New Blog

There's a new blog at:

www.peknablbost.blogspot.com

My Slovak friends tell me that "pekna blbost" could be translated something like "complete stupidity" or maybe "complete bullshit".

A Visit to the Slovak Foreign Policy Association, Continued

THE QUESTION PERIOD (draft)

To the credit of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association, they did allow a generous amount of time for discussion. I did not stay for the entire period because I just didn’t have the patience to hang around. However, as is usual in these situations, the discussion was illuminating.

One point that was made during the discussion period was that the United States government used to classify the KLA as a “terrorist organization”.

Dr. Lyon’s response to that remark was, quite simply, breath-taking. After a brief definition of terrorism as violence for political aims against non-combatants (or something similar) Lyon suggested that, with a few minor exceptions, the KLA did not engage in terrorism.

The problem with Lyon’s response is that it was too easy. If it was really so obvious that the KLA was not a terrorist organization, how did it ever happen that the USA mistakenly classified it as one? There’s a clear suggestion that the US policy of classifying this or that group as terrorist is not based on reality, but political expediency. One recalls the anthropologist Scott Atran’s article a
few years ago in
Science,(2003, “The Genesis of Suicide Terrorism”, 299) in which he pointed out that according to the US government’s definition of terrorism, the US government has engaged in terrorism.

And Lyon’s unwillingness to even consider the question why there was a change is an example of what I meant (in an earlier posting) by “arrogance” and shabby scholarly methodology. Only answering the questions that are easy and ignoring the difficult ones is not honest scholarship. It is the intellectual equivalent of bullying. But perhaps it is only in this forum, a public one, where time considerations forced Dr. Lyon to over-simplify.

I did not hang around to pose a question. In fact, I had no questions, only comments which I would have made had I been more patient.

I would have liked to have made three specific, but related, comments:

1. You’ve no right to talk about the ethnocentrism of Kossovans until you’ve done some comparative research about prejudice and out-group hostility in other countries. Until you’ve got some basis for comparison, your sincere impression that people in the region violate your American or Anglo rules for polite speech count for nothing in a serious scientific forum. Alternatively, they do count for something. They are a sort of anecdotal evidence, but they don’t deserve the weight you gave them in Bratislava. And, again, I say that this confidence that one’s unsupported or examined impressions were weighty and correct, deserves the label “arrogance”. Other possible labels are cultural insularity or imperialism.
(An antidote might be reading Wierbiczka’s recently published: English: Language and Culture.)

2. A second, related, comment concerns the claim that people in the region are “primitive”. Presumably their open vocalizations of negative attitudes about out-groups is part of the evidence. Other evidence was the fact that they have no symphony orchestra or opera. When the speaker expressed this point of view, I interrupted him to point out that before World War Two Germany certainly had such cultural institutions.

My point is (and should have been) plain: it’s no guarantee of culture in a moral sense--the sense relevant to discussion of how to create a multi-cultural and democratic society in Kosovo. I find it hard to believe that Dr. Lyon couldn’t understand my comment, but his response to me at the time seemed totally irrelevant and misleading, even sophistical.

Lyon’s response was to say that Germany had cabarets as well. I don’t have any idea what he meant by that. I have considered the possibility that his remark was intended as a “put-down”, to ridicule my comment. Whatever his intentions, he failed to address the serious point being made. However, in any case, his notion of which culture is and isn’t “primitive” will not, I suggest, stand careful examination.

The problem with Lyon’s naive approach is that it ignores a significant tradition in the social sciences which examines the emotional underpinnings of our moral attitudes, our ideas about justice and fairness.
And, that literature suggests that there is a universal sense of fairness, and it’s not in any way dependent upon the possession of high tech, let alone high culture. It’s not that everyone thinks exactly the same way. Rather, even people living in pre-industrial societies certainly have ideas about reciprocity and fairness, ideas with sufficient weight to be called upon in a serious attempt to negotiate between two parties in a dispute.

But Lyon has either never dipped into the relevant anthropology and economics, or has failed to appreciate its significance.

