The False Principle of Our Education: A Commentary

 

Here we offer some commentary and thoughts related to and inspired by our reading of "The False Principle of Our Education" by Max Stirner.

We begin by quoting education activist, author, and award-winning teacher John Taylor Gatto.

"When you take the free will out of education, that turns it into schooling."

What is the purpose of compulsory schooling? Is it meant to create a society of free thinking, self-responsible people? By examining both the roots of our current education system as well as the products of it we can gain insight into both the problems currently existing as well as potential solutions.

Apart from any other basis which might justify a superiority, education, as a power, raised him who possessed it over the weak, who lacked it, and the educated man counted in his circle, however large or small it was, as the mighty, the powerful, the imposing one: for he was an authority.

What if all people had an effective education? Then would each be his own authority? And would government need be anything more than protection only against the use of force?

Education creates superiority and makes one a master: thus in that age of the master [pre-Revolution going back to the Reformation], it was a means to power. But the Revolution broke through the master-servant economy and the axiom came forth: everyone is his own master. Connected with this was the necessary conclusion that education, which indeed produces the master, must henceforth become universal and the task of finding true universal education now presented itself.

The question is, whether government compelled education fulfills this promise. I don't believe it does. It only creates more slaves actually, because it does not educate in the full sense of the word, but rather indoctrinates to be MORE subservient to perceived authority. It 'educates' only enough to give one the ability to take in information, but not enough to think critically about the information to which one is exposed. Furthermore, compulsory education (schooling, actually) only focuses on requiring students memorize information within very limited contexts about a narrow range of subjects. The range of topics appears at first glance to be wide-ranging however if one look into what is actually covered within each subject one finds that only specific viewpoints that all coalesce into one coherent perceptual pattern regarding reality are allowed. We see this drive to have teachers teach ONE MESSAGE in a standardized way reinforced through the federal government's latest intrusion into American education through Common Core.

The essential advantage of scholars, universal education, should be beneficial to everyone. However, one asks, what is universal education other than the capacity, trivially expressed, “to be able to talk about everything,” or more seriously expressed, the capacity to master any material? School was seen to be left behind by life since it not only withdrew from the people but even neglected universal education with its students in favor of exclusive education, and it failed to urge mastery in school of a great deal of material which is thrust upon us by life. School, one thought, indeed has to outline our reconciliation with everything life offers and to care for it so that none of the things with which we must some day concern ourselves will be completely alien to us and beyond our power to master.

Clearly, when we look at the form and content of modern education we see very little coverage of anything that would be relevant to our daily lives. Students leave school with lots of opinions and ideas about the world but with virtually no knowledge or mastery of things that they will contend with on a daily basis. This should be clear to anyone who has graduated from high school in the United States. Clearly, though there should be a balance between learning pragmatic skills that apply in a mundane sense and wide ranging skills and conceptual integrations about life, human nature, and our world as a whole.

For in education, all of the material given has value only in so far as children learn to do something with it, to use it. Certainly only the practical and the useful should be stressed, as the realists desire; but the benefit is really only to be sought in forming, in generalizing, in presenting, and one will not be able to reject this humanistic claim.

The purpose of education, according to its etymology, is to draw out or bring forth. What is it that is to be drawn out of a human through education? Is the purpose of human life to follow a preset pattern of behavior, predictable according to the use of words and imagery by those in positions to reach the masses of humanity through mass media? Is the purpose of human life to be born, programmed to consume, perpetuate the system as is, and then die? If so, then the current education system, which is really nothing more than schooling, is doing its job. As John Taylor Gatto points out, the only other use of the word 'school' in the English language apart from its usage in the context of education and academics is when speaking of a group of fish. Observe a group of fish evading a predator. They all move as one without speaking a word. Its fascinating and impressive to watch. But are humans nothing more than a mass to be directed simply for the purpose of survival? What is it that is surviving, exactly? As individuals we all die, so what is preserved? Anything worth preserving?

 

The “calling of man” which he was tracking down on a thousand paths and byways of research bursts as soon as it has been recognized into the flame of ethical will and inflames the breast of the person who is not distracted any longer with seeking but has again become fresh and natural. 

Returning to the question, then, of what is it that we would want to draw out of the human person through education, if I look for myself at the yearning of my own heart, that experience or state of being that I have desired since I can remember, I want to live fully, without limit. I want to experience life fresh and anew each moment. Life lived as a constant recreation of the past through the use of knowledge as fact, knowledge which was given to me not discovered myself, is not Life. It is actually death. Repetition for the sake of repetition. That drive that wants to be more and to expand is LIFE ITSELF. It is that spark within each of us that I believe is the object which real education ought to draw out and bring forth in each person if education is to be considered a success.

