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Creativity

8 Things You Don’t Know about Leonardo

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This year marks the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death. Widely considered one of the greatest polymaths in human history, Leonardo was an inventor, artist, musician, architect, engineer, anatomist, botanist, geologist, historian, and cartographer.

Though his artistic output was small, Leonardo’s impact was great, reflecting his deep knowledge of the body, his extensive studies of light and the human face, and his sfumato (Italian for “smoky”) technique, which allowed for incredibly lifelike images. Leonardo regarded artists as divine apprentices, writing “We, by our arts, may be called the grandsons of God.”

Twenty-first-century scholars at MIT ranked him the sixth most influential person who ever lived. Like Rembrandt and Michelangelo, he is so renowned that he is known by only his first name. Yet despite his fame, there are things about Leonardo that many people today find surprising.

1. Shady Parentage

Leonardo was born out of wedlock on April 15, 1452. His father, Piero, was a wealthy notary, and his mother, Caterina, was a local peasant girl. Although the circumstances of his birth would place Leonardo at a disadvantage in terms of education and inheritance, biographer Walter Isaacson regards it as a terrific stroke of luck. Rather than being expected to become a notary like his father, Leonardo was instead free to develop the full range of his genius. People surmise that it also imbued him with a special sense of urgency to establish his own identity and prove himself.

2. Physical Beauty

Leonardo created some of the world’s most beautiful works of art, including the “Last Supper” and the “Mona Lisa.” In his own day, he was known as an exceptionally attractive person. One of Leonardo’s biographers describes him as a person of “outstanding physical beauty who displayed infinite grace in everything he did.” A contemporary described him as a “well proportioned, graceful, and good-looking man” who “wore a rose-pink tunic” and had “beautiful curling hair, carefully styled, which came down to the middle of his chest.” Leonardo is thought to have entered into long-term and possibly sexual relationships with two of his pupils, both artists in their own right.

3. From Scraps to Notebooks

One of his best-known notebook drawings is the ‘Vitruvian Man.’ Leonardo da Vinci/Wikimedia Commons

The paintings generally attributed to Leonardo number fewer than 20, while his notebooks contain over 7,000 pages. They’re the best source of knowledge about Leonardo, housed today in locations such as Windsor Castle, the Louvre and the Spanish National Library in Madrid. Their diverse content ranges across drawings—most famously, Vitruvian Man—notes of things he wanted to investigate, scientific and technical diagrams and shopping lists. They comprise perhaps the most remarkable monument to human curiosity and creativity ever produced by a single person. Yet when Leonardo penned them, they were just loose pieces of paper of different types and sizes. His friends bound them into “notebooks” only after his death.

4. Outsider’s Education

As a result of his illegitimacy, Leonardo received a rather rudimentary formal education consisting primarily of business arithmetic. He never attended university and sometimes referred to himself as an “unlettered man.” Yet his lack of formal schooling also freed him from the constraints of tradition, helping to instill in him a determination to question authority and place greater reliance on his own experience than opinions expressed in books. As a result, he became a firsthand observer and experimenter, uninterested in serving as a mouthpiece for the classics.

5. Prolific Procrastinator

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Confederate Flag in Okinawa
Culture

Leave Confederate Statues Alone

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by Philip Leigh

In 1965 Texas novelist William Humphrey wrote:

If the Civil War is more alive to the Southerner than the Northerner it is because all of the past is, and this is so because the Southerner has a sense of having been present there himself in the person of one or more of his ancestors. The war filled merely a chapter in his… [family history] … transmitted orally from father to son [as] the proverbs, prophecies, legends, laws, traditions-of-origin, and tales-of-wanderings of his own tribe…. It is this feeling of identity with the dead (who are past) which characterizes and explains the Southerner.

It is with kin, not causes, that the Southerner is linked. Confederate Great-grandfather…is not remembered for his (probably undistinguished) part in the Battle of Bull Run; rather Bull Run is remembered because Great-grandfather was there. For the Southerner, the Civil War is in the family.

Clannishness was, and is, the key to his temperament, and he went off to war to protect not Alabama but only those thirty or forty acres of its sandy hillside, or stiff red clay, which he broke his back tilling, and which was as big a country as his mind could hold.

Statue critics say he fought for slavery. But fewer than 30% of Southern families owned slaves. In truth, according to historian William C. Davis, “The widespread Northern myth that Confederates went to the battlefield to perpetuate slavery is just that, a myth. Their letters and diaries, in the tens of thousands, reveal again and again that they fought because their Southern homeland was invaded. . .”

