Shaming traditions like rote memorization contain valuable attention-forming practices

Evidence

Are you a little embarrassed about your evangelical cousin? The one whose kid is being forced to learn the Bible by heart? Think again! There is surely something very special in that form of attention-formation. Anxious about the lingering gender stigma of domestic labor? And the complex shame that too often comes with both doing and not doing childcare? And what about that “Great Books” curriculum at the college on the hill? Again, there is a world of rethinking to be done, as those complicated legacies are reconceived in attentional terms. How can those traditions be renewed, and serve all of us differently as we fight back against the frackers? Everything we have, re-seen through the lens of attention, becomes a way forward: music, sports, cooking, Talmud, feeding the baby, sitting with those who are soon to die. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 438

Categorization

• SEED: A reclaim-the-canon argument: rote Biblical memorization, ‘Great Books,’ and gendered caregiving re-read as attentional training rather than mere socialization — a strong essay angle.
• XREF: Reverses the usual progressive embarrassment about memorization and religious formation; resonates with oral-tradition defenses of memory culture. — connects to: Seepticised traditions gain value when reconceived as attention formation — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 438; Attention-and-shame culture magnifies people’s baser impulses into harm. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror…, 1101; Collective shaming discipline is psychologically violent though non-corporal — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 5618

Broader Connections

• Seepticised traditions gain value when reconceived as attention formation #expands (0.85) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 438
• Attention-and-shame culture magnifies people’s baser impulses into harm. #complicates (0.80) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 1101
• Collective shaming discipline is psychologically violent though non-corporal #complicates (0.78) — , The Rod and the Child, 5618