We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day “The trouble is that because schools fail to teach history, especially legal and constitutional history, the vast majority of today’s citizens have no inkling to what they owe their liberty and prosperity, namely a long and successful struggle for the rights of which the right to property is the most fundamental. They are therefore unaware what debilitating effect the restrictions on property rights wil, over the long run, have on their lives.”
– Richard Pipes, Property and Freedom, page 291.
Of course, by property, one does not just mean physical property, but also to the whole idea that individuals, not the state, own their lives.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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I think this quote is too optimistic – it’s not the fault of schools that people don’t understand this, it’s the fault of people. They don’t care, and for as long as they have chips and a Nintendo why should they?
Yes, they don’t understand that they only have chips at the sufferance of those who own them (the people, and the chips), and legally they have no ownership of the Nintendo.
In The Constitution of Liberty(Link), Hayek(Link) writes, “It has been a long time
since that ideal of freedom which inspired modern Western civilization
and whose partial realization made possible the achievements of that
civilization was effectively restated.” And “If old truths are to
retain their hold on men’s minds, they must be restated in the
language and concepts of successive generations.”
Here we are again, Paul. “People”? We are talking children. You cannot expect children to know things without being told about them by somebody. And then these children do grow up to become people, and this is how we find ourselves in the current mess.
Paul, Alisa, I would say that the schools carry part of the blame, since obviously when folk were young they could have been exposed to some of this history, but weren’t. Maybe some of the slack is being filled by other sources of information, such as the Internet. I am not sure.
In the case of British state schools, I would say the lack of teaching about history, constitutions, liberties etc, is definitely a feature, not a bug.
It’s more insidious than that. Most parents have ceded educating their children to the state, and since the state does a dreadful job of educating them about history, the children never learn the lessons of history.
Two generations later, no one even knows that the children aren’t being taught what’s crucial to their freedom, and, of course, they lose that freedom as a result.
Sadly, the children of today have no idea what they’ve missed, since their parents were educated the same way, and can’t even tell them most of the time what they’re missing. Unfortunately the time to fix this was when Buckley’s ‘God and Man at Yale’ was written.
The state-run education system has seriously impaired the transmission of knowledge from generation to generation. This hard-won knowledge is being thrown away without a thought. Just witness the decline of reading of the classics.
I long ago read an analysis of the perils of state-run education (written before it was a common thing) and this was one of those things warned against.
schools teach – now there’s a novel concept!
What motivation do State Bureaucrats known as teaches, who owe their livelihood to collectivism have in educatiing young minds about economics and history?
If there is to be a “collective” education, as a compromise, it should merely be a cooperative service -like garbage collection – that teaches the basic modes of communication – reading, writing, arithmetic, so that everyone has a basic foundation upon which to build. Anything beyond that is the content of what is communicated and that is philosophical and and as such is contentious. There should be no State control of the accepted, catholic philosophies that will be taught. Just as in terms of collectivization of resources someone has to control their disposition, -and we fight such a course – the same applies to advanced education of ideas – someone has to control content. And that content will obviously be self serving. So the medium becomes the message – centralization, collectivization, socialism, etc etc etc so it is no surprise that reality is expunged. Economic limitations of resources is not taught, or someone might conclude that Welfare State needs to be dismantled. History is not taught or students will draw the correct conclusions that Centralization leads to poor use or limited resources and millions die. We can’t have that.
Tuck and Brad nail it, and their comments complement each other well in describing the problem.
Expecting schools to instill a respect for liberty is like expecting churches to instill a respect for Satan. The first lesson every child learns as they are dragged through the school gates for the first time is that they are the property neither of themself, nor of their family, but of the State which compels them to years of degrading institutionalisation, and that they will only be allowed to live a reasonable life if they are sufficiently compliant and collect sufficient scraps of paper which bear testament to that compliance.
There seems to be a myth abroad that the schools have somehow been taken over and subverted, taken from “us”. But an inspection (under OFSTED of course) of the history of schooling reveals no such thing; it was instituted by social engineers for the purpose of social engineering and no other reason. The goals the engineers desire have changed over time, but the purpose remains the same. And it is one of the main reasons that liberty has lost.[1]
There is little hope of somehow making schooling benign; it is an evil thing, conceived in evil and permeated in its every pore by that evil. Our only hope is to abolish it altogether- which should be simple as it achieves no good but perpetrates massive harm- but currently that is probably beyond us. Nonetheless, persons of liberty probably will make greater strategic gains by supporting and expanding the homeschooling and unschooling movements than in attempting to reform that which is rotten by design.
We are of course late in the day; a century of schooling has all but destroyed our civilisation. But we must start somewhere; and start we must.
