On the last Friday of the month, 25th March, the Discussion Group held a meeting at the Parador Hotel which was attended by 10 people. The discussion started with Jeff’s introduction to the topic.
The following were the top three reasons cited for challenging materials: the material was considered to be ‘sexually explicit’, the material contained ‘offensive language’, the material was ‘unsuited to any age group’. Jeff mentioned such books as Lolita by Vladimir Nobokov, Lady Chatterley’s lover by D.H. Lawrence, Ulysses by James Joyce, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and Cat’s cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.
The discussion led to a subject on sexual education: who’s responsibility it is – school or parents? It was indicated that, for example, muslim women don’t want sexual education in schools, that there are early pregancy cases in UK, that pedophilia cases started to appear in a very early age – at about 10 years.
In the US only 1/3 of couples are married, great notion about religion values which are are not anymore there and nothing substitues them except person’s own wishes and atitudes. Gay marriages became a norm when 50 years ago it was unimaginable. Teachers are not respected as it was. A child of 8 years is already facing question – who am I, exploration and searching their own sexuality is almost encouraged.
Jenny said that having a daughter she wants some age of innocense, when sex education is presented according to the age appropriateness -at 8 years it is too early. Teachers have to be trained to do it by a cautious approach.
There are more subjects which are under revision and/or forbidden to talk about.
In New Hampshire, a group of mothers is offering a $500 reward to anyone who catches a teacher violating a recently passed State law that forbids any “doctrine” or “theory” that promotes a “negative” version of US history, including the notion that the country was founded on racism due to the slave trade.
Genevieve mentioned another angle to look at it and suggested that roots of the present situation might be in political correctness.
The backlash began in the United States in the early 1990s when conservative intellectuals began to use “political correctness” to criticize the left for imposing their views on others and suppressing dissenting opinion.
In universities, more traditional subjects were being augmented or replaced by others dealing with feminism, queer politics, post-colonial history and so on.
Leading conservatives began to attack the liberal-left for making certain topics of study “off-limits”.Those who are most strongly opposed to so-called “political correctness” view it as censorship and a curtailment of freedom of speech that places limits on debates in the public arena.
Another aspect of the modern life mentioned by David is noticable in sports when former sportsman earlier taking part in tournaments as a man, decide to change gender and “become a woman” are winning first place in competitions
The discussion was lively, intensive and interesting. We live in very dynamic times with a lot of rapid changes where our societies cultural, moral and traditional attitudes are challenged too fast for many people to understand and properly adapt.