Just as we found our way into and permeated everything with which we were confronted during our childhood, so we discover and conduct ourselves in later years, resign ourselves to the times, become its servants and so-called good citizens. Where then will a spirit of opposition be strengthened in place of the subservience which has been cultivated until now, where will a creative person be educated instead of a learning one, where does the teacher turn into a fellow worker, where does he recognize knowledge as turning into will, where does the free man count as a goal and not the merely educated one? Unfortunately, only in a few places yet.

 Yes, only in a few places do we find even a discussion of the real purpose of education beyond simply preparing a person to fit into the system as is. Its not surprising, of course, because the education system is a tool of the total system itself, and as far as systems go, they tend to be designed in a way that preserves them or at least their essential features. Can a system designed on the principle of survival only ever support a person to nurture a sense of expansion and freedom? Perhaps only in the sense that it serves as contrast to awaken in us a desire to change through experience of the exact opposite of what we want. Of course we must be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, and instigate all things and keep that which is best. There are certain aspects of our existence which require attention in an automated way, at least in terms of how reality is currently structured. We do require to eat. We require language to communicate. There are basic things that we require because of the nature of reality currently as a programmed existence. We cannot simply exist by will alone, at the moment. Thus we must work within the parameters of existence while at the same time not accepting them as eternal and therefore unchangeable through, at the very least, a process in time.

The realists may glory in their advantage that they do not simply educate scholars, but rational and useful citizens: indeed, their basic principle: “one teaches everything in relation to practical life,” could even be valid as the motto of our time if they only would not interpret the true practice in a common sense... That intention “to educate for practical life” only brings forth people of principles who act and think according to maxims, but no principled men; legal minds, not free ones.

Yes, we must remain practical, but we must also question our principles. What is the starting point of Life? As I said before, it is more than survival. It is expansion and freshness and culminates in the phrase, "Best for All". What other purpose of Life can there be other than to always strive for what is Best in the fullest sense of the word? Can we, even logically, come to any other conclusion? Shouldn't then, Education, in its fullest sense, have as its ultimate purpose to support a human being to become the best version of their self possible?

Thus the radii of all education run together into one center which is called personality. Knowledge, as scholarly and profound or as wide and comprehensible as it may be, remains indeed only a possession and belonging so long as it has not vanished in the invisible point of the ego, from there to break forth all-powerfully as will, as supersensual and incomprehensible spirit. Knowledge experiences this transformation then, when it ceases clinging only to objects, when it has become knowledge itself or, in case this seems clearer, when it has become knowledge of the idea, a self-awareness of the mind. Then it turns itself, so to speak, into the drive, the instinct of the mind, into a subconscious knowledge which everyone can at least imagine if he compares it with how so many and comprehensive experiences of his own self become sublimated into the simple feeling which one calls tact: everything of diffuse knowledge which is pulled out of those experiences is concentrated into immediate knowledge whereby he determines his actions in an instant.

Thus the real purpose of true education should not be the imparting of knowledge, per se, but rather the ability to bring in knowledge (in other words the truth, or self-honest reflection of one's creation as consequence in reality) in order to improve upon what one sees. Currently we impart knowledge in an attempt to influence what one sees, while masking the fact that that what one sees is actually the cumulative result of what each one, individually and collectively, has accepted and allowed to accumulate into manifested consequence over eons of time. Our current approach does not impart self-responsibility, it in fact discourages it. It does not produce a human being who is self-aware, but rather only aware of what their knowledge imparts to them. Thus the true goal of education, it if is to coincide with our principle of What is Best for All, is to support a human to develop a self-awareness of themselves as an individual co-creator of reality in the context of reality being the sum of the collective agreements and actions that have formed reality into what it is in the moment. Education ought to impart to a human being the recognition of the BEST being the only logical goal of thought and action. A true education ought to produce a self-aware, self-responsible human being with a flexible mind, not beholden to knowledge but able to integrate knowledge about reality in order to improve upon it and strengthen the dynamic balance. At the moment reality shifts back and forth between extremes and is reflective of the polarity that exists in the human mind down drawing as its source the separation within the human person, exacerbated by an education system that seeks to further the separation within oneself and between people. It is rare, if it even happens at all, that a person leaves school and is more self-aware, more confident that they can contribute to the world in a positive way while getting what they need without having to abuse or exploit the weaknesses in others. Education as it is currently generally exploits the weakness currently existent in human nature, that being the tendency to look for a leader or a master rather than take responsibility for oneself, and thus perpetuates a world where only a few have direct control of reality (tenuous as it is) while everyone else essentially abdicates their actual creative influence on reality to those few elite as we tend to call them.