Here’s a good book.
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[1] Run on sentence, Bland Minor. See me after class for
a beatingtherapy.Alisa (and others) – You may have misunderstood slightly what I was implying. There are lessons that people don’t learn unless they are forced to live them, and even then there’s a decent chance the lesson won’t take.
For example, the current financial crisis is not fundamentally something we haven’t seen before (whether it was caused by excess govt. regulation or the excesses of the free market doesn’t matter), yet we’ve made the same mistakes again, and I guarantee that if we still have an economy of note in 20 years time we’ll make them again. Another example: We get ourselves into wars with startling frequency, even though politicians start wars and they’re the people most likely to have studied history in depth.
The sad fact is that thinking we know better and hence making the same mistakes as our forefathers, however well presented those lessons might have been at home, school or university, is practically a defining characteristic of humanity. Complaining that we’re not teaching these things at school is like watching your house burn down and cursing yourself for only having one bucket to put the flames out instead of two.
Ian’s comment reminds me why we refer to public (in Brit speak, “private”) schools as “day prisons.”
Awful places… not fit for adults, let alone children.
Humanity has been teaching its young since the lessons were hunting, gathering and fetching water and the ‘certificates’ were scars on your cheeks and having bits of your anatomy hacked off instead of pieces of paper.
And the lessons have always been structured to increase the child’s utility to the comminity rather than his/her individual liberty.
The questions in education will always be who does the teaching, and what is the curriculum. Which boils down to what lessons are most useful to the community.
We will never reach a pass where everyone agrees that individual property rights, (in the broad, libertarian definition of that phrase), will be accepted by the whole community as the way to go, so the only road to travel is to abolish the state monopoly on education,
Personally, I think that teaching the kids the three Rs and then letting those who are interested go on to further education, either by paying fees or by scholarship, is the way to go. Most kids will shrug, and complete their education in the workplace, by watching TV, or by playing Grand Theft Auto, but for those who are smart enough and interested enough, it’s a big world out there.
The problem is that the dull ones will still have the vote.
Well no Paul, not really – unless you are saying that education, or at least the study of history, is a waste of time. The whole point is that those lessons are not, and have not been well presented in neither of those institutions you mention. Sure, there will always be people who are just stupid, period. But most aren’t – they are just plain ignorant, and their ignorance is not entirely their fault. Believe me, I talk to people who have a relatively good understanding of economy and finances, and they have their bank accounts to show for it (for the time being, at least). And when I tell them that Obama is going to be the next FDR or worse, they say “great, there is hope then!”. They were sold a lie since childhood, and they bought it simply because there was no one there to tell them the truth.
Kevin, you need to think a bit harder about the difference between education, defined as learning stuff, and education, defined as a system of institutions.
Ian B, good to have you back in the building, by the way.
You might also ponder who is the “dull” one; a plumber who learns to plumb in the workplace, likes to watch TV and play Grand Theft Auto, starts a business, raises his family by the sweat of his brow and helps thousands of people to have warm homes and running water, or the smart intellectual ensconsced in the bosom of a state-funded university, writing post-marxist tracts. Which of those is more worthy of a vote in your regime?
Ian, I think you are attacking a straw man there. What makes your plumber dull are not those things he is doing that you mentioned (including being a plumber – see “Joe The Plumber”), but that he is (presumably) not doing anything else to broaden his horizons. Such lack of other interests can be detrimental to his judgment on election day. Not necessarily, of course, but knowledge is power, no doubt about that. Oh, and welcome back:-)
Thanks Alisa and Johnathan 🙂
Alisa, I’m questioning whether what we mean by broadening horizons is really a broadening of horizons at all, or maybe just the assumption of a particular class consciousness. We associate certain cultural markers with some kind of wisdom or intelligence, but are they good indicators at all? As persons of liberty, we all should be able to see that one great detriment to judgement is immersion in the wrong ideologies; think of all those well-educated socialists and “liberals” who are (at least from our perspective) flat wrong about everything because although they know a great deal, they know a great deal of total cobblers.
The white van man of the Thatcher years had an intuitive understanding of economic self-improvement which might not have been expressed in particularly flowery language and which he may have had trouble defending against educated socialists with their big words from books, but was sound; would he have been improved by a thorough education in economics teaching him to be a Keynesian statist?
We need to stop dismissing a stereotype of the excluded classes as dullards because they may prefer popular TV shows to Shakespeare; it was that kind of thinking that started the whole social improvement movement that got us into this fecking mess. We need to concentrate less on who we think needs their horizons broadening, and more on the thieving bastards taking control of our liberties, lives and property. All of whom have sheaves of degrees in Total Cobblers.
