Opus 2022-225: Nice and Good

Allow me to make a statement that sounds heretical.

Teachers are basically nice people.

Notice that I did not say “good”.  I said “nice”.

If you are one of those people that think the two words are synonyms then I would have to pick a different word on one side or the other.  Nice people don’t litter.  Nice people don’t play their music too loud after 10:00.  Nice people tip the waitress.  Nice people try not to hurt your feelings.  I could go on forever.  Teachers are nice people.  Nice is, well, nice, but it is not necessarily good.  In our culture nice people can also commit adultery, do drugs, lie and cheat and we even have nice parents taking their children in to be mutilated by sex change operations.  They are all probably wonderful neighbors.

Good can simply mean that the center fielder made a good catch.  Someone said a good landing is any that you can walk away from.  I am using it in the moral sense.  When I say teachers are not necessarily good I mean that they have no objective morals.  Yes, they do have a sense of right and wrong but it is subject to change based on the winds of culture.  Think of the topic of “climate change”.  When the wind blows one way they are concerned about global warming.  When the cultural winds change they become concerned about global cooling.  Or look at the American Communist Party.  When Hitler and Stalin were making like brothers from a different mother they proclaimed that war against Germany was evil.  When Hitler invaded Russia they produced an immediate about face.  Now war was good.  The difference had nothing to do with Hitler being bad but that Stalin and Communism were their gods.

Teachers are nice people.  Many like children.  Many work very hard.  Many care.  They are still at the core of what is wrong with the country because they have no moral compass.  In one sense they are just a part of the herd.  In a more real sense they are in the role of Judas Goat.  That is a goat that is trained to lead other animals places including the slaughter house.

When you see all the headlines about the brainwashing and grooming going on, most of it is done in a subtle way.  There are a few really bad actors, true, but most of the teachers taking the baby steps of indoctrination don’t know what you are getting upset about.  They don’t put the picture together.  To them morals and ethics are a fluid field and as long as everybody feels good about themselves then they are doing their job.

I retired from teaching five years ago.  If I had not done so I am sure I would have been fired by now.  I know that the administration breathed a big sigh of relief when I walked off campus.  

If you have a family member that feels called to be a teacher then pray for them and try to make sure that they have enough of a foundation to get in trouble for the right reasons.

Make them good, not just nice.

homo unius libri