[continued from previous message]   
      
   Accordingly, in Singapore, for example, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew has now   
   instituted moral education programs in all of the tiny country's 144 secondary   
   schools – the general syllabus including such propaganda topics as “National   
   Identity and    
   Commitment” and “Respect for Law”. By 1984, when special textbooks will have   
   been prepared, it will become mandatory for the students to complete at least   
   one of six courses on either Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity,   
   Islam or World    
   Religions. As 77% of Singapore's population is ethnic Chinese, the Government   
   prefers to stress Confucianism, which was China's state religion for   
   approximately two thousand years, dating back to the 5th Century B.C. In order   
   to revive Confucianism, an    
   eleven member committee of educators has been formed in Singapore and is   
   working in conjunction with eight scholars in the U.S.A. Their task, to put it   
   simply, is to rewrite Confucianism so that this creed fully reflects the   
   ethics of modern Singaporean    
   society, as structured by Lee Kuan Yew's People's Action Party. Hence, such   
   teachings of Confucius dictating that children should not report parental   
   crimes to the authorities are unacceptable, and Singapore's moral education   
   textbook writers have been    
   instructed to find a way to justify anti-parent behavior under special   
   conditions. According to the Government's Education Minister, Goh Keng Swee,   
   “It is up to the scholars to find it somewhere in Confucian literature.”   
      
   [397] One good example of this is the current controversy stirred up in   
   anthropological circles by Derek Freeman of the Australian National   
   University. According to Freeman, Margaret Mead's path-breaking analysis of   
   adolescence in Samoan society (Coming    
   of Age in Samoa) was greatly biased by Mead's commitment to assert the   
   argument for cultural determinism, as opposed to biological determinism, in   
   the popular “nature versus nurture” debate. Freeman, in fact, has conducted   
   his own study, coming to    
   precisely the opposite conclusion (Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and   
   Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth); but other anthropologists have contended   
   already that Freeman intentionally set out to attack Mead and to disprove   
   cultural determinism due    
   to his own bias for biological determinism. Whatever may be the truth of the   
   matter in Samoa, it does seem certain that both analyses – that of Mead and   
   that of Freeman – are, to some extent, “ideologies in disguise”.   
      
   [398] Most of Adam Smith's personal papers and unfinished manuscripts have   
   been deliberately destroyed – some as late as 1942. One need not stretch the   
   imagination far to understand the basic motivation behind this paper-shredding.   
      
   [399] Finally, in 1787 – at the age of 64 – Smith was also elected as rector   
   of the University of Glasgow.   
      
   [400] In this same respect, one may note that, in 1763, Smith resigned his   
   professorship at the University of Glasgow to accept the very well-paid   
   position of private tutor to the young Duke of Buccleuch. Clearly, the British   
   aristocrats were not in the    
   habit of selecting revolutionary thinkers to educate their own children.   
      
   [401] In 1740, while Smith was briefly studying at Balliol College, Oxford,   
   his own treasured copy of Hume's book was confiscated by the college   
   authorities.   
      
   [402] At the time when Smith was writing his major economic work, Inquiry into   
   the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, economics was a new science –   
   rather it was barely in its infancy. Hence, Smith's work was valued not so   
   much for its analysis,    
   which was anything but rigorous, but because it provided a rationale that the   
   British government could use to justify its existing economic policies.   
   Undoubtedly in recognition and appreciation of his most valuable service to   
   the State, Smith was    
   appointed as Commissioner of Customs and Salt Duties for all of Scotland – an   
   easy job having not only a high salary, but also a high potential for black   
   income. This position was awarded to Smith just one year after the publication   
   of his Wealth of    
   Nations; and, in consequence, Smith felt so secure economically that he   
   offered to forego his 300 British pounds per year pension for having tutored   
   the Duke of Buccleuch – an offer which, as a point of honor, was not accepted.   
      
   It may also be noted here that the work that Adam Smith began has largely   
   continued up until today. In consequence, the science of economics still   
   amounts to little more than government propaganda.   
      
   [403] It should be remembered that, according to Calvin's religious doctrine,   
   it was the noble duty of a good Christian to work hard in order to achieve   
   material prosperity. Moreover, unhampered by any special obligation to engage   
   in charitable    
   activities, and enjoined against the profligate life of a spendthrift, the   
   effective function of that material prosperity was simply to facilitate the   
   expansion of an individual's economic holdings. That vast amounts of hoarded   
   wealth would remain    
   concentrated in the hands of a few while millions upon millions of starving   
   people would die for lack of a mere crust of bread was, unfortunately, none of   
   Calvin's concern.   
      
   [404] The most famous study on this subject is Max Weber's The Protestant   
   Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, in which Weber analyzed how the philosophy   
   of Calvinism provided an impetus for the fastest possible accumulation of   
   capital. According to Weber,   
    for the first time in history a religion had emerged which encouraged its   
   adherents to conceive of capital gains as a sign of divine favor. Weber backed   
   up his remarks with a German-based study of the statistical correlation   
   between interest and success    
   in capitalist ventures on one hand and Protestant background on the other. (As   
   a side note, it may be that Weber might have been inspired by a close   
   observation of his own mother, who was raised as an orthodox Calvinist, and   
   who remained a puritan    
   throughout her life.)   
      
   [405] Marx's father, Heinrich, was originally named Hirschel ha-Levi. Not only   
   was Heinrich's father a rabbi, but his brother as well. The father of Marx's   
   mother, nee Henrietta Pressburg, was a rabbi in Nijmegen, Netherlands.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)