FROM THE PEN OF ANOTHER PROGRESSIVE, CHARLES D HAYES
BY LUCY M. WARNER
OCTOBER 9, 2016


I’M GOING TO PAY ATTENTION TO “LAPROGRESSIVE” IN THE FUTURE AS A SOURCE OF NEWS STORIES AND INSIGHT. YOU MAY ENJOY LOOKING AT THE SITE ALSO FOR PLEASURE AS WELL AS KNOWLEDGE. READ THE INFORMATIVE AND BALANCED ARTICLE BELOW, AND CHECK OUT CHARLES D. HAYES’ OTHER WRITINGS.

PLEASE TAKE TIME TO LOOK AT THE FACES OF THESE TRUMPITES IN THE PRESENCE OF THEIR IDOL, AND HAYES’ COMMENTS BELOW ON SELF-EDUCATION. ONE OF THE THINGS I DISLIKE AND FEAR MOST IS THE CONCEPT THAT A PARTICULAR LEVEL OF FORMAL EDUCATION IS EITHER ALL WE NEED, OR NECESSARY TO MAKE US A HUMAN WORTHY OF RESPECT AND CARE. ALL HUMANS, AND ANIMALS AS WELL, ARE TO BE TREATED WITH RESPECT AND EMPATHY – THE HOMELESS MAN SLEEPING IN AN ALLEYWAY AND EVEN THE TOO FREQUENTLY CONCEITED RICH. I PUT THIS IN BECAUSE THE COMMAND OF JESUS IS TO LOVE EVERYMAN AS OURSELF. THAT ISN’T EASY, BUT IT’S THE GOAL.

THAT WILL MAKE US A TRULY DECENT SOCIETY. WHAT WE AS INDIVIDUAL CITIZENS OF A DEMOCRACY NEED IS AN OPEN, QUESTIONING MIND AND THE EFFORT REQUIRED TO ANSWER MANY OF OUR QUESTIONS FROM GOOD SOURCES, IN OTHER WORDS, NOT YOUR BARTENDER OR YOUR POOL HALL BUDDIES. READ THE NEWS AND WIKIPEDIA AND ANY REASONABLY UNBIASED SOURCE THAT YOU CAN FIND. READ THE BIBLE IF YOU CARE TO, BUT WITH THE GOAL OF BECOMING A WARMER AND MORE INSIGHTFUL PERSON. IF YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THE WORDS, LOOK THEM UP IN WIKIPEDIA OR A GOOD DICTIONARY. THE ONLY REALLY VALUABLE EDUCATION IS THAT WHICH IS CONTINUED OVER OUR LIFETIMES. PARTICULARLY IN THIS RAPIDLY PROGRESSING TECHNOLOGY CENTERED WORLD, ALL OPINION, “TRUTH,” WORK PREPAREDNESS AND FACTS IN GENERAL, ARE NEEDED TO SUCCEED; ALL OF WHICH CHANGE WITH TIME AND MUST BE REFURBISHED WITH NEW INFORMATION. A YOUNG PAKISTANI WOMAN NAMED MALALA YOUSAFZAI ALMOST PAID WITH HER LIFE SEVERAL YEARS AGO FOR HER DETERMINATION TO GET AN EDUCATION.

FOLLOW THIS PATH AND AS A SOCIETY WE WILL CHOOSE GOOD LEADERS RATHER THAN DESPOTS TO GUIDE US. WE WILL EVEN MAKE A SERIOUS EFFORT TO STOP THE CAUSES OF ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER, HATRED AND VIOLENCE, AND WORK TO SEE THAT ALL OF OUR KIDS GET THE TYPE AND DEGREE OF EDUCATION THAT THEY CAN ABSORB – A JUDGEMENT NOT BASED ON SKIN COLOR, ETHNICITY, FAMILY WEALTH, RELIGION, GENDER OR ANY OTHER PREJUDICIAL FACTOR. TO ADD TO OUR PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE IS NOT MERELY A RESPONSIBILITY, BUT A SOURCE OF TRUE JOY. IT’S BETTER THAN ALL THE “BLING,” BIG CARS, RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE CLOTHING, CLASS RELATED STATUS SYMBOLS, ETC. PICK UP A GOOD BOOK AND READ. P.S., “FORTY SHADES OF GRAY” IS NOT A GOOD BOOK.

