Jack Kemp forwards this grand essay by our very own Selwyn Duke from a while back. Selwyn is explaining how cultural heroes form the hearts and minds our our youths. Brilliant piece! I've given a brief excerpt; please do read the whole article.

From the article:

"From before the creation of the stories of Odysseus, Hector, and Jason, civilizations have had their heroes. They need them. This isn't just because we like exciting entertainment or campfire tales, titillating diversions though they may be, but for an all-important reason that, it seems, has been largely forgotten.

"As the twig is bent, so grows the tree," "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," "Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man." These and many other sayings speak of a simple truth: As Danish psychologist Dr. Nicolai Sennels said when analyzing the "psychology of Muslims," what is ingrained into someone during formative years can be almost impossible to overcome. A person is as clay, starting out malleable and easily moldable, but hardening with age until his form is set.

Yet what type of process is building the babe during these tender years? The child doesn't gain the ability to think in an abstract manner until about age 11, when, as famed child psychologist Jean Piaget defined it, he enters the final stage of intellectual development, known as "formal operations." Thus, the substantial early-years formation that has already occurred by that point cannot be an intellectual phenomenon. It is a matter of shaping the emotions, the passions. Boston College professor William Kilpatrick wrote about this in his book Why Johnny Can't Tell Right From Wrong, citing both ancient philosopher Plato and modern one Allan Bloom:

Plato also addresses himself to stories, poetry, painting, and craft [as well as music], and has much the same thing to say about them. Children ought to
be brought up in an atmosphere that provides them examples of nobility and grace. This imaginative education is not a substitute for a reasoned
morality, but it paves the way for it, making it more likely that the grown child will happily accept the dictates of reason. In this way, the child develops
an erotic attachment to virtue, by which Plato meant not so much sexual as passionate. Just as the senses can be enlisted on the side of vice, so (with a
little more difficulty) can they be enlisted on the side of virtue. Through the senses the child can come to love justice and wisdom long before he can
grasp these notions in their abstract form. As an example, Allan Bloom mentions the statues that graced the cities of Greece, and attracted young
men and women to the idea of nobility by the beauty of the hero's body.
END OF QUOTE

Role Models and Virtue

As is often said, virtues are caught more than they're taugh"

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:03 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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