Recommended readings:
Chandra Sekhar Sripada and Stephen Stich, “A Framework for the Psychology of Norms”,
(esp. 294 ff, see references therein), in The Innate Mind (Oxford UP 2006), ed. Carruthers, Laurence, and Stich. Their specific interest is in punishment, but for our purposes, the point still holds good. The presence of moral emotions cross-culturally counts against swift diagnoses that one culture is “primitive”.

Another relevant book: Foundations of Human Sociality, ed. Henrich, Boyd, et al., (Oxford 2004)

A related additional, pragmatic, observation is that so long as Lyon regards other people as his cultural inferiors, it will be unlikely that he can actually assist them.

A final comment points to research about emotions. Until you’ve got a base-line value for someone’s expressivity, you cannot measure how intense their emotions are. The point came out in a nice way when Amy Tan’s narrator in Joy Luck Club thought that her Italian neighbors were fighting and were likely to be killing each other. They weren’t; they were just being Italian.

A similar point concerns Lyon’s naive reactions to Balkan culture. He gave no indication that he had ever examined his own impressions to consider whether he approaches the world with a bias based upon his English mother tongue status ( an Anglo bias) and/or an American cultural bias. Comparative research in emotions makes it clear that you can’t tell whether someone is just talking or fighting unless you’ve considered the settings of your own language/culture and how they may differ from the speakers you overhear. (see Aneta Pavlenko, Emotions and Multilingualism, (Cambridge UP 2005)

The net result of my visit to the Slovak Foreign Policy Association was to increase my suspicion of so-called experts in foreign policy. I remember a Slovak biologist/philosopher friend once saying to me with a laugh that international politics just wasn’t a serious scientific subject. After witnessing Lyon’s performance, I am inclined to think my friend was right. But there is a further moral point to be made about how a pseudo-expertise is connected to political power. The bottom line is not argument, discussion, evidence, dialectic, but brute force. Those with the most nuclear weapons always win the “argument”.

A Visit to the Slovak Foreign Policy Association, Continued

THE QUESTION PERIOD (draft)

To the credit of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association, they did allow a generous amount of time for discussion. I did not stay for the entire period because I just didn’t have the patience to hang around. However, as is usual in these situations, the discussion was illuminating.

One point that was made during the discussion period was that the United States government used to classify the KLA as a “terrorist organization”.

Dr. Lyon’s response to that remark was, quite simply, breath-taking. After a brief definition of terrorism as violence for political aims against non-combatants (or something similar) Lyon suggested that, with a few minor exceptions, the KLA did not engage in terrorism.

The problem with Lyon’s response is that it was too easy. If it was really so obvious that the KLA was not a terrorist organization, how did it ever happen that the USA mistakenly classified it as one? There’s a clear suggestion that the US policy of classifying this or that group as terrorist is not based on reality, but political expediency. One recalls the anthropologist Scott Atran’s article a
few years ago in
Science,(2003, “The Genesis of Suicide Terrorism”, 299) in which he pointed out that according to the US government’s definition of terrorism, the US government has engaged in terrorism.

And Lyon’s unwillingness to even consider the question why there was a change is an example of what I meant (in an earlier posting) by “arrogance” and shabby scholarly methodology. Only answering the questions that are easy and ignoring the difficult ones is not honest scholarship. It is the intellectual equivalent of bullying. But perhaps it is only in this forum, a public one, where time considerations forced Dr. Lyon to over-simplify.

I did not hang around to pose a question. In fact, I had no questions, only comments which I would have made had I been more patient.

I would have liked to have made three specific, but related, comments:

1. You’ve no right to talk about the ethnocentrism of Kossovans until you’ve done some comparative research about prejudice and out-group hostility in other countries. Until you’ve got some basis for comparison, your sincere impression that people in the region violate your American or Anglo rules for polite speech count for nothing in a serious scientific forum. Alternatively, they do count for something. They are a sort of anecdotal evidence, but they don’t deserve the weight you gave them in Bratislava. And, again, I say that this confidence that one’s unsupported or examined impressions were weighty and correct, deserves the label “arrogance”. Other possible labels are cultural insularity or imperialism.
(An antidote might be reading Wierbiczka’s recently published: English: Language and Culture.)

