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Try to follow me here, it's basic middle-of-the-road social contract stuff - if we de-power men, women and children then put them in harm's way, from any cause - overcrowding, mistreatment, psychological trauma, illness, or where the predators among them can prey upon the weak - while they are in our power, we have failed in our duty of care.
Responsibility for such failure lies with the collective "us" - the ones who vote for, or assent to, or fail to speak up against a government policy that permits or encourages such failure. This has nothing to do with being soft on wetbacks, nor wanting to "let them all in". It's just fundamental ethics. And before you start going on about the ethics of them trying to jump queues or "people-smugglers", please try to remember the important point - they got this far but then WE put them in the camps, and now WE are failing in our duty of care. So why are you so resistant?
But bismark we have never asked these people to come here in the first place and if they were truly fleeing for their lives they should have been happy to stay in the very first country they got to.. It was clearly a political action as he did it when UN visitors were on the island. The only purpose must be for media coverage. Otherwise it will become known that Australia will bow to political self immolation and spark a rash of such events. It is interesting how some people justify the offshore detention policy out of concern for the number of drownings But they do not seem at all concerned by the number of rapes, murders, immolations, depression and despair, or children's lives destroyed that are directly caused by this policy.
Simon, You recently spoke with the deceased did you? You're sure that his act of desperation was politically motivated? If you can provide us with a transcript of the conversation we'd be grateful. Sometime today would be good, before comments on this story are closed Evan, why not consider how we might go about relaxing our border controls? If we supported more offshore processing in Indonesia for example, and raised our quota to 30, or 40, thousand and just flew them in on commercial airlines it would take away the business of people smugglers.
We already take hundreds of thousands of immigrants so we are no where near capacity when we talk of bringing in a measly 12, refugees. Back in the 70s when we had bipartisan support for accepting Vietnamese boat people they lived in the community without razor wire and were processed in a orderly manner.
And now look at the great Vietnamese restaurants we have. Isn't it time we we looked at refugees as assets to our community, rather than a drain? Look how much we waste on the stupidly expensive offshore jails that we keep them in. One cannot substitute asylum seekers for migrants. Migrants are accepted under a number of criteria, like skills. They arrive, usually educated or trained, speaking English, withfinancial assets, ready to work.
They hit the ground running. Our humanitarian programme is praised because of the time and money we expend. Adjustment is much harder for this latter group. So we need quotas. Countries like Lebanon do little of this for refugees. Yes, it was orderly. And it had a finite end. Whilst we look at not rewriting history, although their story is now decades later a success, because of the large numbers who arrived, there were significant social, policing, and crime problems as the second generation struggled to integrate in the suburbs of Sydney like Cabramatta.
Taking in and resettling refugees costs money, Chris, lots of it and over the long term. The current waves of asylum seekers are not the previous waves of the s. For a start their welfare dependency is magnitudes higher. Skilled immigrants make us money as they are ineligible for welfare, have to take care of themselves by obtaining work and as a result pay tax.
You are asking us to swap money-makers for money-sinks. Why would we even consider it? A total of 2, boat arrivals came to Australia from Vietnam during the entire s and s. It was the detention of those asylum seekers that saw the Villawood Migrant Hostel turned into the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre in Chris, But then we may expose them to dying in air crashes.
The Government only has their best interests at heart. Also all pigs fed, watered and ready for takeoff. Or how about we actually apply the term refugee and only allow people to temporarily reside here as refugees until the situation changes and it is safe to return home. Why is it beholden to have to take people on a permanent basis as this does no benefit to their country of origin when the rebuilding phase starts and the educated people have all left. We all doubtless think we are decent human beings but the facts are that from us collectively comes inane cruelty.
It's not enough to vilify those who exploit the ignorant and angry, their certainties need to be remediated with effective socially inclusive policy. Colmery Sadly control of borders cannot be achieved without some level of "cruelty". Some European nations are currently increasing the levels of "cruelty" imposed to stem the flow of desperate migrants. The amount of cruelty necessary to stop people smuggling depends upon the will of the people smugglers and their clients.
If we were America, would we build Trump's wall? If people cross into a nation without permission the legitimate question is, are they fleeing danger or not. If not, then they can be detained pending return and then the question is about the way they are detained. In the American circumstance, they don't bother with too much detention because there is a countervailing benefit of a relatively cheap labour force. Until Europe was overwhelmed by the war in Syria they had more or less open borders too. People smuggling is a reaction to border controls and it's legitimate to rescue the passengers and arrest those who facilitate it, especially when they put lives at threat.
It's also legitimate to turn back these vessels so long as it's safely and the departure nation agrees. What's not legitimate is to arrest people transport them to places that are designed to be punishment, and defer their assessment as refugees with the claimed aim of sending a political message. Repatriation of those who come but are not found to be refugees or are refugees but exceed our capacity to integrate as citizens is a problem many nations are dealing with.
