Readers Digest comments on Zero Tolerance

An article in the May 2007 Readers Digest discusses some of the more heinous applications of Zero Tolerance policy, including one that's eerily parallel to the story of Elliot Voge I posted on earlier this year:

On a chilly December morning in Houston, Eddie Evans's 12-year-old son hurried out the door in shirt sleeves on his way to the bus stop. Feeling the cold, he ducked back into his house to quickly grab a jacket. It wasn't until he'd gotten inside the school building that he remembered his three-inch pocketknife was still in his coat. Why would a sixth-grader carry a knife? Because he was a Boy Scout and he'd brought it to his last Scout meeting.

After asking a friend what he should do, the boy decided to keep quiet and hide the knife in his locker until the end of the day. But his friend mentioned the knife to a teacher, and school officials called the police. That afternoon, cops arrested the Evans child and took him to a juvenile detention center. "From that point on, my family's life was flipped on its head," the boy's father says.

The boy was suspended from school for 45 days and enrolled in an alternative school for juvenile offenders. Evans says the place was like a boot camp, where his son -- a good student, a youth leader in his church and a First Class Boy Scout -- was so miserable he talked about suicide.

It goes on to list a few recent incidents I've missed. "According to a report issued by the Justice Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.:

• A 17-year-old in Richmond, Illinois, shot a paper clip with a rubber band, missing his target but hitting a cafeteria worker instead. He was expelled.


• A 12-year-old in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, diagnosed with a hyperactivity disorder, told others in a lunch line not to eat all the potatoes, or "I'm going to get you."
  Turned in by the lunch monitor, he was referred by the principal to the police, who charged the boy with making "terroristic threats." The kid spent several weeks in a juvenile detention center.


• A 13-year-old in Denton County, Texas, was assigned in class to write a "scary" Halloween story. He concocted one that involved shooting up a school, which got him a visit from police -- and six days in jail before the courts confirmed that no crime had been committed.

The Evans case ended with the boy's parent getting involved in local and state politics to prevent just these sorts of abuses. He's even set up a website, Texas Zero Tolerance, to educate and activate parents on the issue. I'll be keeping a close eye on them and commenting on interesting stories I find.

Teachers stage fake gun attack on kids

Associated Press, May 13 2007

Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables.

The mock attack Thursday night was intended as a learning experience and lasted five minutes during the week-long trip to a state park, said Scales Elementary School Assistant Principal Don Bartch, who led the trip.

"We got together and discussed what we would have done in a real situation," he said.

But parents of the sixth-grade students were outraged.

"The children were in that room in the dark, begging for their lives, because they thought there was someone with a gun after them," said Brandy Cole, whose son went on the trip.

Some parents said they were upset by the staff's poor judgment in light of the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech that left 33 students and professors dead, including the gunman.

During the last night of the trip, staff members convinced the 69 students that there was a gunman on the loose. They were told to lie on the floor or hide underneath tables and stay quiet. A teacher, disguised in a hooded sweat shirt, even pulled on locked door.

After the lights went out, about 20 kids started to cry, 11-year-old Shay Naylor said.

"I was like, 'Oh My God,' " she said. "At first I thought I was going to die. We flipped out."

Principal Catherine Stephens declined to say whether the staff members involved would face disciplinary action, but said the situation "involved poor judgment."

How horrible! It may have only been a drill--but did that make the emotions any less real? There was no gunman--but did that make the children any less frightened? For these kids, in this situation, they feared for their lives. Ten, eleven and twelve-year-olds, believed that they would never see their parents again. And this 'drill' was done without their parents' knowledge or permission, and the kids had no reason not to believe their teachers.

Do we conduct fire drills by trapping kids in a burning building, even though the fire may be controlled? Do we teach kids how to dial 911 and give information by having their parents fake heart attacks? Absolutely not. Although these methods are powerful, they are also cruel. What must the kids think of these teachers who would do such a thing to them?

Since the original article was reported it has come to light that the whole incident was a prank at a school camping trip, intended to be in the same vein as spooky ghost stories. The people responsible have since been suspended. 'Poor judgment', indeed.