Few today appreciate the magnitude of their sacrifice. About 300,000 Confederate soldiers died when the region’s population was only nine million. If the United States were to suffer proportional casualties in a war today our losses would total 11 million, which would be twenty-six times greater than our dead in World War II.

Given such oblations, the Confederate soldier’s surviving family members wanted to memorialize them. Memorial Day evolved after Federal occupation troops observed Southern women spreading flowers upon the graves of their husbands, sons, and brothers during the war. A year after the war the ladies of Columbus, Mississippi strewed flowers on the graves of both the Confederate and Union dead in the town’s Friendship Cemetery. Their gesture started a movement that spread and in the North May 30th became selected as National Memorial Day in 1868.

Since the war had impoverished the South, the Southern ladies could do little more than lay down flowers. There was no money for statues and Union veterans opposed permanent Confederate memorials. But when the sons of Confederate veterans eagerly joined the U.S. Army thirty years later to help win the Spanish-American War, the aging Union Civil War soldiers concluded that their former rivals were also Americans, deserving of memorial recognition.

Thus, the twenty years from 1898 to 1918 witnessed the installation of 80% of the signature courthouse square Confederate statues still standing in many Southern towns. During that period the typical surviving Confederate soldier aged from 58 years to 78 years. Memorial placements—North and South—surged between 1911 and 1915 because it was the war’s semi-centennial and the old soldiers were fading away.

Today a vocal minority holds the Confederate soldier in contempt, much like the many Americans who sneered at returning Vietnam veterans in the 1960s and 70s. Amid chants of “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many babies did you kill today?” some civilians insulted the soldiers. Today most Americans old enough to remember cringe with shame when recalling such episodes.

As reported in The New York Times, for example, in 1968 a one-armed vet was accosted at a Colorado college.

Pointing to the missing limb another student asked, “Did you get that in Vietnam?”

The veteran said yes.

“Serves you right,” said the student.

It took years, but eventually, the public abandoned the mockers and gave Vietnam vets due credit thereby underscoring the maxim: “Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next.” Thus, we should be aware that decisions to tear down century-old monuments put us at risk for unassuageable remorse in the future. Dishonoring such monuments demeans later generations of American warriors who were inspired by the courage of the Confederate soldier.

Consider, for example, that post-Civil-War Southerners consistently came to our nation’s defense more readily than did other Americans. Presently, 44% of our military are from the South even though it represents just 36% of the nation’s population.

spin was put on their history. In response, George Orwell warned:

The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.
George Orwell

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Patent Office Corridor
Apprenticeship

Patent Education Buys Time and A Foundation for Financial Rewards

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by Clare Donovan

Meaningful innovation education exposes kids to this vital element.

I love watching the rise of makerspaces in schools. More and more students have access to 3D printers, kid-friendly coding programs, and other great technical tools. This investment in STEM project-based learning means that students with all kinds of learning styles are directly engaged in issues critical to their future.

But there’s a key ingredient missing. When you give students access to awesome tools and the freedom to design, what happens when they hit on something great? Most often, that’s where the project stalls. In the business world, that’s when a patent comes in.

Teaching patenting concepts at a young age is not only feasible, but I believe it’s a way to help women and other underrepresented groups play a bigger role in tech.

Tinker While You Learn

At the Future of Education Technology Conference in Orlando, Fla., I saw some amazing curricula and technology demos [Ed. note: Clare spoke there]. Schools have a huge selection of tools to teach engineering to young students.

Engineering, however, is only one component of the innovation process. Creativity, business and the law also play a critical role. Patents motivate people to invest in the arduous process of inventing by giving them economic ownership for continued development. For a startup, a patent buys you time to do the hard work of bringing your idea to life. Patent education is an important ingredient in helping kids become real-world problem solvers.

Patent education also lays a foundation for financial rewards in the workplace. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office finds that wages in patent-based industries are 74% higher than other verticals, and this premium is growing. This is according to the USPTO’s latest update to “Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy.”

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Frederic Bastiat
Business

Why Bastiat Deserves to Be in the Pantheon of Great Economic Theorists

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By Donald J. Boudreaux

Frédéric Bastiat (1801-50) is known today among economists—if he is known at all—as at best a brilliant polemicist. An economic theorist he most certainly was not—such is the common opinion.

I believe this common opinion to be mistaken. To explain why first requires a discussion of the nature of a theory.

A Theory Is a Story

As I tell students in my Principles of Microeconomics courses, a theory is a story that assists us in making better sense of reality. And a theorist is a storyteller who offers this assistance.

