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A conference suggestion A quick suggestion – given the differences within the libertarian section of the political jungle about the case for or against armed intervention in other states, what do fellow contributors and commenters think about us setting up a one-day conference or suchlike on this topic?
I’m really interested to set something up, probably here in London. (But of course I would hope some non-Brit folk could be persuaded into coming).
Blogging is fantastic but sometimes there is still a place for face-to-face debate. And you get to hold the event right next to a pub!
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Sounds fantastic! But can we hold it in Texas instead?
:p
Kidding, I’ll be content to read summarized transcripts and look over a few digicam pics.
I have my doubts much new ground would be found which has not already been covered but hey, since when did I ever turn down an excuse to drink beer?
It sounds like a good idea, Johnathan but I share Perry’s concern that there might not be much more to cover than has already been discussed at Samizdata and other blogs. I can’t help but feel that, at least to an extent, this debate has been worn out.
However, I also share Mr de Havilland’s enthusiasm for an excuse to drink beer and I’ve been planning to visit London with a few libertarian-minded and free market-thinking friends once we’ve finished our A-Levels and will never again be ‘forced’ to write about the alleged benefits of socialism in an economics or history exam paper. This proposed conference also seems like an excellent opportunity for me to take a break from having socialist and pro-EU drivel rammed down by throat for the last two years by teachers and speakers at every conference I’ve attended during my A-Levels course (the last one being “Your Future in Europe 2003” where I was prevented from politely highlighting the blatant pro-EU bias of the entire conference during the ‘open’ debate).
Stephen Hodgson writes:
“This proposed conference also seems like an excellent opportunity for me to take a break from having socialist and pro-EU drivel rammed down by throat for the last two years by teachers and speakers at every conference I’ve attended during my A-Levels course…”
Am I alone in finding Mr. Hodgson’s words absolutely chilling? I knew things had got pretty bad in our ‘education’ system, but hadn’t realised quite how bad they seem to have become.
I hope Mr. Hodgson will have the opportunity to give us more details in the future.
G Cooper.
Seconded. The education establishment is an augean mess. The only solution is complete dissolution.
So, Stephen thinks the bias has ended and that armed with his no doubt high grade A-levels he will shortly be gaining entry into objective enquiry, study-for-the-hell-of-it Heaven.
You never know, you might want to wait a while before donning the “Worldwide Capitalism Now” t-shirt.
Just a thought.
Do we need speakers and a topic? I think all we need is a venue, some beer and some badges with our names and blogs. Charge everyone a tenner or so and you’re quids in. Or maybe, it becomes a cash bar when the money runs out.
Want to talk about the War, civil rights, Japanese bullet trains? Just buttonhole the appropriate blogger.
G Cooper:
I knew things had got pretty bad in our ‘education’ system, but hadn’t realised quite how bad they seem to have become.
I hope Mr. Hodgson will have the opportunity to give us more details in the future.
Mr Cooper, I am quite happy to share first-hand accounts of my experience of how “today’s” state-operated schools and colleges and “conferences for young people” (often plugged as being objective and ‘open’ and existing “to listen to young people’s views” or “address the concerns of young adults”) are undeniably and increasingly being used to push a political agenda and encourage pupils and students to grow-up to become good (unquestioning), caring (insistent on higher taxes and more government intervention), environmentally aware (keen to instigate pointless recycling schemes and insist that councils tax people who create non-recyclable waste) European (seeking “a society at peace”, “[advancing] [the EU’s] values in the wider world”, “[contributing] to the sustainable development of the earth”, endeavouring to offer “loyal co-operation”, helping with the EU’s “discovery of space”, etc) citizens (property of the European superstate).
Under new European legislation I am required to warn you that parts of the remainder of this comment may make for rather unpleasant reading for libertarians and I must also point out that some readers may find the contents of one or two paragraphs depressing and/or disturbing:
I’ll offer a brief outline of how the GCSE and A-Level courses I very recently finished were apparently designed to shape pupils and students opinions on issues such as the environment, the EU, government intervention and welfare systems.
I believe that the state school system and elements of the media are successfully limiting some children’s ability to think for themselves and to question what they’re told but please bear in mind that the state schools and colleges system is a long way from being able to competently indoctrinate even the majority of pupils and students and that it’s probably wrong to assume that we’re going to see a shortage of enthusiastic young libertarians and individualists in the near future.
I started my A-Levels in September 2001 and stopped attending formal lessons last month. I studied Maths, Physics, Economics and History and it was the contents of the latter two subjects which has always concerned, and occasionally infuriated, me.