Student banned for game map of school

Fort Bend Now, April 30 2007

Members of the area Chinese community have rallied behind a Clements High School senior who was removed from the campus and sent to M.R. Wood Alternative Education Center after parents complained he’d created a computer game map of Clements.

About 70 people attended the Fort Bend Independent School District’s April 23 meeting to show support for the Clements senior and his mother, Jean Lin, who spoke to FBISD Board trustees in a closed session.

While an agenda document does not specify details, the board is holding a special meeting tonight to address the boy’s actions and the discipline that was meted out as a result, sources close to the matter say. The boy’s name was not identified last week, and the district has declined to discuss his case.

Richard Chen, president of the Fort Bend Chinese-American Voters League and a acquaintance of the boy’s family, said he is a talented student who enjoys computer games and learned how to create maps (also sometimes known as “mods”), which provide new environments in which games may be played.

The map the boy designed mimicked Clements High School. And, sources said, it was uploaded either to the boy’s home computer or to a computer server where he and his friends could access and play on it. Two parents apparently learned from their children about the existence of the game, and complained to FBISD administrators, who investigated.

“They arrested him,” Chen said of FBISD police, “and also went to the house to search.” The Lin family consented to the search, and a hammer was found in the boy’s room, which he used to fix his bed, because it wasn’t in good shape, Chen said. He indicated police seized the hammer as a potential weapon.

“They decided he was a terroristic threat,” said one source close to the district’s investigation.

Sources said that although no charges were filed against the boy, he was removed from Clements, sent to the district’s alternate education school and won’t be allowed to participate in graduation ceremonies with classmates.

“All he did was create a map and put it on a web site to allow students to play,” Chen said. “The mother thinks this is too harsh.”

FBISD officials declined to comment on the matter Monday. “Our challenge is, people in the community have freedom of speech and can say what they want, but we have laws” covering privacy issues, especially involving minors, that the district has to respect, said spokeswoman Nancy Porter.

Speakers at the FBISD Board’s April 23 meeting alluded to the Clements senior’s punishment, and drew a connection to the April 16 shootings at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, in which a Korean student shot and killed 32 people.

The Asian community “faces new pressures” as a result of the shootings, William Sun told board members. “We urge the school and community not to label our Asian students as terrorists.”

“We should teach our children not to judge others harshly” and not to target people as being a threat because of their race, said Peter Woo, adding that the school district should lead the way in such efforts.

But Chen said Monday he and other community members don’t consider FBISD’s actions in the case to be racially motivated, and don’t think they blew the incident out of proportion.

“They all think the principal has to do something – but how much? We do understand with the Virginia Tech incident…something has to be done,” Chen said. “Someone just made a mistake, and we think the principal should understand that.”

We need to start questioning student's motives and intentions before taking disciplinary action against them. A student mapping out their school in Counter-Strike is no more of a threat to the student who maps out their home in The Sims. Many students have done things like this; last year, a student who had modeled and textured a map of our campus for a Computer Science assignment converted it into a Battlefield 1942 map for himself and his friends. It was distributed on campus and received a positive write-up in the student newspaper. That student is no more likely to actually drive a tank into our student center than this student is to run around the halls with a machine gun, or for Sims players to lock the bathroom door and watch houseguests starve to death. Hell, I know people who replicated their hometowns in SimCity 2000 ten years ago and wiped out their schools with tornadoes. Why are there any adults in existence who would consider these things threatening, let alone in places of power?

It's called fantasy, and it's everyday part of human life. Administrators and officials need to exercise some common sense and judgment in determining what is harmless fantasy and what is legally threatening. People create with what they're familiar with; ever wonder why Stephen King writes so much about Maine? Representing familiar environments in interactive virtual worlds is actually an area of sophisticated research in universities today, looking for the next level of human interaction with their environments and recognizing the inherent differences therein.

There is a distinction to be made in how we exercise our First Amendment rights, at what point we cross the line from expressing an opinion (a basic right) and inciting panic and fear of violence (not protected speech.) Since the infamous Jack Thompson has made this the subject of his latest case against posters on a message board making disparaging comments against him, it's probably a good idea to present some examples:

"Jack Thompson deserves to be stabbed."
"Jack Thompson ought to be stabbed."
"Somebody should stab Jack Thompson."
"I should stab Jack Thompson."
"I am going to stab Jack Thompson."

