version of the word “indoctrinate” better than the defined version, but perhaps you just have to admit that if indoctrination is based on fear, then it is proper to indoctrinate your kids if you believe in hell.
Maybe you’re a good Christian if you indoctrinate your kids. It sure seems like that’s what the OT taught the Israelites to do.
Jason, for your first question, perhaps the Christian has to just admit that due to the fact that they believe certain things to be true, they will indoctrinate their children, according to the definition of indoctrinate, but that they don’t believe indoctrination to be wrong in that instance.
The Christian will also then need to admit that they’re the only ones who have the right to indoctrinate, because they’re the ones that have the truth.
OK, but I would say that the definition is itself a scare tactic, a linguistic power play. If some teaching induces fear, then teaching it is by definition indoctrination. And indoctrination is a negative label.
But what this all fails to consider is whether what is being taught is true. If it is true, then the negativity would follow the failure to teach these things.
So it’s still question-begging because Christian instruction is set up to be labeled indoctrination from the word go.
As an aside, I’d be curious to know whether religious instruction that was completely positive would be considered indoctrination. As in, the motivation for belief and practice were more of the “The love of Christ compels me” variety.
Thoughts?
All parents indoctrinate. Mine was a secular upbringing and I would say I was indoctrinated in various ways. And I don’t see how fear was any less a part of it than my religious counterparts. I mean, to use the cited example, I was indoctrinated to be open-minded and non-racist, and if I violated that by telling a racist joke (or even laughing at one), the consequence may not have been eternal hell but it was that I had bad character and was thought less of by the very people I considered the standard of virtue, my folks. In fact, being a born, bred and buttered Yank with progressively minded boomer parents, I suspect it was much the same for my evangelical friends who were indoctrinated to think gays were hell-bound and to question that was to invite a fearful judgment. We were both indoctrinated and at least part of that involved a measure of fear. But not all fear. If I toed the line and repeated the after-school-special ethos about ebony and ivory, I could expect to be patted on the back, and if my friend toed his hellfire-and-brimstone line and repeated a particular disgust for gays, so could he expect a pat
One wrinkle may be simply linguistic. “Indoctrinate” is a highly loaded term and has mostly negative implications. But to the extent that it means we’re simply encoding our kids with our mores and views with rewards for following and sanctions for wandering, everyone religious or not does exactly that. But to the extent that it’s a loaded term and to say indoctrinating is an oppressive thing, then to say the other guy does it more than me just seems like an example of self-righteousness, i.e. he’s a dick and I’m not (or at least less of one).
I touched on this on your Facebook posts, but indoctrination relies on fear, does not teach the student differing points of view or flaws/gaps in the preferred view, and has the end goal of essentially cloning the instructor’s belief system onto a student’s mind.
Education is about equipping a student to examine all of the data and giving them skills to learn how to decide for themselves.
To answer your questions:
1.) “(1) Does the rejection of the manner in which the religious child is being taught, i.e., that he is being taught with much greater fervency and dogmatism than is his secular neighbor, stem from the denial that there are things that are objectively true about the universe?”
Absolutely not. It stems from a respect of the belief that there is absolute truth. Mathematics is absolute truth, after all, and you’ll find very few secularists arguing that we can’t believe that 2+2=4.
Teaching your child absolute truth (facts) is not indoctrination.
The objection stems from the fact that nearly every religious person believes that they (or their group) has the absolute truth and they teach their subjective opinions and beliefs as absolute truth to their children. Often times doing so in a manner that uses fear, control, and a denial of the subjectivity of it all.
2. Regarding this question, I would tend to say no. Teaching your child how they should navigate their culture and social interactions is a necessary skillset for a functional adult, even if they personally don’t agree with everything, because there is generally an objective benefit to them to acting polite, cooperating with others, being friendly, etc.
I may be a complete ignoramus but I really didn’t understand why Jason was getting so passionate. On the podcast you both seemed to agree that indoctrination does bring presuppositions regardless of the content. In a later podcast, Jason again said as much in defense of Zinn as a historian. Then coming to the bottom of your banter here, Jason nails his contention with the word being used pejoratively when the reality is that we all do it. I concede to Jason in a way here. The word “Indoctrination” does seem increasingly negative to me. Could it be like what the media and political machine did to the word Anarchy in the early 20th century? Grinding it down until it disappeared as a legitimate movement, and erasing its memory for our culture’s consciousness such that newscasters today repeatedly use it to describe Chaos. I don’t think secular culture is that united. Instead, I think I am more sensitive to indoctrination now that I am an arm-chair theologian who still considers himself a Christian, but knows that there’s not a church I can step in to where I am not a heretic.