Unmaking Sense

Episode 4.16: We have to break the stranglehold of a self-reinforcing education system to survive.

Any system which attempts to reduce its evaluation of the worth of a human being to one dimension, particularly by ranking students on a single scale as if that scale represents their value, is misleading and destructive of human self-regard. There is no justification for such measurement at all. We need to learn to appreciate the multidimensional aspects of human life that mean that every human being has much to contribute to society, and not only those who can do well in narrowly-defined examinations with barely any connection to real life. This academic pretence, which has dominated education for centuries, has got to be challenged and broken because it has destroyed more lives than it has created and it has discouraged more people from fulfilling their part in the world than any other single human institution. It is time for change.

Episode 4.15: Our self-reinforcing web of values and beliefs is a major part of the problem.

Education inevitably reinforces and teaches whatever set of values and beliefs are already woven into the web of a culture. Therefore, if that web is part of the problem rather than a key to the solution, education teaches the very things that are the source of the problem rather than a key to its solution. Inevitably those schooled in that culture will say of any radically new proposal “that will never work“, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t voice alternatives to the system because the system is incapable of reformation from within without those additional initially unpopular and misunderstood impulses and stimuli.

Episode 4.14: Education’s obsession with ranking children does inestimable harm to them and society.

Why do we feel the need to rank children? We do it from their earliest ages, and so we scar them - often for life - with unnecessary, unjust and unfair comparisons. There is no single scale on which children can legitimately be ranked. We need to stop.

Episode 4.13: Identification of leaders is but one way education supports élitism and inefficiency.

Whatever we might think, it is not the role of education to decide which children are the cleverest, which children are most worthy, which children are deserving of the most resources, and which children are capable of becoming leaders. It is the role of education to encourage us to find ways to live together by maximising the collective power and effectiveness of our joint resources, intelligence, strengths, and abilities.

Episode 4.12: The collective insights of a population are superior to the insights of a few leaders.

By delegating our powers to leaders we degrade the quality of the solutions to our problems that would be available were we more effective at pooling our collective integrated insights and resources.

Episode 4.11: The fraudulent claim some schools make to be able to identify and develop “leaders”.

A great many schools claim to apply themselves to the task of identifying future leaders. This is a patronising presumption that we should give no credit to whatsoever. It is neither possible nor desirable for them to do so. By claiming to do so they take parents for fools and treat the rest of us as if we are incapable of taking responsibility for our lives, and so in need of a permanent class of leaders, a class that doesn’t exist. A vibrant successful society respects and empowers all its citizens and makes the best of their collective intelligence, strength and ability to solve its problems; it does not rely upon a tiny minority of self-selecting “leaders” to do it for them.

Episode 4.10: Another Objection: If everyone lived for the present, civilisation would collapse!

The “What if everyone did that?” objection, rather than demolishing The Dewey Principle, reveals the problem at the heart of our existential crises: that our readiness to delegate our autonomy to leaders and other external authorities means that responsibility for the world, instead of being able to draw upon the unimaginable power of our collective intelligence, instead has to depend upon a pitifully small number of single leaders or oligarchies. Our problems - the world’s problems - are too complex to allow this to continue. Only by empowering the whole of humanity, which will require us all to take back our autonomy and take responsibility for ourselves, can those problems be addressed and solved.

Episode 4.09: Appreciating the experience of the present as fully as possible needs to be learned.

If we are to appreciate the qualities of today’s experiences more deeply, we need to acquire the skills needed to do so. Those skills are not trivial, to be taken for granted, or easy to learn: they require long practice under the guidance of skilled teachers.

Episode 4.08: An Objection to The Dewey Principle; the objection’s refutation and its implications.

Isn’t the very last thing the world needs a greater emphasis on enjoying the present and forgetting the future? Isn’t the whole thrust of environmental and climate crises that we need to think more about the implications of current behaviour for the future, not less? Yes, but the objection points to a conclusion we might not expect: that our destruction of the planet is a consequence of failure to take present experiences seriously enough; the problem is a frivolous squandering of the world’s resources because we do not appreciate them or the experiences to be had from them deeply enough, and so consume resources in ever-increasing quantities because we are blind to the qualities of the experiences they afford.

Episode 4.07: Jesus of Nazareth was persecuted for living and preaching The Dewey Principle.

This is not a religious diatribe. Jesus was crucified because he preached “take no thought for tomorrow” and “consider the lilies of the field”, so undermining the party line that The Dewey Principle (if you will pardon the anachronism) is unworkable. And not only was Jesus crucified for preaching and living this message; to make sure it would not “catch on” his teachings were appropriated by and so turned into an institutional religion that said the opposite: take every thought for tomorrow or you will go to .