How to Get More out of What You Read
March 13th, 2013 // 11:37 am @ Oliver DeMille
Two Books Reviewed by Oliver DeMille
People often ask me if I’m going to write a book called Thomas Jefferson Education for Adults.
They usually say this after reading my books A Thomas Jefferson Education or A Thomas Jefferson Education for Teens, or both.
They get excited about getting a truly great education, not settling for anything less than the highest quality of learning for themselves and their children, and they wonder how to really get that kind of education themselves.
My answer is always, “Start reading the classics.”
When people follow this suggestion, many of them soon realize they’re not getting as much out of their reading as some people seem to.
When they ask how they can get more from their reading, I frequently tell them to study the logical fallacies.
Too many classrooms and schools today teach students what to think rather than how to think, and even many professional and graduate schools focus on when to think.
Teaching students how to think (deeply, broadly, creatively, innovatively, etc.) seems to be a lost art in too much of our modern educational system.
Two books on fallacies are an excellent response: The Art of Argument by Aaron Larsen, Joelle Hodge, and Chris Perrin, and Joseph Spider and the Fallacy Farm by David Grant.
Read these books together, since the first is an excellent workshop on how to think and the second is a fun story that will pull in younger students.
These books not only teach readers how to think, they inspire them to engage thinking.
In short, to think.
A lot.
Specifically, these two books teach a number of fallacies of thinking—in an interesting and effective way.
I highly recommend them for any youth, parent and teacher who wants to boost their students’ thinking ability.
In fact, both books are a great read for any adult.
When people know the fallacies, they automatically start thinking more deeply and they get a lot more out of everything they read—especially the classics.
So if you’re reading important books and want to significantly increase your rate of learning from them, check out these two books.
It’ll make a huge difference for your students and, even more importantly, for you.
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Oliver DeMille is the chairman of the Center for Social Leadership and co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Blog &Book Reviews &Education &Featured
The Latest Filibuster
March 11th, 2013 // 1:11 pm @ Oliver DeMille
A Giant Step for Mankind…
Okay, the subtitle of this article is a little overblown, but I heard something that I found just plain fascinating the other day.
In fact, it is something I haven’t heard for a long time.
I was researching in a university library, sitting at a table looking for data in a stack of scholarly journals, when I heard the most unlikely thing in such a place.
“Rand Paul’s filibuster is so cool,” a girl’s voice said. My mind was focused on tables of World Bank summaries of currency values in industrial nations, and there were a lot of voices as students walked past and talked.
Most of them talked about classes, romances or roommates, and I tuned out to their words as I researched.
But my ears perked up and my mind tuned in when I heard these words.
I looked up to see a college girl, probably late teens or early twenties walking with three friends. The others nodded in response to her words.
“Really?” I thought, “Somebody thinks a national Republican figure is cool?” When I’ve heard such words before, it was always reserved to President Obama.
I mean, Ronald Reagan gets his share of praise from the older crowd, but the college students I’ve overheard recently saying a politician is cool have all mentioned either Obama or Ron Paul.
But a Republican who really could win the nomination, this was something different.
As a writer, I like to read and research in libraries (‘cause that’s where the books are, to paraphrase Willy Horton), restaurants and other public areas.
People walk by talking about things, and often they say something that helps an author’s thought process.
I went back to my research, and I forgot about the incident until I went to lunch.
As I balanced my attention between a salad and a copies of the World Bank tables, I was shocked to hear a girl from the next table say, “Did you see the filibuster yesterday? Rand Paul is so cool.”
I turned my head, expecting to see the same group of students, but to my surprise a whole different group sat there nodding.
What has happened?
Is it possible that Republicans will come up with a cool candidate in 2016?
Maybe.
It’s a long way off, to be sure.
But the hippest candidate always wins, or at least has in every election since the technicolor media age began in earnest around 1980.
Howard Dean once said that the way to know who won a presidential debate is to turn off the sound and just watch their body language.