SEE WEBSITES FOR THE TWO PHOTOGRAPHS BELOW.

Photograph -- https://maxcdn1.laprogressive.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/trump_supporters-729.jpg
Photograph -- Self-University, CHARLES D. HAYES, 2015



https://www.laprogressive.com/fearful-voters/

Slouching Toward a Political Fukushima
BY CHARLES D. HAYES
POSTED ON OCTOBER 8, 2016

Day in and day out, confirmation that the political Right has reached a stage-four level of wing-nuttery is evident in social media, newspapers, radio, and television. Commentators of every political persuasion have grown weary of uttering the familiar refrain that “You can’t make this stuff up.” But people can. They are making up bizarre things to say, and other people are believing them. Every day we seem nearer to DEFCON 1 lunacy.

Ultra-conservatives complained recently that a baker forced to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple would, in effect, be participating in a wedding. Strangely, they don’t think a gun store owner who sells a gun to a killer is participating in a murder. Such twisted logic seems to apply only when it feeds a particular agenda.

On the Christian Right, Pat Robertson claimed recently that smoking pot will make a person a slave to vegetables. Another evangelist warned believers to prepare for martyrdom if the Supreme Court rules in favor of gay marriage. Mike Huckabee said gays won’t be satisfied until there are no more churches.

The unhinged rhetoric just keeps ratcheting up in tenor, and it’s growing louder with the approach of the 2016 election. Kansas politicians have enacted laws to keep people from using food stamps on cruise ships, which simply amounts to an existential effort to humiliate poor people. No doubt they think Jesus would approve.

The paranoid antigovernment crowd is hyper-alert for evidence that government forces are out to get them, and their pattern-matching gray matter is up to the challenge of perceiving connections where any hint of cause and effect can be imagined.

The paranoid antigovernment crowd is hyper-alert for evidence that government forces are out to get them, and their pattern-matching gray matter is up to the challenge of perceiving connections where any hint of cause and effect can be imagined. Accusations that stretch the very limits of the term irrationality are picking up steam over fears about Black helicopters, secret nuclear weapons, Muslim plots to take over the government, Communist conspiracies, elitist collusions, unseen sinister forces, and other bizarre rumors.

Perhaps it only seems that more and more people qualify as being certifiable, as we used to say, because more media outlets are giving them voice. The Internet and social media have provided conspiracy theorists a communication platform never before possible, with the result that irrationality feeds on itself like a python in pursuit of its own tail.

Conspiratorial paranoia stems in part from a deep-seated psychological dread of otherness, chance, change, and uncertainty because they are cousins to mortality. True conspiratorial believers share a visceral fear of chaos driven by a subconscious fear of death. To them the idea of a psychotic fiend pulling all of the strings that make the world go around is much more comforting and less frightening than the thought that no one is in control and anything can happen to anyone at any time.

In a nutshell, what we are witnessing is the emotional angst of ill-educated citizens fearful of change they can’t understand, people they can’t relate to, and a future over which they have very little control. The reason the rhetoric sounds so bizarre and outlandish is that this is the playing out of identity politics: It’s us versus them on technological steroids, bouncing off the cyber walls of social media echo chambers. Save a national emergency to get everyone’s attention, there seems to be little we can do to stop the nonsense or even slow it down.