Now at what point does this cross the line from hyperbole to threat? And even in the latter case, any prosecutor in a court of law would have to provide more than verbal evidence to prove intent to commit a crime. In the absence of any specific people, methods or means, this student hasn't done anything even remotely threatening. Although we may consider his act to be in poor taste it's certainly not criminal.

Meanwhile, it's apparently legal for the police to search your property if a 3D map of your school for a video game is attributed to you.

The fact that police seized a hammer--not a hobby knife, not a BB gun, not a model rocket engine, but a hammer--as a potential weapon and labeled him a 'terrorist threat' is deeply troubling. It reeks of totalitarianism, to be able to arrest an American citizen who had committed no crimes and legally be able to ship them off to a military prison without the right to defend themselves, thanks to the suspension of Habeus Corpus for 'enemy combatants' labeled as Terrorists by the government, even within our own country. And lest you have faith in our government and are of the attitude that only criminals and undesirables will be affected by these procedures, keep in mind that the government will be making that distinction, NOT YOU.
In the oft-quoted words of Martin Niemoller:

First they came for the Socialists, and I didn’t speak up,

because I wasn’t a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I didn’t speak up,

because I wasn’t a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up,

because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left

to speak up for me.

We as a society need to fight for the rights of minorities, because the smallest minority of all is YOU--the individual. Maintain awareness of these events and call out those responsible.

'Disturbing' essay gets student arrested

Chicago Sun-Times, April 26 2007

High school senior Allen Lee sat down with his creative writing class on Monday and penned an essay that so disturbed his teacher, school administrators and police that he was charged with disorderly conduct.

"I understand what happened recently at Virginia Tech," said the teen's father, Albert Lee, referring to last week's massacre of 32 students by gunman Seung-Hui Cho. "I understand the situation."
But he added: "I don't see how somebody can get charged by writing in their homework. The teacher asked them to express themselves, and he followed instructions."

Allen Lee, an 18-year-old straight-A student at Cary-Grove High School, was arrested Tuesday near his home and charged with disorderly conduct for an essay police described as violently disturbing but not directed toward any specific person or location.

The youth's father said his son was not suspended or expelled but was forced to attend classes elsewhere for now.

Today, Cary-Grove students rallied behind the arrested teen by organizing a petition drive to let him back in their school. They posted on walls quotes from the English teacher in which she had encouraged students to express their emotions through writing.

"I'm not going to lie. I signed the petition," said senior James Gitzinger. "But I can understand where the administration is coming from. I think I would react the same way if I was a teacher."

Cary Police Chief Ron Delelio said the charge was appropriate even though the essay was not published or posted for public viewing.

Disorderly conduct, which carries a penalty of 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine, is filed for pranks such as pulling a fire alarm or dialing 911. But it can also apply when someone's writings can disturb an individual, Delelio said.

"The teacher was alarmed and disturbed by the content," he said.

But a civil rights advocate said the teacher's reaction to an essay shouldn't make it a crime.

"One of the elements is that some sort of disorder or disruption is created," said Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. "When something is done in private—when a paper is handed in to a teacher—there isn't a disruption."

The "key outcomes" this month for the Creative English class was for students to identify and utilize poetic conventions to communicate ideas and emotions. With that in mind, teachers reminded students that if they read something that posed a threat to self or others, the school could take action, said High School District 155 Supt. Jill Hawk.

The English teacher read the essay and reported it to a supervisor and the principal. A round-table discussion with district officials conveyed, with lively debate, and they decided to report it to the police.

"Our staff is very familiar with adolescent behavior. We're very well versed with types of creativity put into writing. We know the standards of adolescent behavior that are acceptable and that there is a range," Hawk said.

"There can certainly be writing that conveys concern for us even though it does not name names location or date," he said.

The charge against Lee comes as schools across the country wrestle with how to react in the wake of the shootings at the Virginia Tech campus at Blacksburg, Va.

Bomb threats at high schools in Schaumburg and Country Club Hills have caused evacuations, and extra police were on duty at a Palos Hills high school this week because of a threatening note found in the bathroom of a McDonald's restaurant a half-mile away.

