Is Not Teaching Bigotry Funny?
While stumbling I came across this boring political cartoon mocking the rationale for not teaching safe sex in school. The cartoon features teachers in classrooms stating they will not teach basic principle of their courses because it might lead to the students using those principles in absurd ways. For example the social studies teachers states she won’t teach the students about Mexico because it might motivate the students to runoff there.
This cartoon is aimed squarely at mocking those that don’t think sex education should be taught in schools. More specifically the rationale that teaching sex education in school will lead to more promiscuous behavior by the students. I find it odd to mock this rationale. Do those that enjoy this mockery deny the capacity of knowledge to increase the rate of incident in matters relevant to that knowledge?
For example, would they laugh if one of the teachers said ‘I can’t teach you intelligent design because you might think god was responsible for the design of the animals on this planet’? How much laughter would the teacher that said ‘I can’t teach you about how black people are intrinsically dumber than white people because that might make you a bigot’. If you ask me, many of the people that poke fun at the rationale behind prohibiting sex education in school use that same rationale to force their values on the students.
June 23rd, 2008 at 1:56 am
You just gave two examples in which the result of the students being taught something is that they believe it. The people against sex ed aren’t worried that kids will believe what they’re taught (quite the opposite in fact, since the sex ed class will probably tell them to wait), they’re worried that just bringing the topic up will make kids have sex. So your examples don’t work.
A more accuracte example would be teachers having a picture of the revolutionary war where the soldiers are carrying muskets, so a kid runs home and gets his dad’s gun and goes on a shooting spree. That’s basically the analogy to what they think would happen.
Also there’ no reason to make ad absurdum arguments about this, the studies have been done and sex ed makes kids have less sex, so yeah, the people against it for that reason are wrong.
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:27 am
I disagree. The cartoon wants to mock the rationale that making children aware of something will lead to them doing more of it. Regardless of belief, I think many who happily mock this rationale would be upset at schools if they taught racism and natural design not because the children would believe it (although many would be upset at this as well), but because they would behave in ways consistent with believing it those things. Many on the left would argue against teaching racism because it would cause children to behave as bigots regardless of whether they have thoughts of bigotry or not.
June 23rd, 2008 at 1:03 pm
I understand your first example, but for your second example to work wouldn’t you have to have some data to suggest that blacks are intrinsically more “dumb?” It seems that your argument is that people are hypocritical because they don’t always want the truth taught in school because of the possible consequences. Your examples don’t involve any truth.
June 26th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Also, no one objects to teachers telling students that bigots exist and what they are. This is clearly different from teaching them bigotted beliefs as facts. The equivalent of THAT in sex-ed would basically be showing them porno videos, which I agree is a bad idea.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I’m not sure about that Darwin. Porn in school might really get kids interested in attending!!!
June 28th, 2008 at 3:36 am
Nah, they all have internet anyways. No reason to waste your time on someone else’s fetishes.
June 28th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Just to be clear, If the evidence showed that teaching sex education resulted in children having more sex you guys would oppose it?
June 28th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
If children means 5-10 year olds, then I don’t think they should be getting sex ed anyway. If ‘children’ means high school students, which is where sex ed is actually taught, then that finding would make me have more respect for the oponent’s position, yes. Personally I would only care if their were higher rates of pregnancy/sexual abuse/other things I would actually object to, but if the studies found higher rates of sex in general I could respect a parent’s objection to that. However, I’m pretty sure these studies have already been done and have shown lower rates of teenage sex in teh presence of sex ed classes. Might have only been pregnancies though, I don’t remember right now.
June 30th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Sure. But the things I’ve seen with condom programs, etc., suggest that it at the very least helps - never hurts.
And no, I do not believe in banning guns.
You still never addressed your very shaky analogies from the 1st post.