Comments on y-intercept blog: Hegemony in Education

You are suffering from the delusion that the "free...

2007-10-21T10:14:00.000-06:00

You are suffering from the delusion that the "free market" would create an educational system that would de-emphasize hegemony. Hardly. It would substitute hegemony of the corporate view, that greed is good, that one should get as much as one can in spite of the effects on society, etc. That is the very opposite of the "classical liberal ideal".

Certainly if you live in a dream world where teachers would design a curriculum that taught students how to think for themselves instead of blindly accepting whatever is put in front of them by the establishment and then get some profit-making corporation to underwrite their school without any say whatever in the curriculum, then it might work. However, in the so-called "free market", there would be no incentive for a company to engage in instructing young people to think. Thinking people are not suckers for advertising and don't believe everything they are told by someone in authority. What Board of Directors would go for that as a business model?

Wikipedia says that hegemony decribes the existence "of dominance of one social group over another, such that the ruling group -- referred to as a hegemon -- acquires some degree of consent from the subordinate, as opposed to dominance purely by force." That is common to any political system that does not derive its powers from the consent of the governed, or any system in which the governed are systematically deluded by a compliant media and co-opted political class. It is a perfect description of the US government today - as much as the Chinese government or the old Soviet government. The only way to avoid hegemony is to return to true democratic governance, and that cannot be done by entrusting our education system to people interested only in making a profit and continuing their own hegemony.

I very much like your descriptions in your posts a...

2007-10-19T16:33:00.000-06:00

I very much like your descriptions in your posts about independent teaching companies. This kind of thing happens on a short-term basis in the business world all of the time.

Hegemony is the preoccupation of the modern age. W...

2007-10-19T16:03:00.000-06:00

Hegemony is the preoccupation of the modern age. When you adhere to the new think of the day. You eventually find yourself pulled in the trap where you feel you must dominate to survive.

Because we are in the modern age and our politicians (left and right) were educated in a system of new think, hegemony is the primary concern.

Democracy Lover essentially said that he can't even think of a system where hegemonic control is not the primary concern. This is what new think does.

Personally, I believe that the free market with an emphasis on the classical liberal ideal of freedom of thought could create an education system that de-emphasizes hegemony. You will never completely get rid of the isuee. Hegemony itself would stop being a foundational issue.

I look around me and see that the free market has produced a large number of reasonably priced quality products. There is also a lot of worthless products.

The results of the free market seems to be driven by the way that our society defines product. If we designed an open education stucture where the education of the child was the product, then we would see a marked improvement in the quality of education.

If we designed a system so that the school or the political beliefs of the students were the primary concern (as it is in public schools today) then we would continue to see mediocrity.

I think my idea of independent teaching companies could work. In a teaching company, a group of teachers would design a class, then contract with public and private schools.

A multidimensional system with teaching companies, public, private and charter schools actually would thros the education system in overdrive.

You already see people on the fringe working again...

2007-10-19T13:10:00.000-06:00

You already see people on the fringe working against the monopolistic public schooling hegemon. The rate of home schooling has exploded in recent years.

The whole voucher debate in Utah right now is completely about the issue of control. All other elements and arguments are simply side shows. There is a significant and growing group of people that want to wrest control of education from the Left because their track record is so dismal. The Left is fighting to hold onto this monopoly at all costs.

But there is no denying an idea whose time has come. Vouchers may be defeated in November, but the push to wrest control of education from the Left will not stop. Promoters may feel disheartened for a while, but there is enough of a groundswell out there that this issue simply will not go away.

Sorry but I don't really have the patience to read...

2007-10-18T18:23:00.000-06:00

Sorry but I don't really have the patience to read these long diatribes.

If there was a way to create some sort of system in which no group could exercise hegemonic control over the public education system we could discuss it. The fact however, is that a privatized system would end up being under the control of large education corporations with a minority of schools run by closed-minded religious groups. It is not possible to allow a "free market" without permitting hegemonic control, so there's little point in discussing it.

The question in truth is "What is the purpose of education?" Are we indoctrinating children in becoming obedient wage slaves willing to follow their political leaders, or do we actually want our children to learn to think for themselves? If the latter is the goal, then by all means we should celebrate the secular humanists (small in number though they be) and plead with them to take control of our schools and throw out the narrow-minded folks who are all too often controlling them now.

Putting private, profit-making business concerns in charge of the schools is hardly likely to improve the quality of education or produce students who can grapple with the issues of modern society with logic and reason. It is more likely to succeed in cutting costs and quality while increasing propagandistic PR to convince us it is doing otherwise.