Ian, you know I like you, but you really need to let go of this class struggle nonsense. You are attacking a straw man again. I never said that I necessarily value formal education, and when I say “knowledge”, I mean knowledge of the truth, of what has really happened, as opposed to some accepted narrative. And there are any number of ways to obtain that knowledge, other than formal education, especially with modern technology. I know, I know, the Internet is doomed, you told us, and you may be right, but it is alive for the time being, and people who want to know the truth are using it, plumbers included.
Me too, Ian. I’ve missed your thoughtful and deeply reasoned comments. Even when I disagree with your conclusions of fatalistic futility.
There is good cause for hope. Those political indoctrinators aka ‘teachers’ will expect to be paid in useful currency. Weimar dollars (or pounds of euros) aren’t going to buy them.
The good thing about being on the side of reality is that at some point, it always wins. Intellectuals are so overdrawn on the rational-foundation account that when they lose the financial support of the reality based people they leach off of, they won’t even know which way to fall without someone pointing out the way.
Point taken Ian B.
It was a badly expressed throwaway line at the end of a comment which was meant to expound my view that education has always been about teaching kids to be ‘useful to society’ and that the socialists, by nationalising the means of production, are now the sole judges of what is ‘useful to society’.
I don’t dispute that a plumber can be more a more rounded citizen than a professor of ‘Science Studies’. Only that those not interested in learning more about the world than they learn from TV and video games or arguments down the pub, may be no better at choosing amongst those who seek to rule us than the good professor, and if the choice they have is between which brand of socialism to elect, the chances are that they will elect that brand which promises them the most state intervention. The one that ticks the most boxes on their personal “Why doesn’t the government do something about ….” questionaire.
I think you’ve missed my point Alisa. But I’m glad you like me 😉
Kevin, I guess we’re much in agreement 🙂
A central problem with mass education is it stifles self-education; it’s natural for people to assume that what is taught is what is supposed to be learned, and all that is supposed to be learned. Children come into the world primed to learn about it, and then the education system hammers the desire to learn for themselves out of them- it becomes a chore and a task rather than an exploration.
I think we can as persons of liberty, informally and generally, attempt to get people to question education itself- is schooling the best way for children to learn? Was it once the most practical way, but now in a society deluged with free information, not the most practical any more? We need to challenge the progressives and their “education, education, education” mantra with, “well, what do you really mean by that?” I’m more interested in supporting initiatives to get kids out of the system- such as homeschooling without government interference- than in trying to fix the schools in some way. Every intelligent, learned homeschooled child is a slap in the face of the factory-education dogma.
Alisa – I don’t consider the study a waste of time at all. What I’m saying is that some of the finest minds in the histories of their respective countries have studied history (and various useful “history of …”s) for centuries, and we still make all these mistakes. Now it’s possible that all of those people were porns of the socialist state, though looking through the lists of Prime Ministers of England that would be pretty hard to believe. But given the mistakes they fell into, I fail to see that a lower standard of tutelage in history is going to make a huge difference. I think it’s essential we try, because if it makes any difference at all it will be worth it, but revolutions come more from life than textbooks.
Ian: I don’t think so, but I’m glad you are glad:-)
Paul: I know you don’t consider it a waste of time, that is why what you said before makes no sense.
What makes them “the finest minds”? Who are the “we” who are making all these mistakes? The rest of your comment is even less clear – sorry.
I read the whole book years ago, and was very impressed with it. I can also recommend ‘The Noblest Pursuit’, though I forget the name of the author. Both books are great for people who want to protect property, as they give you plenty of ammo!
I don’t consider it a waste of time because it can make things less worse than they would otherwise be. My father has an eye condition that is made worse by smoking, so he’s (finally) stopped smoking. I think that’s a good idea, even though it’s not going to make his eyes any better, because it does some good at least.
Similarly I support teaching history because it can make things a little better, but to expect it to make any great difference is largely without grounding. We have literally thousands of years of people with all levels of historical understanding, and we keep making the same mistakes. That’s not because people are stupid, or even unreflective necessarily. It’s because people are not built to consider future dangers, and the only thing that can make any significant impact on that is current dangers.
Finally, I use the phrase ‘finest minds’ in the traditional sense, i.e. the great men of history. I’m no fan of politicians, but I’m constantly impressed by the understanding so many of them show of history. These are people who to some extent are where they are because they think further and harder about our situation, and for hundreds of years they’ve made the same mistakes.
I strongly disagree. If a person of average intelligence studies history as it really happened, there is a good chances they will learn the lessons. Whether everyone chooses to make correct future choices based on those lessons is a different question, but still knowledge beats ignorance.
