(Add 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 or nothing to matter? Let’s consider how we are doing as a society?  

Discussion

• “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. 

(Participant cards) 

• We cannot possibly know where the reasonable middle is unless we all share some common foundational values. 

• A society detached from a set of moral rules feels like sheer chaos - very much like trying to play a game without any rules -no one knows what is “in bounds” or “out of bounds”. In a culture lacking shared moral foundation -everything goes and nothing is out of bounds. 

• When nothing is held sacred in a society, the resulting storm of distrust and fear builds on itself.  

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

“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) 

Resources:

• Article, “By Abandoning Civics, Colleges Helped Create the Culture Wars,” by Debra Satz and Dan Edelstein.  

  • Sample: “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.”

• Letters To Mikey, Chapter Four, Rules of Ben Franklin's club. (colonial America and enlightenment period values). LTM Chapter Nine -Voices of Evil, Just because we can say whatever we want, does that mean we should.