A story that explains the price only of bread is not a proper theory of prices, even if it is highly believable.

Stories, of course, differ in their believability. A story that explains, say, the Industrial Revolution as being the result of new knowledge imparted to us by aliens from another galaxy is completely unbelievable. Some other, more believable story is called for—one, say, that features a change in people’s attitudes toward commerce and innovation.

But for a story to deserve to be called a theory requires that it also be generalizable.

In economics, supply-and-demand analysis is a general account of how prices are formed and change. It’s not a story about the formation of the price of only one item, such as bread. It’s an outline for telling believable stories about the formation of all prices—from the prices of toy planes to those of jumbo jetliners, from the wages earned by motel maids to those earned by Tom Hanks. A story that explains the price only of bread is not a proper theory of prices, even if it is highly believable.

To be generalizable, a story whose creator wishes it to be regarded as a serious theory must make that story abstract. Being abstract, however, makes the story—standing alone—barren. As such, it engenders no understanding of the physical or social world. But it proves itself to be a good theory if, when relevant details of reality are added to it, those of us who encounter this story go, “Aha! Now I understand reality better than I did before!”

The core purpose of all theories is the creation of improved understanding. A theory that does not cause those who hear or read it to go, “Aha!” is worthless.

Bastiat the Theorist

And so we return to Bastiat. He’s one of history’s most brilliant tellers of economic stories. This fact, I’m convinced, justifies calling Bastiat a great economic theorist.

Who can read Bastiat’s satirical portrayal of sunlight as an unfairly low-priced import and not go, “Aha!”

Consider Bastiat’s famous 1843 “Petition of the Manufacturers of Candles.” In this short essay, Bastiat radiantly conveyed economists’ understanding that artificially contrived scarcities make the general population worse off even if they increase the wealth of a small handful of individuals. Who other than the most benighted protectionist can read Bastiat’s satirical portrayal of sunlight as an unfairly low-priced import and not go, “Aha! Of course, inexpensive imports that ‘flood’ into a country no more impoverish that country than does the light sent to us free by the sun!”

Another example is Bastiat’s even-shorter essay “A Negative Railway.” Here Bastiat revealed the flaw in the argument of a gentleman who insisted that if a railroad connecting Paris to Bayonne were forced to have a stop at Bordeaux, the wealth of the French people would be enhanced. The hapless target of Bastiat’s brilliance based his conclusion on the correct observation that forcing trains to stop at Bordeaux would increase the incomes of porters, restaurateurs, and some other people in Bordeaux.

Yet Bastiat didn’t settle for drily noting that, after paying these higher incomes, railways and their passengers would have less money to spend on goods and services offered by suppliers in locations other than Bordeaux. Instead, Bastiat followed the proposal’s logic in a way uniquely revealing: If forcing trains to stop at Bordeaux will increase the total wealth of the people of France, so too will the total wealth of the people of France be increased if trains are obliged to stop also at Angoulême. And if also at Angoulême, then the French will be enriched even further if a third stop is required at Poitiers. And if at Poitiers, then at each and every location between Paris and Bayonne.

Bastiat revealed the proposal to be flawed by showing that, if its logic were sound, the railway that would do the most good for the French people is one that is nothing but a series of stops—a negative railway!

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How Woke Are You?
Economics

A Quiz to See How “Woke” You Are on World Poverty

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by Barry Brownstein for FEE.org

By now you have probably heard the exhortation “stay woke.” To be woke means a person is “an informed, questioning, self-educating individual” who “look[s] past the provided narrative.” Yet, most among the self-proclaimed woke are still fast asleep. They may have a facile way of imparting narratives about issues, but those narratives are often based on neither sound facts nor theories.

In his book Factfulness, Hans Rosling, the late great professor of international health, offers 13 fact questions to test “our knowledge about the world.” One of those questions is foundational to our beliefs about the state of the world:

In the last 20 years, the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty has …

A: almost doubled

B: remained more or less the same

C: almost halved.

The answer is C:

“Over the past twenty years, the proportion of the global population living in extreme poverty has halved.” Rosling considers this a “revolutionary” change—“the most important change that has happened in the world in [his] lifetime.” He adds, “It is also a pretty basic fact to know about life on Earth. But people do not know it. On average only 7 percent—less than one in ten!—get it right.”

About this dramatic change in the reduction in the world’s poor, most are not woke. Many of the self-proclaimed woke cling to a variation of the narrative that capitalism is impoverishing the world. Their illusions may be shared by many, but that doesn’t make them right.

