The God of the Machine - Tranche 47
Posted by mshupe 7 months, 1 week ago to Government
Chapter XXI, Excerpt 2 of 2
Our Japanized Educational System
There can be no greater stretch of arbitrary power than to seize children from their parents, teach them whatever the authorities decree they shall be taught, and expropriate from parents the funds to pay for the procedure. The intrinsic nature of the power was so little realized that this was called “free education,” the most absolute contradiction of facts by which language is capable. A tax supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state.
The famous Scopes “monkey trial” in Tennessee was discussed with equal heat and ignorance on both sides. They were not concerned with freedom of thought, speech, or person . . . no conception of personal rights. In short, they did not question political control of education; they only wanted to use it for themselves. Education in civilization . . . is possible only to a frame of mind in which knowledge is pursued voluntarily. The useful knowledge the average person possesses is acquired out of school.
The desire to learn and to impart knowledge are so universal that they can be restrained only by legal penalties. The most vindictive resentment may be expected from the pedagogic profession . . . should they be dislodged from their dictatorial position. The Germans are notably literate, and their technology enabled them to build a war machine which must destroy them. A prominent geologist was struck by the fact that only Americans find oil. “Where oil really is, in the final analysis, is in our own heads.”
Our Japanized Educational System
There can be no greater stretch of arbitrary power than to seize children from their parents, teach them whatever the authorities decree they shall be taught, and expropriate from parents the funds to pay for the procedure. The intrinsic nature of the power was so little realized that this was called “free education,” the most absolute contradiction of facts by which language is capable. A tax supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state.
The famous Scopes “monkey trial” in Tennessee was discussed with equal heat and ignorance on both sides. They were not concerned with freedom of thought, speech, or person . . . no conception of personal rights. In short, they did not question political control of education; they only wanted to use it for themselves. Education in civilization . . . is possible only to a frame of mind in which knowledge is pursued voluntarily. The useful knowledge the average person possesses is acquired out of school.
The desire to learn and to impart knowledge are so universal that they can be restrained only by legal penalties. The most vindictive resentment may be expected from the pedagogic profession . . . should they be dislodged from their dictatorial position. The Germans are notably literate, and their technology enabled them to build a war machine which must destroy them. A prominent geologist was struck by the fact that only Americans find oil. “Where oil really is, in the final analysis, is in our own heads.”
Boy is that true. You learn what YOU want to learn and WHEN you are interested or feel a need for the information.
There shouldnt call them "teachers", since very little is crammed down the throat of the students. All another person can do to help in the acquisition of knowledge is to find out what the student wants to learn right then, and show him or her how to acquire the knowledge.
For example, when I need a quick general answer I used to go to Wikipedia, but NOW I go to chatGTP and get instant answers. They say that you don't have to know anything- just need to know where to find it *google and chatGTP"
Read a book a couple of years ago which nailed it on the head. It was something about why public education is teaching English wrong but it applies to other topics as well. What the author pointed out was that unless on relates the material to the students through association, context, and application that they will be turned off by the material even before one begins. You don't find too many (outside aspiring thespians) who view Shakespeare with anything but dread and revulsion. I was certainly in that boat. But then I started getting courses on specific Shakespeare plays which spent the first lecture not on the play, but on the backstory: why the play was written, what was going on in society at the time the play was written, etc. Suddenly a bunch of the tumblers fell into place and the play became not just interesting, but the work of art it truly was.
I recommend this course, which delves into the distortions that the progressive movement has introduced into education in the US.
https://online.hillsdale.edu/courses/...
Their K-12 curriculum is pretty awesome as well. They offer it for a reduced rate to home schoolers like me.
"it would not be right to use the law to discriminate in that way against unmarried or childless people."
Sorry, but the biggest busybodies and usurpers of parental rights are non-coincidentally those without children. (Look no further than the LGTBQ+ community.) When it comes to selecting school board members I think it is 100% appropriate to restrict eligibility to those who have children who will be affected by the policy actions taken.
One of my close neighbors was a policy setter for our area and basically turned a blind eye to a policy he had set - until his oldest daughter got caught in the cross-hairs. Suddenly, he understood why the other parents had been soliciting him to change the policy - and change it he did promptly.
Actually, I recommend the entire Oxford History series, as it goes into significant detail on all facets of life in the United States in the periods covered. (As a side note, there are five years missing from the series. For some reason, those years cover the formation of the Federal Reserve...)
