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> School's purpose is not to teach obedience or even getting a job. It is there to teach us critical thinking, and consequently, how to be a good citizen. An ed

> School's purpose is not to teach obedience or even getting a job. It is there to teach us critical thinking, and consequently, how to be a good citizen. An educated population is also less prone to fall into totalitarianism. Germany was among the most highly educated countries in the world in the 1930s. The Russian Revolution was an elite phenomenon. In a country of peasants the Revolution was of and by the intelligentsia. Whatever else you might say about them they weren’t uneducated. The German ban on home schooling is explicitly to prevent the formation of parallel societies. It would be hard to be clearer that the purpose of the “education” system is indoctrination. If you want to teach things the best and most efficient way to do so is explicitly. The enormous majority of people do not generalize learning beyond its context. Whether transfer of learning even exists is a hot topic in psychological research. It is certainly not a strong effect. If school was to teach critical thinking it should be doing so explicitly. It doesn’t and there’s little reason to believe it’s especially good at it. School is excellent at inuring children to boredom, obeying authority and pointless busywork.

mgh2 6y ago
Yeah, I won't deny that even the educated can be manipulated- look at our generation affected by corporate and political agendas. Yes, totalitarian states have used education to indoctrinate masses to maintain order and power. Depends on who does the teaching and how it is taught, that is why critical thinking is key. Given this prerequisite, is an educated population easier to be manipulated than an illiterate one?
- barry-cotter 6y ago
  > Yes, totalitarian states have used education to indoctrinate masses to maintain order and power. Depends on who does the teaching and how it is taught, that is why critical thinking is key. None of the German Empire, Weimar Republic or Russian Empire were totalitarian states. If education is protective against indoctrination the effect is at best weak. A lively marketplace of ideas is no guard against organized thugs if the liberals are not willing to defend liberalism. Critical thinking is a red herring.
  - drevil-v2 6y ago
    Which is what is so depressing about "cancel culture" and radical redefinition of what is "hate speech". Liberals and the rational center are not defending those ideals which gave us our modern Western civilisation. Even on this website, merely questioning the validity of some of the aspects of the politically correct zeitgeist will get your post flagged and hidden from public consumption.
    - FranzFerdiNaN 6y ago
      Free speech as how some people like to define it now (anything can and should be said) was never an ideal, and certainly never reality. It’s funny how the people complaining about “cancel culture” (usually a roundabout way of complaining you can’t say racist things anymore) are completely fine with twisting especially history to benefit themselves.
      - StavrosK 6y ago
        > usually a roundabout way of complaining you can’t say racist things anymore As an external observer, this seems to me exactly the problem. Discourse is so polarized, that nobody can say "this thing that started as a reaction to overt racism has gone too far" without people replying "that just means you're racist". The situation has come to where there are ridiculous abuses going on, and criticizing them is anathema because the initial purpose of the system being abused was to counter a bias. Hell, even writing this comment, meta-analyzing the situation, I'm semi-afraid will have personal impact to me, which is pretty indicative of the problem.
        krageon 6y ago
        > Discourse is so polarized, that nobody can say A large part of it is signaling through terminology. If you use terms such as "cancel culture" and "liberals", it's pretty clear you're either a right-wing US citizen or someone who wishes they were one. There are definitely people that are able to discuss certain social trends becoming a problem without using dogmatic terminology, which is where the conversation becomes interesting for all participants. As opposed to a horrifying journey plumbing the depths of polarised discourse.
- freshhawk 6y ago
  Obviously that depends. Here is another way to phrase your question: You spend 10 years telling John some stuff every day for hours and Jane is someone you just met. Which one is easier to lie to? Sounds to me like it completely depends on a lot of different things, but if you know what lie you want to tell ahead of time: obviously John is easier to lie to.