2. A second, related, comment concerns the claim that people in the region are “primitive”. Presumably their open vocalizations of negative attitudes about out-groups is part of the evidence. Other evidence was the fact that they have no symphony orchestra or opera. When the speaker expressed this point of view, I interrupted him to point out that before World War Two Germany certainly had such cultural institutions.

My point is (and should have been) plain: it’s no guarantee of culture in a moral sense--the sense relevant to discussion of how to create a multi-cultural and democratic society in Kosovo. I find it hard to believe that Dr. Lyon couldn’t understand my comment, but his response to me at the time seemed totally irrelevant and misleading, even sophistical.

Lyon’s response was to say that Germany had cabarets as well. I don’t have any idea what he meant by that. I have considered the possibility that his remark was intended as a “put-down”, to ridicule my comment. Whatever his intentions, he failed to address the serious point being made. However, in any case, his notion of which culture is and isn’t “primitive” will not, I suggest, stand careful examination.

The problem with Lyon’s naive approach is that it ignores a significant tradition in the social sciences which examines the emotional underpinnings of our moral attitudes, our ideas about justice and fairness.
And, that literature suggests that there is a universal sense of fairness, and it’s not in any way dependent upon the possession of high tech, let alone high culture. It’s not that everyone thinks exactly the same way. Rather, even people living in pre-industrial societies certainly have ideas about reciprocity and fairness, ideas with sufficient weight to be called upon in a serious attempt to negotiate between two parties in a dispute.

But Lyon has either never dipped into the relevant anthropology and economics, or has failed to appreciate its significance.

Recommended readings:
Chandra Sekhar Sripada and Stephen Stich, “A Framework for the Psychology of Norms”,
(esp. 294 ff, see references therein), in The Innate Mind (Oxford UP 2006), ed. Carruthers, Laurence, and Stich. Their specific interest is in punishment, but for our purposes, the point still holds good. The presence of moral emotions cross-culturally counts against swift diagnoses that one culture is “primitive”.

Another relevant book: Foundations of Human Sociality, ed. Henrich, Boyd, et al., (Oxford 2004)

A related additional, pragmatic, observation is that so long as Lyon regards other people as his cultural inferiors, it will be unlikely that he can actually assist them.

A final comment points to research about emotions. Until you’ve got a base-line value for someone’s expressivity, you cannot measure how intense their emotions are. The point came out in a nice way when Amy Tan’s narrator in Joy Luck Club thought that her Italian neighbors were fighting and were likely to be killing each other. They weren’t; they were just being Italian.

A similar point concerns Lyon’s naive reactions to Balkan culture. He gave no indication that he had ever examined his own impressions to consider whether he approaches the world with a bias based upon his English mother tongue status ( an Anglo bias) and/or an American cultural bias. Comparative research in emotions makes it clear that you can’t tell whether someone is just talking or fighting unless you’ve considered the settings of your own language/culture and how they may differ from the speakers you overhear. (see Aneta Pavlenko, Emotions and Multilingualism, (Cambridge UP 2005)

The net result of my visit to the Slovak Foreign Policy Association was to increase my suspicion of so-called experts in foreign policy. I remember a Slovak biologist/philosopher friend once saying to me with a laugh that international politics just wasn’t a serious scientific subject. After witnessing Lyon’s performance, I am inclined to think my friend was right. But there is a further moral point to be made about how a pseudo-expertise is connected to political power. The bottom line is not argument, discussion, evidence, dialectic, but brute force. Those with the most nuclear weapons always win the “argument”.

A recent visit to the Slovak Foreign Policy Association

THE ARROGANT AMERICAN



Brief Remarks about James Lyon’s Remarks about Kosovo in Bratislava, May 23, 2007


Yesterday I had the dubious pleasure of hearing an amazing speech about American imperalism in Kosovo.

Of course, that’s not what the speaker explicitly said. His speech was about American imperialism in the same way that mating displays are about sex. That’s what their goal is not what their participants are thinking about.

The sub-text of the talk was that the “International Community”, which is apparently a code word for the EU and the United States, are doing their best to bring democracy and multi-culturalism to Kosovo. The noble International Community and the kind United States, however, are having problems because the evil Russians want to get involved.