I’ve been writing about the critical need for self-education for more than thirty years, and the 2016 election rhetoric reminds me that we aren’t making all that much progress. The four-day Republican National Convention earlier this year amounted to a hate fest, driven by fear and fueled by deep-seated contempt. In effect, America has a black hole of ignorance in the heartland, where contempt for the unfamiliar metastasizes and citizens bond by way of shared derision.

It’s customary to think that people who are ignorant simply lack knowledge and what they need is the benefit of an education. But the vitriolic rhetoric at the 2016 RNC was a clear demonstration of the great barrier to the kind of learning that can dispel misguided cultural angst. What stands in the way for these ill-informed citizens is a virtual fortress of mistaken assumptions—toxic, absurd assumptions like the belief that President Obama is secretly a Muslim who hates America or that Hillary Clinton is the incarnation of evil, plotting to take away everyone’s guns and ammunition. It goes downhill from there.

This barricade of ignorant assumptions is almost impossible to breach through the use of reason. The important thing to keep in mind is that these ridiculous beliefs were born in emotion, so they have to be dealt with at an emotional level in order to change. Reason is useless against emotional angst.

During the Cold War, liberals and conservatives shared an emotive realm with one another because of the practicality of dealing with a common enemy. When the Cold War ended, the common emotional connection was severed, and the vitriol between the political Left and Right has been escalating ever since.

A Donald Trump victory in November would be an overt declaration that insanity prevails, followed shortly by a nuclear-level fallout of angst when Trump’s voters finally discover that he is egregiously incompetent and has no clue how to put into practice his maniacal agenda to “make America great again.”

A Hillary Clinton victory, which I hope for and expect, is going to result in a misogynistic Fukushima. The big question is the extent and duration of the emotional fallout. Business owners have threated [sic] to close their doors if Hillary wins, while white supremacists threaten revolution. How long will it take after the glass ceiling is broken for misogynists to accept the new legitimacy of a woman as president? This is the existential question.

When President Obama was elected, the hope was that racism would subside. Instead there was a backlash. The effect of that election outcome, as the academics explained, was that it actually gave people permission to own their bias. If the same thing happens with misogyny, the question is, for how long and how severe? When will we grow up? Or are we doomed to forever engage in childish tribalism and call it politics?



Self-University

Adult learning is more than alternative education, self-help, self-study, or training. Self-directed inquiry can free you from the cultural traps of today’s postmodern world. When you think for yourself, you take control of your life. Intellectual ability and critical thinking soon become substitutes for paper credentials. Simply stated aggressive learning is the most practical guide to a passionately rewarding life.



My Books and Essays on Amazon

http://amazon.com/author/charlesdhayes

New Fiction: A Mile North of Good and Evil
http://tinyurl.com/qzym7nx
My Other Blog
http://septemberuniversity.blogspot.com/



SEE ALSO:

http://www.alaskawriters.com/hayesintvw.html

Questions & Answers
with Charles Hayes
“Sales as a direct result of the Web site are sporadic, and sometimes it’s hard to figure out why I’m all of a sudden getting lots of attention.”

— Charles D. Hayes


Alaska Writers Homestead talks with Wasilla, Alaska author and self-learning advocate Charles Hayes about how he turned his personal passion for what he has dubbed “self-education” into a well-subscribed newsletter, active Web site and self-publishing company that has sold, he says, “thousands” of books. His most recent book was a novel, Portals in a Northern Sky.




ABOUT CHARLES D. HAYES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_D._Hayes

Charles D. Hayes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Charles D. Hayes
Born 1943
Madill, Oklahoma, USA
Residence Wasilla, Alaska
Nationality American
Education Self-taught Philosopher
Known for Lifelong Learning Advocate
Website
"September University"

"Autodidactic Press"

Charles D. Hayes is a self-professed, self-taught philosopher and one of America's strongest advocates for lifelong learning

Biography[edit]

Charles D. Hayes is an admitted Progressive Socialist who professes to being a self-taught philosopher and one of America’s strongest advocates for lifelong learning. He spent his youth in Texas and served as a U.S. Marine and as a police officer before embarking on a career in the oil industry. Alaska has been his home for more than thirty years.

