A change has come over our democracy, it is called consumptionism. American citizens’ first importance to his country is now no longer that of citizen, but that of consumer.
Samuel Strauss, 'Atlantic Monthly' November 1924
(Quoted in Adam Curtis' 'The Century of the Self' 2002)
Thursday, 20 December 2007
Sunday, 11 November 2007
The Desirability of Compelling Children to Work
On the desirability of sending poor children to workhouses and schooling them:
There is considerable use in their being, somehow or other, constantly
employed at least twelve hours a day, whether they earn their living or not;
for by these means, we hope that the rising generation will be so habituated
to constant employment that it would at length prove agreeable and entertaining
to them.
William Temple, 1770 (quoted in EP Thompson, 'Time, Work-Discipline & Industrial Capitalism')
There is considerable use in their being, somehow or other, constantly
employed at least twelve hours a day, whether they earn their living or not;
for by these means, we hope that the rising generation will be so habituated
to constant employment that it would at length prove agreeable and entertaining
to them.
William Temple, 1770 (quoted in EP Thompson, 'Time, Work-Discipline & Industrial Capitalism')
Labels:
education,
ep thompson,
schools,
society,
time,
william temple,
workhouses
Friday, 19 October 2007
Carrots, Sticks & Donkeys
Because there are neither carrots nor goads, there will be no
donkeys, for when children are treated as we would have them be, they
tend to reach out accordingly.
Bloom, A.A. (1949) Compete or Co-operate?, New Era, 30(8), pp. 170-172
(This was quoted by Saul Albert in a post to the University of Openness list.)
donkeys, for when children are treated as we would have them be, they
tend to reach out accordingly.
Bloom, A.A. (1949) Compete or Co-operate?, New Era, 30(8), pp. 170-172
(This was quoted by Saul Albert in a post to the University of Openness list.)
Labels:
bloom,
competition,
cooperation,
education,
schools
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
John Holt on 'education'
Education... now seems to me perhaps the most authoritarian and dangerous of all the social inventions of mankind. It is the deepest foundation of the modern slave state, in which most people feel themselves to be nothing but producers, consumers, spectators, and 'fans,' driven more and more, in all parts of their lives, by greed, envy, and fear. My concern is not to improve 'education' but to do away with it, to end the ugly and antihuman business of people-shaping and to allow and help people to shape themselves.
John Holt (quoted here)
John Holt (quoted here)
Thursday, 30 August 2007
Mr Antolini in 'The Catcher in the Rye'
"I'm not trying to tell you," he said, "that only educated and scholarly men are able to contribute something valuable to the world. It's not so. But I do say that educated and scholarly men, if they're brilliant and creative to begin with - which unfortunately, is rarely the case - tend to leave infinitely more valuable records behind them than men do who are merely brilliant and creative. They tend to express themselves more clearly, and they usually have a passion for following their thoughts through to the end. And - most important - nine times out of ten, they have more humility than the unscholarly thinker."
J.D. Salinger, 'The Catcher in the Rye' (1951)
I've been coming back to this passage for years. It could sound like a counter-argument to Illich's "deschooling" - yet Illich was every bit the scholar. His response would probably be that education systems are destructive of the kind of learning Mr Antolini has in mind. Also, I remember being told to push on through and endure the arbitrary unpleasantnesses of school because one day I would reach an academic elysium which would feel like home - whereas my experience of Oxford was every bit as troubling and unhomely, if for different reasons, as my earlier education.
J.D. Salinger, 'The Catcher in the Rye' (1951)
I've been coming back to this passage for years. It could sound like a counter-argument to Illich's "deschooling" - yet Illich was every bit the scholar. His response would probably be that education systems are destructive of the kind of learning Mr Antolini has in mind. Also, I remember being told to push on through and endure the arbitrary unpleasantnesses of school because one day I would reach an academic elysium which would feel like home - whereas my experience of Oxford was every bit as troubling and unhomely, if for different reasons, as my earlier education.
Labels:
1950s,
catcher in the rye,
education,
holden caulfield,
salinger
James Elkins on craft as a 'state of mindfulness'
Craft suggests pottery and carpentry, and other kinds of making, but the craft ethic extends beyond the skilled use of our hands. Craft is a way of thinking, an attitude of mind, a way of relating to any set of constraining materials, a relation of materials, skill to mind in a way so a particular person becomes known for the quality found in their use of materials. Craft is both skill and mind-set, making and doing. Craft is a state of mindfulness and a way of being.
Craftsmanship as a frame of mind (mind-set, attitude) is not fixed, or given, or inevitable, but a kind of character, a learned disposition, a habit formed over time. It can be learned. An attitude can be molded, formed, shaped (in the same fashion that we work with physical materials).
James Elkins, 'Practical Moral Philosophy for Lawyers: Imagining What We Do as Craft'
This and the previous quote come from a handout that my friend Anthony McCann used for one of his workshops on Crafting Gentleness.
Craftsmanship as a frame of mind (mind-set, attitude) is not fixed, or given, or inevitable, but a kind of character, a learned disposition, a habit formed over time. It can be learned. An attitude can be molded, formed, shaped (in the same fashion that we work with physical materials).
James Elkins, 'Practical Moral Philosophy for Lawyers: Imagining What We Do as Craft'
This and the previous quote come from a handout that my friend Anthony McCann used for one of his workshops on Crafting Gentleness.
Labels:
anthony mccann,
craft,
james elkins,
mindfulness
Carla Needleman on 'the craft of being human'
The laws of craft and the teachings of any particular real craft run parallel to the craft of being human. The craft teaches precisely through bypassing the self-indulgent speculative part of the mind that would rather think about working than work. The craft provides experience. I can learn through the order of experiences. The craft will lead me if I am able to put aside my impatience and follow.
Carla Needleman, 'The Work of Craft' (1979)
Carla Needleman, 'The Work of Craft' (1979)
Richard Sennett on sexual narcissism
Narcissistic character disorders are the most common sources of the forms of psychic distress therapists now see. The hysterical symptoms which were the dominant complaints of Freud's erotic and repressive society have largely disappeared. This character disorder has arisen because a new kind of society encourages the growth of its psychic components and erases a sense of meaningful social encounter outside its terms, outside the boundaries of the single self, in public. We must be careful to specify the kind of distress it is, in order not to falsify the milieu it has acquired as a social form. This character disorder does not lead inevitably to psychosis, nor do people under its sway live in an acute state of crisis all the time. The withdrawal of commitment, the continual search for a definition from within of "who I am," produces pain but no cataclysmic malaise. Narcissism, in other words, does not create the conditions which might promote its own destruction.
In the realm of sexuality, narcissism withdraws physical love from any kind of commitment, personal or social. The sheer fact of commitment on a person's part seems to him or her to limit the opportunities for "enough" experience to know who he or she is and to find the "right" person to complement who he or she is. Every sexual relationship under the sway of narcissism becomes less fulfilling the longer the partners are together.
Richard Sennett, 'The Fall of Public Man' (1977)
In the realm of sexuality, narcissism withdraws physical love from any kind of commitment, personal or social. The sheer fact of commitment on a person's part seems to him or her to limit the opportunities for "enough" experience to know who he or she is and to find the "right" person to complement who he or she is. Every sexual relationship under the sway of narcissism becomes less fulfilling the longer the partners are together.
Richard Sennett, 'The Fall of Public Man' (1977)
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