My concern is that history has shown that if there are no public education options, you get a classed society consisting of the rich who can afford to school their children and the poor who stay poor precisely because they can not obtain the higher learning necessary. Having a publicly-funded option for basic education allows for opportunity where otherwise none would exist. Now that doesn't mean that because I support public education I support the way it is being carried out today. Far from it. My mother-in-law taught kindergarten (in public schools) for years and finally gave up.
For a public school to work, here are some necessary ingredients (IMHO):
1) Invested parents. Studies continue to show that this is the single biggest factor - by a long ways. How does one encourage parental involvement? I can think of several ways.
a) Eliminate mandatory enrollment. Stop trying to force parents to enroll their children or be sent to CPS.
b) Reinstitute behavior as a prerequisite to participation. Right now, one disruptive child spoils the learning environment for everyone. Allow schools to kick out children for disruptive behavior permanently. Many parents of disruptive children treat school like daycare, insisting that teachers babysit their children. Eliminate that and force the parents to own up to their own bad parenting.
c) Make school boards be run by parents of existing students. Skin in the game. Give them power to fire teachers and administrators (including librarians) who don't adhere to school policies.
2) Provide a State Board of Education with the power to advise on standards and materials, but without any coercive power whatsoever. This provides an opportunity to take advantage of standards but still allows individual schools to tinker.
3) Provide a State Credentialing Board (separate from the Board of Education) to administer optional certification examinations for aspiring teachers. This was actually the norm back in the 1800's and early 1900's and ensured that teachers knew the material they were expected to teach to students. (Read through one of those exams and see if you could pass them. I tried and even with an MBA I couldn't do it first try.)
4) Encourage the creation of trade schools - which the US currently lacks - to supplant (not supplement) higher education. It used to be that only a very limited set of professions came out of universities, namely lawyers, doctors, and accountants. Now a college BA is almost the basic entrance fee for a decent job and this has in turn enriched the universities and given them tremendous indoctrination power. We need to encourage trade schools to flourish to provide the skills many look down on but which are necessary and cater to the varying skills and aptitudes of the work force. I especially include computer-related jobs here (universities are commonly four+ years behind on their technology curriculum).
Now, all that being said, I'd appreciate you clarifying a comment made and echoed several times. Please explain "public education is a violation of the fundamental rights of man." I see education as a privilege (not a right) but fail to see how it violates one's rights.
Maybe as a parent if you cant find ways to educate your children so they can take care of themselves, maybe you shouldn't have them in the first place. Education doesn't have to be in rocket science. Knowing how to trade services with other people is a skill that doesn't take a 4 year college degree. It takes street smarts mostly that can be demonstrated by how a parent acts.
I dint learn much at all in grade school really. I heated going to the schools as it seemed like a waste of time. I learned more being t home and watching what other people did in the neighborhood. In school I had to do useless homework and listen to boring "teachers" in order to progress through the grades and be done with having to go to school.
Now, we have the internet and youtube. I would be glued to it if I were a kid today and learning all sorts of things. I am substantially glued to it as an adult actually. Now we even have chatGTP for quick answers to all sorts of questions I might have.
Lids are intensely interested in learning what they want to know and when they want to know it. We have distributed learning available 24 hours a day for essentially nothing. No need for enforced schooling anmore.
"Maybe as a parent if you cant find ways to educate your children so they can take care of themselves, maybe you shouldn't have them in the first place."
When you have some children, you can talk to those of us who do. Your ignorance and accusation are unworthy anyone - let alone a member of the Gulch. I'm currently home-schooling five children and it's no picnic.
"Education doesn't have to be in rocket science."
Have you ever heard of the concept of specialization? I'd suggest you look into it...
"Now we even have chatGTP for quick answers to all sorts of questions I might have."
Yes, so we can grow the population of useful idiots. Wonderful. I can tell you all kinds of problems with ChatGPT and other AI - indoctrination being one of the most egregious.
One of the fundamental principles of Objectivism in general is to question the premises of any hypothesis. Which is precisely what I am doing. Any solid hypothesis should be able to withstand even rudimentary scrutiny, and your constant disparagement does nothing to justify your argument. In fact, it does exactly the opposite.
If your ideas really are as "obvious" as you claim, then it shouldn't take you any time at all to re-state them - without the ad hominem. The problem with the "science" of the day is precisely that people resort to personal attacks instead of sticking with the actual hypothesis, observation, and conclusion. If you wish to walk off that cliff...
