So, the funny thing is, I half agree with some of what this guy says. Of course, everything else he says makes me shake my head and sigh. I’d smile if he a) weren’t so pathetic, and b) didn’t represent the attitudes of a large segment of society.
I found this looking for “How the worst get on top”, which is, ironically, being quoted quite heavily by those supporting the party currently in power, to villify, say, the “Liberal American Education System.”
http://www.alabamapolicyinstitute.org/gary-2003-11-5.html
Hayek’s Three Bullshitty Conditions
1.
First… a large number of people must be under-educated and under-employed.
Sap funding from public schools. The tax cutting crusaders of the Republican party are hard at work on this one.
2.
Second, according to Hayek, the transition to a totalitarian government requires a group of people with no strong convictions of their own that are prepared to accept a ready-made system that has been drummed into their ears loudly and frequently.
Conservatism. Why have genuine concern and debate about what’s best for America when you can have a cookie-cutter ideology?
3.
Third… a negative dialogue.
How does a never-ending war work? Enemies that can never be defeated? I’m sure that reducing political debate to name-calling doesn’t hurt, either.
Re: Hayek’s Three Bullshitty Conditions
Yeah, I was noting something like that myself.
Have you heard of this Hayek guy before?
Re: Hayek’s Three Bullshitty Conditions
Nope.
As for the original proposal (and not the mangled interpretation of the Alabama Policy Institute)… eh… I’m not convinced that it has much value.
First of all, all three requirements are incredibly vaguely defined. “under-educated”? a “ready-made system of belief”? “negative dialogue”? I’m sure that someone could make a case that these fit any society at any point in time.
Does this system have any predictive power? Again, not really, due to its nebulous nature. It’s being used by someone to claim that we are on the “road to totalitarianism”. Ummm… as much as I think that democracy is becoming more likely to lead to the optimal outcome, I don’t think that there is a realistic imminent threat of American dictatorship.
I’m amused. He talks about how some people “hang on to the notion that a privileged circle of elites know better than average people what is best for them economically and socially” and then immediately goes on a diatribe against the democratic candidates, and “activist judges.” As if secret meetings to determine energy policies is somehow not letting a priviliged circle of elites control things. As if putting more power into the executive branch and insisting on less judicial and legislative oversight is somehow less totalitarian.
He’s starting from the right standpoint (IMO), but it is the blinders with which he is looking at things that astounds me. I agree with him about the sorry state of American education today (though I disagree with him on some of the specifics), but I wonder how he can reconcile the need for better education with his anti-socialist creed? Government funded and run education is, after all, a form of socialism (even if it is a minor one). So does he propose we somehow improve education while cutting its funding? He doesn’t say, so he conveniently gets to overlook this little detail. I also find it hideously ironic that he is effectively accusing the democrats of creating a “we against they, us against them” culture, when I can quote the current President as saying, “You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists.” How many people who voiced dissent with the current administration have been labelled un-patriotic? Or “soft on terrorism”? How is that not a negative dialogue?
I’m with you, it’s really sad that so many people believe this.
A completely privatized education system has long been a republican pipe-dream.
That’s certainly true. Of course, I’d say I’ve seen many of the same problems with private educations that I’ve seen with public, and the quality really isn’t all that better (if at all) in many cases, so privatizing alone certainly doesn’t solve the education problem (nevermind the fact that privatizing education basically makes it impossible for poor to get an education, since they won’t be able to afford it).
A real political analysis of what’s going on here I think requires us to look at the motivations of the parents with choices, ie, the middle class to wealthy. I think I posted something not so long ago about how many middle class families were bankrupting themselves to live in the places with the best school districts.
Also, consider the crime/economic division/race issue. The middle class doesn’t want to risk their kids going to school with lower class kids, whites don’t want to risk sending their kids to school with blacks and hispanics, and mostly because they don’t want their kids to get hurt or fall in with the wrong crowd.
How much of it is about protecting their kids, and how much is about a better quality of education, I couldn’t say. The two aren’t well separated.
There are also other reasons to want to flee to the suburbs, for those who are into that sort of thing, but frankly, it all makes me a little sad.
La la la… the sorting mechanism at work… la la la.
I can’t really bitch too much, because the University of Minnesota will be the first public school I’ve attended since Kindergarten, but This has always struck me as one of the more crackwhorish setups in our political system.