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    You hear something from someone who's been talking to you for 10 years, and from someone you've just met. Whose lie is easier to detect?
  - Broken_Hippo 6y ago
    That isn't obvious at all. Folks get smitten by people they've barely met. It doesn't take years to be tricked into joining a cult: You can convince folks in a matter of months. John might be 10 years into your lies, but he also might have caught on. You use different lies with Jane, who might not know better, and she listens wholeheartedly and with good faith. If John is an adult and Jane isn't, Jane is easier even with the age difference. This is simply because of lack of knowledge and experience. If one has more access to the outside world than the other, they are less likely to believe your lies. If John knows you have mental health problems that causes you to lie and Jane doesn't, Jane is easier to lie to. Maybe John is more suspicious of people and the world. Maybe John just shuts up to appease you, like folks that avoid talking politics with their families simply don't want to deal with things. Are you someone younger? DO you have authority over them? There are so many things that affect whether or not you can lie to someone.
  - pritovido 6y ago
    It is interesting because for me it was obvious that Jane will be the easiest to lie to by far. John knows you much better. Usually psychopaths and sociopaths are always moving so people don't know who they are and they can fool them easily. What you are saying is if someone does trust you, you can lie to her easier, which is true, but then you will loose the trust and bond that took a long time to get.
  - username90 6y ago
- philwelch 6y ago
  What better way to manipulate a population than by “educating” them?
  - Broken_Hippo 6y ago
    Yet if you don't know math, you can be ripped off. If you can't read the contract or understand law at all, you can be manipulated.
    - jjk166 6y ago
      Which would be a compelling argument if there were no other way to learn math or law.
      - guidoism 6y ago
        Indeed. And the math schools concentrate on isn’t particular useful in the context of a modern society. So what that you once memorized a geometric proof long enough to take a test if you don’t understand how interest works and how credit card companies take advantage of you.
      - Broken_Hippo 6y ago
        Not everyone can just learn on their own, and if your parents aren't real great at math or law or teaching, you really need school.
        jjk166 6y ago
        That some people need kidney dialysis is not an argument that everyone getting kidney dialysis is the only way to stay healthy. If you can't learn from books or videos or online lectures or parents or tutors, I doubt generic schooling is really going to be able to help much either, but if it does great. People learn in different ways and different kids need different resources, but that's an argument against a one-size fits all public schooling system, not in favor.
- smsm42 6y ago
  > is an educated population easier to be manipulated than an illiterate one Good question. Depends on how the education is done. If the education is done to instill the idea that one must "believe in science", instead of learning the facts and questioning them skeptically, if one is convinced that expressing dissent is harmful and akin to violence, if questioning the dominating framework is actively discouraged and dissenters are viciously attacked, if people are taught that there can be no honest disagreement, and any different of opinion is nothing but a power move in an oppression framework, if everybody is assigned their places and recommended opinions in advance, if they are instructed that any non-conforming opinion must be silenced and suppressed - then such "educated" people are much easier to manipulated than the illiterate ones. An illiterate person knows they are illiterate - there's no way to hide that fact from themselves. They know there are places they must tread carefully for their knowledge has obvious limits. A mal-educated person thinks they know all the answers, and learned The Truth, and thus hold the keys to the universe. Moreover, they feel a moral duty to lord over lesser creatures and guide them to The Truth, for their own benefit. This is an ideal human brick for building the totalitarian barracks.
- guidoism 6y ago
  I would like to point out that in our current world it would be very very difficult to end up illiterate under just about any circumstance. Reading and writing don’t need to be explicitly taught unless you are under extreme time pressure (like the need to get the pupils to be able to read their texts on their own so you can increase class sizes and decrease the cost of schooling).
phobosanomaly 6y ago