Hayes’ book Beyond the American Dream: Lifelong Learning and the Search for Meaning in a Postmodern World received recognition by the American Library Association’s CHOICE magazine as one of the most outstanding academic books of the year. His other titles include Existential Aspirations: Reflections of a Self-Taught Philosopher; September University: Summoning Passion for an Unfinished Life; The Rapture of Maturity: A Legacy of Lifelong Learning; Training Yourself: The 21st Century Credential; Proving You’re Qualified: Strategies for Competent People without College Degrees; and Self-University: The Price of Tuition is Desire. Your Degree is a Better Life. His fiction work includes the novel Portals in a Northern Sky; the novellas Pansy: Bovine Genius in Wild Alaska and The Call of Mortality, forthcoming; and two short fiction pieces, Moose Hunter Homicide and Stalking Cindy, in production.

His nonfiction Kindle essays include:

Atlas Begs to Differ; Aging Existentially: Getting the Most Out of the Fall and Winter of Life; Heroism, Cowardice and the National Tragedy of Hidden Guilt; Learning a Living: Career Success Without Formal Credentials; Class Warfare: Is It Real? Is It Over? Or Has It Just Begun?; Nostalgia: Why the Past Matters; Pursuing Justice: Foxes, Hedgehogs, and the Baby-Boom Legacy; America's Greatest Enemy: Ignorance, Why Political Dialog is Disingenuous; and Extreme Conditions: Universal Lessons About Workplace Safety Learned in an Arctic Environment.

Promoting the idea that education should be thought of not as something you get but as something you take, Hayes’ work has been featured in the LA Progressive, USA Today, and the UTNE Reader, on National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation and on Alaska Public Radio’s Talk of Alaska. His web site, www.autodidactic.com, provides resources for self-directed learners—from advice about credentials to philosophy about the value lifelong learning brings to everyday living. In 2006, Hayes established www.septemberuniversity.org, a site devoted to ongoing dialogue among September University participants in search of the better argument.

Hayes has also been heavily criticized for his ad hominem attacks against any individual critical of his works.

Works[edit]

The Rapture of Maturity: A Legacy of Lifelong Learning ISBN 0-9621979-4-7
Training Yourself: The 21st Century Credential ISBN 0-9621979-3-9
Beyond the American Dream: Lifelong Learning and the Search for Meaning in a Postmodern World ISBN 0-9621979-2-0
Proving You’re Qualified: Strategies for Competent People without College Degrees ISBN 0-9621979-1-2
Self-University: The Price of Tuition is Desire. Your Degree is a Better Life. ISBN 0-9621979-0-4
Portals in a Northern Sky: A Novel ISBN 0-9621979-6-3
September University: Summoning Passion for an Unfinished Life. ISBN 978-0-9621979-7-0
Existential Aspirations: Reflections of a Self-taught Philosopher. ISBN 978-0-9621979-8-7
References[edit]
"Learning Without School", Talk of the Nation, August 5, 1999
"Questions & Answers with Charles D. Hayes", Alaska Writers Homestead - Alaska's Writing Resource
"Opportunities for Lifelong Education", Stimulating academic class taught by Charles D. Hayes
"Police Writers", Website for books written by Police Officers
"Interview with Charles D. Hayes about Autodidacticism", dilanka.cc

External links[edit]

"Autodidactic Press", Official Website
"September University", Official Website
"Self-University Blog", Self-University Blog
"September University Blog", September University Blog
"Author Charles D. Hayes", Amazon Author Central
Authority control
WorldCat Identities VIAF: 46137664

Categories: 1943 birthsAdult educationAmerican educational theoristsAmerican education writersExperiential learningLiving peoplePeople from Anchorage, AlaskaPeople from Madill, OklahomaPeople from Wasilla, AlaskaPhilosophy of education