Rosling adds these pointed observations:

The Democrats and Republicans in the United States often claim that their opponents don’t know the facts. If they measured their own knowledge instead of pointing at each other, maybe everyone could become more humble. When we polled in the United States, only 5 percent picked the right answer. The other 95 percent, regardless of their voting preference, believed either that the extreme poverty rate had not changed over the last 20 years, or, worse, that it had actually doubled—which is literally the opposite of what has actually happened.

If you think the “better-educated” would do better, you would be wrong. Rosling writes:

I have tested audiences from all around the world and from all walks of life: medical students, teachers, university lecturers, eminent scientists, investment bankers, executives in multinational companies, journalists, activists, and even senior political decision makers. These are highly educated people who take an interest in the world. But most of them—a stunning majority of them—get most of the answers wrong. Some of these groups even score worse than the general public; some of the most appalling results came from a group of Nobel laureates and medical researchers.

Those sharing their opinions on social media, professional pundits, and professors are mostly profoundly ignorant about basic facts. Worse, Rosling writes:

Not only devastatingly wrong, but systematically wrong. By which I mean that these test results are not random. They are worse than random: they are worse than the results I would get if the people answering my questions had no knowledge at all.

The systemic bias is in one direction: “Every group of people,” Rosling surveyed, “thinks the world is more frightening, more violent, and more hopeless—in short, more dramatic—than it really is.”

If You Can Observe a Thing

Why, Rosling asks, “is the misconception of a gap between the rich and the poor so hard to change?” Rosling writes, “Dividing the world into two distinct sides is simple and intuitive, and also dramatic because it implies conflict, and we do it without thinking, all the time.” Thus, Rosling observes, journalists “prefer stories of extreme poverty and billionaires to stories about the vast majority of people slowly dragging themselves toward better lives.”

Rosling offers many other cognitive biases, such as a “negativity instinct,” that prevent us from seeing the tremendous progress occurring in the world. These biases are significant, and behind these cognitive biases are theoretical biases.

Albert Einstein observed to his colleague Werner Heisenberg, “Whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use. It is theory which decides what can be observed.”

If you understand why free markets have lifted billions out of poverty, you will see the evidence.

If you understand why free markets have lifted billions out of poverty, you will see the evidence. If you are waiting for a socialist revolution to help people rise above poverty, you will be blind to the billions who already have.

According to Rosling, “The picture that most Westerners see in the media and carry around in their heads” is this: “The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer; and the number of poor just keeps increasing; and we will soon run out of resources unless we do something drastic.”

How Woke Are You?

To complement Rosling’s fact-based quiz, I offer this 15-question economics self-assessment taken from a 45-question assessment developed by me and my wife Deborah, a marketing professor, for an MBA economics and business environment course.

This self-assessment will measure your understanding of the conditions under which society can continue to progress and lift billions more out of poverty. Theoretical grounding will help you look past the “provided narrative” blaring at us daily that bigger government is needed to alleviate suffering and save the world.

How woke are you? The real woke understand economics.

On a scale of “1 to 7,” where “1” means “strongly disagree” and “7” means “strongly agree,” select the number that best represents the extent to which you agree or disagree with each of the following statements:

  1. I have trouble conceiving of an economic order that is not deliberately made for a specific purpose.
  2. It is likely that a group of well-intentioned government energy experts can direct energy research toward the next breakthrough in sources of efficient energy.
  3. Because resource scarcity constrains the economy, the government must have the power to allocate resources.
  4. As markets become more complex, the need for government regulation becomes greater.
  5. There is a conflict of interest between consumers and corporations earning profits on a free market.
  6. Government planning is needed to bring order and coordination to what would otherwise be chaotic social and economic conditions.
  7. If other countries refuse to lower tariffs, it is in the interest of the United States to raise tariffs.
  8. There must be a level playing field for international trade to be fair.
  9. Individuals or small groups of people can know only a fraction of the knowledge that society uses.
  10. Humanity can achieve more than “individual human reason could design or foresee.”
  11. The basic economic problem is to use bits of knowledge that are dispersed and not held by anyone in totality.
  12. Freedom to succeed or fail is a necessary condition for discovering the terms of mutually beneficial exchange.
  13. It is not large corporations but government-created barriers to competition which are the most harmful to consumers.
  14. Only the conduct of the players, but not the outcome of the game, can be said to be “just” in economic matters.
  15. Spontaneous order can coordinate the conflicting actions and plans of different individuals and corporations.

