How Do John Karls and Reading Liberally Experiences With Cancel Culture Relate To “The Coddling of The American Mind”?

[solutions]

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Subject: How Do John Karls and Reading Liberally Experiences With Cancel Culture Relate To “The Coddling of The American Mind”?
From: Solutions
Date: Wednesday, February 22, 2023 9:37 pm PST
To: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
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Dear John,

I’ll be out of town this weekend so I just took a peek at the Reading Liberally website to see whether you had posted the Short Quiz that will be featured in this weekend’s weekly e-mail to RL members.

As usual, it appears to be composed so the reader can anticipate either a “Yes” or a “What Do You Think??? Let’s Discuss!!!” answer.

However, I was puzzled about why it concentrates on your and Reading Liberally’s experiences with cancel culture.

After all, the promotional materials for our focus book “The Coddling of The American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up A Generation For Failure” said, inter alia –

“Something has been going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and are afraid to speak honestly. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising—on campus as well as nationally. How did this happen? First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people.”

How do John Karls and Reading Liberally Experiences with Cancel Culture relate to “The Coddling of The American Mind”?

Your friend,

Solutions


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Subject: Re: How Do John Karls and Reading Liberally Experiences With Cancel Culture Relate To “The Coddling of The American Mind”?
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
Date: Thursday, February 23, 2023 11:43 am MST
To: Solutions
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Dear Solutions,

Thank you for your e-mail.

The first four sentences that you quoted from the “Coddling” promotional materials describe Cancel Culture on American college campuses.

Accordingly, I thought it was important to provide an additional dimension – that Cancel Culture permeates American society and is NOT confined to college campuses.

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RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

Since you like to post our e-mail exchanges on our website, please permit me to say that when it comes to racial discrimination, I have no quarrel with the basic objective of the Cancel Culture Warriors!!! Racial discrimination should have been eliminated 2,000 years ago for anyone claiming to be a follower of Christ, the second of whose TWO New-Covenant Commandments for “inheriting eternal life” is to “love your neighbor as yourself” which was followed immediately by the Story of the Good Samaritan to drive home the point that EVERY HUMAN BEING ON EARTH is your “neighbor.”

HOWEVER, I and Reading Liberally do have a quarrel with the Cancel Cultural Warriors regarding how best to eliminate racial discrimination – please see –

“Addressing The Cause Of Racism (vs. A Mere Symptom)” at viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1925&sid=82b5bd011 ... cf089a0d1e; and

“Requested E-mails to the NY Times Editorial-Page Editor” at viewtopic.php?f=587&t=1919&p=2627&hilit ... 5807#p2627.

The second item contains NY Times Editorial Page Editor James D. Bennet’s soliciting our views on “Addressing The Cause of Racism (vs. A Mere Symptom)” by providing “I Have A Dream” or IHAD-style programs whose 178 projects in 51 American cities during the 1990’s routinely transformed inner-city SINGLE-DIGIT high-school graduation rates for the classes just ahead and behind the “Dreamer” class to more than 90%. Mr. Bennet had solicited our views as part of his “Keys To Unlocking Human Potential” project.

Unfortunately, James Bennet was fired for an unrelated reason shortly after our second and final e-mail was sent and his successor, Ms. Kathleen Kingsbury, abandoned the “Keys To Unlocking Human Potential” project and continued the NY Times' habit of studiously ignoring the state of America’s inner-city K-12 education (or lack thereof).

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GLOBAL WARMING (aka CLIMATE CHANGE) and THORIUM FISSION

You will also recall that we have a fundamental disagreement with Cancel Culture Warriors about how to deal with Global Warming (aka Climate Change).

Every time we have addressed the issue, we have always asked for a show of hands by anyone who favors invading militarily such countries as China to prevent it from bringing on-stream a new monster-size coal-fired electric-generation plant every week.

[China is not required to do anything to limit its carbon emissions until the distant future by the Paris Climate Accord of 2016, which mirrored a similar provision in its predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol of 1997.]

Nobody has ever raised a hand in favor of invading any country to force it to undertake UNECONOMIC policies!!!

Accordingly, we have always campaigned for solving Global Warming (aka Climate Change) with thorium fission because, unlike solar and wind, it is cheaper than fossil fuels so countries such as China will adopt it in its own economic self-interest!!!

Among the many advantages of thorium fission is its inability to explode – which is why President Nixon, after a successful 18-month continuous thorium-fission demonstration project at the National Nuclear-Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge TN, cut off all funding for thorium research and funneled it to uranium and plutonium which can be used in nuclear weapons.

Indeed, as we have studied many times, the world’s LARGEST THORIUM REACTOR IS THE EARTH ITSELF which is why molten lava billows from any rupture in the earth’s thin surface AND WHY THE CENTER OF THE EARTH IS 7,000 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT WHICH IS HOTTER THAN THE SURFACE OF THE SUN!!!

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OTHER ISSUES

There are many other issues documented on our website vis-à-vis which we have no quarrel with THE BASIC OBJECTIVE of Cancel Culture Warriors.

But we have FUNDAMENTAL OBJECTIONS to their solutions.

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CONCLUSION

So, yes, I thought it was important to provide an additional dimension – that Cancel Culture permeates American society and is NOT confined to college campuses.

AFTER ALL, IF WE SUCCUMB TO HORRIBLE SOLUTIONS FROM THE CANCEL CULTURE WARRIORS, THERE MAY BE NOTHING LEFT FOR OUR COLLEGE-AGE OFFSPRING TO INHERIT.

Your friend,

John K.