The God of the Machine - Tranche 47
Posted by mshupe 7 months, 3 weeks 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.”
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.
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...)
"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.
I didn't start it. Here are YOUR words:
"In fact, you are so utterly confused by higher level concepts that..."
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...
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.
"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.
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