This is a very serious problem. During discussion the speaker explained that the people there are just so “primitive”--a word he used more than once.

He also remarked upon the frequency with which people in Kossovo make extremely blunt negative remarks about opposing groups. That was, apparently, part of the evidence for their “primitive” nature, and also evidence that the poor International Community led by the United States had such a hard job.

The whole talk was ridiculous. The notion that an American scholar purports to speak for civilization and tolerance is just not credible. The United States is not a successful multi-cultural society. In addition to the old history of racism against African-Americans, there is the new prejudice against Hispanics. (Or is it new? What would Thoreau say?)

Further, the speaker’s notion of what is and is not “primitive” cannot stand up to careful examination.

The deep ethnocentrism characteristic of the region is not a unique trait. One should do a study of what Americans today are saying about Muslims. One might also do some research about how soldiers in Iraq refer to the local population.

I suggest that until one does so, one hasn’t got the right to suggest that there is an especial problem in Kosovo with out-group intolerance. Certainly, one has no right to pontificate about who is and who is not civilized/"primitive".

Additionally, there is today a powerful research program in the social sciences today which suggests that our basic emotions are universal. This leads one to suspect that Americans are no less capable of out-group hostility (including negative language) than are the residents of Kosovo.

The speaker’s methodology was, at various points shabby.

Of course, the true story is that the US wants to make Kosovo safe for US companies. It wants to open up a market. (See Plavsic’s article below.) Kosovo is today a US-EU colony. And the speaker was trying to convince the audience that this is a good thing.

As if the history of the United States was not a long list of violence used to achieve political and financial goals.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

www.zmag.org

“The KosovoQuestion” by Dragan Plavsic, March 20, 2007

APPENDIX; THE DIRTY DETAILS

I believe that Professor Lyon gave us the official (US gov’t) but not universally accepted history of the area. For example, he mentioned that the “Rambouillet Talks” “broke down”--”as you are aware”. Well, I am not aware of that. I’ve heard at least two diagnoses of what happened, one the official one which Lyon followed, and an alternative one.

I wish to emphasize Lyon’s rhetoric. He said that the “international community took a decision” in Kosovo. Apparently that means the US and countries which follow the US.

Interestingly enough he remarked that even to this day the Serbs won’t admit that they used state terror against the Albanians. Curious. Has the US government admitted to any of the terror it has used? Against, let us say, the Palestinians today--through its agents in Israel and Lebanon? Or, against Nicaragua? Or the attack on civilians in World War Two? etc. etc. The kettle is calling the pot black.

Mr. Lyon spoke of what “We” control, and the need for this first-person plural entity to maintain control.

E.g., [If] “..the international community wants to maintain control...”

He warned of the danger of “unilateral action”.

(To understand this one needs to see Plavsic’s discussion of a Kosovan Anti-Colonial Movement)

He spoke of the fear of “unsupervised independence”.

These comments seem to agree with Plavsic’s analysis: the US an EU want to keep Kosovo a colony. MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN INVESTORS; TO HELL WITH DEMOCRACY

And WHAT IF an additional super-power had wanted the US to remain a British colony?

More comments to follow about how Professor Lyon dealt with questions.

THE QUESTION PERIOD

I hope to return to this post some time in the near future. I apologize for typo's and inelegancies.

Childish Gossip

My title is no bit of exaggeration.

Children at the school where I was previously employed have been spreading the following rumor:

Mr. X (ME) was fired by the director because he had an "anti-Korean" blog.

So, just to make things clear.
this blog has nothing negative to say about Koreans or Korea.

It does contain fundamental criticism of the managers at Inequality Schools and it contains criticism of capitalism.

A second, but related point:


A colleague recently said:

You and I both had a personality conflict with the old Director, and that's why she decided not to renew our contracts.

My colleague was possibly being a bit diplomatic. But, I do not accept the above description. My description would be:

The previous Director was extremely dogmatic and narrow-minded. She was also incapable of reading at a professional level--to judge by her reaction when I photocopied a chapter of a linguistics book for her... and she returned it with the comment that she couldn't understand it....
And that dogmatic individual insisted that teaching follow a certain standardized format. I was not willing to follow her demand that my teaching follow her format because it seemed to be uninspiring, uninspired, and not likely to get the most of the literature in question, and not likely to develop critical thinking skills or imagination in the students.

as I informed the management when I gave notice, I believe the institution is un-democratic and opposed to creativity and the free exchange of ideas.

