Plato -- sorry, much too radical.

@Mott-The-Hoople said
WTH are you talking about?

no one brought up lineage...you bring it up trying to have a point...its called a strawman argument

You're the one who mentioned continuing human existence. Do you read your own posts?

@moonbus said
John Stuart Mill claimed that the best way to deal with false or faulty ideas is to debate them in public--let their proponents present their best arguments, reasons, and evidence, and then refute them with better arguments, reasons, and evidence.

Would you agree with that?

And if so, how does banning Plato from a university philosophy course foster a debate about a current moral issue, such as gender identity?

If ideas are debated over and over, and are found faulty then there must come a point when society must agree to get rid of the faulty idea.

Islam, proven over and over to be detrimental to all concerned, even to the ones professing to be adherents. For some reason the religion persists.
Socialism / communism - a failure, both in theory and practice. Yet these systems continue to be tried, experimented with, and they fail, causing great misery.
Gender/Sex - indoctrinating children is a grave error in this department. Yet some societies continue to teach the vulnerable about homosexuality, and other perversions.

Part of the probem is that the ones with the experience to know the pitfalls of certain doctrines and systems, dont live long enough to pass on their experience, so the mistakes continue.

@moonbus said
Texas A&M bans Plato.

quote:

Martin Peterson, a philosophy professor at Texas A&M University, was told this week by university administrators that he either would need to drop a discussion of race and gender issues and the writings by Plato on those topics from his introductory philosophy course or teach a different course.

The mandate comes as part of a review of co ...[text shortened]... d mention that the history of critical thinking in Western civilisation basically starts with Plato.

I'm a bit surprised. Plato's big theme was the idea of the World of Forms which is the "reality" which our world is a shadow of. In his theory of Forms Man and Woman would be Forms which implies that gender dualism is the "correct" view i.e. it seems to me Plato would have modern conservative gender ideas.

@Rajk999 said
If ideas are debated over and over, and are found faulty then there must come a point when society must agree to get rid of the faulty idea.

Islam, proven over and over to be detrimental to all concerned, even to the ones professing to be adherents. For some reason the religion persists.
Socialism / communism - a failure, both in theory and practice. Yet these systems co ...[text shortened]... doctrines and systems, dont live long enough to pass on their experience, so the mistakes continue.

Getting rid of faulty ideas--yes, agree completely. Faulty ideas such as criminalising miscegenation. This was within my own lifetime criminalised in some states of the USA. Criminalising it was supported by all the same arguments still trotted out against non-heterosexuality: it's an affront to God and nature, it's perverted, it's a moral sickness.

Arguments against miscegenation were nothing but poorly-rationalised bigotry, and laws criminalising it were struck down. Rightly so. Good riddance. A generation has now grown up which doesn't even know what "miscegenation" means--they'd have to look it up. Good so.

That is why we need to keep talking about these and other hoary prejudices and re-examine the faulty arguments which are trotted out in support of them.

@AThousandYoung said
I'm a bit surprised. Plato's big theme was the idea of the World of Forms which is the "reality" which our world is a shadow of. In his theory of Forms Man and Woman would be Forms which implies that gender dualism is the "correct" view i.e. it seems to me Plato would have modern conservative gender ideas.

One thing is bloody obvious: the people who want to ban Plato haven't actually read him. The whole idea of Platonic love completely transcends anything the Christian Church would call "carnal" or physical attraction or anything to do with sexual reproduction of the species. In the Dialog in question, Socrates pointedly rebuffs Alcebiades's homo-erotic advances.


🙄

@Rajk999 said
The Quran, is a good example of a book that needs to be eliminated from this planet. There are some other examples. Karl Marx was a dunce and a failure. Capitalism never ended as he predicted. His work is ridiculous and backward. There are many examples of destructive books. There are books being used in some US schools that are teaching kids how to have homosexual intercourse. These people have gone mad. Some people are not able to make rational decisions.

Your own personal likes and dislikes aren't the point. Everyone I daresay has those, and none of us has the right to impose our views on others. What 'rational decision' has led you to adopt one religion whilst rejecting all others? One persons' 'rationale' is another persons' delusion. Do we ban the works of Charles Darwin?

And please, spare us another diatribe against Islam, we know well enough your views on that particular subject.

@Mott-The-Hoople said
what is the need to teach about homosexuality in a college setting?

In one sense there is no 'need' to teach about homosexuality, or any kind of sexuality for that matter, our sexuality isn't a learned thing. To teach discrimination against any form of sexuality ain't a good thing, however.

@moonbus said
You're the one who mentioned continuing human existence. Do you read your own posts?

lineage has zero to do with existence

@moonbus said
Getting rid of faulty ideas--yes, agree completely. Faulty ideas such as criminalising miscegenation. This was within my own lifetime criminalised in some states of the USA. Criminalising it was supported by all the same arguments still trotted out against non-heterosexuality: it's an affront to God and nature, it's perverted, it's a moral sickness.

