Michael Mitchell: Archive

The idea of public education, an educational system controlled by the government, is actually antithetical to both liberty and independence. It's anti-American.

Liberty and independence are not the same thing. Liberty is a political concept. It means freedom from other people, that no one has the right to tell you how to live your life, to force you to live for their values instead of your own. Independence is a moral concept, a virtue. It means thinking for yourself, as opposed to blindly and dutifully accepting what others think. We confuse their meanings because we don't really understand them, because we think what's good for society is more important than what's good for the individual, and you can't live your life in service to others while practicing independence and valuing your liberty to do it at the same time.

It's not an issue of what's being taught by the system, which is what everyone always bitches about. Public education is not only designed to erode your concept of liberty by teaching you to be dependent on the system, to think of society first above your own interests, it's conceived as such. That's what it is. That's why it exists. It didn't create that submissive viewpoint. It's the product of it. It's a living, breathing embodiment of the conflation of morality and politics in altruism, the moral code that says you should live for others and not yourself, which is what we've believed since civilization began, so it's understandably not that easy to just snap out of that shit, even though the Founders, the greatest political minds in world history, gave it hell.

It's true, of course, that you can't be morally independent if you're not politically free. Both are important. Anyone can violate your rights whether you're independent-minded and some piece of paper says you're free or not. All rights must be protected, which is the only ethical function of government. But if you can't think independently, you won't even know you're a slave. You'll put the chains on yourself. That's public education.

We are, in fact, dependent on the system, the government, both physically and psychologically, like children are dependent on their parents or a pet is dependent on its owner. It's what we want, what we've chosen. So we think we need public (government) education (propaganda) to teach us how (brainwash us) to be "good Americans", to be upstanding (agreeable), contributing (taxed) members of "our" society.

Democrats put socialization first and Republicans put the workforce first, which is how education became publicly instituted, even though democrats control it, but the result is the same: dependency. The right thinks physical dependency on the system is mostly wrong and the left thinks it's mostly right, but both sides are totally for it psychologically, which is why the left usually wins in the long run, because they're the more consistent socialists, because the right just can't let religion go, but neither side wants anyone thinking outside of their ideological box, altruism. The only real difference between the two sides is what they think is best for society, i.e. YOU.

The purpose of all government institutions, the "cause" for their existence, is determined by what some political group thinks is too important to be left up to the unpredictable choices of individuals. It's due precisely to a distrust in moral independence.

Poverty, for instance, isn't a "problem" we think we can solve without government intervention. We think we have to force the wealthy to take care of the poor, that we wouldn't do it on our own, that human nature is too "selfish" and "greedy", so we created welfare programs. Public education is the same, but for our minds. We think every child deserves an education, but we don't think parents or private businesses can solve that "problem".

Society first. That's how we think. It seems like a good thing, right? How can what's best for society as a whole not be good for everyone? Because "what's best for society as a whole" is an illusion, because we really are all different and unique like snowflakes and our intellectual, moral and political leaders are dumbfucks at war with that reality. Life is not a team sport. Even if we all shared the same philosophical beliefs, we'd still have very different views and interests and goals, and we don't even come close really to sharing the same beliefs.

The fundamental political issue should be: how can we all be morally independent and still peacefully co-exist? That's the proper approach to a social system based on our true nature as individuals, and its answer is what it really means to be an American. That was the original ideal, liberty for all, but altruism led us to sacrifice the concept, because we actually think independence is evil, and subsequently over the centuries we've consistently chosen to adopt and indoctrinate and institutionally support dependency and conformity and authoritarianism instead.