Word: dumbing
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...only thing that stands between the magnificent wild animals of Africa and their final annihilation is what you call the tsetse scourge [April 25]. If stupid men find the means of eradicating trypanosomiasis, even stupider men and their dumb cattle will destroy the remaining elephants, lions and tigers, who are naturally immune. And inexorably, the men will overpopulate and the cattle overgraze the land until a new equilibrium is reached. But the great wild animals will be extinct. One man's scourge is another man's blessing...
...students' failure to read. Hentoff points to the success of P.S. 91 and says it explodes the myth that irremediable learning problems result from the cultural environment of poverty. He places the blame for functional illiteracy on the schools rather than on the schoolchildren. "They were not born dumb," Hentoff says. "Their burden is that they have not been successfully taught...
...world." What is puzzling, however, is Hentoff's attitude towards the radical critique. He writes, "To awaken a Lucy to her intelligence may not help quicken the Socialist Coming, unless she turns out to be a latter-day Emma Goldman. But to save Lucy from believing herself dumb is a most valuable achievement all in itself." This prejudice is especially evident in his tone and attitude toward socialist "academics...
...between the socialist critique of education--that inequality in education is the direct result of an economic system in which inequality is inherent--and everything Hentoff desires--abolishing socially-sanctioned violence against children in the schools and the crippling of human capabilities by forcing students "to believe they are dumb...
...elevation of simple virtues, the author may dwell longer than necessary on the nobility of dumb animals. She even allows selected dogs and cats to speak intelligently to the mystical child Giuseppe. Such sentimentality intrudes on the book's naturalistic tenor but seems, in the end. integral to Morante's purpose: to look at horror with innocent eyes and ask "Why?" In articulating that question, this demanding, powerful novel meets the stipulation laid down by Albert Camus: "The writer's role is not free of difficult duties. By definition he cannot put himself today in the service...