Topic: Education
On Education If you want a Great Libertarian Awakening, you must precipitate one.by Spencer Jayden
(libertarian)
Sunday, April 27, 2008
"If the children... are untaught, their ignorance and vices will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences, than it would have done, in their correction, by a good education." - Thomas Jefferson
"Learned institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty." - James Madison
Our founders believed a vigilant citizenry was the strongest check against the powers of government. Despite the lack of state-funded schools for most of the 19th century, Americans were arguably wiser and more learned than many high-scool and college graduates who leave the system today. In fact, government-funded school systems were politically suicidal to suggest for a long time. But at some point in the early 1900s, under the guise of "progress", this all changed.
Flash forward to the 1950's. America was still riding one of the greatest waves of innovation in the history of the modern era. There was, for the most part, peace, except in the Caucus and Koreas. Yet the advent of the nuclear bomb had introduced the cold, new realities of war. The Eisenhowever Administration, in America's first audacious attempt to steer education for national defense purposes, placed emphasis on science and math, as well as created various scholarships to build up more American defense scientists.
These days, we are a far cry from being either well-learned OR well-read. It is very much anti-intellectual in nature, and a very hostile grounds for alternative views.
Before college, many children are indoctrinated with collectivist sentiment, raised on instant gratification, and programmed to obey. Here's a classic example of doublethink that will fall blankly on many people: No Child Left Behind. See? Poor education. I know, I've seen it firsthand. [1]
Our schools haven't even made progress academically, and to many, that's only what a school is for. Responsibility and causality are not taught anymore. For an industry so slow to innovate, our schools are the quickest to reflect the dangerous path we're on. Ultra-liberal teacher unions, biased textbooks, and an anemic curriculum. Civic responsibility is watered down if it's even taught anymore.
Then the question now becomes if you still looking for a way to win over the American people to with the values of civil vigilance and limited government, how do you do it? Start young.
Ethically, this sounds just as wrong to libertarians as preaching liberal theory is. But when was the last time you heard someone say that teaching kids to think critically was a crime? (I hope you haven't.) So if people reach their OWN conclusions of government and economics, the better, right? That's certainly not how the system works right now, and the current strategy of Libertarians isn't working.
This next part's for the skeptics who think compromise is the "dirty" word. These libertarians adhere closely to Ayn Rand's "so-what" ramifications of Objectivism. [2] Radicals, as they may be known, believe the only change worth implementing will only come after a domino-like collapse of government and social structures. The No-Particular-Order principle. Someday, I'll get back to the crushing fallacy of this idea.
I encourage you to look at the options, yourself. How nice would it be to have a populace that actually can evaluate government policy, and won't go running to the Democrats every time the market crashes?
Run for local and state school board. Reach out to high school students. The presence by conservatives and especially liberals at my own high school is overwhelming to say the least. And we already have a loyal space in colleges, so it's not that much of a stretch. There's a lot that can be done right now.
My final year of high school was possibly the most sustained attack on my ideals. It is ordained students must learn economics and government (or what now passes for civics). To underscore the issue, at hand it was also probably the year my beliefs were challenged the most yet- through a variety of ridicule, ignorance, and incorrect information. Sometimes by teachers, but more often by other students. I suppose they wait until our last two years of conscripted education to save the worst for last.
And on this issue, you should have heard the reaction of my peers after Ayn Rand's Anthem and answering a question about "rational self-interest".
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I see the writing on the wall. It says, "Government is to be argued with and against, education presents such an opportunity; by gosh! Let's do it!".
I don't find myself in agreement. The plains Indians educated their children about things needed for their culture to continue. In every society that has survived for 2 generations, the children were educated. Education is the expression of a culture's urge to survive.
The area of your proposed argument is; whose idea of survival should children be indoctrinated toward? Big and more widely supported government? Or toward more and more individual choice.
I agree with Jefferson that education is necessary, and particularly today when literacy is essential.
A really good education (not a really high one) brings to the student, the use of his information. An arithmetic graduate can add and divide and understands the use of his information. A literate person can read the written word and understand what is said. A power of judgement is present in a well (not highly, but well) educated person. I believe that is what Mr. Madison was attempting to communicate. That a good education will result in individual people being able to judge for themselves; because their education has resulted in an individual power of judgement over cultural things.
Let me preface with a "thanks, I'm surprised anyone looks at these old articles anymore" line. I haven't been very frequent on NC, and I guess all the thumbs and comments have been wiped clean.
To the point, however, that is precisely what I agree with. I don't advocate "indoctrinating" children, to borrow a word from you. Nothing could be further from the truth. I totally agree with you, in fact. Today's education does not teach you how to really think or ration.
That concept itself, that you understand what you're doing along with WHY, cannot be divorced from libertarianism. Hence my choice of words ("an objective curriculum"...)
But ignoring the practical matters of the situation we're in, we're going to have to deal with the public education system in some form or another for at least another generation IF we start to phase it out now.
I can already see the higher-ups in the cloudy Washington echelons hammering new standards onto their stone tablets and declaring "Do as thoust writ" and new propaganda to instill into our youth's minds during a crisis that skirts on the edge of a second depression.
There are a lot of things that can be done to wither away and chip and break down the public school system, but ignoring it is to allow the government to waste as much of our money as they want on such a crucial issue.
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