Reply #117: One of the best courses I ever took was "Sex Role Stereotypes in Education"

[TrogL]

Taught in the 70's by a totally out, shaved-head lesbian.

We spent the first two weeks of a one-semester course on Symbolic Logic. That's right, Logic 101 - syllogisms, formal arguments, logical fallacies, the whole ball of wax.

Then she used that to destroy everything we thought we knew about gender, sex, sex roles, feminity, masculinity, the GLBT community, religion and on and on. Worse, she made you do it yourself. You'd come up with some position like "only girls should be taught home-ec and only boys should be taught shop" then have to defend yourself against "why are most chefs men" and "why are many craftspeople women" and just when you thought you'd gotten away relatively unscathed, she was right back with "given that there are talented chefs such as Julia Child, why are most chefs men" (note, you're now arguing against yourself) and "why is craftsperson (along with a few others) one a few trades available to women".

One poor fellow, a "star of the football team" type (presumably there hoping for a quick credit) would often be reduced to tears of frustration by the end of the class. Being raised authoritarian, he knew what he knew about sex roles was right; being a quick study, he knew that he could prove that wrong now that he had the tools, and he was watching his whole philosophical world crumble in front of him. He passed, and his behaviour towards women (and the LGBT community) changed drastically. (Oxford commas intentional)

Now the problem with having a discussion or debate with an authoritarian on a specific topic is that you can't have a discussion or debate with an authoritarian at all - they'd flunk the course. Unlike my "star of the football team" colleague, they simply can't handle the tools. They wouldn't know cognitive dissonance if they tripped over it.

You want to change America? As soon as your kids are old enough (around age 14), teach them how to do a syllogism. That's immunize them!