And you honestly believe this Paul?
When I say that people aren’t good at dealing with future dangers it’s not (just) my opinion, there are countless studies that show that we’re impressively bad at balancing risk vs. reward, at deferring pleasure, at assessing future risk, at maintaining focus in the absence of prompting, and a host of other similar issues. That we’re bad at learning from the mistakes of others isn’t controversial; we’re not biologically wired to do it, we’re wired to get the banana now and avoid the cheetah now. That we’re better than chimps at this is testament to the evolutionary advances we’ve made, but they’re surprisingly slender advances. Education in history, and economics, social sciences, etc. does help, but it just makes us very bad at it as opposed to really very bad at it.
On your second point. How/why does one become a politician? Wielding all my cynicism I can come up with the following:
1. You’re very charming, but for some reason you can’t translate that into business success, so being a politician is a way to turn that talent into money.
2. You want the sort of power that money can’t buy.
3. You couldn’t think of anything else to do, and daddy knew someone who could get you a safe seat.
4. You want to improve the world, and this is a way to do it.
I assume you don’t think politicians to some extent ‘think further and harder about our situation’ than average? Well it seems that 1 and 2 might, at least to the extent that it would help further their goals. 3 probably wouldn’t, except by accident. And 4 certainly would.
None of that assures that their thinking will be sound, or lead to solid conclusions. But yes, I think that to some extent politicians get to be politicians because they’ve thought ahead. Let me turn the question around: Do you honestly believe that politicians don’t, to some extent, think more widely about their country’s situation than the average citizen? To help your answer, remember that 75% of young Americans couldn’t find Israel on a map. Not a map of the world, a map of the Middle East. And almost as many couldn’t find Iraq, a country they’re at war with (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12591413/). In comparison the fact that some politicians don’t know the difference between Sunni and Shia makes them towering genuises. Scary eh?
Well the way I would look at it, is that there is no mystery over why political leaders etc make “mistakes” because, I don’t think they’re making “mistakes”. So it’s not due to a lack of education or understanding or whatever. They act within the political market, rationally, in the cause of their own self interest. For instance, taking something at random, the US “stimulus” packages are irrational economically, but politically rational, since they act to the advantage of those enacting them.
The problem isn’t stupidity or ignorance, it’s that self interest in the political marketplace acts against the greater good- it’s the exact opposite of the economic free marketplace. The free market harnesses self interest by forcing anyone seeking to prosper to offer something in return in every trade. The political marketplace doesn’t.
We’re libertarians. We understand self interest, and believe that people are generally rational. Political decisions which harm us are made by self interested agents, acting rationally.
Relevant to the discussion of politicians being the ones who think to the future:
Perhaps politicians are the ones who think most to the future. Citizens who trust their intentions are sheep to the slaughter.
And when the schools and universities do teach history (“especially legal and constitutional history”) they teach something very different from what Richard Pipes would like.
Schools and universities do matter in teaching people about legal and constitutional history (and economics and politics)( – but in a bad way, they are active force for evil in modern society.
And when the schools and universities do teach history (“especially legal and constitutional history”) they teach something very different from what Richard Pipes would like.
Schools and universities do matter in teaching people about legal and constitutional history (and economics and politics)( – but in a bad way, they are an active force for evil in modern society.
Paul (not Marks): please don’t take this personally, but you are not making any sense. Sorry, but I give up.
Mid, I’m sure you’d agree that it’s not that simple. Some of them are indeed evil, some are stupid/ignorant, some are both. And a few are actually decent and and wise, but they very rarely get far ahead, and when they do, the rest of the scum make sure that they don’t accomplish much.
Actually, Alisa, I think it is just about that simple. Every marginal tax cut (in the modern era, anyway) has more than paid for itself in increased governmental revenues from the resulting economic growth. It worked for Kennedy; it worked for Reagan (once the cuts actually took effect; there was an unfortunate delay because of idiotic Democratic posturing); and it would work again now. If Obama and his minions truly wanted to jump-start the economy they would cut taxes at the margin (i.e., the upper brackets), and unemployment would decline and the tax revenues would start rolling in. The fact that they don’t simply means that they care more about income redistribution and the perception of “fairness” (and on increasing the stranglehold of government on the economy) than in the economic health of the country. These are not stupid people (for the most part); they know exactly what they’re doing.
Well, see, Laird, what you are doing is something that comes so naturally to you, and so you presume that it comes just as naturally to everyone else. Guess what: you are wrong. I am talking about “stopping and thinking things through”, of course. For some reason, many here are quick to accept that this is the basic problem with the common voter. They say that he is just busy going on about his daily business, and has no time to “stop and think” about the issues. Why do you think politicians are any different? Just because we expect them to be? Ha.
