My Minimal Brain Damage

"The polymaths of old were one-brain universities." - Edward Carr

The reason I used "Minimal Brain Damage" is that before the advent of ADD that is what is was called. I had a girlfriend in college who was diagnosed with that, and when she had kids she home-schooled them.

I recently read an article about how growing up without a father permanently alters the brain in children, which statistically is associated with increases in violence and drug abuse.

Tell me something I didn't know. I saw it many times growing up.

I mean, come on, think about dogs and not people. Everyone knows what an abused dog is like. I have a rescue pug, who was apparently hit and starved. When I got him he bit me hard enough to split the skin open (several times) and if I went anywhere near him when he was eating he'd snarl and charge me. It took a year to turn him into a good pug. And he was seven years old when I got him.

Our society is set up to cause brain alterations in children. That is, brain damage. For years.

I especially have this dislike of public schools. From five to 17? What the hell? Don't you think 12 years of brain-washing and propaganda is going to have a good affect or bad affect on children? I am amazed at how well the kids turn out....considering how high are dropout rate is.

There used to be polymaths in the past. I keep thinking Erasmus Darwin, although there were many others.

How can anyone turn into a polymath after sitting in public school for 12 tears, and then are supposed to get three advanced degrees, up to a Ph.D.?

I suspect would-be polymaths are impatient and restless, which is how Richard Posner described himself. And this is a man whose day job is as an appeals-court judge in Chicago, along with writing on sex, security, politics, Hegel, Homeric society, medieval Iceland and a whole lot more.

In other words, a budding polymath these days would be considered to have ADD and probably medicated - which is more brain damage. Then add in basically 12 years sitting in a chair and being bored. The brain shuts down, just like a dog confined to a cage - or a kid in a 12-year sentence is a semi-prison. (Thom Hartman has referred to these children as the Hunter Child.)

If any polymaths start popping up in the coming years, they'll be home-schooled.

"Isaiah Berlin once divided thinkers into two types. Foxes, he wrote, know many things; whereas hedgehogs know one big thing. The foxes used to roam free across the hills. Today the hedgehogs rule." - Edward Carr