How well we handle that problem is a legitimate measure of our dignity as a nation. Certainly the world is watching, especially those nations with huge numbers to deal with and are rich like us, but unlike us, choose to be honourable. It's bad enough that our politicians are so obsessed with exploiting the fearful and under-informed but ultimately if a nation is to be dignified it's people must help each other to develop commensurate values.
Who gets to decide what is and what is not legitimate, Colmery, you or the electorate as a whole? Given what we have decided in reality I would guess that we would make the decision to build it. The United States of America has a massive immigration detention system. I decide what is legitimate morally and I vote for people I think have a comparable morality. Nevertheless, I recognise that not only is parliamentary debate about settling on compromise, ostensibly based on debate, but also that politicians and the media also meld entertainment of mass audiences and the selling of candidates.
There are those that believe that freedom means there is an implicit right to mislead people and exploit the lower human drives. I don't deny lower drives in myself, but I do deny that there is a right to exploit them in others. If we could stop people in places of influential privilege from such exploitation without impinging on other valid rights, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Sadly all we can do is remind them that in the cohort of people talented enough to cope with the demands on quality media production or political life, the lower drives are vastly more likely to be tempered with higher drives; meaning of course that they are hypocrites. The saddest part of all this is that this type of hypocrisy has come to be widely seen as just how the power game is played. What we need to do is value power less and our higher morality Colmery "What's not legitimate is to arrest people transport them to places that are designed to be punishment, and defer their assessment as refugees with the claimed aim of sending a political message.
It was also noted that once access to the Australian legal system was attained people smuggler's clients became near impossible to deport under the laws that were in place at the time. The exploitation of legal loopholes that rewarded destruction of passports, contrived and manipulative behaviours did not enhance the popularity of the system with voters.
The system we now have for dealing with people smuggler's clients was formulated to outflank the clever legal judo that had previously facilitated the success of people smuggler's. What is more important is that legal challenges that would restart successful people smuggling into Australia have failed. When over 20, people smuggling clients were entering Australia per year the advocates loudly proclaimed that it was a result of the "Rule of Law".
Now that successful legal countermeasures have been deployed those who advocate on behalf of people smuggler's clients complain that the actions are "not legitimate" without identifying any legal precedents that underpins their opinions. No need for the quotes around "cruelty" Inner Westie. Our policy is demonstrably and deliberately cruel - that's the whole point of it.
Westie All immigration control requires at least some level of cruely or it will be ineffective. It should be noted that the current policy of offshore detention coupled with boat turnbacks was widely condemned as being cruel but it has been effective in closing down people smuggling into Australia. It should be noted that many found watching people smuggler's clients drowning while their boat was smashed on the rocks off Christmas Island cruel. So Colmery, define what a decent human being is please. I consider myself a decent human being.
I also acknowledge that I feel no responsibility for the billions of other humans in the world that are poor and or suffering at the hands of others. A rational human being acknowledges they cannot care for or be overly concerned with the plight of all humans. We must prioritise our efforts and emotional labour. My immediate family comes first. Then extended family and friends, then community, and country.
I shed no tears at all for these economic migrants, does that make me unable to be called a decent human being? We in Australia generally speaking are too quick to blame the government, forgetting that in a democracy the people are the government, and the politicians merely the representatives. Everything that is good and bad about Australian policy and politics stops with those of voting age. The mining boom is just one example. Both major parties spend huge amounts of money understanding their electorate and, based on their research, the decided not to.
Know we face a revenue problem to maintain our basic services, and the real reason behind this is not spending or revenue, but a failure of the Australian electorate to ensure they voted for investment in our economy rather than stimulus packages and baby TV bonuses. We deserve nothing less. The OP would be well-served to look at the facts and bigger picture than a few cherry-picked emotive incidents. As many have mentioned, the thousand plus deaths at sea was just one piece of the bigger picture.
And he conveniently ignores the thousands upon thousands of refugees settled in Australia every year. Typical ABC leftist emotive claptrap Australians choose not to have pointless deaths at sea. The consequences represent a fraction of the harm that was caused before. This is beyond any reasonable dispute. Is there an even better option? Hi Bulldust, I think you may have miss-understood the chain of posts here. This goes for everything, not just boaties. Also, I think you have miss-understood the term lefty, which is a term for those who think communism is a good idea, not bleeding hart humanists who sprout perfect world solutions.
Such an association is a misguided as linking right leaning politics with being Christianity and backward looking conservatism. They also are not necessarily related. Then I must fall into the bleeding heart world solutions category. Somewhere down there is a well thought out alternative strategy that actually seeks to improve both understanding and the plight of those that seek refuge. Good luck finding it. Hi foolking, You can be whomever you want. It's a free country. And even if a perfect solution could be found which I don't think it can , I doubt we'd vote for it.
I mean, look at those who vote for the Nationals. Many live in electorates with some of the lowest average wages in Australia. Yet despite decades of being screwed over, they still vote for the Nationals!. No mate, I won't bother finding a perfect solution. Even if I did, Australia generally speaking would be too stupid to vote for it. Well I am one of those voters and you should be thanking people like me that you don't have to worry about getting blown up as easily, or your wife and daughter being raped like those in Germany.