Experts say the charge against Lee is troubling because it was over an essay that even police say contained no direct threats against anyone at the school. However, Virginia Tech's actions toward Cho came under heavy scrutiny after the killings because of the "disturbing" plays and essays teachers say he had written for classes.

Simmie Baer, an attorney with the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University, called the Cary incident an example of zero-tolerance policies gone awry. Children, she said, are not as sophisticated as adults and often show emotion through writing or pictures, which is what teachers should want because it is a safe outlet.

So this is the reaction we have, when a student actually expresses themselves in a creative writing assignment; the teacher found it disturbing and had the guy arrested. There were no threats, no specifications, no reason to be scared of this Honors student, who had obviously taken pains to ensure that his essay would not be perceived as threatening. He didn't post it online or cause panic or hysteria. He expressed his honest feelings in a creative fashion as requested by his teacher... and he's charged with Disorderly Conduct.

Why can't they just TALK to him?! Do the people running these establishments REALIZE that this kind of treatment will only push potentially dangerous people FURTHER into their corners?! Can't we take the opportunity to discuss and understand and negotiate and debate and connect with other people instead of this knee-jerk reaction to what the establishment finds 'disturbing'? How much of a leap is this, really, to criminalizing dissenting thought?

There are, of course, in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre, those who think we could have done something to prevent it; that we should have heeded the warning signs in Cho's writings, and that this sort of reaction is acting upon lessons learned. But the truth is that, if we do truly want to live in a free society, where you can hold your own beliefs and express them to others without fear, then there's nothing we COULD have done. Cho (and our victim Allen Lee) was free to think and say what they wanted because we should ALL be free to say and think what we want; as long as Cho didn't act on his writings there weren't any problems. Likewise, the ACLU and the Supreme Court uphold the rights of hate groups to despise and detest whatever minorities they do, so long as they don't form lynch mobs, just like they uphold the rights of pro-life advocates to picket abortion clinics, anti-war protestors to march on Washington, and Ann Coulter's right to rant about the 'godless church of liberalism.'

You probably don't agree with some of these opinions, and I'm willing to bet they don't agree with some of yours. But that's why we humans have the amazing ability to discourse, to discuss and understand and negotiate and debate and connect with other people. We, as rational beings, can decide what points of view are the most valid based on empirical evidence and consensus of experience. We have the power to show that other people are wrong, and how, instead of instantly asserting that their points of view are wrong and judging based on that. Making a credible case for your position is a far stronger standpoint for making legal, ethical and moral judgments than trusting a potentially untrustworthy authority to have the answers for you.

The Ancient Greeks and their heirs of the Renaissance and Enlightenment saw this and it led to tremendous explosions in science, philosophy, politics and every other field. In every scenario dogmatism, intolerance and suppression of dissent has led to social disaster. Asserting, axiomatically, that a certain point of view is right (or wrong) and beyond debate is a catastrophically dangerous position to take because it is based entirely on the whims of the people asserting that axiom, and God forbid you disagree with them.

I'm getting off on a tangent here but I want to point out that much of this mentality falls under the category of Authoritarianism, that is, strict and unflinching obedience to a higher power based solely upon their position of authority. We see it everywhere, both historically and contemporarily, in the dregs of human history: during the Inquisition, during the Holocaust, in the Milgram Experiments, in the ranks of Al-Qaeda, in Westboro Baptist Church and creeping into our schools. This is the greater issue at work here, in all levels of the government and among all classes and heritages of people.

We have to remain critical and skeptical, and as a human being if you value your own freedom you MUST empathize with others and value theirs. Take issue principally not with what they believe, but why they believe it. Let's try to understand those who disagree with us, instead of condemning them. One of our greatest gifts is the rational mind; let's USE IT.

I would highly recommend Dr. Robert Altemeyer's book The Authoritarians for an objective, empirical summary of some thirty years of research into the authoritarian personality and its ramifications for today's politics. If you want to know what happens to the rest of us when people like James Gitzinger (see above) start exchanging essential liberties for temporary safety, push the button. It's free.

Follow-up 4/27/07: Here's the original essay by the student. Not exactly proofread, or very readable, or making any sense at all, but that's typical for stream-of-consciousness exercises. He adds some of his own comments about the content.

