Public Schools and a Permanent Youth Culture

The public school system has failed on multiple levels, the most obvious being the failure to educate and the shocking ignorance which persists in its pupils even after 12 years of schooling.  But there is another very troubling, and seldom recognized danger posed by the factory model of public education, and this is the creation of a permanent youth culture.  In a society in which individuals, families and communities are less interdependent, the last two or three generations have been particularly susceptible to this phenomenon. 

Most of these students have grown up without ever being initiated into the adult world.  They do not have apprenticeships, farm work, or family interdependence which lead them to take on greater responsibilities and interact with adults in an authentic, cooperative and mutually beneficial way.  They lack the opportunity to earn the respect of the adult world or contribute to their communities.  In fact, their contact with adults is generally limited to the school, and takes place in the context of clashing rather than cooperation. There, adults are given the task of trying to control large numbers of children.  The teacher and administrator quickly take on the role of the rule enforcer--the prison guard--while the student, who seldom wants to be in school that day to begin with, takes on the role of the inmate, seeking to disobey the rules whenever doing so holds the promise of making their time there more palatable.   In effect, this permanent youth culture is an institutionalized culture.  It is little wonder that so many young people, and so many young men in particular, opt out and fail to appreciate their government provided education.

When one considers the idea of placing several hundred or several thousand young people into a school in which the authority figures do not have the ability to seriously dismiss or discipline problem students, it seems hard to believe that this disastrous outcome could not have been foreseen.  And as with so many other well intentioned endeavors, the public school systems effort to educate every child has resulted in a system which is not capable of properly educating any child.  Pushing all down to the lowest common denominator is a frequent outcome of the efforts of well meaning do-gooders, like those who created and support our system of public education.

In the end, a handful of generations of American youth have already passed through their formative years as part of a youth culture which exists in opposition to the adult world.  The results are not hard to imagine.  We can already see them in the social and civilizational decay of our nation and across the Western world.

Mutual Dependence

The basis for community is Mutual Dependence.  When an outside force, such as, say...the Federal Government intends to help people on the bottom of society, one of the consequences is the destruction of community through the destruction of that mutual dependence.  The outcome of that is an exclusive dependence, a one-way dependence, from one desperate person on the tit of the government.  The rest of the individuals in that society derive nothing from the one in need.  In the end this benefits no one.  The individual in need is deprived of dignity, self respect, and competency.  The rest of society is bilked into providing for someone for whom they have no corresponding dependence. They are simultaneously deprived of the opportunity to fulfill a moral duty to provide for those friends, neighbors and family in need--a role which is usurped by the government.  The unchanging reality is that community is destroyed with the annihilation of mutual dependence.

Why Radical Americanism?

Why Radical Americanism?  Why not Practical Americanism? First, what I am calling Americanism is radical.  The concept of self government, of the empowerment of the individual over his own life and over his government is a mind blowing concept.   Viewed through the prism of human history it is still the most radical political concept ever devised.  Therefore, Americanism is by its very nature radical.  Second, we cannot afford to be moderately American.  Moderate Americanism not only loses elections, it is static and "conservative" in the worst sense of the word.  It seeks to conserve the moment at hand, not the ideology that made the moment at hand possible.  We have to push as hard as possible for that ideology if we are to recreate America.  Third, young people in particular are drawn to radicalism and change, as was illustrated all too well in the last presidential election.  We must be a party of change if Americanism is to be a part of the future.  A radical stand may cost us an election but is more likely to win the movement.  If we look at our political opposition and how far they have managed to shift the debate leftward, we have to recognize the role of a prominent radical left wing movement.  From public schools to colleges, from move-on to obama, the radical left found its way into the mainstream by first being radical, not by being centrists.  Its shocking to reflect that Federal legislation on health care was a seriously considered policy option (let along that it was passed) in the United States of America.  It gives one pause to consider how far we have drifted from a concept that gave birth to a free country. Americanism is on the ropes, and we aren't going to get back to the center of the ring by trying to hold our ground.  Now is the time to embrace Radical Americanism!

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Don't Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide

Been reading this book Don't Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide and the following passage really struck a nerve for me.

"The tremendous experience between God, Moses, and the other leaders of Israel, which was shared, perhaps, by a sizable number of the common people, made Torah a glorious possession.  But that formative experience could not continue as a creative experience.  It left a residue of rules to be followed in order for the people to please God.  The residue of rules, when taught to the children, would stand in their mind only as rules; and the experience which motivated the rules would only be a story of how things were with people in the past.  This is the natural history of social revolution and wars of liberation.  In order for the social gains of a revolution to be held, the ideology has to be taught to the children; but by the third generation the sanctions for the ideology seem unreal and the ideology itself becomes a regularized way of living.  The drift is always from ideology to law, because children grow up in a new situation.  Ideology, in fact, becomes law whenever it is taught as an 'ought.'"    ---C. Ellis Nelson

This is what has happened to Americanism as well.  How can we reverse the deadening, legalistic feel that so many young people have for both Conservatism and Americanism, and make them come alive.  It seems that a vibrant though foolish philosophy holds sway over two generations at least.  A stale philosophy which stinks of "oughts" has little chance, regardless of its truth.  We have to revitalize Americanism.  In order to do that, I think we have to embrace how truly radical it is, and not be constrained in voicing our position, no matter how politically incorrect or tactically unsound when it comes to elections.  People who attempt to always play it safe are hardly alive, and a political philosophy which does the same is destined for the ash heap.

Capitalism Does More For the Poor Than Any Top Down Effort at Managing Resources and "Spreading the Wealth"

As Paul Ryan mentioned in his rebuttal, capitalism has done more for the poor than any other system.  Tom Sowell provides a great illustration of this point.

"When I mention that my family used kerosene lamps when I was a small child in the South during the 1930s, that is usually taken as a sign of our poverty, though I never thought of us as poor at the time.

What is ironic is that kerosene lamps were a luxury of the rich in the 19th century, before John D. Rockefeller came along. At the high price of kerosene at that time, an ordinary working man could not afford to stay up at night, burning this expensive fuel for hours at a time.
Before Rockefeller's innovations reduced the price of kerosene to a fraction of what it had once been, there wasn't a lot for poor people to do when nightfall came, other than go to bed. But the advent of cheap kerosene added hours of light and activity to each day for people with low or moderate incomes.

It was much the same story with the advent of the automobile, which gave millions of people more range in space, as kerosene (and, later, electricity) gave them more range in terms of hours of daily activity.

Here again, automobiles and electric lights were truly luxuries of the rich when they began. Only after ways were developed to cut their costs drastically were such things brought within the reach of ordinary Americans".

full article at townhall.

http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2011/01/25/new_heroes_vs_old

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The Blah Blah Blah State Of The Union

Sounds like more of the same from Obama, mixed in with some mundane platitudes.  He's re-promised some promises he failed to live up to in the first place (listening to republican ideas, posting legislation on the Internet, etc) but that's about it.  Spend on infrastructure, spend on education, spend on scientific research.  Spend, spend, spend and tax the richest 2 percent more.  Its as though the man doesn't have the foggiest idea about economics or where scientific research and quality education come from...there is probably a reason it seems that way. 

MLK day

"Gone are the days when successful black politicians, business leaders and celebrities were considered novelties or tokens. That black Americans have achieved so much since the 1963 March on Washington is cause for celebration indeed.

Yet in 2011, many liberals regard black conservatives - indeed any African-American who questions the liberal establishment - not only as novelties, but as ignorant or traitors to their race."

http://bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1309920