Well, since my congressman is known both for handing out copies of Atlas Shrugged and for being ranking member (shadow chairman) of the House Budget Committee I do understand that a few may be on the side of the good guys. But I still think citizens who trust politicians are sheep to the slaughter. I don’t trust Ryan even though I support him and think he is honest.
I think at least some Republicans have been getting the message for a little while. But if somebody’s vote requires them to trust a politician, they should skip voting and leave it to voters who verify.
I actually think that politicians are a combination of good guys who think ahead (as rare as an inverted rainbow), politicians who are collectivist plotters intent on ruling (ie who read Alinsky) and the useful idiots of whatever party that serve the collectivists whether it is their intent to or not. The poor planning useful idiots serve only collectivism and can be lumped in with the collectivists for all statistical purposes.
Sounds about right.
Inverted rainbow? I had no idea!
The trouble with schools is they rely on league tables to prove their worth. Youngsters are trained to pass exams.
There is joy in learning a subject and learning it well, being able to grasp all the facts, and discussing it with friends and family, and others of a like mind.
I don’t know what schools teach nowadays, but I see alot of young people who moan and are overly critical and divide themselves from others.
I think the essence of ‘individual’ has been diminished very recently. In these times the individual will need to be resourceful, and reliant on others, to survive.
Alisa, I’m not sure I understand what you think I’m wrong about. Is it your contention that Obama and our political overlords don’t understand that cutting taxes at the margin would stimulate the economy and thus increase tax revenues? If that’s the case you’re making the assumption that he is far less intelligent (or at least far more ignorant) that I give him credit for. Certainly, there are some very dim bulbs in Congress for whom this concept is far beyond their grasp, but that’s not true for all of them and (in my opinion) certainly not Obama. So I stand by my post, especially the last two sentences.
Of course, if you mean I am wrong about something else entirely, I am more than willing to entertain the possibility. Please be more specific, though.
Laird:
I think we can agree on that. I got the impression that you think that all politicians are evil and none are ignorant. My only point was that, although certain occupations tend to attract certain kinds of people (think lawyer bashing?), in general politicians are just like everyone else, i.e. a mixed bag of good, bad and ugly, with a certain doze of stupid added for good measure. As to the One himself, as far as I’m concerned the jury is still out on the exact proportion of evil and stupid in that particular mixture.
Larid, can I just check this. Are you saying that, in general, people who advocate tax-and-redistribute policies are actually aware that these policies are wrong?
Ian, assuming that you’re using the word “wrong” to mean that such policies are antithetical to maximizing economic growth, no, I don’t think that the average man-on-the-street who supports “soaking the rich” and bailing out improvident borrowers knows that such policies are not in the long-term best interests of the country. I don’t expect either economic or historical acumen from such people. But I do think that most politicians, at least those in national office, are well aware of it. (Of course, there are some who are merely stupid or abysmally ignorant, as Alisa says, but I don’t think they’re the majority.) For many of them redistribution itself (the populist illusion of “fairness”) is the primary objective, so fostering economic growth (especially since it necessarily results in what they view as unfair disparities in income and wealth) is of secondary concern. For them, such a policy isn’t “wrong” because it advances their agenda; the harm to the country is merely unfortunate but relatively unimportant “collateral damage”. I place Obama in that camp.
And I think that the quotation posted by Midwesterner on 3/12 at 8:34 PM is spot on.
Alisa – sorry to hear I’m not being clear. Just in case I can improve, I’ll try once more, but if you can’t be bothered to waste more time on me I understand 🙂
*Evolution has left us poorly equipped to plan far ahead.
*Education can make us a little better, but not much.
*Politicians tend to think more about the future of their country than the average person, though that doesn’t make them any better at it.
Paul, I strongly disagree on the first two points, the third one is summed up pretty well by Laird, Mid and Ian (and a bit myself) above. I am terribly busy, so it hasn’t much to do with you personally:-)
You’re free, of course, to disagree with any of the points, but the first at least is pretty well established. People instinctively fail to grasp probability, are generally bad at deferred gratification, grossly misunderstand risk, etc. Even with education people’s natural instincts routinely lead them astray in these areas.
If you’re all right that politicians don’t think about their country’s future more than the average person then I’m greatly cheered. I know many thoughtful people, but very many more who don’t give a moment’s thought to much outside of pub, pay day and Jade Goody. If politicians are anything like that, and also as inept as is commonly described here, then democracy must be pretty close to indestructable. That’s a tremendous thought.