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Javier E

Open Brain, Insert Ideology - Bloomberg View - 0 views

  • Suppose that an authoritarian government decides to embark on a program of curricular reform, with the explicit goal of indoctrinating the nation’s high school students. Suppose that it wants to change the curriculum to teach students that their government is good and trustworthy, that their system is democratic and committed to the rule of law, and that free markets are a big problem.Will such a government succeed?
  • New research, from Davide Cantoni of the University of Munich and several co-authors, shows that recent curricular reforms in China, explicitly designed to transform students’ political views, have mostly worked. The findings offer remarkable evidence about the potential influence of the high school curriculum on what students end up thinking
  • they give us some important insights into contemporary China as well.
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  • Starting in 2001, China decided to engage in a nationwide reform of its curriculum, including significant changes in the textbooks used by students in grades 10, 11 and 12. In that year, China’s Ministry of Education stated that education should “form in students a correct worldview, a correct view on life, and a correct value system.”
  • The crucial finding from the study is that the new curriculum greatly affected students' thinking. They became more likely to count the Chinese political system as democratic. They displayed a higher level of trust in public officials. They were more skeptical of free markets, and more likely to reject the view that a market economy is preferable to any other economic system. They were more likely to want to extend political influence to groups outside of the Chinese Communist Party.
  • On two questions, however, the curricular reforms failed. Students didn't become more favorably disposed toward environmental protection. They were not more likely to give the environment priority over economic growth, and they were not more willing to give up some of their income to protect the environment. Nor was there a significant change in the attitudes of Han Chinese students (the majority) toward minorities.
  • With respect to minorities, the students’ beliefs appear to be deeply engrained, and essentially impervious to curricular influences.
  • As Cantoni and his co-authors summarize their various findings, “the state can effectively indoctrinate students.” To be sure, families and friends matter, as do economic incentives, but if an authoritarian government is determined to move students in major ways, it may well be able to do so.
  • Is this conclusion limited to authoritarian nations?
Javier E

Kids and ... - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Healthy food initiatives threaten profits and are therefore fought or deflected or co-opted at all costs by the producers of hyperprocessed food. This is true even when those costs include producing an increasingly sick population — and a disproportionate number of defenseless children — and an ever-growing portion of our budget spent on paying for diet-related illness. Big Food will continue to pursue profit at the expense of health as long as we let them.
  • honest members of the political right will say that it’s not enough to prevent new legislation; their goal is to roll back or damage existing laws or programs that benefit people.
  • The new nutrition standards are the most positive step the Obama administration has taken toward steering childhood nutrition in the right direction, and they’re working; 90 percent of schools meet the new standards, which means tens of millions of kids are eating more fruits and vegetables. Only someone who’s losing money on that deal could object, and even the normally industry-friendly secretary of agriculture, Tom Vilsack, is on the right side here.
Brooke Winfield

More Nigerian Violence - 1 views

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27498598

started by Brooke Winfield on 21 May 14 no follow-up yet
Javier E

The Big Debate - NYTimes.com - 1 views

  • The events of the past several years have exposed democracy’s structural flaws. Democracies tend to have a tough time with long-range planning. Voters tend to want more government services than they are willing to pay for. The system of checks and balances can slide into paralysis, as more interest groups acquire veto power over legislation.
  • Across the Western world, people are disgusted with their governments. There is a widening gap between the pace of social and economic change, and the pace of government change. In Britain, for example, productivity in the private service sector increased by 14 percent between 1999 and 2013, while productivity in the government sector fell by 1 percent between 1999 and 2010.
  • In places like Singapore and China, the best students are ruthlessly culled for government service. The technocratic elites play a bigger role in designing economic life. The safety net is smaller and less forgiving. In Singapore, 90 percent of what you get out of the key pension is what you
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  • Is democracy in long-run decline?
  • These Guardian States have some disadvantages compared with Western democracies. They are more corrupt. Because the systems are top-down, local government tends to be worse. But they have advantages. They are better at long-range thinking and can move fast because they limit democratic feedback and don’t face NIMBY-style impediments.
  • Most important, they are more innovative than Western democracies right now.
Javier E

