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Comment by user982 | Hacker News Reader

I have an inchoate theory that early moral indoctrination through children's books is basically a way of hardwiring the just-world fallacy into the broader populace such that a minority of individuals who resist this worldview grow up primed to embrace sociopathic realpolitik and advance to positions of power over the majority who accept it at face value.

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Books that had a big impact on me as a young kid were 'The Giving Tree', 'The Lorax', and 'The Velveteen Rabbit'. They were hard lessons. None of them taught a just world.

I think those books left such an impression on me because they were tragic and unresolved. There were dozens of other more simplistic moral tales that went in one ear and out the other, I'm sure.

As tempting as it is to just write "k" in response to this, I'll try to be constructive: so what do you suggest we do instead?

I don't know; this is observational rather than prescriptive. "Don't be institutionally hypocritical as a society" is inviting, but has problems whichever of the views is chosen. The sociopaths seem necessary so long as geopolitics is simply gang warfare on a global scale.

What about teaching everyone non-sociopathic realpolitik instead?

Seems like a great idea.

I'd love to have been educated re: the importance of history, and the following topics: the lead-up to WW2, Communist Russia, the formation of Israel, the formation of the EU, NATO, and UN, the world banking system, the last 100 years of Middle-Eastern conflict and perhaps the American Civil War. I now consider these some of the most relevant historical events to the current Dutch political situation and also to most other Western countries, but I never learnt about them in high school (which is from 12-18 here, I did the variant that prepars you for university).

What we need to achieve that is a realization in the counter-culture that education is important and that what people considered counter-culture in the 70's, 80's and 90's has been coopted by now, or perhaps has been "controlled opposition" from the start. Conservatism and protecting the people of your country from international realpolitik is the real counter-culture now. I think Switzerland and Poland got a lot of this right.

> What about teaching everyone non-sociopathic realpolitik instead?

Teaching about an oxymoron?

It's not an oxymoron, it's in fact the definition of realpolitik, as coined by Ludwig von Rochau. It means having a principled position, while viewing the world as it is, without silly idealisms like the aforementioned just-world fallacy. The view of realpolitik as just a name for gaining power at any cost came later, and it's more prevalent in the English world.

I can recommend John Bew's Realpolitik: A History, it's quite interesting if one enjoys the history of political thought.

Likely to reduce overall efficiency.

Identify that the only acceptable way to treat a human is as an end to her/himself and anyone who does not acts immorally.

Just a thought: Perhaps lessons about scientific fallacies that impact real life and to always think about experiments that challenge hidden assumptions.

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (http://www.hpmor.com/) could give an idea how this might look like.

I really do wish more fiction was like HPMoR. I think it would work out great in a school setting.

I'm already bored

I cover this very point in my pamphlet, "Cucked by Narnia."

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