That Education Stuff; Why do we do it?

(Leg-iron has a long post on education, most of which I broadly agree with. It's not especially relevant to this post of mine, but it's worth a read.)

If government ever understood the purpose of education it has long forgotten it. And it is probable that the state never did know or care why it was a good thing to make sure children were educated. (Or even what education is.) Governments have always used education, as they use everything else, to defend their own interests. (That is only to be expected, since it's what we all do, but it means that we need to make sure that the government's interests coincide with our own, and the People are not very good at bringing it about.)

The early presence of the state in education was intended to compete with the church, or in some cases with other private bodies that were getting too powerful. It has at times been used directly as an excuse to increase taxation, and it has for decades been an idealogical tool controlled for the purpose of indoctrinating the young. Everyone is constantly trying to indoctrinate the young into having one or other set of beliefs, moral principles, traits of character, strengths, weaknesses, philosophical handles, etc, and the state often loses the struggle, but it doesn't stop trying, and education, real education, is lost along the way.

So what is the point of education? What is it that someone, whoever, should be doing for children?

It is generally agreed that the main idea is to prepare them to take their place in the world. What that place is depends partly on the world and partly on the child, which in turn depends on the formation they have received. Children need to learn basic literacy and numeracy, but that won't get them far on its own. They need to understand the world they will be taking their place in, they need to be physically strong, to have strength of will, intellectual curiosity and the analytical tools to satisfy that curiosity. The world needs them to be able to contribute to making it a better place, and they need to be able to make a living, with as many options as possible, and to be happy and fulfilled. The last one is notoriously tricky, but I think we can be certain that filling their heads with rubbish, exhorting them to know their place, pandering to their (quite natural) indolence, and generally depriving them of any real knowledge, enthusiasm or aspiration is not the way to do it.

The ten or twelve years that children are in full-time education should be sufficient to achieve all of these things several times over. If it happened, they would all have to compete with each other, of course, as we do now, and some would win and some would lose, but the world they lived in, and helped to create, would be a much better one for all of them. Yet large numbers emerge knowing nothing, with no concept even of knowledge or ambition or satisfaction, having had their childhood wasted and their future ruined by ideologues, incompetents and tyrants.

I am completely certain that that is not what education was invented for, and it would be an excellent thing to recognize this, and at least try to work out what the real end of education is and think about how to achieve it. But first you have to know how to think, and ideologues don't think, they only believe.

"Is This Going to Involve Getting Up"

Thus does Garfield, wisest and most human of cats, encapsulate the abyss that separates our plans and aspirations from reality. Idly wondering how to become richer, more successful, happier, better-looking, fitter, more powerful and all the other things we know we could and should be, it seems so easy. But putting it into practice. Ah, now that's another matter. There are always distractions and excuses, it's not our fault, the world is against us, we have too many other things to do.

Legions of fat people lie on sofas eating Mars bars and whining that no one understands them, and that nobody will give them a magic pill that will let them be simultaneously lazy, greedy and thin. They could try the tapeworm, I suppose. Or they could buy a bicycle, but that, of course, would involve getting up.

Or those who don't progress at work because everyone has it in for them. Is it possible that if they were more punctual, more cheerful, more diligent and more imanative, took fewer days off sick and acually did what they were paid for they might find a greater spirit of co-operation from their bosses, but that, of course...

Most of us have a thousand unrealized plans, dreams and schemes. Unrealized because we 'don't have the time.' We have little trouble making time for watching TV, gossiping idly with friends, drinking beer, lying in bed half the morning and going to the footie, but for the things that we repeatedly tell ourselves and others are important to us, and to our sense of personal fulfillment, we just 'don't have the time.'

But Garfield was funny and he really didn't care. If you do care, stop moaning, get up and do it.

Lisbon and Those Democratic Provisions

The EU Observer makes a big thing about one of the supposed democratic initiatives in the Lisbon Treaty, while at the same time explaining how such freedom must be greatly constrained in case we get carried away by the sheer joy of it.

