Not Just a Number, Episode 6, The General

  

In this episode Dr. Fleming and Stephen take on “SpeedLearn,” which the Village Authorities pretend is about education when it’s really all about propaganda.  Join us as we discuss:
-The educational phenomenon of 100% entry, 100% pass
-How our modern “vaccine” regime is analogous to SpeedLearn
-Another sendup of modern art
-Who was Frederick of Austenburg and when was the Treaty of Adrianople
-WHY?

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FF

The Fleming Foundation

5 Responses

  1. Allen Wilson says:

    The mention of Frederick of Austenberg brings up a certain memory from childhood. Believe it or not, my paternal grandfather told me all about the second Schleswig war when I was about five or six years old. He could also tell me “why” (“because the Danes”; “because Bismarck” etc.), explain the origins of the war, and the consequences, including the rise of Prussia, the Austro-Prussian war, the exclusion of Austria from the the Reich, etc., all on less than a high school education, and with the annoyance of a little kid asking “why”. I still don’t know how he knew so much about that war, but when he was a child it was no farther back in the past than the Vietnam war is now. Nor was the war that was going on here at the same time, and they “why” of that war was also a question he could answer, but not in a way satisfactory to the elites of our time, but rather as it was explained to him by veterans of that war who lived through it themselves.

    Why is always the important question. Many homosexuals commit suicide because they can’t serve their purpose in this world. Their disorder means that they can’t serve the “why” of their existence, and all modern concepts of “rights” be damned.

    As for the speed learning concept in this episode, that brings back a memory from the late 80’s when I watched it with my father. I remember feeling a little uneasy yet intrigued by the concept, and then my father set it straight. He told me that if you were to learn something that way, all you would be doing is repeating a script mindlessly, ” you wouldn’t really be learning anything, you wouldn’t understand anything, you wouldn’t know anything”. I think he used the word “parrot”.

    Another question not addressed is “how”, which is something re-enactors are very good at explaining. How did the soldiers live? How did the women get by back home? And so on. This is the real human element that is totally lacking in many formal history courses, but which is passed down through family stories, if you are lucky.

  2. Allen Wilson says:

    The General also reminds me of the episode of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy TV show, where Arthur gets into an argument with the Nutrimatics drink machine, the ventilation system, the computerized floor, and the stereo system all at the same time. Meanwhile, the drink machine taps into the main shipboard computer to us its’ computing ability to try to solve the question of why Arthur wants “dried leaves in boiling water” (tea) instead of the drink the machine produces, disabling the entire ship at the very moment when they are under attack and need to escape from a Vogon battle fleet. I suggest finding the original episode, but here is a cartoon version that doesn’t really do the scene justice. It was all I could find:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAswvg60FnY

  3. Avatar photo Thomas Fleming says:

    The original radio show was great, the book based on it very good, but the TV show a bit sluggish in the pacing and tacky in video production. Great series all around but the best was the original radio.

  4. Allen Wilson says:

    I agree completely. I’ve got the original radio show stuffed away somewhere. It is the best. I’ve been putting off buying the book because books based on movies or radio shows generally aren’t all that good. I might give it a try.

  5. Avatar photo Thomas Fleming says:

    The book is basically the radio script with a connecting narrative.