The point of our system is that (as much as is possible) education is not limited to the 'elites' and 'intelligentsia.' Rather, it is distributed in a (relatively) egalitarian fashion amongst not just those who call for war and revolution, but those who rot in the trenches and die upon the bayonet. School is excellent at building the cohesive fabric of a society, including teaching it's boredom, authority, and pointless busywork.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  > School is excellent at building the cohesive fabric of a society, including teaching it's boredom, authority, and pointless busywork. I have a feeling that pointless busywork always grows to however much people can bear, so maybe if school didn't condition people to be so tolerant of it, we'd have less of it.
  - phobosanomaly 6y ago
    I dunno, I haven't see a whole lot of bearing at the DMV, but there's not an epidemic of concerned citizens showing up with molotovs and burning their local branch to the ground. Minneapolis' third precinct, sure, they burned that sucker right to the ground. But not the DMV, the icon of pointless bureaucracy. And no matter where I've gone, from Honduras to Pakistan, to Germany, to San Bernardino, folks have been waiting in lines for things, and doing stuff that didn't really matter. Doing stuff that sucks seems to be an unfortunate consequence of social organization for all of us normal folks who can't pay to skip the line.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
    https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the_raised_nail_gets_hammered_down_management_proverb https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the... See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron
- cheschire 6y ago
  You must be mostly exposed to those areas where the schools get mid-to-high ratings. Education is absolutely limited based on income level. At the lower income levels the only thing taught is boredom, authority, and pointless busywork.
watwut 6y ago
The point of Germany being highly educated is overdone. The country was also heavily militarized, violent and generally massive mess. Hitler was not representing educated elite, quite the opposite. Part of that all was backslash against modernity, against arts etc. In Russia, peasants were largely illiterate. As in, unable to read and write. The revolution did came from people who were able to read and write, obviously, it is kinda hard to coordinate without that. For that matter, monarchy was kept by educated people too, simply because you cant keep bureaucracy without writing. But it was not some kind of great education they would have. And their propensity for violence had more to do with how violent Russia was even before then with anything education.
- cyberdrunk 6y ago
  > The revolution did came from people who were able to read and write, obviously, it is kinda hard to coordinate without that. The did much more than coordination. The intelligentsia was basically 100% responsible for the revolution in every aspect, starting from conceptualization (peasants would never come up with the idea of trying to apply Marxism to the real world and wouldn't even be able to imagine world other than the one in which tzar rules over them) through managing implementation to the post-revolution power capture. Peasants were merely ants, necessary for revolutionaries' plans to install themselves as new rulers of Russia (obviously, some of them had more lofty goals, but as usual the worst scoundrels quickly took over and the idealists were disposed of).
  - watwut 6y ago
    And very little of what they did would be possible without writing and reading. Peasants did not entered Russian politics in meaningful way at all. Simply, being illiterate to the point where you cant even improve on super behind farming also makes you pretty crappy at anything politics. Peasants attacked local rules here and there, then being bloodily suppressed wherever things got tight. That was it. The monarchy, the military, the civil service, they were all "intelligentsia" too. "Liberal bourgeoisie" and capitalists were "intelligentsia" too. There were freaking 5 armies in Russia civil war. All 5 were led by people able to read and write. You all make it sound as if "intelligentsia" were uniformly Leninist or something. They were not, that is just the army that won. And I would be even super surprised if communists were the most educated of them all. Yet also, the Russia monarchy was not exactly stable democratic functioning place until Lenin started revolution by the end of WWI out of nowhere. I honestly hate when people who are supposedly against communist somehow adopt communist framing in completely absurd ways, down to blaming "intelligentsia" for whatever they perceive bad and down to attributing whole of Russian civil war to communists. I would really like to see someone use the term intelligentsia for like American journalist, teachers, or programmers. Lets all assume that all college educated people in American hold the same opinions. It is that stupid term.