On an even bigger scale, just turn off the television and internet and ask college-age students which candidate is really cool.
Jeb Bush suggested recently that he might run, Time magazine called potential candidate Marco Rubio the Savior of the Republican party.
Or did it just ask us if Rubio might redeem a party that can’t seem to get the Latino vote vital to winning the White House.
The whole idea of electing a cool president is frustrating for many on the Right, who see this as shallow popularity contesting in what should be one of the most serious votes anyone makes in an election year.
Still, the cool test wins every time, whether or not it should.
One thing is for sure.
Hillary Clinton is considered way cool, so if Republicans have any desire to take back the presidency in 2016 they need to meet a high standard.
More Mr. Smith Goes to Washington filibusters may be ahead, but Senator Paul’s filibuster seems to have caught many young people’s attention because it was so sincere.
That’s hard to duplicate, but for now Rand Paul’s popularity in the college crowd is worth watching.
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Oliver DeMille is the chairman of the Center for Social Leadership and co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Blog &Culture &Current Events &Featured &Government &Leadership &Politics
Is China Really a Threat?
March 11th, 2013 // 1:01 pm @ Oliver DeMille
I try to read most new books on China, because I think the growth of China on the world stage will continue for some time and eventually conflict with America’s interests.
Whether the conflict turns to cooperation or serious difficulty remains to be seen, but keeping abreast of what is happening in China is essential for today’s leaders.
A new book, Is China Buying the World? by Peter Nolan, is an interesting addition to the field and adds several key ideas to the dialogue.
First, it makes the case that no, China is not buying the world any more than Japan bought it in the 1980s (despite widespread fears that this was occurring).
Second, however, China is certainly growing economically and in world influence.
Chinese firms have purchased ownership in a number of companies around the advanced world, as well as tying up access to a lot of natural resources in the developing world.
And numerous multi-national companies have heavily invested in China.
This growth will likely continue, and even expand.
Third, China’s major challenge is restricted access to oil and energy.
As it grows, its thirst for energy will continue to increase and drive its international business expansion.
Fourth, China wants to be a much bigger player on the world scene, and it is following a specific strategy for global influence.
This strategy includes major investments in two key sectors of the world economy, banking and the aerospace industry.
Chinese leaders hope that together, these things—increased investment in the developing world, increased ownership of international resources especially oil, growing global investment in China, increased ownership in multi-national companies, major growth of Chinese influence in the banking and aerospace sectors—will significantly strengthen China’s world role.
Fifth, advances in the aerospace industry are significant because of the close ties between military and business technologies and projects.
As China increases its role in this endeavor, along with banking, it becomes more powerful economically, technologically and, if it chooses, militarily.
This book is a detailed and important read for anyone who cares about the future of the big powers in world relations.
More to the point, more people need to read and think more about the specific issues currently at play in China’s growth.
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Oliver DeMille is the chairman of the Center for Social Leadership and co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Blog &Book Reviews &Business &Current Events &Economics &Featured &Foreign Affairs
China v. Japan
March 1st, 2013 // 10:18 am @ Oliver DeMille
Interesting commentary with visuals:
Category : Blog &Current Events &Economics &Foreign Affairs
Emotion and Politics
February 18th, 2013 // 10:35 pm @ Oliver DeMille
In all the commentaries about the president’s 2013 State of the Union address and the responses by Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, one really stood out.[i]
Democratic thought-leader Van Jones said it outright: “Marco Rubio is dangerous for Democrats.”[ii]
Why?
Because he gets emotional about the issues, and, as Jones pointed out, genuine, authentic, caring emotion sways American voters.
The GOP has long acted as if all politics needs to be intellectual, and emotions are often treated as weakness or shallowness by the Right.
But the electorate loves emotion, and votes accordingly.
Put simply, if a top Republican can unite large segments of the populace behind authentic emotional passion, he or she will be a serious challenger in the 2016 election.
