And I mean it.

I still am pretty worked up over this post from Katharine Birbalsingh — Britain’s strictest Head Mistress. I wrote a post yesterday but I am still mad about it because she is so irritatingly wrong. Her basic premise is that people used to be better because they taught their kids traditional values. My point was that maybe traditional values also supported a Racist, Sexist, and Homophobic society. So really how good were these traditional values? They certainly didn’t stop people from being mean-spirited to the people they didn’t like.

After thinking about it more, I am inclined to say that Birbalsingh should fold it four ways and stick it where the sun don’t shine. Pardon my untraditional approach here. She uncritically praises the past while dumping on, to me, the much better world of today. How can she praise traditional values when they so clearly failed so many people. The pregnant teenager sent to a horrible workhouse where her baby was stolen. The gay people forced out of their jobs because they were caught in a police raid. The People of Color who were denied entry into jobs and education because they were the wrong color.

The past wasn’t so sunny as she makes out and a lot of it was due to strict enforcement of these traditional values. I ask her would she rather live in the modern world in which Racism, Sexism and Homophobia is seen as wrong or in a traditional society where they are tolerated and supported? I would hope that she would embrace the progress we made and work to make this new foundation a better arrangement. Nothing is perfect.

But until then fie on traditional values.