halad 6y ago
Looking at politics in the UK on both sides of the political spectrum it is very clear that the public education system here is completely failing. In the general population there appears to be very little critical thinking, ability to regulate emotions, cost benefit analysis, consideration of opportunity cost, probabilistic thinking, nor even a rudimentary understanding of the scientific method, political and legal system.
- cyberdrunk 6y ago
  It really depends on what you compare with. Before the spread of public education, people were commonly believing in magic, witches and, based on that, could be sold on all sorts of non-sequiturs. Now, they're more or less aware of the scientific process, understand most basic concepts of natural sciences, know a bit of history, can write semi-coherently, have a bit more rigour in forming arguments etc. Of course, they aren't all Oxford-educated intellectuals but, to elevate a big fraction of population to that level, I'm guessing we would need a ton of 1-on-1 tutorships, which would be extremely costly.
- nvarsj 6y ago
  You just recited the unwashed masses dogma. I don't really agree with you at all. The vast majority of british people I've interacted with, even the "uneducated", all have reasonable, well thought out opinions even if they don't always agree with my own. I think it's much better than you seem to suggest. The real issue is with the politicians, and the fact we don't have proportional representation. There is a significant percentage of the population with no real representation. I do not relate with either Tories or Labor and I don't think either has my best interests at heart.
  - cabalamat 6y ago
    > I do not relate with either Tories or Labor Nor do most voters. They have to keep FPTP because they know that otherwise, most people won't vote for them; the last 4 times the UK had nationwide elections held under a more proportional system, most voters voted for parties other than labour of the Conservatives. > I don't think either has my best interests at heart. Most people agree with you!
tasogare 6y ago
> School is excellent at inuring children to boredom, obeying authority and pointless busywork. Which is an exact mirror of the professional world that most people will face later. School system is here to push a national narrative on people (which is not a bad point per se, as it builds cohesion), and prepare them to be mindless drone in a corporate environment. In short it serves society needs, not individuals.
cabalamat 6y ago
> It would be hard to be clearer that the purpose of the “education” system is indoctrination. You call it indoctrination. Someone else might equally call it social cohesion.
- StanislavPetrov 6y ago
  Call it what you want - it sure isn't critical thinking.
  - thefounder 6y ago
    So homeschooling is "critical thinking" ?
    - StanislavPetrov 6y ago
      My above comment was directed at the two parent comments who were variously referring to public school conditioning as "indoctrination" or "social cohesion". Whatever you choose to call it, public schools (in the United States) do not teach critical thinking - quite the opposite. Whether or not critical thinking is on the agenda for a homeschooled student depends entirely on the teacher and the curriculum.
- barry-cotter 6y ago
  Tomato tomato
ryandrake 6y ago
Interesting you brought up the whole parallel societies thing. We have a few churches around us that have a bunch of people who do home schooling and "alternate" schooling, and this whole alternate society thing is really noticeable. The kids have friends and play and socialize, but it's an entirely different circle from the public school kids. The kids play video games but different ones, they watch TV and listen to music, but have a totally different concept of pop culture than the regular school kids. Like if I made a Spiderman or Harry Potter reference/joke they wouldn't get it at all, but they have their own memes that only they get. Feels kind of insular, like the Amish or one of those communities of immigrants who deliberately don't assimilate into the shared US cultural melting pot.
LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
This I can confirm personally. I could read fluently before Kindergarden because my older sister taught me so, not by force, but because I asked what the big letters of luminous advertising on a supermarket meant. So it began :) And I learned to learn by reading everything I could get. By myself. But: that probably won't work for everyone. Furthermore the question remains how to do that when both parents have to work to make ends meet? Maybe even multiple jobs, as it is common for many nowadays? Also one can't overgeneralize this, as there are good teachers and schools, and bad ones. No matter what country or system or schooltype. As always: it depends...

