Films, TV and other video media
Dead Poets Society is not taking children seriously
Dead Poets Society is not taking children seriously. Taking children seriously is not just being a bit kinder to the inmates, or being a tiny bit rebellious against an authoritarian system you nevertheless continue to work in, it is a different thing entirely. It is about children actually being free.
If a parent has an aversion to something a child enjoys doing, how do you solve that problem?
Such questions are in effect asking how we and our children can solve the problem created by us in effect having a visceral aversion to our children innocently enjoying themselves learning. Why is that the case, and when we are in such a state, what can we do about it?
The importance of video games
Videogame players are learning not just knowledge of the overt subject-matter of the game, but inexplicit knowledge that applies in all creativity in the world. In a way, they are (mainly inexplicitly) learning how the universe works.
Taking the free world and children seriously: an anecdote
As Karl Popper said, “our own free world is by far the best society which has come into existence during the course of human history.”
In defence of television soap operas
What children learn from soap operas is how to live in our culture. Parents naturally want their children to rise above the culture – to reject its false ideas, if you like – but to do that, one has to start from the culture one is in, and improve it. There is no way of jumping to a better set of ideas without first criticising the existing ideas. The growth of knowledge begins with existing theories.
Common emotional blackmail
Why some children run away, but others do not. Using love as leverage to double-bind children to obey – threatening to withdraw the relationship – is wrong. Children have a right to our love.
Video games: a unique educational environment
Professor David Deutsch on why he himself values and plays video games, and why the arguments against them are mistaken.