<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div></div><div>Do you think that, practically speaking, the religiously-derived ethical education was of much use/impact for your average little German kid? (Not that the compulsory philosophically-derived ethics classes modern college students have to take seem to end up doing them much good...) </div><div><br></div><div>Maybe it really was insufficient for a post-WWI world--which would fit into certain parts of what I take to be GR's cosmology, that the forces of evil have thoroughly stripped our old mythologies of their mystery and potency. </div><div><br></div><div>Kant and Weber prioritize ethics, sure, though I'm not sure the work of two of a country's greatest thinkers tells us everything about what was going on inside the head of that country's average citizen. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br>On Jun 8, 2016, at 2:55 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <<a href="mailto:lorentzen@hotmail.de">lorentzen@hotmail.de</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>
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> ... ethics. Germany did not make them a compulsory part of
education, as all nations now must.<br>
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I don't know what this refers to. In a historical perspective,
German schoolkids were among the earliest in Europe to receive
religious instructions including ethical teaching, because Luther
and others thought that parents couldn't do the job properly.<br>
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<small>> Ganz allgemein gilt, dass der Religionsunterricht in
Deutschland in der Schule eine vergleichsweise starke Stellung
besitzt. Darin spiegelt sich geschichtlich gesehen eine
Entscheidung der Reformation, die von Anfang an die Schule auch
für die religiöse Erziehung in Pflicht genommen hat. Hinter
dieser Entscheidung stand wiederum die Wahrnehmung, dass die
Eltern in vielen Fällen nicht willens oder in der Lage wären,
die religiöse Erziehung zu übernehmen. Deshalb, so etwa Luther,
sollte die Schule - und d.h. das Gemeinwesen - in diese Aufgabe
eintreten. < <br>
</small><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.rpi-loccum.de/material/aufsaetze/frieschw">http://www.rpi-loccum.de/material/aufsaetze/frieschw</a><br>
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Sure, this was ethical teaching in the form of Christian religious
education (10 commandments, Sermon on the Mount etc.) -
philosophy, as in alternative in secular times, wasn't introduced
before the 1970s (in socialist East Germany there was a-religious
ethical teaching in schools since the late 1940s, though) - and it
will certainly not always have been good ethical teaching on how
to treat Jews correctly. But to say that Germany had, compared to
other European nations, a lack in ethical education appears to me
as a pseudo-explanation without empirical basis. Also when you
look at philosophy. While Hegel is indeed not very interested in
ethics, Kant ("Primat der praktischen Vernunft") puts it in the
center of his philosophy! And in 1919 Max Weber said that
politicians have to balance out an ethic of moral conviction
("Gesinnungsethik") by an ethic of responsibility
("Verantwortungsethik"). <br>
But perhaps you mean something else?<br>
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On 07.06.2016 16:06, Smoke Teff wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">I was skimming some of the Weisenburger in advance
of leading this next episode, here. Was reading the full source
for <i>GR</i>'s epigraph, which source Weis calls "a little
homily by Wernher von Braun."
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<div>WvB opens: "Today, more than ever before, our
survival--yours and mine and our children's--depends on our
adherence to ethical principles. Ethics alone will decide
whether atomic energy will be an earthly blessing or the
source of mankind's utter destruction." </div>
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<div>He says the desire for ethical action comes from a belief
in A) a Last Judgment and B) an immortal soul "which will
cherish the reward or suffer the penalty decreed in a final
Judgment."</div>
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<div>Reminds me of seeing Elie Wiesel speak maybe five or six
years ago (with all kinds of protests going on outside the
building). </div>
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<div>He said he has been persistently plagued by the question
(from others and from himself) of how WWII Germany, then the
most well-educated, culturally/technologically advanced
civilization the world had ever known would also be capable of
producing such atrocity. And the pursuant question of how
something like that might be avoided.</div>
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<div>He said the answer was ethics. Germany did not make them a
compulsory part of education, as all nations now must.
Knowledge becomes is at best worthless, at worst dangerous,
without ethics. </div>
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<div>Apologies if I've mentioned this around here before. </div>
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