For the last two years, two friends and I have found it increasingly difficult to motivate ourselves to pay attention in Economics lessons because of the blatant left-wing bias of our teacher and to a lesser extent the A-Level Economics syllabus. My teacher never really tried to hide the fact that she’s big on socialism but her refusal to teach objectively has seriously impaired the ability of some students to think objectively and highlight flaws in socialism and Keynesian economic theory. The syllabus emphasises the importance of government regulatory bodies and watchdogs for protecting consumers, the important role trade unions play in protecting individual rights, the benefits of centralised government control and the necessity of EU regulations (although there’s no explanation of why the EU needs to decide on the shape of bananas I’m allowed to buy). My teacher has effectively turned one girl in the class into a Marxist and she once ‘snapped’ and called one of my libertarian-minded friends a “fascist” during a discussion on trade unions and minimum wage laws (she later apologised for her highly inappropriate attack). More worryingly my teacher tried to explain to the class that Keynesian economics are simply ‘right’ because it was Roosevelt’s application of Keynesian economic theory in the 1930s which pulled the US out of the Great Depression after the Wall Street Crash.
A-Level (Modern) History has given me less cause for concern than Economics because the teachers are more prepared to teach objectively and the syllabus (which varies immensely from one college to the next) is less politicised although Modern British History includes a significant one-sided section on “The Welfare State” and the Labour Party’s key role in making the UK a better place after World War II by nationalising the health service and building council houses – little attention is paid to the potential problems of nationalising everything although there’s a brief mention that by the 1950s there were serious problems with the financing of the NHS.
I started my GCSEs in September 1999 and completed the exams in summer 2001. The following observations are based on my experience at a ‘good’ state secondary school and my knowledge of the National Curriculum as it was applied to what I was taught.
The GCSE Biology syllabus embraces Darwin’s theory of evolution and makes no mention of “Creationist” theory, which is fine (although I’m not sure this would go down very well in some parts of the US) but the syllabus also includes a large section, which probably hasn’t been suitably revised in many years, on the environment and various controversial and quite difficult to test theories such as “global warming”, “the greenhouse effect” (one requirement of the syllabus is that pupils should be able to use this specific term when writing about the effects that technology such as cars have on the environment – or be able to explain its meaning) and “the hole in the ozone layer”. In the summer holidays between years 10 and 11 I was required to write a report on water pollution and air pollution caused by humans and I was also expected to write about the environmentalists’ doomsday theories (ie. we’ll run out of natural resources before 2050 or the UK will be under water by 2150 because the ice caps will have completely melted) as if they are the absolute, undeniable truth.
GCSE Chemistry and Physics included bits and pieces about “sustainable development”. We were taught that we must stop using “fossil fuels” now because we’re close to running out and that governments must put money into developing “renewable” energy sources “before it’s too late”. The thing I found the most alarming about the sciences was that we were told exactly what state the environment’s supposedly in without being given any evidence and allowed to make our own judgements about the seriousness of any problem affecting the earth.
I believe some parts of the GCSE Modern History syllabus vary depending on which region of the country you’re in (or which exam board your school choose to work with) but this subject is sure to include something about how Western European nations ruined/”raped” the world through “imperialism” and how subsequently the First World nations are obliged to support the Third World nations which they seriously damaged. If modern (ie. early twentieth century) US history is taught it’s bound to include a mention of how successful Keynesian economics supposedly were in 1930s America following the Wall Street Crash and how under Roosevelt Americans came to realise that laissez-faire policies don’t work and aren’t in anyone’s best interests. If the Vietnam and/or Korean wars are taught the teaching might include how the Americans are out of control and someone [the EU?] needs to take the lead in advancing socialism in order to stop those free market maniacs from trading with Asian nations which they are alleged to have effectively colonised.