Your Woke Score:

For questions 1-8, add your points. A real woke person will score 8; that is, they will strongly disagree with all of these statements.

For questions 9-15, add your points. A real woke person will score 49; that is, they will strongly agree with all of these statements.

Becoming More Woke

If you want to improve your theoretical understanding, I offer this short reading list of essential essays. The self-proclaimed woke are fast asleep, but you don’t have to be.

F.A. Hayek: “Cosmos and Taxis” in Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 1: Rules and Order

F.A. Hayek: “Individualism: True and False”

F.A. Hayek: “The Use of Knowledge in Society”

F.A. Hayek: “‘Social’ or Distributive Justice” in Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 2: The Mirage of Social Justice

F.A. Hayek: “Planning and Democracy” and “Planning and The Rule of Law” in The Road to Serfdom

Israel Kirzner: “Competition, Regulation, and the Market Process: An ‘Austrian’ Perspective

Murray Rothbard: “Justice and Property Rights”

Ludwig Von Mises: “Profit and Loss”

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Mentorships
Apprenticeship

Mentorships and Kids

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by Joanne Foster, EdD

Synopsis

Here’s an overview of why mentorships are increasingly popular, including benefits, structuring guidelines, and lots of helpful information for parents, teachers, and kids.

“The term ‘mentor’ comes from Greek mythology: Odysseus’ son Telemachus was entrusted to the care of Mentor, a wise advisor. History and literature from classical times to the present abound with examples of mentorships in politics, business, science, the arts, and education. Aristotle benefited from his mentorship under Plato, as Mickey Mouse benefitted from his in Fantasia’s ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.’”

~ Excerpt from p. 160 of Being Smart about Gifted Education 

WHAT, EXACTLY, IS A MENTORSHIP?

A mentorship is a supportive relationship established between a learner and someone who is more experienced in a particular domain. (For example, sciences, business, creative arts, technology, and so on.) The mentor offers guidance, knowledge, and understanding. Mentoring requires an investment of time and patience, and a willingness to support and encourage the learner. Typically, the “mentee” is deemed to be the learner, but in truth all strong mentorships are mutually rewarding experiences wherein both parties interact meaningfully and respectfully with one another, learn, and derive benefits.

WHAT KINDS OF BENEFITS? 

Here’s a list of ways mentorships can strengthen a child’s or teen’s learning:

  • Enriched perspectives relating to an area of interest, including useful information, skill sets, creative and critical thinking opportunities, and practical applications
  • Transmission of values and attitudes
  • Enjoyment
  • Enhanced and authentic connections to important domains of competence, and to others within the “real world” (This includes exposure to fields of interest—leading to greater career path awareness, preparation for taking on roles, and appreciation of accomplishment in the chosen area.)Emotional support
  • Discovery of resources beyond the classroom
  • Intellectual challenge and increased competence, including perhaps the creation of a possible portfolio of acquired learning achievements
  • Encouragement and guidance for self-directed learning
  • Expansion of understandings of diversity and possibility (For example, non-traditional minority professionals can challenge gender and cultural stereotypes, and mentorships can be particularly beneficial for students from culturally diverse or economically disadvantaged backgrounds.)
  • Respect for expertise
  • Relationship-building experiences
  • Positive role models, including helping kids better understand pathways to high achievement
  • Potential for academic credit

Here’s a list of benefits for mentors: 

  • Ongoing learning
  • Rejuvenation of spirit
  • Sense of fulfillment
  • Sense of respect and of being valued
  • Fresh perspectives—seeing things anew from the point of view of mentees
  • Involvement and enjoyment
  • Contribution to the skills and expertise of young people interested in possibly entering the field of interest
  • Vicarious satisfaction through accomplishment of the protégé
  • Connections to the educational system
  • Inter-generational friendship
  • Community engagement

HOW TO STRUCTURE A MENTORSHIP?

In any mentorship arrangement, it’s important to clarify expectations. These should be agreed upon by both the mentor and the mentee, with parents and teachers overseeing the process, and with their approval. It’s a good idea to draw up a written agreement outlining intents and responsibilities. This includes the right of withdrawal from an arrangement if it does not seem to be working out well. Periodic review of this “contract” will help to ensure that everyone’s expectations are being met.

A mentorship can be a one-on-one program between two people, or it may take the form of more a complex arrangement with others involved. Either way, it should be part of an individual student’s overall educational plan, and it should also be valued as an integral component of it.

