I. A NEW MYTHOLOGY
Neil Postman’s proposed five new ‘gods’ or narratives, that may better serve american culture. Postman’s ideas are interesting in that there is nothing ‘American’ about them. They are the feminine values of the campfire. They fail to address what made the west a religion of rationalism, a high trust society that consistently embraced technology and became the master of the vicissitudes of nature rather than the victim of them. In keeping with the “balance of powers” I’ve proposed a competing masculine perspective. By teaching the two story arcs as a dynamic tension, or balance, we can accurately represent both the feminine need for community and the masculine need for institutions that allow us to compete and invent, so that we may continue to transform the universe to suit our will, and fulfill our ‘destiny as heir to the divine’.
Our Shared Human ExperienceThe Communal Feminine Universalist Underclass View |
The Miracle Of The WestThe Minority Tribal Masculine Heroic Aristocratic View |
| 1) The Spaceship Earth The story of the Earth as a “vulnerable space capsule” with humans as its stewards and caretakers | 1) Transform The Universe To Suit Our Will – Man as god. Our desire is to master the hostile universe into a beautiful garden for human existence. |
| 2) The Fallen Angel The story that human beings make mistakes, but can get closer to the truth by learning from their errors and eliminating what is false | 2) Heroic Man Scarcity Minority Persistence Hubris Technology against the dark forces of time and ignorance |
| 3) The American Experiment The story of America as a grand experiment (a perpetual question mark, not a definitive period) – one in which students are invited to play an active part | 3) The ‘Game Society’ As Scientific Search For Solutions The Balance Of Powers Constitutionalism and The Common Law The Market Meritocracy THE SECRET OF MANORIALISM THE GREEK EXPERIMENT THE ENGLISH EXPERIMENT THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT THE EUROPEAN EXPERIMENT THE COMPETING TRADITIONS: Greek Rationalism And The Balance Of Powers Confucianism And Totalitarian Hierarchy Scriptural Monotheism And Theocracy Hinduism/Buddhism And Anarchy |
| 4) The Law of Diversity The story of how human culture has been enriched and strengthened through the inclusion of different cultures and their ideas | 4) The Pursuit of Excellence Society As Science Competition Innovation Meritocracy Identify And Learn From The Best |
| 5) The Word Weavers/The World Makers The story of how humans use language to give meaning to the surrounding world and, as a result, are then changed by their own creation | 5) The Calculators Reason, logic and Argument Numbers, Prices, The market as information system The Formula Makers |
II. FROM WRITTEN TO VERBAL EDUCATION
PROFESSIONALIZING TEACHING
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