I state that there is no social skill

There are many people who are of the opinion that American high schools
are the place where people are to learn social skills and the place
where people are to learn what they need to exist in America.

I state that there is no social skill, or indeed any kind of a skill,
worth learning in a cesspool of cruelty, hypocrisy and deception, and
that the reward one gets for keeping his mind clear of such corruption
is far greater than any ugliness that he or she may learn in such a
place.

For this reason I support homeschooling efforts, tutoring efforts,
early-college efforts, teaching software and other efforts that allow
people to learn the academic material while remaining free of the
contamination they would get in an American high school.

Now when I speak of contamination that takes place in American high
schools, I speak not of sexuality; I speak of the culture of
hideousness that develops in such "places of education." I speak of
people who attack smart kids for taking academics seriously and of
people who attack beautiful girls for exercising or seeking to be their
best. I speak of the contamination of American high schools - not with
sexuality, but with something far worse: A mindset that wants to claim
that it represents real world, to which anything pure - intellectual
pursuits, artistic pursuits, beauty, excellence, passion and idealism -
are supposedly not suited. A mindset that fosters the consciousness
that the most important skill one can learn is how to screw over the
next person; mistreat anyone who is different in any way; form a
consciousness of a clique or a beehive; shunt all their sins - of which
they of course partake eagerly - on some outcast (whether it be
Southern girls having sex with black kids and then accusing them of
rape or other versions of the same); and then, with the psychological
costs of their upbringing externalized on someone they see as a shunt
(who becomes essentially an emotional garbage dump for their
hideousness), claim themselves good, morally upstanding, realistic
American citizens now protecting America from "perverts."

What they don't want to see is their own garbage floating up and
hitting them in the face.

I am acquainted with the high school experience of a white girl in a
conservative upper-class neighborhood in Virginia who was in love with
a black boy. Other girls were making rumours about how she was having
sex with all the black boys in the bathroom. With their garbage dumped
on someone who, unlike them, was essentially honest, these angelic
Christian girls went back to their parents claiming themselves their
good children. I am acquainted with high school experience of a girl in
a supposedly Democratic neighborhood who was the only National Scholar
in the history of her school. Other girls were attacking her for
supposedly being vain (for studying; for exercising; for pursuing
intelligence) when what she was is self-motivated - self-motivation
that of course was destroyed by this abuse, as well as the faith in
humanity that motivated her desire to excel. The culture of basic
hideousness, time and again, resulted in attack on anything pure - on
anything that is excellent, beautiful, intelligent and sincere. And
those, boys and girls, who were most attuned to these things, came
under the most vicious attack.

Who then become seen as problem kids or worse, when what they are is
the only sincere, honest, principled and self-motivated people in the
picture.

I posit this question: What skill conceivably worthy of learning can be
mastered in such an "environment"? How to lie? How to degrade? How to
be a bully? How to externalize psychological costs and then claim
oneself decent citizen? I do not believe that America's youth needs to
know anything of the sort. American people know that well enough;
indeed they know it too well. To learn how to navigate a morrass of
cruelty and hypocrisy teaches people nothing worth knowing; it teaches
them how to perpetuate such a morrass. What else does it do? Destroy
anything good and pure in people. Destroy their faith in humanity.
Destroy their self-image. Destroy their motivation to excel.

I have a friend who is a biology teacher. He said that all the children
in his class were afraid to be different. Now I posit this question. Is
it possible to have a free country when its citizens are Afraid To Be
Different? Or does this result in covert totalitarianism taking place
in America and shaping people's thoughts, people's perceptions, and
ultimately their Lives into Perpetuation of Itself?

Does America benefit from that taking place, or is that a blight to
America and to the Western civilization?

Indeed what takes place is a reversal of value. The good comes under
vicious attack, while hideousness perpetuates and claims for itself
moral authority. Social skill? Not any skill worthy of knowing. For
people who claim that this gives people the understanding of real
world, my response is: The world is what people make of it, through
their actions, pursuant their values and beliefs. And to give people
such beliefs and such "values," is to create a social universe that
should never have - was never worthy of - having been created. A social
universe of cruelty, greed, ugliness and corruption. A social universe
of mental oppression. A social universe that cannot stand for there to
be anything good and pure. A social universe that is a betrayal of the
civilization and a betrayal of humanity as such.