Article 8 of the Lisbon Treaty, in the section grandly entitled 'Provision on the Principles of Democracy, says the following: In all its activities, the Union shall observe the principle of the equality of its citizens, who shall receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, offices and agencies.

This has, of course, nothing whatever to do with democracy, so it's not a good start. The unfortunate people of the late Soviet Empire were not only promised, but probably actually received, equal attention from the agencies that were busy destroying their lives, simply because as far as their leaders were concerned, they were all equal. None of them mattered. The next sub-section is ominous as well:

1. The functioning of the Union shall be founded on representative democracy.
2. Citizens are directly represented at Union level in the European Parliament. Member States are represented in the European Council by their Heads of State or Government and in the Council by their governments, themselves democratically accountable either to their national Parliaments, or to their citizens.
3. Every citizen shall have the right to participate in the democratic life of the Union. Decisions shall be taken as openly and as closely as possible to the citizen.
4. Political parties at European level contribute to forming European political awareness and to expressing the will of citizens of the Union.

1. The Union is clearly founded on the principle of sharing the power among unaccountable bureaucrats and friends of friends, regardless of the public good or the public will, and grafting on a few elections and referenda here and there, the results of which can be freely ignored.
2. MEP's are not directly elected by the public, nor do they represent them.
3. There is next to no meaningful democratic life to take part in.
4. Political parties are private organizations of free people and as such will do as they damn well please. To attempt to define and control the role of political parties is highly totalitarian.

An important point about this and many other articles in the Constitution/Lisbon Treaty is how it makes perfectly clear that there are two types of people in the EU, the rulers and the ruled. Any real democracy at least pretends that the leaders have been temporarily and conditionally given authority by their fellows in order to perform certain necessary functions. The EU makes no such pretence.

Consider point 3 a little further, and then look at Article 8b:

1. The institutions shall, by appropriate means, give citizens and representative associations the opportunity to make known and publicly exchange their views in all areas of Union action.
2. The institutions shall maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with representative associations and civil society.
3. The European Commission shall carry out broad consultations with parties concerned in order to ensure that the Union's actions are coherent and transparent.
4. Not less than one million citizens who are nationals of a significant number of Member States may take the initiative of inviting the European Commission, within the framework of its powers, to submit any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties. The procedures and conditions required for such a citizens' initiative shall be determined in accordance with the first paragraph of Article 21 [actually Article 24] of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

Civil society doesn't mean you. Don't imagine it does. It means groups specially created or allowed to exist by our leaders, and paid by them with our money to lobby them, the purpose being to justify what they have already decided to do. You are merely a citizen. You don't count. Point 4 appears to introduce a mechanism for any of us to initiate legislation, but this is of course quite the opposite, being in fact an excuse to ignore us even more thoroughly than they do now. As the article gleefully makes clear, there will be so many problems with verification and uncertainty about the number of signatories from each country that any such petition can easily be rejected by an apparatchik long before it is in danger of sullying the exalted hands of a commissioner. Even if you manage to find a million people in a dozen countries who will not only sign to say they agree with but will give you vast amounts of personal data to support verification. Even if you can couche your intention in such a way that it appears to be required for the purpose of implementing the treaties. Even if you get past the army of paperpushers looking for a flaw in the presented paperwork. Even if you manage to reach the stage where the Commission can no longer avoid taking a look you will have achieved precisely nothing. Six months later you will become the proud possessor of a letter with a laser-printed fascimile signature telling you that the Commission doesn't feel your legislative initiative is appropriate and that, due to the nuisance clause in the standing orders they will not consider any proposal on a similar subject for at least 15 years.

No one is going to go through all that for nothing. Except for one reason- publicity. The press would certainly become interested but they are also easily nobbled by the powerful, and you might find yourself the victim of a mob rather than a popular hero. On the whole I think we can say that the provision is yet another of those decoys the EU likes to create, something to point to when there fundamental lack of democracy is pointed out.