mgh2 6y ago

Yeah, I won't deny that even the educated can be manipulated- look at our generation affected by corporate and political agendas. Yes, totalitarian states have used education to indoctrinate masses to maintain order and power. Depends on who does the teaching and how it is taught, that is why critical thinking is key. Given this prerequisite, is an educated population easier to be manipulated than an illiterate one?

barry-cotter 6y ago
> Yes, totalitarian states have used education to indoctrinate masses to maintain order and power. Depends on who does the teaching and how it is taught, that is why critical thinking is key. None of the German Empire, Weimar Republic or Russian Empire were totalitarian states. If education is protective against indoctrination the effect is at best weak. A lively marketplace of ideas is no guard against organized thugs if the liberals are not willing to defend liberalism. Critical thinking is a red herring.
- drevil-v2 6y ago
  Which is what is so depressing about "cancel culture" and radical redefinition of what is "hate speech". Liberals and the rational center are not defending those ideals which gave us our modern Western civilisation. Even on this website, merely questioning the validity of some of the aspects of the politically correct zeitgeist will get your post flagged and hidden from public consumption.
  - FranzFerdiNaN 6y ago
    Free speech as how some people like to define it now (anything can and should be said) was never an ideal, and certainly never reality. It’s funny how the people complaining about “cancel culture” (usually a roundabout way of complaining you can’t say racist things anymore) are completely fine with twisting especially history to benefit themselves.
    - StavrosK 6y ago
      > usually a roundabout way of complaining you can’t say racist things anymore As an external observer, this seems to me exactly the problem. Discourse is so polarized, that nobody can say "this thing that started as a reaction to overt racism has gone too far" without people replying "that just means you're racist". The situation has come to where there are ridiculous abuses going on, and criticizing them is anathema because the initial purpose of the system being abused was to counter a bias. Hell, even writing this comment, meta-analyzing the situation, I'm semi-afraid will have personal impact to me, which is pretty indicative of the problem.
      - krageon 6y ago
        > Discourse is so polarized, that nobody can say A large part of it is signaling through terminology. If you use terms such as "cancel culture" and "liberals", it's pretty clear you're either a right-wing US citizen or someone who wishes they were one. There are definitely people that are able to discuss certain social trends becoming a problem without using dogmatic terminology, which is where the conversation becomes interesting for all participants. As opposed to a horrifying journey plumbing the depths of polarised discourse.
freshhawk 6y ago
Obviously that depends. Here is another way to phrase your question: You spend 10 years telling John some stuff every day for hours and Jane is someone you just met. Which one is easier to lie to? Sounds to me like it completely depends on a lot of different things, but if you know what lie you want to tell ahead of time: obviously John is easier to lie to.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  You hear something from someone who's been talking to you for 10 years, and from someone you've just met. Whose lie is easier to detect?
- Broken_Hippo 6y ago
  That isn't obvious at all. Folks get smitten by people they've barely met. It doesn't take years to be tricked into joining a cult: You can convince folks in a matter of months. John might be 10 years into your lies, but he also might have caught on. You use different lies with Jane, who might not know better, and she listens wholeheartedly and with good faith. If John is an adult and Jane isn't, Jane is easier even with the age difference. This is simply because of lack of knowledge and experience. If one has more access to the outside world than the other, they are less likely to believe your lies. If John knows you have mental health problems that causes you to lie and Jane doesn't, Jane is easier to lie to. Maybe John is more suspicious of people and the world. Maybe John just shuts up to appease you, like folks that avoid talking politics with their families simply don't want to deal with things. Are you someone younger? DO you have authority over them? There are so many things that affect whether or not you can lie to someone.
- pritovido 6y ago
  It is interesting because for me it was obvious that Jane will be the easiest to lie to by far. John knows you much better. Usually psychopaths and sociopaths are always moving so people don't know who they are and they can fool them easily. What you are saying is if someone does trust you, you can lie to her easier, which is true, but then you will loose the trust and bond that took a long time to get.
- username90 6y ago
philwelch 6y ago
What better way to manipulate a population than by “educating” them?
- Broken_Hippo 6y ago
  Yet if you don't know math, you can be ripped off. If you can't read the contract or understand law at all, you can be manipulated.
  - jjk166 6y ago
    Which would be a compelling argument if there were no other way to learn math or law.
    - guidoism 6y ago
      Indeed. And the math schools concentrate on isn’t particular useful in the context of a modern society. So what that you once memorized a geometric proof long enough to take a test if you don’t understand how interest works and how credit card companies take advantage of you.
    - Broken_Hippo 6y ago
      Not everyone can just learn on their own, and if your parents aren't real great at math or law or teaching, you really need school.
      - jjk166 6y ago
        That some people need kidney dialysis is not an argument that everyone getting kidney dialysis is the only way to stay healthy. If you can't learn from books or videos or online lectures or parents or tutors, I doubt generic schooling is really going to be able to help much either, but if it does great. People learn in different ways and different kids need different resources, but that's an argument against a one-size fits all public schooling system, not in favor.
smsm42 6y ago
> is an educated population easier to be manipulated than an illiterate one Good question. Depends on how the education is done. If the education is done to instill the idea that one must "believe in science", instead of learning the facts and questioning them skeptically, if one is convinced that expressing dissent is harmful and akin to violence, if questioning the dominating framework is actively discouraged and dissenters are viciously attacked, if people are taught that there can be no honest disagreement, and any different of opinion is nothing but a power move in an oppression framework, if everybody is assigned their places and recommended opinions in advance, if they are instructed that any non-conforming opinion must be silenced and suppressed - then such "educated" people are much easier to manipulated than the illiterate ones. An illiterate person knows they are illiterate - there's no way to hide that fact from themselves. They know there are places they must tread carefully for their knowledge has obvious limits. A mal-educated person thinks they know all the answers, and learned The Truth, and thus hold the keys to the universe. Moreover, they feel a moral duty to lord over lesser creatures and guide them to The Truth, for their own benefit. This is an ideal human brick for building the totalitarian barracks.
guidoism 6y ago
I would like to point out that in our current world it would be very very difficult to end up illiterate under just about any circumstance. Reading and writing don’t need to be explicitly taught unless you are under extreme time pressure (like the need to get the pupils to be able to read their texts on their own so you can increase class sizes and decrease the cost of schooling).

