[Gnu-arch-users] OT: trained dependency

[Zenaan Harkness]

> It wouldn't even be worth mentioning these issues except that the PHB
> incompetence puts, and I'm not exaggerating, civilization itself at
> risk.   I have little or no more patience for those bozos.   They
> simultaneously encourage more and more of civilization to depend,
> utterly, on their products --- and take /no/ demostrable care about
> the wisdom of such dependency.   Jackasses.

Dependency is nowadays thoroughly trained in most of us in 'the western
world', thanks to a pretty pervasive compulsory education system. Take
away the time and personal space that it takes for one to have
independant and deep thought (loud bells every 40 minutes), have most
work dictated from on high, publicly humiliate us by publicly announcing
and or publishing our "exam results" for all to see and keep us cooped
up inside for the most energetic 12 years of our lives, and you get (on
the whole) a society of largely broken, dependant half-people with no
idea what happened to them or why, except that persistant nagging
sensation that _something_ is not as it should be. Of course it's not,
but since we don't know why, we assume it's Bad Government or Some Evil
Terrorist, etc, etc.

<to those who think such:>
So you think there's a difference if Bush or Kerry wins eh?
</>

Thankfully we have abundance evidence that forced public schooling is
not the only option:

* Zero home-schooled students are in prison.

* Pre 1850 (introduction of compulsory schooling, at gun point) between
92 and 98% of the (free) US population was literate. Literacy back then
was a distinctly higher bar than we consider today.

* Many (most?) of the wealthiest and most successful people did not
matriculate, some (19th Century) doing little to no schooling at all
(including America's founding fathers).

Perhaps remember this: schooling, and education, are two vastly
different things, despite the propaganda.

Schooling has a purpose, and I put it to you that it's not to educate,
liberate or provide for an active democracy.

cheers
zen

(For those wanting more, the above snippets come from my reading of John
Taylo Gatto - I'm now into my fourth book An Underground History of
American Education. See also the following quote from that book:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~zenaan/zenaan/do-you-know-america.html also
linked to from my homepage http://soulsound.net/)