Heads up—any program involving kids requires careful supervision and consistent monitoring by adults. With that caveat uppermost, here are a few possible “models” for mentorships.

 Co-creation of an individualized program by the mentor and the student, always under the guidance of parents or teachers

School visits by vetted community experts who can help to increase the depth of programming that classroom teachers are able to provide

Job-shadowing programs, whereby students prepare for the mentorship phase in school, and then spend time in the pre-approved career setting of their mentor

Online or virtual mentorship programs—especially good for children and teens who want to investigate a field or learn about something that is not otherwise readily accessible to them (Note: Online options demand attentive supervision.)

Creative approaches, whereby a mix of the above might be contemplated, or an innovative mentorship format is designed for specific purposes. For example, mentorships are a frequently recommended practice in gifted education. Unique or differentiated learning experiences can provide gifted learners with targeted and enriching educational opportunities and challenges in areas of heightened advancement. (Click here for an article with additional information about fostering giftedness.)

WHERE TO FIND A MENTOR?

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Thomas Aquinas
Catholic

Why Thomas Aquinas Stands the Test of Time

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by Casey Chalk

The 2016 data breach of the personal Gmail account of John Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, garnered much attention from Catholics. They took umbrage at an email exchange discussing the possibility of a “Catholic Spring” aimed at fundamentally changing their identity and beliefs. In that conversation, John Halpin, a Catholic and fellow at the Center for American Progress, noted that many “powerful elements” in conservatism are Catholic. He speculated that “they must be attracted to the systematic thought,” and added, “they can throw around ‘Thomistic’ thought and ‘subsidiarity’ and sound sophisticated because no one knows what the hell they’re talking about.”

I’m not sure Halpin knows “what the hell” Thomistic thought is, but I certainly wish he—and all Americans—did. Thomism, 745 years since the great theologian’s death, remains perhaps the best philosophical system available to the West.

As I’ve argued elsewhere at TAC, we are all philosophers in the sense that we all develop, either consciously or subconsciously, a system of thought for evaluating ourselves, the world around us, and what counts as truth. We make choices, form opinions, and offer arguments, all based on philosophical presuppositions. When we go with “what works,” we channel the pragmatism of William James and John Dewey. When we seek to maximize sensual pleasure and minimize pain, we are drinking from the well of John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism. When we act off of scientifically verifiable data, we are the intellectual heirs of empiricist David Hume. Those who believe morality can be changed by will honor the memory of Friedrich Nietzsche. And those who reduce human persons to their economic output have embraced the thinking of Karl Marx.

There are fundamental problems with all of these philosophies. One error that unites them is a belief, either explicit or implicit, in materialism, or the idea that man (and reality) is reducible solely to what is material, what can be sensed, and what can be empirically studied. Even that which separates man from all other animals—his intellect and will—are explained away as physical properties. Yet without an intellect and will, appeals to an essential human dignity quickly collapse. We are all just a bunch of colliding atoms in a universe of colliding atoms. It’s just that our atoms are a bit more evolved and sophisticated than everything else.

Thus do all these philosophical systems tend to dehumanize man and overemphasize certain goods at the expense of others. For example, pace the pragmatists and utilitarians, of course we should prefer things that work over things that don’t work and pleasure over pain. But sometimes what “works” isn’t immediately perceptible to our senses. Additionally, the greatest pleasures in life sometimes require great sacrifice and suffering. Making decisions based on empirical data is a good, but not all things worthy of our attention can be empirically derived (e.g. the arts, human love, knowledge of eternal truth). There is something to Nietzsche’s argument that knowledge can be an instrument of power, but his claim that reality as we know it is simply an artificial creation of our minds unravels when one asks whether his own presuppositions are really real or just perspectives he has created and thus just as ephemeral as everything he attacks. Marx was right to recognize that man’s economic output contributes to his dignity and value—but it certainly isn’t the sum of his worth.

Who can save us amid this messiness? I would offer Aquinas. His philosophy doesn’t get as much attention as other philosophers, and certainly not as much as those of the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment. When Americans think of Aquinas, if they ever do, they’re more inclined to think of his role in Christian theology, especially his contribution to the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. Perhaps if they’ve taken introductory theology or philosophy courses, they’re aware of his famous “Five Ways,” or proofs of the existence of God, which prominent New Atheist Richard Dawkins sought to take to task (and failed) in his bestselling book The God Delusion.