"On an additional note, I have completed the MEPS (Military Entry Processing Station) examinations, and yes a psychiatric evaluation is included in the process. If I'm qualified to defend the country, I believe I'm qualified to attend school."

Follow-up 5/23/07: Charges against the student have been dropped. School officials still insist they did the right thing, claiming "The arrest and charges were clearly warranted by the Cary Police Department," and "The police were obligated in the circumstances to do whatever legally possible they could to ensure the safety of Mr. Lee, the students, and the school."

High School Student Suspended after Gun Doodle

Associated Press, April 24 2007

It was a crude animation of one stick figure shooting another created for a school graphics class in Gloucester County last week.

But during the same week of a shooting massacre at Virginia Tech, officials at Williamstown High School in Monroe found nothing innocent about the sketch. As a result, the student says a vice principal told him he would not be allowed to attend classes again until he passes a mental-health evaluation.

In response, the 18-year-old, identified in court papers only as "J.K.," filed a lawsuit yesterday asking a federal judge to order school officials to allow him back to class and to pay for damages.

During a graphics design class on April 16 - hours before the world knew that Seung-Hui Cho had killed 32 people at Virginia Tech - J.K. said he was asked to make animations for a program they were learning.

J.K.'s sketch consisted of two stick figures, one with a raised gun that had dashes leading from it to the head of the other one.

The next morning, he said, he showed the drawing to a teacher, but told her he was not done with it. In court papers, he said he planned to show the victim deflecting or destroying the bullet. But, he said, the teacher did not listen to him further.

Two days later, he said, Vice Principal Paul Deal told him that he was not being suspended or expelled, but that he might be a threat to the school or himself. J.K. said he was told to leave and not return until being cleared by a mental-health professional.

Monroe Schools Superintendent Robert E. Terrill said that "the administration at the high school felt it was necessary to remove" the student until a threat assessment was conducted by a school psychologist as a precaution.

Terrill said that he had not seen the drawing, but that school officials described it as a stick figure shooting another figure in the head. There were no names or labels, he said.

Terrill said that the school's action was unrelated to last week's massacre at Virginia Tech, but that the "incident heightened everybody's awareness."

"On occasion, we have students that might do something like this where we might have a question as to what the youngster's intentions are," Terrill said.

Although J.K. has attention deficit disorder, according to court papers he was an honor student, a flight commander in his school's Air Force Junior ROTC program and took some courses at Gloucester County College.

According to his report card, he earned five A's and a B last quarter. One of those A's was in his graphic design class.

Whatever happened to creativity? Whatever happened to independence? Whatever happened to appropriate judgment? Why is everyone being held under suspicion? Has our Culture of Fear really driven us to this point?
Kids have fantasies of violence--we all do. People think bloodthirsty thoughts (and I'm sure a qualified psychologist could tell you why) but the overwhelming majority of people don't act on them! Creative outlets for aggression are therapeutic--violent crime in the United States is at a tremendous low. As Hollywood gore have gotten more sophisticated and first-person shooters have proliferated in the home, our country hasn't become an anarchic death orgy--it's safer than ever before. What are we all afraid of?

Source: US Department of Justice

Individuals have rights, even students; at 18 this student was a legal adult. Let's exercise some voting power together and put some sense back into the government.

Hysteria after student notes disliked classmates

Sun-Sentinal, April 19 2007

BOCA RATON -- Spanish River High School phones were clogged on Thursday with calls from parents concerned about security after a male student on Wednesday pointed out people in the yearbook he liked and didn't like.

The 18-year-old student was removed from school Wednesday and will not return, said principal Constance Tuman-Rugg.

In a nation shaken to the core by a gunman at Virginia Tech who took the lives of 32 people and then himself, add Hitler's birthday and the anniversary of the Columbine High School killings on Friday.

"In the four years I've been at a high school, this happens on April 20," said Tuman-Rugg. "It's not just this year or this boy. Watching the images on TV, I do understand the parents' concerns, but we have to encourage people to separate fact from exaggeration and not panic."

Rumors continue to fly today, but nothing more than the comments about the yearbook could be documented first-hand, the principal said.

School police searched the home of the student, who is a senior, with the cooperation of this mother. Police found no evidence of danger at the home, the principal said.