There was a time when you went to see your MP, or wrote to him, repeatedly if necessary, and he would ask a question in the House or take the matter up somewhere, or you wrote to the relevant minister, and encouraged others to do the same and if enough people showed enough interest something might be set in motion. There was a time when the people's represenatives represented them- however imperfectly- but they understood that was their job. There was a time when legislation could be enacted by the will of the people, brought before Parliament by their elected representatives, with no need for mechanisms and constraints to be set out at length in endlessly interreferential protocols.

The provision is of such bureaucratic complexity that it is clearly designed to be impossible to fulfil, and thus those who rule us without our consent can remove themselves even more completely from the foulness and impurity of the world which we mere citizens must inhabit.

Another Freedom Gone

Tomorrow it will become illegal in Spain not to give a series of personal details to your mobile phone company when you buy a phone. This information will be available for the government to use to check up on who you talk to, but it will be collected and stored by the companies, so in the end it will mean the prices will go up as well.

The information you give or ask for when you enter into a contract is surely a matter for you and the other contracting party to decide. The government need not usually be involved, either in determining what information should be asked for and certainly not in having access to that information. But they do so love to get involved, don't they, especially if someone else is paying (which someone else always is).

In the case of a pre-paid phone the company doesn't even need to know your name, but it has been decided by our betters that we can no longer enjoy the freedom to speak to whoever we choose without having the fact recorded in perpetuity and used against us later on the whim of some official. So from tomorrow you can't have a phone unless they know exactly who you are and where to find you. (In fact, you haven't been able to for some time; tomorrow is just the last date for giving all that info to the phone company. After that, you're a crook.)

This has been justified as part of (go on, guess) the fight against terrorism, because pre-paid, anonymous phones were used in the Madrid bombs in 2004. When I say justified, I mean the minister genuinely seems to believe that if they hadn't been able to use pre-paid phones the murderers would have given up and gone home.

It's just an excuse, of course. They do it because they can. It shows very clearly that the only reason we are not obliged to register every contact we make, every conversation we take part in, every friend we have, is that our masters haven't worked out a way to make us do it without paying a higher political price than they are currently prepared to contemplate.

I'm not paranoid, but I think it's a bad idea to imagine that people who want power over you and/or an easy life at your expense can automatically be trusted with your time, money or freedom. Experience suggests otherwise.

On another matter, the Spanish Communist Party has a new leader. This should not be significant, as they have only two MP's, and that's because of PR but El País thinks it is. They used to have rather more, but now they shouldn't matter. They used to have more because they made a big thing about some of their leaders being jailed by Franco and how they fought against him. Some of them were indeed jailed, but a lot of people liked to claim they had been jailed by Franco a posteriori, it was a badge of legitimacy in the transition, whatever the real reason for being in jail (v. Jesús Gil y Gil).

They Communists like to make themselves out as being brave fighters against Franco and an important part of the transition to democracy. Their role in the transition consisted of allowing themselves to be legalized, and though it is true that they opposed Franco, there was a democratic opposition which did far more, while the communists postured and offered- or rather tried to impose- a tyranny far worse than the one that already existed.

Said new leader talks the usual cobblers. I've written about it here, but I can't be bothered to translate it. He's not worth it.

Attitudes to Education

Among those who take any interest in education and the role the state plays in it, there are a few positions which probably cover most of the ground:

- Education should be completely controlled by the state so that children are only taught what the government of the day wants them to learn (transmitting any of your own values to them is treason against Progress).
- Education should only be done by the state because otherwise wealthy children will have an advantage. The desire to see other people forced to fail rather than aspire to something better yourself is an extraordinarily common mental affliction.
- Education is the responsibility of parents but should be provided by the state etc, and exclusively controlled by it.
- Education is the duty of the state/government/society to all children who want it and can’t get it by other means, and only state education is the business of the government. Probably the middle class default position.
- F*** off and leave my children alone.

