The Downing of the Social Imagination

         Consider that each school year, children spend almost two hundred days sitting in public school classrooms being told what to think and believe mostly by teachers who have no concern whatsoever for biblical teachings ~ which is that the value of human life is not to be measured by man ~ Don McGee pg. 183 in "The Departure" by Terry James 2010.

You might respond by saying that is not true, teachers tell children that they are doing a good job even when they are not. I would respond by telling you that "you are right". Teachers do applaud mediocrity.  By doing so, they teach the value of human life... at least the value given to them. I also say, let us give some credit/ value to the young mind.  Though a developing social imagination, it can certainly discern good from bad and not so good from not so bad. When a child asks "How is this"? They look for a benchmark of acceptance while at the same time seek to know if there is better.

Whenever anyone asks that question no matter what age, it is because the social imagination already knows that there are expectations, that is why the question is asked. If the response to the question "How is this"? is "That's OK, that's nice, that's pretty, that's good enough", the expectation is lowered thinking that this is the way to satisfy society's social imagination.  What is initially expected, naturally expected because the question was put forward, is a response that expects more. What the response should be is... "that is starting to look like something, but it needs this or that. It is good but it needs more."

To better understand the difference between biblical teaching as in God fearing social imagination in respect to education and the non biblical teaching of the man fearing man social imagination is that inherently man doesn't like to fear and thus deconstructs expectations and social standards to reduce fear. But by doing so, man lowers 'downs' the social imagination.  Thus, the social imagination is not being built up into something greater but it is being dismantled into something simple less complicated as in a 'lower animal'.

You see, a God fearing social imagination is what stirs the imagination. And, we don't have to fear other men for God tells us "fear not for I am with you". Isaiah 41:10
 
            Humanists believe in man's creative ability, but they also believe that man himself evolved from "nothing" and was therefore created by "nobody".  Since man is biologically no more than the lower animals, the value of any human life is set by society and is therefore adjustable.  The value of human life in China was set by Chairman Mao. It was set in Stalinist Russia by Joseph Stalin and in North Korea by Kim Il Sung. The value of human life in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba or Columbia is set according to the perceived need of the state, as determined by a small group of military/political elites in harmony with their Marxist/humanist principles ~ Jack Kinsella pg. 110, in "The Departure" by Terry James, 2010.