As usual, I’m not sure that an intellectual schema has covered all the possibilities.
My first thought was that you’re leaving out the effects of home schooling, which is itself a side effect of liberalism as you define it. [1] Home schooling should mean that indoctrination isn’t fully universal, so there will still be far mode thinkers.
Also, you’re an interesting example of using far mode thinking to acquire near mode skills—I don’t know if you or anyone can make that a more common choice, but it’s a conceivable path.
[1] I was shocked to find strong opposition to home schooling on the left, but maybe every movement has an illiberal side, no matter what it says on the label.
I was shocked to find strong opposition to home schooling on the left, but maybe every movement has an illiberal side, no matter what it says on the label.
Homeschooling is opposed on the left in the US for a variety of reasons. One is simple influence in the Democratic party by the teachers unions. But there are also good arguments to oppose homeschooling. First, It is very difficult to tell whether kids being homeschooled are actually getting good educations. Some parents simply don’t teach well even if they try to cover all the standard material. Second, many people who homeschool use it as an opportunity to push all sorts of religious and social agendas often to the detriment of science. For example, Christian homeschooling is very common and often includes a lot of creationism. Indeed, in some parts of the country it is difficult to find science textbooks that are geared to homeschooling that are not creationist.
Part of the issue with attitudes towards homeschooling is the tension between the concern we have for children as opposed to the general value of letting parents raise their children as they see fit. These values often come into conflict.
I agree that there are reasons to oppose home schooling—one that I haven’t seen discussed is that it means children with abusive parents could be trapped full-time with them.
What shocks me is not that I’ve seen left-wingers opposed to home-schooling not because it can go bad, through either parental abusiveness or incompetence, but that they are opposed to it by stereotype (assuming that all home schooling is done by religious loonies, and refusing to hear that there are a number of reasons for and styles of home schooling) or in ill-thought out principle (believing that conventional, coerced schooling is the only way to make children actual members of the society).
As usual, I’m not sure that an intellectual schema has covered all the possibilities.
My first thought was that you’re leaving out the effects of home schooling, which is itself a side effect of liberalism as you define it. [1] Home schooling should mean that indoctrination isn’t fully universal, so there will still be far mode thinkers.
Also, you’re an interesting example of using far mode thinking to acquire near mode skills—I don’t know if you or anyone can make that a more common choice, but it’s a conceivable path.
[1] I was shocked to find strong opposition to home schooling on the left, but maybe every movement has an illiberal side, no matter what it says on the label.
Homeschooling is opposed on the left in the US for a variety of reasons. One is simple influence in the Democratic party by the teachers unions. But there are also good arguments to oppose homeschooling. First, It is very difficult to tell whether kids being homeschooled are actually getting good educations. Some parents simply don’t teach well even if they try to cover all the standard material. Second, many people who homeschool use it as an opportunity to push all sorts of religious and social agendas often to the detriment of science. For example, Christian homeschooling is very common and often includes a lot of creationism. Indeed, in some parts of the country it is difficult to find science textbooks that are geared to homeschooling that are not creationist.
Part of the issue with attitudes towards homeschooling is the tension between the concern we have for children as opposed to the general value of letting parents raise their children as they see fit. These values often come into conflict.
I agree that there are reasons to oppose home schooling—one that I haven’t seen discussed is that it means children with abusive parents could be trapped full-time with them.
What shocks me is not that I’ve seen left-wingers opposed to home-schooling not because it can go bad, through either parental abusiveness or incompetence, but that they are opposed to it by stereotype (assuming that all home schooling is done by religious loonies, and refusing to hear that there are a number of reasons for and styles of home schooling) or in ill-thought out principle (believing that conventional, coerced schooling is the only way to make children actual members of the society).
I would usually assume that every movement, regardless of the label, is mostly illiberal.
You may well be right. There are things about leftish politics which suit my temperament well enough that I was surprised at a sharp divergence.
Agreed that home schooling should help a lot, especially if repeated for multiple generations.
I can’t imagine anything that would stop home schooling other than existential threats (in which case we have other problems) or it becoming illegal.
It already is in some countries, e.g., Germany and Sweden.