There have been several attempts to "fix" Wikipedia by forking the project since it is open-source, but the ones I've seen are not current. There's too much biased material there for the fixers to keep up with.
Wikipedia then became what we now have, wide ranging, expert and reliable but on any topic wokists have opinions on- utterly biased.
Yes, and just as a lion cub is eager, by Nature, to learn how to hunt because that is a lion’s way to survive, so to, a human child is eager to learn how to think because that is a human’s way to survive.
To deliberately crush that child’s propensity to think for himself in his early formative years is unspeakably evil. It has been going on for a long time. This from Elihu Palmer in 1801 "…The strength of human understanding is incalculable, its keenness of discernment would ultimately penetrate into every part of nature, were it permitted to operate with uncontrouled and unqualified freedom. It is because this sublime principle of man has been the object of the most scurrilous, and the most detestable invective from superstition, that his moral existence has been buried in the gulph of ignorance, and his intellectual powers tarnished by the ferocious and impure hand of fanaticism. Although we are made capable of sublime reflections, it has hitherto been deemed a crime to think, and a still greater crime to speak our thoughts after they have been conceived…"
We should prepare ourselves for a very long struggle.
The problem with Galt's Gulch is that I don't have enough time to properly read it!
One of the things most have noticed about the AI's - especially ChatGPT - was that it was "trained" based on an initial dataset which skewed ideologically left. Thus if you ask it things with any kind of political undertone it will mimic much of the lamestream media and lean left. It is a grave error to think that AI's are even remotely objective. As my cousin stated: garbage in, garbage out.
I didn't start it. Here are YOUR words:
"In fact, you are so utterly confused by higher level concepts that..."
Hopefully, the voucher system being used in some states (and proposed in some others) can take a bite out of this.
But once again, wisdom from (at least) 1943 seems ripped from today's headlines. And most people still haven't learned. Due largely to their "educations".
"your invalid proposition, "All civilizations create agreements between their members and enforce those agreements by "collective" force.""
If you believe the statement to be invalid, you take upon yourself the burden of showing a counterargument to such effect. _Ad hominem doesn't count and neither does an appeal to your own supposed intelligence. Note that I specifically mention "between their members" to emphasize that a civilization is a collection of individuals. You have to be purposeful - or ignorant - to misconstrue this in any other way.
"Second, 'civilization' is a mental construct that doesn't enforce anything."
We use mental constructs all the time. They aid in explaining concepts, packaging them from sentences into words. They aid in comprehension if used appropriately. If one understands properly that civilization consists of individuals/members, then one extrapolates from that the appropriate meaning: that civilization - through its individual members - enforces its laws. Nothing different between what I said and what you except you seeking to have anything but your spin on things declared "invalid." What tyrannical rubbish.
"Representatives (elected, appointed, or through force) adjudicate agreements with the sanction of force applied through objective law."
Allow me to clarify: there are three separate and distinct functions of government: legislative, executive, and judicial (all mental constructs by the way). The Legislative branch is tasked with writing the laws, the Judicial is tasked with interpreting the laws, and the Executive is tasked with executing or carrying out law enforcement activities. In a Representative form of government (you can't have a Representative government by force), members are chosen from the body politic to serve in these respective capacities separately, meaning that the legislative, executive, and judicial components are carried out by different entities and a separation of powers and duties serve as checks on these respective bodies. Being a Representative government, the body politic invests some of their own powers into these functions to carry out the larger societal goals and purposes, including the sanction to enforce laws passed by a duly elected Legislature and interpreted by the Judiciary to be appropriate.
"The conceptual common denominator, meaning the idea that connects subject with predicate in a valid proposition, is missing from your statement. That being the concept of civilization (subject) and retaliatory force (predicate)."
It wasn't missing at all. You butted into a conversation I was having with someone else and attempted to impose your own terms and conditions for the conversation. You initiated force. I asked what you were bringing to the conversation (what your point was). You went off on a tangent of your own design and then accused me of being an idiot because I agreed with your basic premise though in my own words. Hmmm...
No one who stays on this forum for long is an idiot. I've been here over ten years as a paying member and seen attempts by individual members to project themselves as ivory tower academics: people who try to string together big words and rely on ad hominem instead of the Socratic Method (asking questions). Those who rely on the former expose themselves as the petty tyrants they think they are, while those who rely on the latter engage in meaningful discussions. Your choice.
education. The only exceptions being technical training in the military, and possibly police academies.