This is frightening stuff, and it is as real as can be. These people are absolutely convinced of their superiority. They equate personal wealth within a “survival of the fittest” frame as proof and the “free market” with infallible magic operated by an “invisible hand”, despite the absence of proof.
So, how did these ideas gain so much…
This is frightening stuff, and it is as real as can be. These people are absolutely convinced of their superiority. They equate personal wealth within a “survival of the fittest” frame as proof and the “free market” with infallible magic operated by an “invisible hand”, despite the absence of proof.
So, how did these ideas gain so much traction and how did these people come to have so much influence, power, money, and conviction? Was it really because civics was no longer a subject in school? Did we get Citizens United because greed was elevated to a virtue by Ayn Rand and her dizzy or ditzy followers?
A conception of morality is there in the shadows driving many of the people who seek control and the promotion of these measures. God is there with his ultimate authority as the model to emulate and copy. Obedience to authority is the ideal for good citizenship in their world.
They dislike government and especially federal government, and they believe that public schools are vehicles for misguided populist, liberal, or progressive philosophy, attitudes, and policies. Authentic education and science do indeed favor liberal ideas and ideals.
However, the reality is that for generations schools have not adequately contributed to authentic education and they have undermined both conservative and liberal philosophies and belief systems. They have created an undercurrent of citizens for whom obedience to authority is second nature and for whom government, civics, principles, values, freedom, and participatory citizenship are nothing more than abstractions and symbolic figments.
The libertarians are right for the wrong reasons about ending compulsory attendance. They are wrong about everything else. Government can and should sponsor, fund, oversee, regulate, and advocate for free public schools. Absolutely. Completely separately, government should take every opportunity to advance education. But our schools do indeed indoctrinate, and that indoctrination must not in any way be influenced by officials of government and especially not with respect to behavior or curriculum. Parents would be involved, and they would be deciding where and how they want their children to be indoctrinated if attendance in school were strictly voluntary.
Schools are crucial to democracy. Education is even more crucial to democracy. The two must be distinguished and both must be about liberty, equality, justice, and openness. The libertarians say the government should not control education but they mean schools. School is NOT education. Our schools have failed to stop the oligarchs and the other fanatics because morality and socialization are their primary functions, not education. Compulsory attendance laws outlaw childhood and create compliant and conforming drones. Democracy will indeed disappear unless we get the state out of the schools. The state is now controlled in large part by the oligarchs making it all the more urgent. It's time to stop conflating school with education and believing that mass education can fix anything. Education is hard and it is not the business of government or of private profit obsessed entrepreneurs.
This is frightening stuff, and it is as real as can be. These people are absolutely convinced of their superiority. They equate personal wealth within a “survival of the fittest” frame as proof and the “free market” with infallible magic operated by an “invisible hand”, despite the absence of proof.
So, how did these ideas gain so much traction and how did these people come to have so much influence, power, money, and conviction? Was it really because civics was no longer a subject in school? Did we get Citizens United because greed was elevated to a virtue by Ayn Rand and her dizzy or ditzy followers?
A conception of morality is there in the shadows driving many of the people who seek control and the promotion of these measures. God is there with his ultimate authority as the model to emulate and copy. Obedience to authority is the ideal for good citizenship in their world.
They dislike government and especially federal government, and they believe that public schools are vehicles for misguided populist, liberal, or progressive philosophy, attitudes, and policies. Authentic education and science do indeed favor liberal ideas and ideals.
However, the reality is that for generations schools have not adequately contributed to authentic education and they have undermined both conservative and liberal philosophies and belief systems. They have created an undercurrent of citizens for whom obedience to authority is second nature and for whom government, civics, principles, values, freedom, and participatory citizenship are nothing more than abstractions and symbolic figments.
The libertarians are right for the wrong reasons about ending compulsory attendance. They are wrong about everything else. Government can and should sponsor, fund, oversee, regulate, and advocate for free public schools. Absolutely. Completely separately, government should take every opportunity to advance education. But our schools do indeed indoctrinate, and that indoctrination must not in any way be influenced by officials of government and especially not with respect to behavior or curriculum. Parents would be involved, and they would be deciding where and how they want their children to be indoctrinated if attendance in school were strictly voluntary.
Schools are crucial to democracy. Education is even more crucial to democracy. The two must be distinguished and both must be about liberty, equality, justice, and openness. The libertarians say the government should not control education but they mean schools. School is NOT education. Our schools have failed to stop the oligarchs and the other fanatics because morality and socialization are their primary functions, not education. Compulsory attendance laws outlaw childhood and create compliant and conforming drones. Democracy will indeed disappear unless we get the state out of the schools. The state is now controlled in large part by the oligarchs making it all the more urgent. It's time to stop conflating school with education and believing that mass education can fix anything. Education is hard and it is not the business of government or of private profit obsessed entrepreneurs.