Your position on this depends as much on your circumstances and background as it does on your politics. More so, probably, since those who actually have a choice, such as Labour MP's, almost invariably prefer to lay themselves open to charges of hypocrisy than to deprive their children of an opportunity. It would be better still if they did neither, but at least they recognise openly the importance of education, while trying to deny it to others.

Most people who understand the importance of education, which means most of the well-educated and not a few of those who were not so lucky, do everything possible to find the best school for their children, moving house, lying, pretending to be Catholic, and so on. Those who have the money use good private schools, or private tuition as a supplement, and those who have the time and the capability educate their children themselves, rather than trust anyone else to do it. All of this makes perfect sense to anyone who is not blinded by ideology.

State schools exist for those who are not able to provide for their children themselves. It is unlikely in any case that the standard will be as high as a privately bought service, and the politicization of it guarantees this absolutely.

The standard is almost certain to be lower because state schools do not usually attempt to achieve high standards. Their aim is generalised middlingness, and far more effort is spent on finding ways of pretending to attend to those who cannot or do not want to learn than on stopping them from preventing others from learning.

Real Life

If work is the curse of the drinking classes (and it most certainly is), then real life is the curse of the blogging classes. Real life has intervened this week, resulting in limited blogging. There are many things I dislike about the world we live in, and many I should dislike far more if I were unfortunate enough to have to find out about them. And so I am happy to have real life distract me from other, minor matters this week, especially the particular kind of real life that I have experienced these last few days.

La Cueva de Montesinos

In the Lagunas de Ruidera, in the rocks above one of the larger lakes, there is a cave known as the Cueva de Montesinos. I have mentioned it before, but until this weekend I had never gone further in than the entrance. It is a karstic formation, consisting of a narrow passage leading down to a chamber with a raised floor surrounded by water and contained a great deal of clay of high purity (it is said that the Romans mined clay here and there was a kiln and buildings on the spot whose foundations can still be traced), and a roof of iron-lined rock, on which patterns of crystallized calcite deposits make patterns which can be interpreted (with some imagination) to tell the story of the cave itself.

Don Quijote visited this cave, spoke with the spirit of Merlin, who had enchanted it, and with the Lord of Montesinos, and other spirits, and came out the next morning with tales of visions and promises and predestination. Sancho was sceptical from the start, and Don Quijote himself later admitted more or less that he had made it up, but the cave, which already had a legend of enchantment, became famous around the world, and is visted for that reason, more than for its geological interest, which isn't great.

In these days of micro-inspection, ultra-regulation and obsessive concern of authority with everything except that which actually benefits the country in general and allows the individual to make a living, where it is forbidden to burn rubbish or stubble, requiring it to be packed up and thrown away, where it is forbidden to maintain any kind of animal except in accordance with rules dreamt up by people in offices in Madrid, where farmers are told what they can grow, when, where and how, and where the market is manipulated by Brussels in order to prevent them from earning a proper living, where all economic activity can be shut down on the orders of an urban bureaucrat if certain animals or birds are reported to be on your land, where the local and national socialist governments think all land is really theirs and you are just their servant, to keep it looking pretty for the people who they allow to walk all over it, or to have it taken from you if they decide to build a road or a new town hall, in these days, I say, it is refreshing to be shown the cave by the nephew of the old game-keeper at the farm, who has been showing it for thirty years, as his father did before him, with a handful of torches and asking only for 'la voluntad'.

He knows every rock, every pattern, every angle, every story, and he knows where every foot should be placed to avoid the danger of tripping in the dark or falling into the water below. And he describes it all, bringing to life the cave, the book, the colours, the minerals and the rocks themselves. The cave has a story, a mythology, older than Cervantes, Don Quijote has a story, there to be read, and the guide himself has a story, in which he has become the rocks he has spent his life observing and describing, reading and writing his own story in the figures on the wall.

Above, a hare issuing from a magic lamp, and below, the reclining Dulcinea.