As Slovaks say, a fish rots from the head down.....

may day

it is worth recalling that people died so we could have the eight-hour work day. It is also worth noting that for many of us the eight-hour work day has been eroded...

But today I want to say a few words about the insidious nature of capitalist propaganda

My sources are comments by my mother and students. The basic thought is: you cannot complain about a consumer product Any complaint is your fault--either because you didn't do consumer research (my mother's idea) or because you were cheap and bought a low quality product (my students' idea).

This is pernicious. It is a way to prevent any criticism of corporations or businesses.

Why, for example, should a cotton t-shirt have scratchy labels sewn into it?
Why, for example, must computers come with software packages that don't include such necessities as word processing?
Obviously, that's a necessity for me, but the general point remains.

Capitalism does not always produce more choices, as, in theory it is supposed to.

Of course, that's a polite way of saying that capitalism actually narrows our choices....

Last Week at Inequality Schools

This may be my last week, but it's no less absurd for all that.

What, anyway, do non-American parents really want when they want their children to be educated at an American school abroad?

Is it really necessary to read cute poems in archaic language?

Thismorning my class of teenagers had no interest in Emily Dickinson or Langston Hughes. I couldhardly blame them. What the hell am I supposed to do? Stand on my head to entertain them?

A good third of them are essentialy non-English speakers...

I cannot escape the impression that the institution is essentially fraudulent because it even allows those children to attend a class like the one I am supposed to be teaching..... yeah, they will improve, but are they really doing what you say they are doing?

I won't miss this.... not at all.....

Note:

Robin Dunbar's discussion in "Grooming, Gossip, etc." about page 42 about harassment among groups of primates seems to perfectly fit management techniques:

It's not necessary to be violent, only occassionally notify the lower clases of what their rank is... this is effective in, e.g., decreasing fertility among females....

viewed a certain way, it seems deeply fascistic

there's a need for someone to write a reply to Pinker's idea that biological approaches to human sociality somehow support freemarket capitalism.....

A New Anti-Capitalist Samizdat

Who Really Was Jesus Christ?
Who Really Runs Inequality Schools?
And Other Blasphemies...
The cause of extremist activities is not religion per se. The vast majority of Christians, Jews, and Moslems of the world are anything but fundamentalists and are sickened by the slaughter of innocents. It is not even fair to brand all fundamentalists as theocratic fascists, although the intense ressentiment characteristic of most contemporary forms of religious fundamentalism point them in that direction. --David Schweickart, After Capitalism
. . . when you ask straight questions... then the straight answer Nature keeps on giving back is in- deed an uncompromising “No”. No, human beings simply do not have these supernatural powers of cognition or action... And no, the human mind simply does not persist after bodily death. Investigate the claims, and you find there is nothing to them --Nicholas Humphrey, The Mind Made Flesh
Last week a teacher accused me of speaking BLASPHEMOUSLY when, in a playful mood I said that “the angel with the sword is coming for me”.
I was told that I shouldn’t mix my “personal fantasy” with religion. Interesting, since so much of religion is imaginary. But, then imagination is, sometimes good.
I make no apologies for any fantasies I have. They are a good deal less harmful than many realities both at Inequality Schools and in such beneficiaries of American democracy as Iraq.
In fact my remark was a quote, which I had creatively shaped for my own purposes.
There is something strange about the idea that an image or symbol could be protected from use by non-believers. After all, the point of religion is to spread (like a disease) and one of the prices you pay for having a successful (popular/widespread) religion is that your symbols have wider currency than you might personally like. Angels are symbols within western culture, whether you like it or not. See the image below. What’s offensive to me about the picture is not the allusion to an angel, but the very real ugliness and harmfulness of prostitution--and the internet has just made more forms of prostitution possible.