Arguments against misc ...[text shortened]... other hoary prejudices and re-examine the faulty arguments which are trotted out in support of them.

Great, miscegenation was stupid and it got booted out, and these things take a while, probably a generation or two. But you are mistaken to try to equate that with homosexuality. Sexual pervious are condemned in almost all religions, but interracial marriage is not.

@Indonesia-Phil said
Your own personal likes and dislikes aren't the point. Everyone I daresay has those, and none of us has the right to impose our views on others. What 'rational decision' has led you to adopt one religion whilst rejecting all others? One persons' 'rationale' is another persons' delusion. Do we ban the works of Charles Darwin?

And please, spare us another diatribe against Islam, we know well enough your views on that particular subject.

Well, I like doctrines that do not lead to people dying and suffering. I ws brought up into Christianity. When I turned 18 or so, I started to criticize it because there were some obvious flaws. However there was nothing in the teachings of Christ that promoted abusing or killing others. So I stayed with it.

Islam is dangerous and socialism is a failure. Let me know if you need some examples of real current events, going on as we speak, that demonstrate this.

Did Darwin promote the idea of killing / abusing people? No? Then its fine.

@Rajk999 said
Well, I like doctrines that do not lead to people dying and suffering. I ws brought up into Christianity. When I turned 18 or so, I started to criticize it because there were some obvious flaws. However there was nothing in the teachings of Christ that promoted abusing or killing others. So I stayed with it.

Islam is dangerous and socialism is a failure. Let me know i ...[text shortened]... at demonstrate this.

Did Darwin promote the idea of killing / abusing people? No? Then its fine.

Fair enough, I would point out, however, that the two most dangerous people in the world right now, Mister Putin and Mister Trump, are neither Muslim or socialist, and both profess to be Christian.

Iran and Afghanistan, two examples of how you can't run a country by religion, I hate both regimes as much as I'm sure do you, so there we have consensus; let's celebrate our similarities!

@Indonesia-Phil said
Fair enough, I would point out, however, that the two most dangerous people in the world right now, Mister Putin and Mister Trump, are neither Muslim or socialist, and both profess to be Christian.

Iran and Afghanistan, two examples of how you can't run a country by religion, I hate both regimes as much as I'm sure do you, so there we have consensus; let's celebrate our similarities!

Dangerous to who?

@moonbus said
Indoctrinating young people starts by keeping them ignorant and unacquainted with critical thinking. Banning books one doesn't agree with is calculated to keep young people ignorant and easy to manipulate.

Well it seems impossible to swallow MAGA lies any other way!

@Rajk999 said
Great, miscegenation was stupid and it got booted out, and these things take a while, probably a generation or two. But you are mistaken to try to equate that with homosexuality. Sexual pervious are condemned in almost all religions, but interracial marriage is not.

We get it that you think non-heterosexuality is an affront to God and nature. Americans and most Europeans live with constitutions which guarantee equal protection of the laws for everyone and prohibit discrimination. Like it or not, this applies to people you don't like.

'Normal' conservatives abhor goobermint interfering in people's lives--just ask AvJoe here, he'll confirm that for you if you doubt it. It's not the goobermint's business to be telling people what they can read and not read. But we are not living in normal times, not since Trump is in office (again).

@kmax87 said
Well it seems impossible to swallow MAGA lies any other way!

It is my contention that the Trump administration is pursuing a deliberate policy to stupidify America--to make America stupid. Trump's administration is defunding schools and universities, defunding museums, interfering in curricula, defunding research, across the board, and at the same time supporting RFK Jr.'s junk science. There is a clear pattern: make America dumb.

It is my further contention that this is planned. Why? Election demographics are available which show that the more highly educated people are, the less likely they are to vote Republican. Not that they necessarily vote Democrat--they might vote Independent or not vote at all, but, clearly, they don't vote Republican. Some Republicans are just smart enough to have noticed this, and they are, IMO, deliberately destroying education in America in order to stay in power.

Banning Plato at TX A&M is merely the tip of the iceberg. It's not about Plato per se--it is literally about crippling people's ability to think critically, to analyse arguments logically, to weigh evidence, to fact-check, to verify sources, etc. What Republicans want is for Americans to simply follow orders, like lemmings, and they are actively fostering an educational system to produce compliant lemmings.

The U.S. Dept. of labor just put out a new slogan: "One Homeland. One People. One Heritage." with a picture of Dear Leader.

This bears an unmistakeable resemblance to the slogan “Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer”, with a picture of Der Führer, one of the banners of the Nazi regime. The similarity has not gone unnoticed on social media.