(Add this Ingredient heading on the wheel)

Let's consider for a moment what things have looked like under social constructs, education systems and philosophies that have allowed for anything, everything, and nothing to matter? Let’s consider how we are doing as a society?   How are we doing? 

Maybe now we will seriously consider the idea that there actually is a reality, and that few things that actually matter.

Contentions of fact to discuss:

(participant cards) 

• We can’t recognize what extremism looks like—or where the reasonable middle lies—unless we share some common foundational values and agree on basic principles that help guide how we live and work together.

• A society without shared values can feel unstable and unsafe—much like trying to play a game where no one agrees on how it works.”Because there are no rules, no one knows what is “in bounds” or “out of bounds.

• In our environment when everyone is clamoring for their own rights and privileges everything goes and nothing is out of bounds. 

• When a society loses its sense of shared values, the resulting wave of distrust and fear of one another can be overwhelming.

(Teacher exercise here; try playing a game without any rules - use your discretion, contrast to our society)

Discussion quotes: 

“Our freedom to question everything will eventually leave us with nothing” Anonymous

“Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom”. Alexis De Tocqueville

“A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow”. Justice Learned Hand, 1944. 

“What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interest alongside its own without bias;...” Justice Learned Hand 1944. 

“American freedom is … nothing like pure and unmitigated freedom … True freedom must be an ‘ordered freedom… at the center of which is what we call ‘self-government.’ … People would not have freedom from government, but would have freedom from tyrannous government, or from government that might easily become tyrannous.” (Metaxas p29) 

“Throughout the 20th century, many colleges and universities had a required first-year course [civics courses] … students … [saw] … disagreement as a necessary ingredient of both learning and of life … [and] confronted hard questions about civil disobedience and social change …Then, almost all schools abandoned that model and allowed students to choose from an array of humanities courses…In this vision, individual choice and individual advancement take center stage. Requirements are recast as paternalistic; freedom is understood as doing as one pleases.” “By Abandoning Civics, Colleges Helped Create the Culture Wars,” by Debra Satz and Dan Edelstein

Resources: Article, “By Abandoning Civics, Colleges Helped Create the Culture Wars,” by Debra Satz and Dan Edelstein.  Letters To Mikey, Chapter Four, rules of Ben Franklin's club. (Make the tie to unwritten laws of colonial America). LTM Chapter Nine -Voices of Evil, P174. Just because we can say whatever we want, does that mean we should.