Joseph, John Taylor Gatto, and A Short Angry History of Modern Schooling

In my Bible reading for this morning, I came to the story of Joseph and his brothers. All sons of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, in the book of Genesis we find a pattern which is interesting to observe for the sinful human heart, particularly when jealousy takes root, then boils over to hatred. "But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him." "Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers they hated him even more." "So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words." "And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind." "They saw him from afar, and before he came near to them they conspired against him to kill him." This calls to mind what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5:21-22, we read: "You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire." That is to say, jealousy over time, unless interrupted, leads to anger. Anger then boils over into hatred, as the object of our wrath is seen by us to keep us from having the happiness and peace we seek.  Yet we find ourselves at an impasse when we are angry with our brother without just cause, since our anger can only grow. If our brother does good things, and we are angry with him because we are jealous of the good outcomes of his good choices, or true words, then we will only be all the more angry and jealous the better he does.  But if we are angry with our brother without cause, and then he does bad things, we will cite those also as justification for our anger, and proof that he was not doing good before, nor is he even capable of doing what is good. If our brother retaliates for our hostile actions, then we will retaliate, unless we love mercy, and realize the error of our ways. But if we both keep on retaliating, eventually the outcome will be to destroy one another, and ourselves. This, then, is why the hatred Joseph's brothers feel toward him equates to them already having murdered him in their hearts, even when all they end up doing in the end is selling him into slavery. And as a matter of fact, it turns out that in the case of the initial seed of their discontentment toward Joseph, Jacob's other sons are really at root finding fault with their father, and angry with him. Thus the coldness of their report when they bring the tattered, bloody coat of many colors which was symbolic of Jacob's favor, and the lie that his beloved son has been torn to pieces by a wild animal. So, too, the animus the ungodly feel toward God's people always turns in the end to murder, unless interrupted by God's grace and a restraining of evil. This Episode's Links: John Taylor Gatto: A Short Angry History Of Modern Schooling - The Academy, YouTube John Taylor Gatto - Wikipedia Bionomics - Wikipedia David Starr Jordan - Wikipedia Thomas Starr King - Wikipedia