Yet Aquinas is a philosopher par excellence who is worthy of our attention. He stands tall on his own merits as the one who “was able to provide the principles,” to quote French philosopher Pierre Manent, for political communities governed by reason and grace. Yet his value also lies in the larger intellectual project of which he is a part. By this I mean that Aquinas, in a way that was perhaps unprecedented in the 12th and 13th centuries, consolidates the wisdom of the Western tradition into a coherent whole. He draws upon an impressive variety of sources. Certainly Holy Scripture and earlier theologians like Augustine, John of Damascus, Dionysius the Areopagite, and Anselm loom large in his work, though he is also incredibly well-versed in the history of philosophy.

It was Thomas who “baptized” Aristotle by appropriating significant chunks of his philosophy, including such concepts as act and potency, hylemorphism, the four causes, essence and existence, transcendentals, and being. Even Aquinas’s proofs for God’s existence, as many Thomists have noted, are drawing upon Aristotelian premises. He also builds his philosophical system upon the shoulders of Plato, Cicero, Boethius, Avicenna, Averroes, Al-Ghazali, Maimonides, and John Scotus Eriugena. This enterprise reflects conservatism at its best: studying, honoring, and incorporating the very best of our intellectual forebears, while carefully and humbly critiquing where they went astray.

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best resources for critical thinking
Education

25 Of The Best Resources For Teaching Critical Thinking

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by TeachThought Staff

Critical Thinking

As an organization, critical thinking is at the core of what we do, from essays and lists to models and teacher training. (You can check out What It Means To Think Critically for a wordier survey of the intent of critical thinking.)

For this post, we’ve gathered various critical thinking resources. As you’ll notice, conversation is a fundamental part of critical thinking, if for no other reason than the ability to identify a line of reasoning, analyze, evaluate, and respond to it accurately and thoughtfully is among the most common opportunities for critical thinking for students in everyday life. Who is saying what? What’s valid and what’s not? How should I respond?

This varied and purposely broad collection includes resources for teaching critical thinking, from books and videos to graphics and models, rubrics and taxonomies to presentations and debate communities. Take a look, and let us know in the comments which you found the most–or least–useful.

And for something in the way of specific training for staff, there’s always Professional Development on Critical Thinking provided by TeachThought.

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25 Of The Best Resources For Teaching Critical Thinking

1. The TeachThought Taxonomy for Understanding, a taxonomy of thinking tasks broken up into 6 categories, with 6 tasks per category

2. A Collection Of Research On Critical Thinking by criticalthinking.org

3. It’s difficult to create a collection of critical thinking resources without talking about failures in thinking, so here’s A Logical Fallacies Primer in PowerPoint format.

4. The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Test (it’s not free, but you can check out some samples here)

5. 6 Hats Thinking, a model for divergent thinking.

6. 4 Strategies for Teaching With Bloom’s Taxonomy 

7. An Intro To Critical Thinking, a 10-minute video from wireless philosophy that takes given premises, and walks the viewer through valid and erroneous conclusions

8. Why Questions Are More Important Than Answers by Terry Heick

9. A Printable Flip Chart For Critical Thinking Questions (probably easier to buy one for a few bucks, but there it is nonetheless)

11. A Collection Of Bloom’s Taxonomy Posters

12. 6 Facets of Understanding by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe

13. A 3D Model of Bloom’s Taxonomy

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Education and the dismantling of the mind

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When the solution is worse than the problem

by Jon Rappoport

Are there any States in the Union that allow public schools to opt out of providing sex education to children?

Of course, a counter-argument would be made that, although there was once a time when our country abounded in responsible two-parent families, that’s not the case anymore. Therefore, education about sex is lacking. Therefore, schools have to step into the breach and supply what is missing.

Otherwise, children won’t know about STDs, pregnancy, contraception, etc.

Over the last 40 years or so, school systems, under the aegis of government, have expanded their role. Using “duty” as the prow, these institutions have generated enormous programs to teach children what to think about everything from aluminum cans to bestiality.

Because it’s “right” and “important” and there is a “duty.”

Translation: outside groups with agendas worm their way into schools.

If I were obsessed with four-legged critters on the moon, and I had enough money and political clout and media/think-tank/foundation support, I could introduce Lunar Critterology as a vital subject into every public school in America.

If I were Bill Gates, I could push the need for computers in schools, despite the fact there is no credible evidence that computers improve literacy.

I went to school in the 1940s and 50s. At that time, the focus was simple. You learned to read, to write, and to do math. The textbooks were often old and worn. There were no visual aids. The lesson plans in every class were step-by-step. Learn a new thing, drill it to death, take a little quiz, learn the next new item, drill it, take a quiz.