Why Napoleon's Still a Problem in France - 0 views

  • Two hundred years on, the French still cannot agree on whether Napoleon was a hero or a villain.“The divide is generally down political party lines,” says professor Peter Hicks, a British historian with the Napoléon Foundation in Paris. “On the left, there’s the ’black legend’ of Bonaparte as an ogre. On the right, there is the ’golden legend’ of a strong leader who created durable institutions.”
  • While the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution that toppled the monarchy and delivered thousands to death by guillotine was officially celebrated in 1989, Napoleonic anniversaries are neither officially marked nor celebrated. For example, a decade ago, the president and prime minister—at the time, Jacques Chirac and Dominque de Villepin—boycotted a ceremony marking the 200th anniversary of the battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon’s greatest military victory. More from the May 16 Issue Political First Responders Flights of Fancy Flower Power “It’s almost as if Napoleon Bonaparte is not part of the national story,” Hicks tells Newsweek
  • In 2010 an opinion poll in France asked who was the most important man in French history. Napoleon came second, behind General Charles de Gaulle,
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  • Napoleon enthusiasts tell a different story. David Chanteranne, editor of a magazine published by Napoléonic Memory, France’s oldest and largest Napoleonic association, cites some of Napoleon’s achievements: the Civil Code, the Council of State, the Bank of France, the National Audit office, a centralized and coherent administrative system, lycées, universities, centers of advanced learning known as école normal, chambers of commerce, the metric system and freedom of religion.
  • “French public opinion remains deeply divided over Napoleon, with, on the one hand, those who admire the great man, the conqueror, the military leader and, on the other, those who see him as a bloodthirsty tyrant, the gravedigger of the revolution. Politicians in France rarely refer to Napoleon for fear of being accused of authoritarian temptations, or not being good Republicans.”
  • “Napoleon was not a French patriot—he was first a Corsican and later an imperial figure, a journey in which he bypassed any deep affiliation with the French nation,” Clark tells Newsweek. “His relationship with the French Revolution is deeply ambivalent. Did he stabilize it or shut it down? He seems to have done both. He rejected democracy, he suffocated the representative dimension of politics, and he created a culture of courtly display.”
  • the French fascination with Napoleon is perfectly reasonable. “The whole world is fascinated. More books have been written about him than anyone in history,”
  • In France, at least, enthusiasm looks set to diminish. Napoleon and his exploits are scarcely mentioned in French schools anymore. In the past, history was the study of great men and women. Today the focus of teaching is on trends, issues and movements. “France in 1800 is no longer about Louis XVI and Napoleon Bonaparte. It’s about the industrial revolution,” says Chanteranne. “Man does not make history. History makes men.”
Joanna Kalaitzoglou

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/05/20/nato-challenges-russia-to-execute-putin-alleged... - 0 views

Ukraine tycoon says pro-Russia separatists are wrecking east

started by Joanna Kalaitzoglou on 20 May 14 no follow-up yet
Joanna Kalaitzoglou

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-27488006 - 0 views

started by Joanna Kalaitzoglou on 20 May 14 no follow-up yet
Joanna Kalaitzoglou

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27469554 - 0 views

started by Joanna Kalaitzoglou on 20 May 14 no follow-up yet
Joanna Kalaitzoglou

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27488133 - 0 views

Deadly missile strike on northern Syria

started by Joanna Kalaitzoglou on 20 May 14 no follow-up yet
Joanna Kalaitzoglou

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-27477601 - 0 views

started by Joanna Kalaitzoglou on 20 May 14 no follow-up yet
Joanna Kalaitzoglou

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27490670 - 0 views

started by Joanna Kalaitzoglou on 20 May 14 no follow-up yet
Brooke Winfield

Killings Heighten Tension Around Egyptian Election - 0 views

started by Brooke Winfield on 20 May 14 no follow-up yet
Brooke Winfield

Workers at N.Y.U Abu Dhabi site faced harsh conditions - 1 views

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/19/nyregion/workers-at-nyus-abu-dhabi-site-face-harsh-conditions.html?hp&_r=0

started by Brooke Winfield on 19 May 14 no follow-up yet
Joanna Kalaitzoglou

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/world/mideast-peace-effort-pauses-to-let-failure-sink... - 1 views

Mideast Peace Effort Pauses to Let Failure Sink In

started by Joanna Kalaitzoglou on 16 May 14 no follow-up yet
Joanna Kalaitzoglou

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/world/europe/ukraine-workers-take-to-streets-to-calm-... - 0 views

Workers Seize City in Eastern Ukraine From Separatists

started by Joanna Kalaitzoglou on 16 May 14 no follow-up yet
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