Is this what America wants to be? Is this the "social skill" that
American people are seeking to instill in their children? Is this the
kind of people they want their children to be? Is this the morals they
seek their children to learn - the ideology they seek to impart them -
the skills they want them to have - the kind of humanity with which
American people want to populate America? And then what, claim those
who rightly refused such hideousness to possess criminal personality?
Claim those who came in with self-motivation, faith in humanity and
desire to excel to be inferior to the kind of people who make rumors
that a girl is having sex in the bathroom with everyone, and the people
who are afraid to be different and create social dynamics that make
them afraid?

I repeat, What skill worth knowing is learned in a cesspool of cruelty,
hideousness, deception and mental oppression? What Character worth
Building is created in such a place? A character of honor? A character
of principle? A character of integrity? A character of liberty? Or a
character of dishonesty, cruelty, hypocrisy, degeneracy, oppression and
malice?

Indeed I would argue that people whom such people regard as - ahem -
"dangerous" - are the only people worth knowing; for they are the only
ones that could possibly be conceived as (to whatever degree) not being
complicit (or not being completely complicit) in this crime against
humanity and as such not being contaminated or not being completely
contaminated by their participation in it.

And then the perpetrators of this crime against humanity -
perpetrators of thought totalitarianism and feeling totalitarianism
wedded to cruelty, nastiness and deception - now all grown up and
endowed with some kind of supposed ethical mission to purify America,
go on claiming teenage girls who cut in order to deal with the
hideousness around them as being mentally defective? Claiming people
who rightly refused to partake in this hideousness as sociopaths? I'll
tell you this: I would rather be surrounded by a thousand so-called
sociopaths than be acquainted with a single "nice" "normal" citizen
shaped by this malignancy and complicit in its perpetuation. "Cruelty"
of supposed "sociopaths"? Nothing I've seen done by any supposed
sociopath, from K.E. to Edmond to David to Jonah to Layo, remotely
matches the cruelty of people indoctrinated into such "social
covenants" or the attack dogs that serve them. And when the cruelty
does come out, as it did in the case of David, it's out of the belief
that he is serving society - or whatever little gang he is claiming to
be his version of the same.

This the place where forms American character? This its "normality,"
its "sanity, its "realism," its "morals"? This is its "liberty,"
with everyone being made afraid to be different while indulging
completely in abuse and false accusation? This is indeed what gives
argument's force to religions that claim that man's only nature is sin.
I stand here to say that my nature is that of someone who pursued
excellence and sought to achieve for the sake of humanity until I found
out what humanity around me was. I've met more worthwhile people
afterwards, and my motivation came back to me. Either they were
survivors of horrible things at the hands of "normal" Americans, or
they saw through this deception at one time or another and then took
charge, while focusing on something truer and higher, and thus
leapfrogged their way out of the swamp and into a place worthy of being
had.

Let me ask this. What would someone sincere, motivated, and good of
will do when surrounded by hideousness? Would he take its supposed
"values" seriously, or would he see their blatant hypocrisy and
vileness? Would he then take the supposed social morality, shouted by
the same perpetrators of this degeneracy, seriously?

Would he become a man of ethics and principle? Or would he revolt
against this and all other forms of social deception and either derive
whatever morality he ends up getting from someplace better and
different (and of course rightfully hostile to this abomination), or
become one of the so-called sociopaths and go through life without
ethics out of the mistaken but understandable notion (given the actions
of people around them) that all ethics are lies?

So I repeat once again: What possible skill worthy of knowing can be
built in a morass of cruelty, nastiness, hypocrisy and deception? Not
any skill worth teaching one's kids, if one is at all serious about
one's kids possessing any kind of principle or sincerity. And to the
people of any kind of sincerity, who either have children of that age
or children about to turn that age, I say this: If you want them to
continue excelling and to have any kind of purity, keep them away from
the swamp of hideousness that are American high schools. Homeschool
them, hire tutors, have them skip grades and go on to college. Have
them learn "social skills" that are worthy of knowing, in an
environment worthy of teaching them. And keep alive their motivation
and their sincerity and their faith in humanity, until they find people
(and become people) who are in fact worthy of such a faith.

Ilya Shambat.