phobosanomaly 6y ago

The point of our system is that (as much as is possible) education is not limited to the 'elites' and 'intelligentsia.' Rather, it is distributed in a (relatively) egalitarian fashion amongst not just those who call for war and revolution, but those who rot in the trenches and die upon the bayonet. School is excellent at building the cohesive fabric of a society, including teaching it's boredom, authority, and pointless busywork.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
> School is excellent at building the cohesive fabric of a society, including teaching it's boredom, authority, and pointless busywork. I have a feeling that pointless busywork always grows to however much people can bear, so maybe if school didn't condition people to be so tolerant of it, we'd have less of it.
- phobosanomaly 6y ago
  I dunno, I haven't see a whole lot of bearing at the DMV, but there's not an epidemic of concerned citizens showing up with molotovs and burning their local branch to the ground. Minneapolis' third precinct, sure, they burned that sucker right to the ground. But not the DMV, the icon of pointless bureaucracy. And no matter where I've gone, from Honduras to Pakistan, to Germany, to San Bernardino, folks have been waiting in lines for things, and doing stuff that didn't really matter. Doing stuff that sucks seems to be an unfortunate consequence of social organization for all of us normal folks who can't pay to skip the line.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
  https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the_raised_nail_gets_hammered_down_management_proverb https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the... See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron
cheschire 6y ago
You must be mostly exposed to those areas where the schools get mid-to-high ratings. Education is absolutely limited based on income level. At the lower income levels the only thing taught is boredom, authority, and pointless busywork.

watwut 6y ago

The point of Germany being highly educated is overdone. The country was also heavily militarized, violent and generally massive mess. Hitler was not representing educated elite, quite the opposite. Part of that all was backslash against modernity, against arts etc. In Russia, peasants were largely illiterate. As in, unable to read and write. The revolution did came from people who were able to read and write, obviously, it is kinda hard to coordinate without that. For that matter, monarchy was kept by educated people too, simply because you cant keep bureaucracy without writing. But it was not some kind of great education they would have. And their propensity for violence had more to do with how violent Russia was even before then with anything education.

cyberdrunk 6y ago
> The revolution did came from people who were able to read and write, obviously, it is kinda hard to coordinate without that. The did much more than coordination. The intelligentsia was basically 100% responsible for the revolution in every aspect, starting from conceptualization (peasants would never come up with the idea of trying to apply Marxism to the real world and wouldn't even be able to imagine world other than the one in which tzar rules over them) through managing implementation to the post-revolution power capture. Peasants were merely ants, necessary for revolutionaries' plans to install themselves as new rulers of Russia (obviously, some of them had more lofty goals, but as usual the worst scoundrels quickly took over and the idealists were disposed of).
- watwut 6y ago
  And very little of what they did would be possible without writing and reading. Peasants did not entered Russian politics in meaningful way at all. Simply, being illiterate to the point where you cant even improve on super behind farming also makes you pretty crappy at anything politics. Peasants attacked local rules here and there, then being bloodily suppressed wherever things got tight. That was it. The monarchy, the military, the civil service, they were all "intelligentsia" too. "Liberal bourgeoisie" and capitalists were "intelligentsia" too. There were freaking 5 armies in Russia civil war. All 5 were led by people able to read and write. You all make it sound as if "intelligentsia" were uniformly Leninist or something. They were not, that is just the army that won. And I would be even super surprised if communists were the most educated of them all. Yet also, the Russia monarchy was not exactly stable democratic functioning place until Lenin started revolution by the end of WWI out of nowhere. I honestly hate when people who are supposedly against communist somehow adopt communist framing in completely absurd ways, down to blaming "intelligentsia" for whatever they perceive bad and down to attributing whole of Russian civil war to communists. I would really like to see someone use the term intelligentsia for like American journalist, teachers, or programmers. Lets all assume that all college educated people in American hold the same opinions. It is that stupid term.