In a word, it is not knowledge that should be taught, rather, the individual should come to self-development; pedagogy should not proceed any further towards civilizing, but toward the development of free men, sovereign characters; and therefore, the will which up to this time has been so strongly suppressed, may no longer be weakened. Do they not indeed weaken the will to knowledge, then why weaken the will to will? After all, we do not hinder man’s quest for knowledge; why should we intimidate his free will? If we nurture the former, we should nurture the latter as well.

Real Education should support the individual to be more free through the development of their own common sense and self-awareness. The danger, of course, is to then believe that no formal education is required, but this line of thought is only possible if one is not self-honest about reality as it currently exists. Giving a lamb its freedom to roam in a den of wolves is not freedom at all and in fact an abdication of one's self-responsibility to guide the young. The world is set up to indoctrinate you, whether you realize it or not and it only grows in its sophistication and ability to do so in each moment. Technology to reach the subconscious and further, down into the human's natural learning ability has become so advanced that is operates nearly 24 hours a day beneath most people's conscious awareness of it even doing so, up to the point that if one were to explain this to the 'average person' one would be met with hostility, denial, and accusations of being 'negative' and a 'conspiracy theorist'. Of course the sophistication of the technology employed is such that it shapes ones mind in such a way as to reject any knowledge or information that might threaten to destabilize one's current conditioning. So we must not simply reject the idea of education as a formal process, yet we must be aware that most current forms of education, especially in schools (whether public or private) only serve to reinforce the status quo in the mind of the impressionable young person.

But even practical education still stands far behind the personal and free, and gives the former the skill to fight through life, thus the latter provides the strength to strike the spark of life out of oneself; if the former prepares to find oneself at home in a given world, so the latter teaches to be at home with oneself. We are not yet everything when we move as useful members of society; we are much more able to perfect this only if we are free people, self-creating (creating ourselves) people.

It is obviously Best for All for each human being to be free to create for themselves without limit, within the contextual understanding that what one creates will necessarily, at some point, have a consequence for the individual. If it didn't then creation would be rather pointless, wouldn't it? therefore, the individual must be supported (not forced or compelled) to come to the realization that only by pursuing what is Best can one create a sustainable environment that also ensures the survival of the individual. It is important that this not be 'forced' on anyone, because that would still create a follower. For example, consider the following:

In order still to differentiate the claim which is set forth here from the best efforts of the realists, such a one, for example, as is expressed in the recently published program of Diesterweg on page 36: “In the lack of education for character lies the weakness of our schools, like the weakness of our overall education. We do not inculcate any convictions,” I rather say, we need from now on a personal education (not the impressing of convictions).

 So the goal, again, is to support the individual to express himself fully and freely within the context of the collective. For, if even one slave exists, there must be a master somewhere to take responsibility for the slave and this relationship in fact enslaves the master as well who is then not free to live for himself. Recognizing that we live in a world of consequence we must realize our responsibility in living in the Best Way possible in order that negative consequence not be visited upon us at some point. We must be willing to trade places with anyone else in reality, otherwise we are co-creating a reality that is not to our liking and we will eventually experience the consequence. The person who gets rich at the expense of another (as opposed to creating value for another) must focus his effort on keeping those he exploits away from his treasure and thus enslaves himself again into the trap of survival, which as we said is not living. This does not mean that everyone must be exactly the same or experience reality the same or that there need be any artificial form of homogeneity within reality, but that an essential form of equality must exist and that is equality of freedom.

In this universal education, therefore, because the lowest and highest meet together in it, we come upon the true equality of all for the first time, the equality of free people: only freedom is equality.

And,

...the necessary decline of non-voluntary learning and rise of the self-assured will which perfects itself in the glorious sunlight of the free person may be expressed somewhat as follows: knowledge must die and rise again as will and create itself anew each day as a free person. 

The most basic things that should be supported in the human being if they are to be educated properly, meaning if that spark of life is to be drawn out and flamed into a bright shining star of freedom and expression are those which allow one to deal with reality directly and without fear. One must be able to see what one is creating and to have the self-awareness to know that one is in fact doing so. In our current reality, as human beings, both language and mathematics play a critical role in that the former allows one to interact with others and create a map of reality as it is and the latter allows one to think rationally and critically about what one sees. The map will always be changing and thus language would necessarily have to expand as a consequence. The basic definitions within our language must also be considered in order to see where we are influencing what we see through bias versus where we are seeing what is really here. Mathematics does not necessarily imply a mastery of 'advanced math' but does imply a basic understanding of the cumulative effects and consequences of ones decisions so that one can work out in advance what one is actually creating versus what one 'imagines' one is creating, and this is where a perfect map of what exists (through language and effective vocabulary) is critical as well.