Muddled thinking over education and patriotism

Get a grip ... the world is full of whingers. Find something that really needs your help. The reindeer look really well cared for. PJ O’Rourke, writer, The Prince Of Wales

Bernard Hinault, cyclist - five-time winner of the Tour de France, Letitia Dean, actress Adam Gilchrist, former cricketer, Faye Tozer, former Steps singer, Russell Tovey, actor, IN Nick Martinek’s letter ‘Lessons in patriotism’ he manages to violate rational thought, linguistic and conceptual analysis and to confuse fact and belief.

Barry Sheerman, apparently, should be ‘ashamed of himself’ because he has claimed that better educated people voted against Brexit. Mr Sheerman simply registered the fact that surveys conducted found that the more educational qualifications each person possesses the more likely it is that he/she voted against leaving the EU.

This doesn’t prove Brexit is a mistake but it should be at least food for thought.

Mr Martinek then mangles two concepts: education and patriotism.

Education can be defined in a number of ways but it has to be related to acquiring an ability to think rationally.

The young, he informs us, should be educated so as to become patriotic - they will then be more likely to accept Brexit.

A dictionary definition: ‘patriotism is a vigorous support of one’s country.’ The more we study history, the more we are likely to suspect patriotism and its ‘vigorous support.’

There is nothing rational in every nation vigorously supporting its own existence some countries must be on the wrong path.

Is patriotism good for North Korea?

Indoctrination creates patriotism, not education.

Mr Martinek then offers the following: ‘correlation does not prove causation.’ Now, there is a correlation between heavy cigarette smoking and cancer. The tobacco companies argued for decades that the former does not prove the latter, but an earlier acceptance would have saved many lives.

‘Knowledge is power,’ Francis Bacon argued. We cannot know the future but we can attempt to know something about power and politics.

The UK, whether we like it or not, is losing its significance in the world.

We have been influential in the EU. We are European. We are tied to Europe, historically, culturally and financially. Every country on the planet is dictated to or influenced by the US, China, Russia or the EU.

The US is rich in patriotism, certainly, and Russia and China are trying to catch up. Plenty of ‘vigorous support’ there.

But how much for the UK? GREENS (Examiner, Saturday November 11, Page 8) are critical of the use of fossil fuels.

In the same issue (Page 19) former miners watching the demolition of Kellingley Colliery were heartbroken.

I would like to point out it was fossil fuel, and members of my own family, who helped save Britain in two world wars by producing coal (fossil fuel) to keep the war effort going.

Thus saving the freedom which these “Greens” now enjoy.