You may find it difficult to believe how much propaganda they manage to fill “Modern Foreign Language” subjects with. The most obvious thing to include in European languages subjects is pro-EU propaganda and there is quite a lot of it (we need to learn European languages so the UK and its citizens can more easily integrate with the rest of Europe, by learning other European languages and “understanding other cultures” we can all live in harmony and have EU-wide laws which will help prevent the otherwise inevitable outbreak of another European war, etc). I was taught a bit of stuff about the French Franc and German Deutschmark (since I studied both GCSE French and GCSE German) although I’m sure this is no longer part of either of these courses. However, the political agenda does not end with “isn’t the EU great” and “we’re all friends in Europe”. The speaking assessment requires pupils to write and memorise a sort of ‘discussion’ on six different topics. Some of the topics are what you might expect – “my family”, “my region”, “my last holiday” and “my home”. The two other topics are very much influenced purely by politics: “my lifestyle” and “the environment”. The lifestyle topics requires pupils to talk about how much exercise they do and what kind of food they eat (teachers will tend to offer particular phrases when you’re preparing these topics and such phrases are likely to come straight from the health fascist’s English to French/German phrase book). The environment topic includes the sort of things you’d probably expect – one’s concerns about the state of the environment and how one would go about making the world ‘cleaner’. I vividly remember preparing this topic because I was supposed to write about the need to stop people driving cars and how governments should raise taxes to improve public transport systems and how more legislation is the ideal solution to environmental problems. Unfortunately, at the time, I even believed parts of what I was being made to write and memorise.
The GCSE English Language course was fine (although it did little to improve the communication and writing skills of the majority of pupils) but I found English Literature incredibly annoying because it included how to be “politically correct”. I had no objections to the Shakespeare element of the course but the twentieth century poetry and short stories aspect intentionally focused on words and phrases which should be avoided to ensure no one is offended (words we were told must never be used included things like “half-caste” and “queer”). I understand that some GCSE English Literature pupils have to study Animal Farm and/or Nineteen Eighty-Four and I can only hope that studying these books helps some children to recognise parallels between things like Newspeak and politically correct speak. Teaching children to always try to cater for “minorities” and to make sure no one will find their work offensive by sticking to specific words and phrases is very wrong and the implications of this kind of teaching are obvious.
“Personal and Social Education” (PSE), now known as PSHE (“Personal, Social and Health Education”) was thankfully so universally despised that I don’t think it was ever an effective tool of indoctrination although it has the potential to become a much more potent weapon in the war against free-thinking. I remember very little about this subject (only one hour of teaching of PSE/PSHE per fortnight is required by the government) other than that it was part of a futile attempt to have pupils think in set ways and form opinions with a specific world view in mind. Some PSE lessons were apparently designed to teach us how the UK government works. The (very poor) quality of these lessons on UK government is more than adequately demonstrated by the sort of questions asked on PSE tests, questions such as “In which chamber of the Houses of Parliament are the seats green: the House of Commons or the House of Lords?”. The last question on another PSE test included a page with a black horizontal line, with “Left” written to the left of the line and “Right” written to the right of the line. Of course the line was supposed to represent the political spectrum. The questioned asked pupils to mark where they thought they “fitted” on this line. I’m not completely sure why we were asked to complete such tasks and I’d be interested to know whether or not the results were passed on to a government agency of some sort or just analysed by the school itself. (I declined to make any mark on the Left-Right line.)
I’ve no real gripes about the other GCSE subjects I endured (Maths, Design Technology, RE, PE).
However, I have other serious concerns about the state education system which I’d like to take this opportunity to highlight. I was recently informed by a “rebellious” senior member of staff at my school that each year schools and colleges now receive special word lists from the government. These lists include a comprehensive guide to banned words and phrases which teachers must not use under particular circumstances or must not use at all. The government also sends schools a list of “acceptable” words which outlines alternatives words and phrases which can be used in place of banned words. I am reliably informed by this teacher that the word “immigrant” has been banned and that the term “new arrival” should be used to describe someone who has moved into the UK from another country (regardless of whether or not they immigrated recently or 50 years ago – they’re a “new arrival”). These lists must be distributed to staff who are expected to unquestioningly stick to them.
There are also equally alarming developments with respect to the government’s new “Connexions” organisation and the gradual introduction of the “Connexions Card” for all pupils and students between the ages of 13 and 19. The “Connexions Card” is effectively a compulsory ID card and electronic cash card which must be used to buy school lunches and which is used to track how children interact with their schools, Job Centres, social services workers, LEAs and so on. The “Connexions service” involves placing a PA (Personal Adviser) into schools for one day a week to speak to pupils and students about any “barriers to learning” which may affect them (information shared with a so-called PA is probably stored on the central “Connexions” database and tied to the individual through his ID card number). “Connexions” gather as much information as possible on individual school children, put it in a giant database and then share it with social services, youth offending teams, LEAs, health authorities, local authorities, the police, probation officers, etc. There is no doubt in my mind that the “Connexions [compulsory ID] Card” is designed to get children used to the idea of having to carry an ID card at all times to prove “entitlement” to do almost anything and the card also provides a useful way of introducing the concept of centrally administered electronic money. For more precise information on “Connexions” and the “Connexions Card” take a look at this site. The whole “Connexions” issue has been largely ignored by the mainstream press. I intend to write to the Information Commissioner in the near future to bring to his attention how my personal data was handed over to “Connexions” by my school without my consent probably by a rogue money-grabbing member of staff (schools are paid £1 for every student’s details they hand over to “Connexions” and there are blatant abuses of this system taking place at my school since I have friends who left the school many years ago and do not fit into the “13-19” age group who’ve suddenly started receiving letters welcoming them to “Connexions” – presumably because someone at my school decided to submit the information they’d kept hold of on ex-pupils and ex-students to get even more money). There’s more disturbing information about what’s going on in schools here.
