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e35d25d
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Teachers dread nothing so much as unusual characteristics in precocious boys during the initial stages of their adolescence. A certain streak of genius makes an ominous impression on them, for there exists a deep gulf between genius and the teaching profession. Anyone with a touch of genius seems to his teachers a freak from the very first. As far as teachers are concerned, they define young geniuses as those who are bad, disrespectful, smoke at fourteen, fall in love at fifteen, can be found at sixteen hanging out in bars, read forbidden books, write scandalous essays, occasionally stare down a teacher in class, are marked in the attendance book as rebels, and are budding candidates for room-arrest. A schoolmaster will prefer to have a couple of dumbheads in his class than a single genius, and if you regard it objectively, he is of course right. His task is not to produce extravagant intellects but good Latinists, arithmeticians and sober decent folk. The question of who suffers more acutely at the other's hands - the teacher at the boy's, or vice versa - who is more of a tyrant, more of a tormentor, and who profanes parts of the other's soul, student or teacher, is something you cannot examine without remembering your own youth in anger and shame. yet that s not what concerns us here. We have the consolation that among true geniuses the wounds almost always heal. As their personalities develop, they create their art in spite of school. Once dead, and enveloped by the comfortable nimbus of remoteness, they are paraded by the schoolmasters before other generations of students as showpieces and noble examples. Thus teh struggle between rule and spirit repeats itself year after year from school to school. The authorities go to infinite pains to nip the few profound or more valuable intellects in the bud. And time and again the ones who are detested by their teachers are frequently punished, the runaways and those expelled, are the ones who afterwards add to society's treasure. But some - and who knows how many? - waste away quiet obstinacy and finally go under.
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education
hermann-hesse
institution
teachers
genius
students
school
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Hermann Hesse |
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336feaf
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Whose little boy are you?
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racism
youth
religion
god
harlem
james-baldwin
renaissance
institution
epiphany
coming-of-age
black
church
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James Baldwin |
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94cb975
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I propose a conspiracy of orphans. We exchange winks. We reject hierarchies. All hierarchies. We take the shit of the world for granted and we exchange stories about how we nevertheless get by. We are impertinent. More than half the stars in the universe are orphan-stars belonging to no constellation. And they give off more light than all the constellation stars.
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individuality
hierarchies
subversion
institution
orphan
solidarity
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John Berger |
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72f1861
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Bedlam: an institution with a history so fearsome it gave its name to a synonym for chaos and pandemonium.
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madness
institution
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Jon Ronson |
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f1d7b06
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The most evil institution in the world is the Roman Catholic Church.
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catholic-church
roman-catholic
institution
church
evil
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H.G. Wells |
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6029a12
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The Sanskrit texts make it clear that a cataclysm on this scale, though a relatively rare event, is expected to wash away of the former world and that the slate will be wiped clean again for the new age of the earth to begin. In order to ensure that the can be repromulgated for future mankind after each the gods have therefore designed an institution to preserve them -- the institution of the Seven Sages, a brotherhood of adepts possessed of unerring memories and supernatural powers, practitioners of yoga, performers of the ancient rituals and sacrifices, ascetics, spiritual visionaries, vigilant in the battle against evil, great teachers, knowledgeable beyond all imagining, who reincarnate from age to age as the guides of civilization and the guardians of cosmic justice.
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wisdom
cycle
institution
sanskrit
seven-sages
civilization
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Graham Hancock |