"Nothing was found, no letters, no lists, nothing," Tuman-Rugg said.

Parent Crystal Palmquist of Boca Raton said her two sons begged her not to attend school on today because they fear for their safety. She said Allan, 16, and Harrison, 15, both ninth-graders, believe a threat against students is real.

They told their mother they're sure that one classmate has a list of targeted student victims.

"You can't take these things lightly," said Palmquist, who decided to keep her children home. She wants more assurances from the school that there is no danger to the students.

Extra school police are on duty at Spanish River today and tomorrow, the principal said. She made announcements at school and sent a recorded phone message to parents last night to assure families of the security of the campus.

Of the school's 2,200 students, 132 were absent today, within the usual range of 130-150, the principal said.

"We're all very upset about what happened at Virginia Tech, but I'm not a mom who gets overly alarmed," said Suzy Chevrier, who has two daughters who attend Spanish River. "Every time there's a shooting or a bomb scare there are copycat threats, and there's danger in not paying attention. But I don't think it's good to overreact."

I don't think there's much I can say here. This is probably the most extreme example of kneejerk panic that I've ever seen. That, or the kids (15 and 16, and freshmen?) saw an easy way to skip a few days from school and their gullible parents let them.

I hope the senior gets to walk at graduation with his classmates.

School pulls approved book after one complaint

San Francisco Chronicle, April 12 2007

Citing his concern for "the morals of our society," Burlingame schools Superintendent Sonny Da Marto has stopped four eighth-grade classes from reading "Kaffir Boy," an award-winning memoir of growing up in a South African ghetto during apartheid.

Da Marto had banned the book from the Burlingame Intermediate School late last month when the 13- and 14-year-old students were nearly halfway through it, said their English teacher, Amelia Ramos, who was required to take the books back from 116 students...

..."Kaffir Boy has been taught in eighth grade and in many high schools across the United States," Ramos said. "I wanted to challenge and motivate my students, to broaden their perspectives on life beyond the borders of Burlingame."

That strategy worked last year, when Ramos freely taught the memoir after it was approved by the Burlingame School District's "core literature committee" of parents, teachers, a librarian, a student and a school board member.

But in late March, Ramos received an e-mail from a parent complaining about the graphic scene.

On Page 72, readers find a description of child prostitution witnessed by Mathabane when he was younger than Ramos' students...

...Board member Liz Gindraux, who also sat on the core literature committee that approved "Kaffir Boy," said the process had been "disrespected."

"Two parents object, and the book is pulled without any discussion," she said. "I feel we jumped the gun a little."

Board Vice President Michael Barber said, "I don't want to be the censor board."

Parent Kerbey Altmann said the banning decision had "echoes of a police state."

"I feel my right as a parent was usurped unceremoniously and quickly. There was not full disclosure," he said.

His son, eighth-grader Tom Altmann, asked the board how "shielding us from the scene in the book will benefit us."

No one spoke in favor of the ban.

Mathabane has been dealing with objections to Page 72 for years. In 1999, he wrote an essay that appeared in the Washington Post, titled, "If You Assign My Book, Don't Censor It..."

...Mathabane writes that he was shunned by the boys for running away. He concludes that "resisting peer pressure is one of the toughest things for young people to do.

"That is the lesson of the prostitution scene. It's a lesson that seems to be lost on the people who want to censor my book."

One concerned parent and one overzealous administrator have negated the efforts of a board of genuine educators and intercepted the genuine, authentic lessons this book was to teach. "Kaffir Boy" had gone through the school board's approval process and had been taught in the past, in its entirety. The correct response to the student's parent should have been a brief explanation of the book's, and the passage's, value to the student and its purpose. Although the parent reserves the right to decide what their child should be reading, yanking a half-finished book out of the hands of over a hundred students is irresponsible.

The very purpose of Page 72 is to disturb readers; I as a parent or a teacher would be more concerned if the student wasn't disturbed. The book is not pornographic, it is an authentic first-hand account of a very real and regrettable part of human history. If future generations don't understand why and how the ugly parts of history have occurred, then they will likely be doomed to repeat it.

Thankfully most parties involved recognize the value in the book, and if more parents raise children like the Altmanns we should be headed towards a more enlightened society.