What sort of monster can we expect this child to turn into?

Precisely the sort of monsters who have been taking over the country these past 25 years.

Thank you, Ron Reagan.

…One book…hmmm… So much depends on the context. For example: lost in the wilderness -> Boy Scout Handbook (or something of that sort). Last hand full of humans on Earth: How Things Work. Literature? Poetry? A religious book? Only for toilet paper.

In the “last people on earth” situation, there’s almost nothing you can do to keep subsequent generations from developing their own myths, legends and religions. Even if you give them a bible etched onto tungsten pages so that it can’t be damaged or decomposed, they’ll lose it, or forget how to read the damn thing. In this case, it would even lose its usefulness as toilet paper (ouch!)

But no, seriously, you had not only white people calling up and swearing that the myth “black people can’t float” is real, you had African Americans calling in too! Granted, everybody claiming the myth was older, so hopefully the younger generation knows that melanin doesn’t weigh that much.

I actually heard on a (liberal, no-less) radio talk show a long discussion about whether black people can — wait for it — float in water!

That’s crazy ignorant! Everybody knows that the only thing floating in water proves is that you’re a witch!

It was less than a year ago when I actually heard on a (liberal, no-less) radio talk show a long discussion about whether black people can — wait for it — float in water! I’m completely serious! There were dozens of callers that you could tell honestly thought they were not racist by holding to that fiction — and I’m sure they otherwise thought black people could accomplish anything.

It’s just an example of how these thoughts, although much worse in the past, still exist today.

Brian – You are ahead of your time. I know this because I know I am ahead of my time. And if the young whipper-snappers think we’re old fogies, it’s because they don’t know how hard we had to when we were their age! And we liked it!

That’s easy: Harry Potter

I’m currently reading Chamber of Secrets to my 7-year-old son. He’s always disappointed when it’s time to stop and go to bed.

Today we commonly regard Lincoln as a great man and probably our greatest president, but what is often overlooked is his belief that blacks could never be equal to whites. Does that archaic view lessen the magnitude of what he accomplished, or do we simply attribute it to the times in which he lived and leave it at that? As I said, this is a fascinating question.

Here’s another example I’ve noticed for some time. Home improvement products are my profession. One particular galling packaging scheme I’ve seen repeatedly involves the use of a young, attractive woman pictured on the label using the product with a big, happy smile. The subtext couldn’t be more obvious: “Look! Even a WOMAN can do this. A BLONDE woman!” Most people don’t even notice this, which reminds me of the illustrations above.

I often wonder what changes will occur to society’s norms that will leave me behind in my older years. Is there a position I stand firmly by today that seems correct now but will be shunned by the vast majority of a future generation? Will my grandchildren look at me as a grumpy, intolerant old man because of something that doesn’t bother me now? Or am I ahead of my time, simply waiting for the rest of the world to catch up to me? I sincerely hope it is the latter that is true.

Then, by the time you get old enough to question the deity’s motivations, you’ve already had the infallibility of the fairy tales ingrained into you, so you don’t bother questioning your own religion, only other ones.

He rushed home and told his wife Betsy about it. “We’ll win surely, Betsy, for it’s George Friggin’ Washington!” Then, after a long pause, Betsy replied “You’re not a very good Quaker, are you?”

…
4ndyman “Certainly the Bible isn’t the right way to go, but what book could you put in its place?”
Stranger in a Strange Land. It’s got biblical parallels, but reflects how things actually work (I still remember crying when that beautiful Martian man died. *sniff*). Lots of Heinlein’s “young adult” novels would work, too (moral trials, but with a healthy sense of optimism and can-do attitude. Also, moxie).

There are worse books than the Bible, though. The Book of Mormon, for example. I’d give other examples, but I don’t need an Ayatollah proclaiming a death fatwa on me.

That’s easy: Harry Potter. We want them to be satanists.

Actually, the single book idea is a false dilemma. I don’t think there is one book that single-handedly can carry that burden. If forced to pick one, I’d say any book except the Bible, for the simple reason that the Bible is the only book that our culture imbues with the superstition that it’s true. If you give them a Bible and tell them that everything in there is true, you’ll end up with a severely damaged child. Give them anything else, and as long as they understand it is fiction, they should be (at most) only slightly damaged. More likely, though, they’ll be a slightly better person, because they’ve been exposed to other ideas. Give them a lot of books, and they’ll probably end up much better for the experience.