Tim Moen

The following is a letter to the editor of Macleans Magazine that I helped my step-daughter craft after she came to me for help (with her teachers permission) to write a response to an article about schools brainwashing children. Needless to say it was not published. Dear Editor, I agree that kids are brainwashed by their schools.   Schools should teach kids how to think or learn instead they teach kids what to think. H.L. Mencken said the aim of public school, “.. . is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.” Public schools are this way by design, based on the Prussian model that was developed to create a class of obedient factory workers and military men. How else would you describe an institution where the people (yes us kids are people) are compelled to attend, required to sit still in desks oriented towards a power figure, required to learn what the aut...

In my last blog post I outlined why I think there is a prevalence of the zombie meme in pop culture; namely that there is an increasing anxiety about mindless, brain eaters. In the spirit of full disclosure I have a bias towards this metaphor because I have a fair amount of anxiety about mindless, brain-eaters but I do think it is a rational fear. This all started when I saw a video of a horde of Black Friday shoppers at a Walmart and I mistook it for an episode of ‘The Walking Dead’. I posted a tweet comparing the average person to a zombie and was challenged by a reader who did not think my comparison was fair or accurate. After my last blog post she still doesn’t think its fair or accurate to call the average person a zombie, so I feel the need to further my case for the metaphor before I delve into the origins and possible cure for what I think could aptly be called the zombie virus. The first thing I need to do is define my terms. For the purpose of this metaphor I will defi...

Zombies are mindless automatons that are neither dead nor alive, eat brains and are singularly focused on consumption. I hypothesize that there is a rational reason that the zombie is an increasingly popular figure in today’s culture, namely that it closely resembles what we fear most…our fellow humans. We’ve all seen the video's of crazed shopping mobs on Black Friday and faced the holiday throngs ourselves in crowded stores intent on pushing our way through and getting what we "need". These are the zombie hordes and we ourselves are part of what we most fear. Let us look at what defines a zombie. 1)       Neither Dead nor Alive Automatons – They are drifting through an existence that is mindless and seemingly never ending, unaware of their own motivating drive to consume. How much does this resemble our everyday lives? Get a job, work 9 – 5, watch TV, consume products, and repeat until death. Most of us have a nagging itch in our minds that somet...

     Imagine that there is a powerful thug who comes around every so often to rape you and your neighbours.  But he is a nice thug in the sense that he allows you to vote on the way he is going to rape you, you can choose which orifice and perhaps choose the sweet nothings he whispers in your ear as he violates you.  The people all around you activiely participate in their democratic right to choose how they are violated.  The fine and intricate details of rape philosophy are passionately debated as some prefer the mouth while others prefer the anus and so two groups form and the neighbourhood is collectivised and labelled in these terms...you are either a mouther or an anuser (right wing or left wing).       Advocates of democracy argue passionately that our ancestors fought and died to get this new rapist, remember the old rapist never gave us a choice.  They praise the qualities of our rape system and rave a...