Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!ucsd!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hpda!hptsug2!taylor
From: mkhaw@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA (Mike Khaw)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Computer Literacy: The Pigeonhole Principle
Message-ID: <549@hptsug2.HP.COM>
Date: 28 Sep 88 17:22:59 GMT
References: <546@hptsug2.HP.COM>
Sender: taylor@hptsug2.HP.COM
Organization: Teknowledge, Inc., Palo Alto CA
Lines: 26
Approved: taylor@hplabs

I was pretty disgusted after reading the article, and I still am,
but here's my 2 cents worth:

1) Lots of criticism, but none constructive, and no alternatives proposed.
   It's easy to take potshots, but not so easy to come up with good ideas, eh?

2) A lot of what the article said about "computer literacy" education
   could just as well be applied to other subjects taught in schools.
   A good deal of what we're taught is indoctrination in the culture we
   belong to.  Suppose I attacked art education for requiring students
   to learn about perspective, human anatomy, and the history of art,
   instead of letting students simply "express their creativity"?  I
   think that would be pretty silly.

3) The author(s?) didn't say it in so many words, but were levelling
   charges of "elitism".  I'd rather have a meritocracy than "equality"
   achieved through mediocrity driven by some standard of ideological purity,
   which would simply install an elitism of ideology instead.

4) I find it ironic that this diatribe against bourgeois capitalism is
   taking place in media made possible by that very same capitalist
   system.  Capitalism has its faults, but would a Marxist socialist system 
   allow the same kind of criticism directed against it, or try to suppress
   it?

Mike Khaw