by burgingham » Tue Feb 07, 2012 7:38 am The mobs of great cities have been characterized by every great thinker I can think of as irrational, ignorant and slaves to low passions
Your great thinkers are of course chosen by your personal bias of what great is. Great being for example their tendency to qualify the big masses as this. So that is circular reasoning.
What if you are wrong?
Well, I am not wrong though. Education leads to us two talking here like we do. That is the best proof that it would help the masses as well. Also, as I have stated before we basically don't need a working force of low paid jobs anymore at least not for much longer. Especially not if we invest more in education to advance the proper techonologies even faster. Of course this last part is somewhat utopian, but why am I not allowed to argue in a normative fashion? We both seem to agreee that the status quo isn't exactly a Utopia.
None of the former revolutions had anything close to educated masses.
General public education -- which is something quite different from high levels of general education, which are of course to be found in any civilized society -- is, indeed, primarily speaking found in totalitarian societies.
And no, this is not true either. The exact opposite is the case. In totalitarian societies people were entirely uncritical of their conditions until the day they were starting to overthrow it.
It is again populistic reasoning from your side to throw all three of those revolutions into one single pot. The french revolution was ultimately good and Robbespierre only a temporary side effect. France is one of the worlds oldest democracies now, functioning just fine thanks to that revolution.
Even if it is not the case that a system of general public education is in itself a *sufficient* condition for totalitarianism, it nevertheless appears very much to be a *necessary* condition for the same.
You are talking about public brainwashing here which is what I consider to be the opposite of education. Please don't mix the two.
Critique on current school system
That is all because the educational system these days is far from what it should be. It is teaching the acceptance of authoritarian structures instead of autonomy and critical thinking. We perceive that as a normal form of education and many will ask me now "What acceptance of the authoritarian? I never learned such things in school?" Oh yes, but you did and they are hiding it so well you don't even see it. The respect of the teacher is the first step to this dilemma that later on leads to you accepting all the current structures from the state to the police to the economic system. This is the perceived immutability of all being things and the difficulty of changing existing patterns.
What we need to teach people is to ultimately question all these things. To first learn from the teacher and then overthrow him with all his theories so to speak. That is true education and yes it probably has never been achieved yet. Why is that a reason not to support my arguments though? It is highly desirable and will lead to a society made from the understanding of the dialectic of the enlightenment and systems (of whatever nature) created by intellectual compromise.
Not to mention the sad state of our university educations
See now you are talking like Adorno ^^
The university system is probably the worst of them all in obeying the teachings of the status quo as I have listed them above. The university system is an allmighty control mechanism castrating real science left and right and of course passing that on to the next generation of students again and again. That is the inevitable reproduction of communication structures as Luhmann would call it.*
It also clings to a fatalistic belief in the existence of some form of natural genius in humans. Like there is a difference between person A and B in their capability to learn (that is ultimately a fascist ratio btw). Humans are all literally created equal and only their upbringing and education in the forms of cultural, social and economic capital is what later on lets them become different with the perceived different capabilities. As I mentioned before Bourdieux has proven that conclusively in tons of empirical studies. The school system as he has shown only helps to further the gap then. The socially, culturally or economically rich kids become richer through the school education and the poor get poorer. That leads to the, as I said absolutely fatal, assumption that there is some form of natural genius in humans. Supported by the holy grail of the natural sciences btw which in these days can spew out any kind of bullshit unquestioned, just because they are the natural sciences. That again is circular logic, but everyone believes in it.
Reading your next lines you seem to believe in that yourself. Nobody is suited or not. They are made suited or not by existing inequalities. Those inequalities have always existed that is why we have no other data to go with and reproduce it unquestioned each generation.
've discussed this claim with Potjeh before and I maintain that it doesn't hold any sort of water what so ever. Last time we discussed this Potjeh abdicated the task of even defining what a "natural monopoly" is, claiming that he was no expert in the subject, but assured me of their existence -- failing to give any concrete example of one, historical or present -- whatever they are. He appears to remain convinced in the existence of these fabled beasts of the free market, yet what a "natural monopoly" would even consist of remains as illusive as ever.
I am talking about a monopoly of power here and not one of goods. In my belief that will ultimately arise or at least it has a chance to (and that is more than enough for me to be afraid of such a system) and then there is no legitimate power above it to control that. You can already see those tendencies by the economy lobbying into politics. One could see that as the octopus spreading its tentacles into a territory that shouldn't be his own.
Now what I mean is in the absence of a (strong) state if a monoploy of power in particular of physical dominance arises. Then we created a monster far bigger than any fascist state could have ever been. A true Leviathan so to speak.
I'll remember to apologize for exploiting them the next time I pay the large-ass bills they send us.
You probably should. Rather than argueing that they perceive this as a mutual benefit you should ask yourself why do they perceive it as such? Would you if someone offered to pay you 0.50 cents an hour to program shit? Didn't think so. They perceive it as a mutual bargain because they otherwise couldn't buy anything to eat for the next day. Because they are kept poor by others like the companies hiring them is why. Because they are kept dumb by a non-existant educational system is why. There is nothing fair about this arrangement.
Well, so much for this. One last thing: Ultimately in a monarchic society as desired by you we wouldn't even be able to have this conversation for I would be long gone with the noose around my neck. What a freedom that is.
*Side note: The university system here has gotten many times worse since the day people started measuring its success in economic/capitalistic terms. Now people are rushed through university, educated to what we call "Fachidiot"...nerd might actually be an appropriate translation, nerd for only his or her field though and nothing else. The big companies funding the university have no interest in them teaching philosophy for example anymore. So they fund only the natural science sectors and the leadership of the university sees that. So that leadership now tries to excel at those natural sciences, cutting their own funding too form philosophy. In the end there is no philosophy department anymore because it had no measurable use to the economic system (it probably even hurt it by letting people question the numb 9to5 jobs they were being forced into in their bullshit office cubicles). You wanna tell me that is desirable? A good thing made possible by the economy (not to mention they also teach students to laugh about such subjects as philosophy so nobody sees what has been lost there)?
The economy is the end of all our education. There is no studying anymore, only learning what is put on your platter. What we need is not more economy, we need the state to take back its authority there and make the university system autonomic again to save it from the destructive logic of the market. Otherwise this will be the very downfall of our society I tell you and I have no understanding how anyone can praise the free market when I see things like this happen. Talking to fellow students who started studying a lot later than me is like talking to some corporate zombie, working 24/7 to get their resumee in order so they can finally be put in their cubicle and rot there till they die.
