As a basic starting point ...
As basic starting points, I submit:
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Objectivity: Indoctrination has no objective basis, it is purely subjective. Education tends toward the objective.
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Functionality: Education generally lends toward broader function. Indoctrination shows a more consistent result of restricting function.
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Contiguity: Education should be contiguous; disciplines should contribute toward each other and thus a greater whole. Indoctrination does not require consistency between its aspects; indoctrination may contradict itself.
And here's a specific bone I'll throw out:
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To Kill A Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye, et al v. The Bible: Even the subjective-seeming portions of
education, insofar as we observe the above criterion, attain a certain objective validation. Literature is a great example. First off, who says the great novels are the great novels? Follow any literary award, whether it be the Hugo, Stoker, Nebula, WFA, Iowa, Nobel, or Pulitzer,
ad nauseam, and you'll find that it's all just someone's opinion. For instance I would teach Joyce Carol Oates, Jack Cady, and Ray Bradbury were I a lit professor; let someone else teach Hemingway and Twain and William Dean Howells. But who says Joyce Carol Oates, Jack Cady, or Ray Bradbury are
good? It's subjective, right? Well, I could point out Cady's winning of the most prestigious short-fiction award in the nation (Iowa Award '72), or that Joyce Carol Oates is a professor at Princeton who also happens to blow most writers' and professors' minds, and Bradbury ... do I have to explain? It's that these writers--specifically, their stories--achieve a certain objective validation by their appeal. What, then, does that say of the prowess of a Stephen King, or a Judith Krantz? What does that say of the validity of the Bible?
On the one hand, I would say that people are, generally, stupid. What passes for opinion these days is recycled hack. Like I lamented the other night, one of the brightest people I know, with a prestigious degree, has in this Afghani Bush War become a freaking robot. Not an opinion coming out of him that isn't borrowed, bought, or begged.
That speaks for Stephen King and Judith Krantz. How many people here have read Jack Cady or Joyce Carol Oates? On the other hand, how many have read Bradbury? I'm not sure that the entire book sales of Cady and Oates put together would equal, say ... King's
The Stand. That is, their entire catalogs against one book. People are stupid; thank God there's a Bradbury or Barker who can bridge the gap between ideas and pop-culture; in that sense, there is great appeal. It's a "family story" if it's Bradbury, but at the same time it's a lesson in how to write a story. It's perverse and horny if it's Barker, but at the same time nobody can weave the way Clive does. Period.
But what of the Bible? Here's the relevant question. In the sense of education and indoctrination, what I would point out is that education, being objective and diverse,
grants liberty. I'm sure that if I treated Charles Dickens like the Bible, I could give you a child that kills himself at 19. If I treated Judith Krantz like the Bible, I could give you a slutty, stupid daughter who winds up pregnant at 16 and dead by twenty.
Is it education if you're taught to not explore it? Reflecting on faith is not the same as reflecting on education. Reflecting on faith is often mere affirmations of the existing unit. Reflecting on education allows for growth of knowledge.
That the Bible can affect as many people as it has does not objectively validate it the way such popularity objectively validates literature, cinema, or other arts. Literature is to be explored. The Bible is to be believed, or else.
Indoctrination makes the decision for you. Education helps you understand there is a decision to be made.
Two cents or so.
thanx,
Tiassa