Minders & Brainers
I believe that being an open-minded and well-rounded person requires stepping out of your comfort zone and considering opinions, arguments and worldviews that don’t always mesh with your own. It may seem cowardly to sort of “justify” my reasoning in providing the forthcoming link. But I often get frustrated at what I think can be a surprising amount of conformity among folks these days when interpreting events and cultural phenomenon. With that said, from time to time I visit the National Review Online and find it to be a place where compelling conservative viewpoints can be found. For instance, this piece about “minders” and “brainers” makes a case for how we’ve turned human conditions, such as sadness into problems with medical solutions. The author, Stanley Kurtz, asks, “Why is it that school children are indoctrinated into anti-drug awareness yet we’re medicating four million kids with a drug almost indistinguishable from cocaine?” (Ritalin). The author asserts that conditions formerly treated with traditional religion, sprituality, etc. are now, more than ever, handled by prescription drugs. And the proponents of these “solutions,” known as “evolutionary psychologists,” have essentially created a religion that relies on unsubstantiated speculation.