halad 6y ago

Looking at politics in the UK on both sides of the political spectrum it is very clear that the public education system here is completely failing. In the general population there appears to be very little critical thinking, ability to regulate emotions, cost benefit analysis, consideration of opportunity cost, probabilistic thinking, nor even a rudimentary understanding of the scientific method, political and legal system.

cyberdrunk 6y ago
It really depends on what you compare with. Before the spread of public education, people were commonly believing in magic, witches and, based on that, could be sold on all sorts of non-sequiturs. Now, they're more or less aware of the scientific process, understand most basic concepts of natural sciences, know a bit of history, can write semi-coherently, have a bit more rigour in forming arguments etc. Of course, they aren't all Oxford-educated intellectuals but, to elevate a big fraction of population to that level, I'm guessing we would need a ton of 1-on-1 tutorships, which would be extremely costly.
nvarsj 6y ago
You just recited the unwashed masses dogma. I don't really agree with you at all. The vast majority of british people I've interacted with, even the "uneducated", all have reasonable, well thought out opinions even if they don't always agree with my own. I think it's much better than you seem to suggest. The real issue is with the politicians, and the fact we don't have proportional representation. There is a significant percentage of the population with no real representation. I do not relate with either Tories or Labor and I don't think either has my best interests at heart.
- cabalamat 6y ago
  > I do not relate with either Tories or Labor Nor do most voters. They have to keep FPTP because they know that otherwise, most people won't vote for them; the last 4 times the UK had nationwide elections held under a more proportional system, most voters voted for parties other than labour of the Conservatives. > I don't think either has my best interests at heart. Most people agree with you!

tasogare 6y ago

> School is excellent at inuring children to boredom, obeying authority and pointless busywork. Which is an exact mirror of the professional world that most people will face later. School system is here to push a national narrative on people (which is not a bad point per se, as it builds cohesion), and prepare them to be mindless drone in a corporate environment. In short it serves society needs, not individuals.

cabalamat 6y ago

> It would be hard to be clearer that the purpose of the “education” system is indoctrination. You call it indoctrination. Someone else might equally call it social cohesion.

StanislavPetrov 6y ago
Call it what you want - it sure isn't critical thinking.
- thefounder 6y ago
  So homeschooling is "critical thinking" ?
  - StanislavPetrov 6y ago
    My above comment was directed at the two parent comments who were variously referring to public school conditioning as "indoctrination" or "social cohesion". Whatever you choose to call it, public schools (in the United States) do not teach critical thinking - quite the opposite. Whether or not critical thinking is on the agenda for a homeschooled student depends entirely on the teacher and the curriculum.
barry-cotter 6y ago
Tomato tomato

ryandrake 6y ago

Interesting you brought up the whole parallel societies thing. We have a few churches around us that have a bunch of people who do home schooling and "alternate" schooling, and this whole alternate society thing is really noticeable. The kids have friends and play and socialize, but it's an entirely different circle from the public school kids. The kids play video games but different ones, they watch TV and listen to music, but have a totally different concept of pop culture than the regular school kids. Like if I made a Spiderman or Harry Potter reference/joke they wouldn't get it at all, but they have their own memes that only they get. Feels kind of insular, like the Amish or one of those communities of immigrants who deliberately don't assimilate into the shared US cultural melting pot.

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago

This I can confirm personally. I could read fluently before Kindergarden because my older sister taught me so, not by force, but because I asked what the big letters of luminous advertising on a supermarket meant. So it began :) And I learned to learn by reading everything I could get. By myself. But: that probably won't work for everyone. Furthermore the question remains how to do that when both parents have to work to make ends meet? Maybe even multiple jobs, as it is common for many nowadays? Also one can't overgeneralize this, as there are good teachers and schools, and bad ones. No matter what country or system or schooltype. As always: it depends...