It worked. It may have lacked glitz, but it worked because the vast majority of people can’t learn to read, write, or do math any other way.

You can’t gloss over these subjects with a broad brush and a lot of personality or caring. It’s all about digging in the dirt, one scoop at a time.

Some people would call it robotic education. I don’t think it is. It’s just doing what’s necessary—unless reading, writing, and math are deemed unimportant. In which case, you have a whole new idea about what education is.

If you spend time in the classroom on enterprises that are supposed to save the world or revolutionize society or build tolerance or cater to kids who don’t want to learn, then you take away hours from the core idea and practice of what learning is.

When I went to school, there could have been a better curriculum for history and science, but all in all, the teachers did a good job.

Now, we’re in a different world.

It’s assumed that most children are operating at a deficit, and they need to be brought up to speed on morals, on compassion, on sex, on greenness, on hope, on race and religion, on global concerns. At age five, eight, 12, 14.

And a great deal of this “new education” is about cashing in, for book publishers, for educrats, for federal overseers, for busybodies of all stripes who belong to agenda-driven groups that want their say and their moment in the sun.

I say this is all hogwash, and I believe anyone who consults national test scores and current levels of literacy would be compelled to agree.

Education is on the way out.

A few astute writers assert that perhaps 80 years ago, the whole thrust of early education in America was altered intentionally, to produce worker-ants for a highly controlled society of the future. With all due respect, I think it’s worse than that. Because now we’re turning out kids who are essentially confused, badly schooled, drifting on the wind, lost in a mind-territory of fantasized entitlement. They aren’t androids ready to work on some non-existent assembly line. They’re just lost. They’re riddled with self-esteem that doesn’t work. They’re consumers looking for magic credit so they can buy their way into happiness. They’re loaded with sugar and other chemicals that scramble their synapses. They’re not only unsympathetic toward work, they have no passion of their own.

Logic? Imagination? Never heard of it.

When I went to school, there was virtually no classroom disruption of any kind. And my schools were attended by an economic, social, racial, and religious cross-section of students. We weren’t striving for diversity. We had it. The relatively few kids who were out of control and resisted any kind of discipline were herded into classes together and teachers dealt with them.

The public schools of today lack the courage to say, “Look, if you’re here to learn, we want you. Otherwise, you’re out. Goodbye.”

If you need metal detectors at the school entrances, you went over the edge a long time ago. No one deserves to be subjected to that kind of environment.

The bullying problem? It’s an industry now. People with degrees write papers and books about it, and task forces gear up to study it and make recommendations. It’s a structure of carbuncles on the body-politic of education.

Once upon a time, no bully was allowed to attend school. If he pressed his attitude and his actions, he was expelled. Period. It wasn’t a question of why he bullied. He was gone. Learning couldn’t take place as long as he was on the scene.

And “gangs in schools?” I’m sorry, but there are no gangs in schools. There are schools in gangs—that’s what you have when groups of kids with violent tendencies inhabit classrooms and corridors. If you can’t expel them en masse, give up. Shut down the place.

If you want to make schools into six-hour-a-day babysitting machines, call it that. Try to obtain public funding for it. Hire guards and nurses and cops to staff it. Put it behind barbed-wire fences and install those metal detectors.

Or if schools are really lunch cafeterias, run them that way. Free public lunches. Have kids show up at noon, eat, and leave.

If you think kids of various religions should be allowed to commandeer a room to hold prayer groups, call it Government-Funded God. Rent a hall somewhere and schedule everybody from Christians and Jews to Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and Zoroastrians.

“Well, we have these kids who are great football players, and they score very badly on all the tests, but we need them on the team.”

No you don’t. Start your own community team. Make up a name. Raise money for uniforms and coaches. Form a league. If these kids want to stay in school—which is a completely different matter—they’ll have to learn how to attain grades for real.

And this long-standing rule about passing kids on to the next grade, no matter how poorly they perform? Graduating them from high school even if they can’t read at fourth-grade level? Because they need to feel good about themselves? Because that’ll somehow help them wend their way through life later on?

Invent a new type of school for them and put it somewhere else. Bring in tutors. If that fails after an honest attempt, teach trades. Some of these kids will end up making more money in a trade than Harvard business-school grads.

All of the above, by the way, makes a good case for home schooling. Unless the parents themselves were shot out the top end of their schools, long ago, ill-prepared to handle reading, writing, and arithmetic.

No, the problem isn’t cookie-cutter education. It’s no education.

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