insert photo


In any case, since one way to interpret blasphemy is as not treating religion with the respect and seriousness it deserves, I propose to take a serious look at one famous religious figure, with the help of Professor Nicholas Humphrey, a well-known psychologist.
However, before doing that, I want to add one thing. I’m not sure that I was blasphemous rather than openly showing my non-belief, and I’m not sure the person who criticized me wasn’t more offended by my transparent non-religiousness than by any disrespect toward their beliefs. In other words, the word “blasphemy” is used as a cover for censoring beliefs one doesn’t share. What was offensive was not anything I said about religion, but the fact that I don’t have one, and the fact that I wasn’t trying to hide the fact. That kind of censorship might be called theocratic fascism. Then again, I could be wrong. But, if I am wrong, then it should be possible for a non-believer to discuss religious beliefs openly and submit them to the same standards of evidence and rationality as any other form of belief. And, if you say I can’t do that, then I think you do merit the label ‘fascist’.
Nicholas Humphrey’s “Behold the Man”
Humphrey’s topic in this essay is the supernatural, the idea that some human beings have special powers. He points out (as in the quote above) that there is simply no reason to believe that anyone has such powers. However, there are people who believe that they have such powers. And, the most famous person who believed in his own supernatural powers was Jesus Christ.
Of course, there is a psychological question here, and Humphrey is a psychologist. Why do some people believe in supernatural powers? (Especially given that their belief is not based on evidence, but, rather misinterpretation of the available evidence.) Humphrey’s strategy is to examine Biblical evidence and use contemporary psychological knowledge to create a portrait of Jesus Christ which explains how he might have come to believe that he possessed supernatural powers.
Humphrey’s first point is that Jesus never did anything so terribly wondrous as you would have expected him to do if he really did have supernatural powers:
... when it comes down to it, Jesus just does not seem to have behaved enough like the real thing. His supernatural powers (even as recorded by friends) simply were not at the level we should expect of them: they were in fact surprisingly restricted, and not only restricted, but restricted in a very suggestive way. Not to put to fine a point on it, Jesus, in most if not all of his public demonstrations behaved just like a conjuror. --Humphrey, 2002, p. 210
Humphrey points out that already in the Second Century, Lucian listed the sorts of tricks conjurors in the region were performing. “They included walking on water, materialization and dematerialization, clairvoyance, expulsion of demons, and prophecy.” (Humphrey, 2002, p. 211) In addition he explains how to do some of them, and also discusses one “pseudo-miracle worker” caller Marcus
... who regularly turned water into wine by mixing the water in one cup with red liquid from another cup while the onlooker’s attention was dis- tracted. (Smith, Jesus the Magician, cited by Humphrey 2002, p. 211)
Secondly, the Bible itself tells us that Jesus was not equally able to do his magic in front of all audiences. Jesus complained that not all audiences were receptive to his powers. And, then there is a famous passage in the Bible, “Oh lord why have you forsaken me?” That passage fits the suggestion that Jesus believed himself to possess powers which, in fact, he did not possess.
There is much more of interest in this fascinating article. Humphrey draws upon his experiences with Uri Geller and a young boy who believed himself to have magical powers in order to present a portrait of the kind of personality which Jesus might have had. I recommend the reader visit Humphrey’s website to find out more.
WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH INEQUALITY SCHOOLS?
In the case of Inequality schools, there is a kind of conspiracy of silence, a group effort to avoid uncomfortable questions. Non-believers are excluded from any conversations in which their non-belief might lead them to ask hard questions. Only the inner circle of believers can know the true motivation for policies, because believers know that they cannot defend their beliefs. Non-believers, in this way, become a second-class minority.
With this basic group psychology in place, it is hard for there to be any free or open discussion. All of the fundamentalists who make up the core of the administration have trained themselves for many years to avoid discussing possibly controversial issues with anyone who might disagree. Thus it seems natural to them that certain people should be shut out from any important policy decisions. Non-believers have the “wrong” beliefs and are, therefore, incapable of “rational” decision--i.e., decisions based upon religious ideas which cannot be defended.