I’m sure I could write a great deal about the one-sidedness of some of the student events I’ve attended in the last couple of years but I’ve written enough already – suffice to say I’ve not once witnessed a properly conducted debate where questions aren’t carefully screened and I’ve never come across a conference where the speakers aren’t convinced that the EU’s the best thing that ever happened to the UK and its people.
David Carr:
The education establishment is an augean mess. The only solution is complete dissolution.
I’m afraid that my personal experience very much bears out this statement. Unfortunately many parents seem to rely on the state to raise their children.
Patrick Crozier:
So, Stephen thinks the bias has ended and that armed with his no doubt high grade A-levels he will shortly be gaining entry into objective enquiry, study-for-the-hell-of-it Heaven.
Not at all, Mr Crozier. During the course of the last two or three years I’ve visited a few universities and I’ve seen the bias that exists but I believe that at universities much less of the obvious bias results from the government telling universities what to teach than in schools and colleges. Please correct me if I’m wrong but I’ve always got the impression that at universities most of the one-sided teaching stems from individual staff trying to propagate their own opinions and/or beliefs rather than from staff following government guidelines.
Patrick Crozier:
Do we need speakers and a topic? I think all we need is a venue, some beer and some badges with our names and blogs. Charge everyone a tenner or so and you’re quids in. Or maybe, it becomes a cash bar when the money runs out.
Want to talk about the War, civil rights, Japanese bullet trains? Just buttonhole the appropriate blogger.
That sounds like a pretty good idea.
I hope the information I’ve provided is of some use to you in understanding the current state of the ‘education’ system, Mr Cooper.
Stephen
Much enjoyed your extended comments. On the on hand alarming. On the other hand, encouraging, given that you and others didn’t succumb.
Patrick
I agree with Patrick. Us older folks are, perhaps, underestimating the extent to which the so-called ‘eduation’ system has, in fact, become an indoctrination machine.
I’d like to offer Stephen Hodgson my sincere thanks for his detailed account which did, indeed, give me a greater insight into the state of mass indoctrination being practised in our schools.
I’d be being disingenuous if I expressed surprised by this. Most (not all) teachers tend to be socialists, as do most (not all) young people and even back in the Dark Ages when I was at school, it was hard not to be aware of the slant put on most arts subjects by those teaching them. Even then, the syllabus was to some degree twisted – notably in the modern components of English literature, though this (and I’m straining to be fair) was perhaps inevitable, given the prevalence of Left wing ideas in modern English writing.
All those years ago, “environmentalism” had yet to have been invented, though I do seem to recall one chemistry teacher predicting we were going to have used up the earth’s reserves of coal and oil by 2000. If he is still alive (unlikely, as he was universally hated – surely someone must have poisoned him by now?) I hope he remembers those predictions and feels suitably ashamed.
What seems to have changed most is the intrusion of the state’s purse-lipped do-gooders – the social organisers of the liberal agenda, with their PC and non-PC (dark shadows of Nancy Mitford) and the metastasis of the EU into every feature of our lives, spreading its deadly, numbing, socialist conformity.
It’s a wonder that someone as articulate and perceptive as Mr. Hodgson survives the system which, if nothing else, proves it isn’t infallible. Until I read his post, my only experience of what the propagandists are up has been the hateful schools material broadcast by the BBC late at night and the progress (or otherwise) of two young relatives, one of whom is too young to have had much done to her mind yet, the other of whom seems to learn about nothing but the Second World War (and that from a predictable approach).
My thanks again and I only hope that others were still reading this old thread and have also benefited from Mr. Hodgon’s astute analysis.
On topic again:
I’d’ve thought at least a few more people than have so far spoken up would be interested in Johnathan’s conference proposal.