Muhammad: The "Banned" Images Blog Free Speech at Risk

“Friend” Everyone

Without favorites, preferences, personal values, there is no "I" -- no self. And modern childhood educators know this. Their wicked desire to render a child's ego stillborn can be seen in the mania over group projects, "service" learning masquerading as education, forcing a child to bring a Valentine's Day card for all classmates, a focus on "socializing" versus developing a child's cognitive faculty.

The latest move by the modern Comprachicos is to eradicate the concept of "best friend." According to the killers of a child's spirit, such a friend "signals potential trouble for school officials intent on discouraging anything that hints of exclusivity . . ." According to one, "we say [Johnny] doesn't need a best friend." The ideal, according to the NYT article, is for children to "almost always socialize in a pack." If two children do become too close, then the re-educators "put them on different sports teams [or] seat them at different ends of the dining table . . ." (The antidote to this pack mentality is, of course, a Montessori education.)

Properly speaking, a friend is a reflection of one's basic values. That person is, in Aristotle's words, "another self." But if there is no self, then everyone (and, really, no one) is a friend. (See Peter Keating.) And the reverse is true. If a child is taught that it is wrong to have a best friend, what he's being told is that it is wrong to have personal values -- such as intelligence, excellence, a sense of adventure. Such a child will then repress and hide his values or kill them and join the pack. A rare few have the courage to fight for their ego. (For more on this, see Rand's essay "Art and Moral Treason" in _The Romantic Manifesto_.)

On a personal note, as the father of a six-year-old, I find this movement murderously disgusting. And as a college professor, I have seen first-hand the nearly irreparable harm it causes to otherwise bright and ambitious young people. Such students graduate still trying to "find themselves," and primed politically for this country's march toward collectivism.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/fashion/17BFF.html?scp=1&sq=a%20best%20friend&st=cse