>If you only read mediocre stuff, you stop thinking very well.

>>8804926
Yes. People have a very limited vocabulary which reduces their empathy causing them to be more withdrawn and antisocial. Democracy requires strong social bonds to defend against insurgent threats.

Our negligence of the education of the youth has led to the current, and still forming, crisis in democracy. To combat this we must demilitarize our public school system which is daily becoming more of a factory for future workers in a high tech military industrial complex. The youth are taught not how to think but how to obey the needs of the state.

>>8804926
>America has gone CRAZY right? Fuck Drumpf lol
>theyre uneducated and dont read enough books, THATS why they disagree with me!
Stop pretending to be intellectual, Untermensch.

>>8804959
how did the Greeks manage to develop their own strain of Athenian democracy when a lot of them were peasants and mostly illiterate?

>>8804959
social bonds havent deteriorated because our vocabulary has shrunk

its because the church has been under siege for decades.

>>8804962
>straight away extrapolates that the OP is referencing Trump
back to another reactionary board with you

>>8804969
Greek writing was largely for the scribes. Plato argued that education was important for maintenance of the state. Education for him was enforcement of cultural norms by elders.

My idea of school comes predominantly from the views of Plato, Rousseau, Dewey, and Chomsky on education.

>And if as a nation we stop thinking well, someday we will yet cease to be a democracy
It's more like we'll start thinking well and cease to be a democracy

>>8804970
churches have not been an unifying social institution in democracies for over a century. We made great progress towards a more free society in most of the Western world and there was also good development in the Eastern world (With the exception of the fascist and Japanese governments). It wasn't until the 1930's that things began to slide as nations prepared for war. The Cold War has been the greatest threat to democratic institutions in recent memory, now we are Cold War societies in a post Cold War world.

>>8804926
Orwell said something very similar, and I think it's absolutely true.

One can say a lot about how Idiocracy is not a portent of the future but if it got one thing right it was the fact that shoving your media and art full of shitty, mindless tv and ads and wastes of time does not foster a good society

Democracy is a garbage government.

>>8805011
>It's more like we'll start thinking well and cease to be a democracy
>muh communism
To the gulag with you, comrade

>>8805141
Democracy is the best government because it most effectively mitigates catastrophe. There is no figurehead to take blame for the failures of the state so the people must be careful to not make poor decisions in terms of governance.

i would say exactly that but if you only read fiction. no critical thinking involved.

>>8805148
That's not a good reason.

>>8804970
The transition into a post-faith world is inevitable at this point. We need to do what we can to incorporate the value of traditional morality into the curriculum alongside socially liberal viewpoints to prevent losing the next generation entirely.

>>8805158
It's the only good reason.

>>8805167
No it's not, you're just an ideologue. Best Koreans love Best Korea too. You are no different.

>>8805149
You think you can't read bad non-fiction?

Or that only reading fiction makes you stupid? Nobody advocates for reading only fiction.

>>8805149
You're reading bad fiction then. A well-designed story can communicate ideas or morality better than a nonfiction text. It also appeals to a far wider audience.

>>8805169
North Koreans are loyal to their autocrat. The Korean state is the supreme leader who is a living person.

I am loyal to the idea of democracy so I am an ideologue.

>>8805185
a well designed story can communicate ideas in a dumbed down, diluted, pleb version, hence why it appeals to a far wider, and more stupid, audience. sorry you're a dumdumb.