Solutions require critical thinking skills

Hi Joe,

You really know how to scare the shit out of a person, don't you? I just finished Deer Hunting with Jesus and I loved it, but the gradual creeping feeling of helplessness and powerlessness that has been descending upon me for some time has suddenly accelerated at a rate to make me feel truly uncomfortable with my place in life. Don't get me wrong, I believe I am a good person, but you make the world sound so broken that the only thing it sounds like we can do is to burn it down to bedrock and start again. I include all of us, 'cause when America sneezes, we all catch a cold here in Australia.

I heartily agree that education is the answer to most, if not all, ills but getting this ideal up and running will probably not happen in my lifetime, if at all. I suppose that the only thing to do is to find out how to make a whole species mature up at the same time. That's why the aliens never hang around to talk, because they clearly see that we are all a bunch of fuckheads and not worth talking to!

More power and a long life to you. It is good to know there are people like you around screaming into the cyclone.

Regards and best wishes,

Paul
Australia

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Paul,

Well hell, guy. I dunno. I operate under the impression that to solve problems requires an understanding of their extent, so that we do not settle for partial or false solutions. Which requires at least some critical thinking skills. Which requires education. Not the selling of diplomas that now passes for education in America, but real education based upon textual literacy and the knowledge of the past that civilization’s literature conveys. I agree with Alexis de Tocqueville that "When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness."

In art and labor,

Joe