Oh man, I love Way Out West!

Yeah, young folks are moving away because they’ve been indoctrinated in liberal college institutions and lured by a gay communist urban agenda to destroy rural America and bring about the decline of Christian conservative values! Nothing at all to do with capital consolidation and market monopolization resulting in reductions of diversified local markets and diminished job prospects! Increased cultural exposure due to accessing instantaneous global communications and social media? No way that has any influence in the decisions people make about what cultural environment they’d prefer to raise their children in. SmallTown USA is the best place to escape all the scary ideas that exist in the world, like equality among gender and race, and socializing the excesses of the private. Who would want to live in that kind of world?!

It was similar in my school, I mean aside from objective textbooks like in science or history. Apart from a couple stories, I’ve never really enjoyed reading fiction, and as a result, I struggled in school as that was the focus for gauging reading comprehension and other metrics.

Where I lacked in desire to read fiction, I was obsessed with poring through the encyclopedias we had at home. I would read ahead in history and math and science. I had no problems grasping the material and applying what I’d learned. In many ways, I feel this was not recognized by teachers and that the education system failed me in this regard.

I love reading to learn about the world, and I understand fiction can provide insight into other people’s perspectives, but it is still difficult for me to engage with fiction. It just doesn’t interest me the same way.

This isn’t to say we should change how we impart the joy of reading to kids. I’m not sure how I’d deal with my case, even if I could go back in time. There’s a good fiction plot somewhere in here, I guess. “Man goes back in time to spark new interest in himself to read fiction, ultimately fails, but the child reflects on it later in life and continues the time loop.”

To truly answer your question, I feel like I need to read about child development and the education system in general.

You’re in luck! The Kennedy half dollar, minted since 1964.

I’ve always understood SoaD to be overtly political, with songs like Prison Song, Attack, BYOB, A.D.D., and on and on… I listened to them for a long time because I enjoyed the music, but when I gave more than two seconds to think about the lyrics, I immediately understood them to be political in nature (which I actually enjoyed and appreciated more).

When I want non-political music, I almost avoid lyrics entirely, or listen to old-timey songs about broken hearts and love. I particularly enjoy early jazz guitar like Billy Banks, or The Ink Spots. Or some good EDM like Jaded and Noizu.

There’s a bit of politics in so much lyrical music, even if it is less transparent, seemingly nonsensical stuff. I do enjoy a good revelation about some bands, though. Like the amount of veterans my age that listen to Lamb of God but are very enthusiastic about military service and God and country types, or as has been mentioned in the thread already, that whole thing with Rage Against the Machine. I feel like SoaD falls into this category a lot too, with these particular people.

There are certainly moments of social commentary in RHCP songs, but I do enjoy Frusciante’s and Flea’s musical prowess to a degree that I don’t care at all what they’re saying at times, and just very much enjoy the tunes.

Edit: After reading replies in here, I oughta mention I’m wrong and political music doesn’t actually exist.

There’s no paper or webpage long enough.

Not to mention corporate news. It’s impossible to find anyone else discussing particular events or raw video or even live streams without wading through what seems like thousands of every damn news channel with their talking heads and editors about any topic. I certainly understand why it’s important to have news easily accessible, but it kills me that I used to be able to find news media critique and videos of happenings from everyday people, and I just can’t anymore, at least not without serious digging. Obviously the rise of other video platforms plays a role, as does the need to ensure accurate information for specific things, like a pandemic or climate change, but I can’t help but see just how homogenized and corporatized it’s all become.

This isn’t to say there aren’t great channels out there that meet my needs, I just miss being able to type a keyword in and finding regular people, not trying to game the algorithm, not trying to make youtube a career, just getting their voices out there.