The last Republican candidate to elicit such raw emotion was Ronald Reagan.
Jones went on: “Marco Rubio is to the heart, what Paul Ryan is to the head…. [Rubio’s] ideas are extreme, the Tea Party loves this guy, but he is dangerous for Democrats because he can connect in a way that other people with those ideas cannot.”[iii]
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama appealed to both the mind and the heart, and so did Reagan.
Indeed, great presidents know how to effectively communicate in both realms.
The problem for the GOP in 2016 is simple: primary voters want something different than the general electorate.
While Republican primaries usually pick a nominee based on emotion, and then disappointed Republicans intellectually reason that they should vote for him because he is better than the liberal alternative, the better course would be to use intellect in the primaries and select a candidate that can win the general election by swaying the emotions of the general populace. While Democratic primaries tend to select candidates based on intellect (emphasizing who can win the White House), the general election emphasizes emotions.
This is a headache for a Republican party deeply divided between the following factions:
Tea Parties: “We’re broke, and going more broke. Fix the finances. America is in decline because our financial house is a mess—and getting rapidly worse. Freedom means small, limited government that lives within its means and unleashes the power of free enterprise.”
Fiscal Conservatives: “If we don’t get our fiscal house in order, we will continue to decline. But drop the angry tone. Let’s just fix the finances. Freedom demands wisdom.”
Social Conservatives: “It’s all about morals. If we don’t turn our hearts to God, we don’t deserve our freedoms or prosperity. We are in decline because our values are under attack. Freedom means moral strength.”
Compassionate Conservatives: “Government should be limited, fiscally strong, and attentive to real social needs. America is in decline because it is widely divided by classes and racial conflicts, and the solution is for government to wisely reform, cut spending, raise taxes where needed, and emphasize public-private cooperation to increase social justice. Freedom flourishes when government and the private sector work together.”
Neo-Conservatives: “Free markets are flourishing in the world, and the future of freedom has never been brighter. American isn’t in decline, we just need a solid conservative in the White House. Freedom means taking responsibility in the world.”
Ron Paul-Style Revolutionaries: “We’re way past reforming things. We need an outright revolution, and we need a great man or woman to lead it. Progress and decline are simply a matter of who leads us, and it’s time to get a great leader. Fix the finances, stop being the world’s policeman, and make America free and great again. Freedom is cool.”
There are also a number of Special-Interest Republicans who focus on one central theme (such as immigration, gun control, etc.) in their voting.
In the end, all of these groups will most likely support the Republican candidate, but during the primaries each will put forth its favorites.
This is the perhaps the biggest irony in American presidential politics: While Republican primary voters are generally very emotional, the Right usually turns intellectual during general elections.
The problem seems to be that the various factions of conservatives have a hard time getting passionate about supporting other kinds of Republicans.
They see the need to unite behind one candidate, but their support is mostly intellectual—not raw, gut emotion.
Democrats don’t seem to deal with the same challenge.
They are emotional (as well as intellectual) during the primaries, but they generally transfer their emotional support to the chosen candidate—regardless of who they supported in the primaries.
Intellect will be required for a candidate from either party to make it to the 2016 general election.[iv]
Once the two top candidates are selected, their biggest challenge will most likely be convincing Latino and independent voters that they care about their interests and needs.
No candidate is likely sway either group without a genuinely strong emotional appeal.
The GOP’s biggest benefit in 2016 might be President Obama.
If his administration continues its drive to the left—continued spending, taxing, borrowing, inflating the dollar, and regulating—most conservatives will be deeply emotional about politics after four more years.
If their frustration reaches a boiling point, we may witness a waking giant.
[i] Perhaps the most striking thing about the event is that fewer people watched the State of the Union address than any in the last 14 years.
[ii] CNN commentary on the 2013 State of the Union.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] It always is.
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Oliver DeMille is the chairman of the Center for Social Leadership and co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Blog &Government &Independents &Leadership &Politics