Does this atmosphere deserve the label “fascistic”? One feature of fascism is the glorification of power over other people, and the absoluteness of that power. That feature is present through the unspoken rules of Inequality Schools, rules which demand total obedience.
So, when at least a third of my class doesn’t actually seem to have the English needed to do the work, we can ask about what policy lies behind that fact. It appears that someone decided to increase enrollment in Bratislava. They saw the presence of KIA motors in Slovakia as a chance to increase profits. And they were willing to sacrifice educational quality in order to achieve that goal. To be sure, some students will learn English quickly, and they deserve a chance. On the other hand, there is a fine line between admitting someone who hasn’t got the English to do the coursework, and probably won’t anytime soon and admitting someone who needs a few months to adjust. I’ve seen both cases. I have students currently who don’t understand assignments I make and who can’t answer a question on a quiz even when I tell them the answer in advance....
To be sure, these students are getting extra help, but the motivation for expanding the number of students remains obscure, and that obscurity is neither healthy nor democratic. Who decided this and when did they decide it? And on what basis?
Another way to put the point is that at the core of Inequality Schools is something rotten, something which is fundamentally opposed to free thought and rational inquiry ... And when well-meaning confused people set out to teach “critical thinking” or “higher level thinking” they will repeatedly run up against the wall of their own stubborn dogmatism. Because of the fundamental incoherence of their own beliefs, they cannot succeed in teaching or encouraging that which they themselves do not practice.
Don’t pay any attention to the man behind the curtain! (The Wizard of Oz)
Some readers may say: Yeah, So What? This Is Supposed to be an Anti-Capitalist Samizdat? Have you forgotten?
The answer is really simple. The Man Behind the Curtain is, of course, Thames Wilson. And, he, either through his own funds, or through the funds of investors (or, possibly both) has the power to run Inequality Schools as he wishes.
But, you may say, isn’t the school Accredited? Short answer: so much the worse for the Accreditation Process.
For a helpful discussion of the role of investment in a non-capitalistic economy and a critique of the way it works today, see David Scheweikart, After Capitalism, Chapter 2, “Justifying Capitalism”, and Chapter 3.1.3, “The Social Control of Investment’.
Reference Nicholas Humphrey, The Mind Made Flesh; Frontiers of Psychology and Evolution, Oxford University Press, 2002
An Afterthought
It was in a light, cheerful spirit that I said my reason for quitting my job early was to write. I don’t want to die after wasting three years of my life in service to a nasty joyless institution.
And it was in that free spirit I said that the angel with the sword was coming for me....
And like a true American Puritan, a fellow teacher did their best to squash my foolishness--branding my jollity as “blasphemy”. So much for the alleged motto of the Director, “Play”. It was, after all, that Most Notorious of Atheists Nietzsche who taught us about how joy and play are undermining of so much of what people think. This occurred to me after reading the following lines:
A great deal of gaiety leads to foolery, and Mozart had a share of both. . . when Mozart was overflowing with merriment some pranks were sure to be the result.... Occasionally his buffoonery was almost sublime.... (Roman Rolland’s Essays on Music)
And as a final word, just a little anti-Puritanism from Hanif Kureishi:
Desire is naughty and doesn’t conform to our ideals, which is why we have such a need of them. Desire mocks all human endeavour and makes it worthwhile. Desire is the original anarchist and undercover agent--no wonder people want it arrested and kept in a safe place. And just when we think we’ve got desire under control it lets us down or fills us with hope. Desire makes me laugh because it makes fools of us all. Still, rather a fool than a fascist. Intimacy, p. 44 (Faber and Faber 1998)
And yet another after-thought!
At the close of the previous calendar year the school’s director chose to dress up like a “female elf”. This was to reward students for contributing to a worthy cause.
I have nothing to say about that scenario, but I must remark that when I saw him dressed in this manner, his face revealed a sort of pleasure that struck me as bizarre.
He was smiling goofily, as if he thought he’d done something very clever.
This pleasure at cross-dressing is mysterious to me. I must, however, confess that I have appeared on stage in funny costumes, and,even, with make-up. But I’ve never been attracted by cross-dressing.
Could it be that an authoritarian person who needs strict rules and can only understand the universe in terms of simple rules actually needs to occasionally break social conventions in order to feel a sense of freedom? (I would actually say that is a defective notion of freedom; but I must stop....)