(Illiteracy has so many faces, these days….)

The Catholic diocese of Harrisburg is teaching boys they shouldn’t wrestle girls and girls that they should expect and want more from boys and men than being slammed by them in a ring. Sounds sensible. A local columnist denounces the diocese for an “archaic” “decree.”

(source: Boys Shouldn’t Wrestle Girls. Is This Really Controversial? | National Review Online)

Well, now, let us pause to wonder what we mean by “controversial.”  I teach my students that it means “reasonable people may disagree” concerning an assertion.  In this sense, surely any important decision might be “controversial.”  This decision may be one such.  However, the local columnist Lopez cites certainly does not help me to decide what “reasonable people” think by supplying illiteracy like the following where reason ought to be:

Such a decree by the Catholic church sends the wrong message. It tells a male athlete that there is no reward for hard work and dedication in this instance. For the female, it has the same directive and taking it a step further, could diminish her self worth.

No one has the right to do that to another person. Sports is a microcosm of life, and we are taught to strive, to excel and reach our goals. When we get knocked down, we get back up and try again.

To me, this is taking that away. That what they — in this case a female wrestler — are trying to achieve doesn’t matter because of some old-fashioned perception that human nature trumps maturity.

[…]
What about the kid — male or female — that chooses to run five miles on Christmas morning instead of playing with his new Xbox or smart phone? They stick to a strict diet on these holidays while family members feast.

They deserve better. They deserve the freedom of choice and thinking for themselves. Not having someone do it for them.

(source: Catholic Dioceses of Harrisburg off base with archaic decree about girls and boys in high school wrestling: Elliott | PennLive.com)

Well, in any case, no dictionary need now go wanting for usage examples, s.v. “cliché-ridden”!

…let me be blunt.  Anybody who thinks a pubescent adolescent boy wrestling a pubescent adolescent girl has no sexual implications has no business supervising adolescents in any capacity, let alone while sweating in tight clothes on mats.  (Reason 153,002 I would never entrust any child of mine to a government-run school while any reasonable option, possibly including emigration, remains available.)

And let us not mistake “Six degrees of Any Abstract Noun With Positive Connotations” for reasoning, either.  (My recommended specific linked, though many another might also be salutary.)

I don’t care whether this specific rule was the most sensible way to achieve its healthy result; that is for others to decide.  I do care whether we can distinguish between moral reasoning, and prudent efforts to achieve real social goods, and the moral illiteracy of the barbarians we’ve churned out from our sadly misnamed “education system.”

I leave you with one final reflection on the meaning of “Controversial” from the indefatigable Lutheran Satire: