The fight over Ruth Bader Ginsburg's replacement on SCOTUS puts into stark relief many R and D Culture Wars issues. We can understand them more clearly with four questions about parenting. As we saw in Raising Racists, this is how our strongest values are passed along in society for good or ill. It turns out also that this is how elections come to be decided over spans of generations, even centuries.
The Pickup or Prius? question in the book title is not one of them, of course. It is merely meant to get your attention, in order to have a chance to explain where all of that, including meatloaf vs. curry or grits vs. sushi, comes from.
The questions are typically asked as follows:
Although there are a number of qualities that people feel children should have, every person thinks that some are more important than others. I am going to read you pairs of desirable qualities. Please tell me which one you think is more important for a child to have.
- Independence versus respect for elders
- Obedience versus self-reliance
- Curiosity versus good manners
- Being considerate versus being well behaved
I hope that I do not have to explain to an audience of Progressives which is which, and how this relates to our long-standing and fundamental divisions, going back to royalty vs. republics and slavery vs. freedom, and today's issues about oppression vs. diversity. But it is worth going into detail, as this book does, far more detail than we can review just in one Diary. It all comes back to primal fears for the safety of our children.