Topic: Factory of the Marglefarbs

My question is this: Why? What makes them so attached to something so obviously inept and ineffective that they ignore what is actually happening?

What's wrong with these people? Why do they hang on to something so blatantly ineffective and broken?

What's wrong with these people? Why do they hang on to something so blatantly ineffective and broken?

People are always complaining though that kids don't learn anything in schools--so why are they still involved in the schools?

Each day, more than 1,200 young men and women give up on their high school education, and, in many cases, on themselves. Once students make the decision to drop out, they lack the tools to compete in today’s society and diminish their chances for greater success in the future. But the decision to drop out of school does not happen overnight; it comes after years of frustration and failure. Often, those that drop out have run out of motivation and have no source of support or encouragement in school or at home.

Reforming education is not the solution to the problem of having unhappy citizens; reforming society is the solution that will eventually lead to the reform of education.

And this conditioning very effectively carries over into our adult lives. Try asking people on the job if they really want to be there. Again, I bet the majority would say no.

He must have read "Ishmael: a tale of why the United States of America is the best place to live..." by Daniel Boone. Fuck them both.

Anyway. You're awesome. Thanks for that.

Farber writes, When you go to school, you do society an enormous favor; you give it the opportunity to mold you in its image, stunting and deadening you in the process. What you get in return is access to a certain income bracket and the material comforts that go with it. But think what you've given up. Other animals have much of their nature born in them. But you were born with the freedom to learn, to change, to transcend yourself, to create your life that's your human birthright. In school you sell it very cheap.

Farber writes, When you go to school, you do society an enormous favor; you give it the opportunity to mold you in its image, stunting and deadening you in the process. What you get in return is access to a certain income bracket and the material comforts that go with it. But think what you've given up. Other animals have much of their nature born in them. But you were born with the freedom to learn, to change, to transcend yourself, to create your life that's your human birthright. In school you sell it very cheap.

I think the whole point of school is to traumatize children into becoming subservient, subdued sheeple who follow the herd.

I guess happiness is a selfish business--it doesn't matter what society "needs" because satisfying what society "needs" is rarely the best way to keep society going (if everyone is doing what society needs, few people are going to be happy--everyone else is going to go postal, as many do in our society today).

I think there's a difference between "ineffective school system" and "working perfectly school system"; the difference is in how you define "broken" and "working" schools--I say that they're "ineffective" because the principle of a school is education. They don't do that. We know that the school system of today is designed to keep young people off the job market until much later, and in that, the schools work perfectly.

People are always complaining though that kids don't learn anything in schools--so why are they still involved in the schools?

I can still hear the words of Mother Culture coming out my dads mouth the night I dropped out and ran away from home. He said to me:

"You can come back when you decide to be a productive member of society."

I never came back.

You think that the designers of our school system sat down, and decided that they wanted to develop a system to churn out workhorses and make sure they never learned anything? My problem is that you insist that this was "intentional."

Ninety-nine [students] out of a hundred are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom. This is not an accident but the result of substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual.

You think that the designers of our school system sat down, and decided that they wanted to develop a system to churn out workhorses and make sure they never learned anything?

Slavery was intentionally designed to produce docile and compliant hardworking individuals.

Really? You think that the designers of our school system sat down, and decided that they wanted to develop a system to churn out workhorses and make sure they never learned anything? My problem is that you insist that this was "intentional." Most of the intentions involved are from people who really do want to help kids learn. The problem is not their intentions, it's the system they are caught in themselves--where kids don't have autonomy or even the ability to make their own decisions, and where hierarchy is the only way to do anything. But "intentionally"? I don't believe in cackling conspiracies; I believe in systemic consequences.

Harris was saying that in disappointment. He'd become disillusioned and disappointed with a system he'd helped create. That wasn't his intention in creating it; that was what it ended up becoming, and it was the kind of disappointment that ended up breaking him.

Ouch. Sorry Jason. Talk about taking a quote out of context.

Rory--I've read Gatto. I've also read Gatto's sources. He somewhat overstates his point, especially on this one.

Likewise, nobody sat down and designed schools in order to turn children into automata; they tried to teach children what they needed to know to be functional in an increasingly complex society, and when they started getting automata out, the creators of that system--like Harris--were fairly horrified at what they'd created.

Jason -- At least when making an argument, he CITES his sources.

I've seen you make this claim in arguments many times. And it's highly convenient that it's not really falsifiable unless they challenge you directly on the specifics of each work. Which no one really does, of course, so you can argue premises with them -- premises that you can easily familiarize yourself with without having to read the book. At any rate, eventually your sheer stubbornness and the repetition of your argument in a number of different ways, combined with the production of numerous sources (all your links) which you demand that people read (on the dubious basis that you've read their sources already) wears people the fuck out, and they leave you alone. Which is just fine for you, so you can be self-satisfied as an authority on the matter.

Guffaw. I can imagine how HORRIFIED the creators of the No Child Left Behind act are that it's doing exactly what it was intended to do: decrease funding to inner-city public schools while providing vouchers for private school. I'm sure they really feel AWFUL about the increasing failure rates (of lower-income kids), the increasing segregation, the incredible teacher turnover rates. Unintended consequences? Bull shit.

You can brand this a conspiracy theory and make sweeping generalizations about conspiracy theories all you like, but that's extremely intellectually dishonest.

So I'd like to open an opportunity for him to calm down and not do anything so brash as to threaten to make unnecessary enemies, simply for an inability to temporarily control one's emotions, because that would be very sad.

You're not family. You're not tribe.

As far as the actual debate goes, forget it. You [snip] your ego has been challenged.

Don't take life too seriously--it's not like anybody gets out alive anyway.

And as to you claiming to have read Gatto's sources: :roll:. I've seen you make this claim in arguments many times. And it's highly convenient that it's not really falsifiable unless they challenge you directly on the specifics of each work. Which no one really does, of course, so you can argue premises with them -- premises that you can easily familiarize yourself with without having to read the book.

But if Devin wants to escalate, I'm sure my amusement would dissipate quickly. So I'd like to open an opportunity for him to calm down and not do anything so brash as to threaten to make unnecessary enemies, simply for an inability to temporarily control one's emotions, because that would be very sad.

Little known fact - my real name is Ernie, but my nickname is Joe because of my l33t banjo skillz (banJO, JOe, get it? Pretty cool huh?)

I'm pretty close to actually concentrating it into pure death rays at this point.

:lol:

thanks for brightening my day BanJoe