Reply #40

You want us to think you'd need a lot of 50s to give us that average.

You can also get it from averaging equal numbers of 0s and 100s. Or something like 100 150s and 200 0s.

My point is that you want us to provide what the average peasant wants, and to believe that Afghanistan is populated primarily by average peasants. I believe this is a false assumption.

You also want us to hire teachers that will teach the population that educating girls is wrong, in hopes of having them gradually accept that girls should be educated. Why? Because if you try to teach them that girls should be educated while fighting those who teach that girls shouldn't be educated all that'll happen is that the "average peasant" will fight us.

Consider this: The girls' schools' classrooms are full of girls, sent voluntarily by their parents--which means by their fathers. Nobody's going to fight the Taliban because that would be dangerous. But a lot of fathers aren't listening to them. If their daughters are in danger, however, then the fathers will protect them by keeping them home.

Point to the average peasant. Is it the Taliban supporter, who feels it's necessary to torch or poison a school? Or the fathers who are sending their daughters (and sons) to school? It takes just a few of the former to do in the latter--and the remedy isn't to tell the more numerous school-supporters to give in and be indoctrined by those who hate the idea of girls being taught how to read.

There's a complex cultural stew in front of us, and most Americans barely recognize the ingredients even as they try to decide what's wrong with it.