I have absolutely no guilt or concern for these people, most are no more than queue jumpers who obviously have fanatical views and we don't want them! Green's article hardly strikes a raw chord. It's a transparent attempt to foist guilt while avoiding any blame for his own failures as a self-styled opinion leader. Green implies all Australians except, obviously, the more enlightened and compassionate open-border advocates such as himself are directly responsible for Masoumali's self-immolation - Masoumali of course bears no responsibility for it, or for attempting to circumvent our border controls by paying a criminal people-smuggler and thereby ending up on Nauru.
But where is Green's acceptance of blame for his failure to sway majority opinion away from support for offshore processing? Why has he not placed blame on Iran for driving Masoumali away from his homeland, or on countries through which he passed for not taking him in? Where is the blame for open-border advocates who encourage people to endure detention on Nauru with the false hope they will eventually be let into Australia?
Note the accidental acknowledgement by Green that it's Australia's relative prosperity which draws poor people here - not the persecution or oppression suffered by genuine refugees. Where is his blame for origin countries' failure to provide for their people? Yep youre right but in the end democracy and what the majority votes for and this is not about fringe minority views.
Dear harvey I must agree - many of us do not like to face the reality of the world. Some pretend that if we allow all who wish to migrate to Australia that we will all live happily ever after. Others prefer to pretend that we can have a democracy and elect people to carry out policies supported by the majority, but that when a few people don't like it they can force us to ignore those democratic decisions.
Still others try a form of emotional blackmail, insisting that if anyone is upset by our decisions that we must bear full responsibility for any actions that follow. Luckily most of us are mature and accept that many decisions lead to disappointment. If I hire one person, many applicants for the job may be upset.
Should one decide to end it all because of that, I am sad but not responsible. Even if that person chooses to make suicide a political statement. And I would never consider that the solution was to hire every applicant. It doesn't seem to apply when thousands of people die at sea. It doesn't seem to apply when people die whilst transiting multiple countries to get here. It doesn't seem to apply when people languish and die in overseas refugee camps because they didn't have the means to go anywhere else.
When the Allies liberated the German concentration camps in WW2 they found that the population living in towns right next to the concentration camps had no idea of what had gone on there. Absolutely none at all. Even though a lot of the slave labour was used in the towns and in also private households. So some of the Allied brass on the ground got the German townsfolk of some towns to all dress up in their Sunday best. Then the townsfolk were commanded to bury the bodies in the town square, in front of the Town Hall. The outrage of the townsfolk was met with the simple statement that they could either bury the bodies, or join them.
From then on ignorance and denial was no longer an option. Perhaps the remains of the poor asylum seeker who died can be placed in an open coffin in a capital city cathedral so that we can gaze on the results of our myopic and cruel policies. Would Malcolm Turnbull, Bill Shorten and their lieutenants then be so resolute in their denial of basic human rights to asylum seekers? So can we also have open coffins for the infinitely more that died at sea due to the bleeding heart policies of open boarders???
Or millions of coffins for those who have died as a result of Australia's war crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, East Timor, Indonesia and now Syria, war crimes that hundreds of thousands are fleeing, sadly to visit Davey Jones locker. Should we have closed the doors on peoples fleeing Nazi war crimes Well said harvey, I have strong memories of seeing documentary footage of these 'good folk' having their sorry asses dragged through the concentration camps that they tacitly supported and seeing people try vainly to look away but having armed troops make them view the horror that they had supported - all for the greater good of the country of course!
A lesson that should have been learnt all those years ago but, for some, has not. Look into the eyes of the rape victims or those assaulted by 'refugees'? Talk to the poor Germans whose government now has too little money to support their aspirations, education or welfare claims, and is directing dodgy qualification-recognition and make-work programs that means low-end jobs go to refugees and not the German poor? Do the open border refugee supporters look on with glee at the fracturing of politics in Europe, with xenophobic, reactionary governments taking power in Poland, Denmark and maybe soon in Germany and many other countries?
Not only migrants will lose rights when this happens. Accepting an excessive refugee intake has victims too. No actually Chalkie i was referring to actual film footage of this - not some racist imaginings. Western europe is fine chalky no need to get into a panic. It is still one of the most popular tourism destinations for Australians so if your assertions were correct, we would be seeing a sharp decline in visits. If you want to "look into the eyes of rape victims' but not, of course those who were assaulted by white folks, then that too is another racist panic button so let's not push it.
In regards to your dire fears for the German economy, a little education in economics might help you there, perhaps more learning and less visits to racist websites. I get confused over the moral outrage that this issue causes. I just have to laugh Not even the most deluded of commentators starts with an M could really believe that comparison and yet the insistence of calling them such is only widening the division between the "bleeding hearts" and the "hard-nosed pragmatists" on this issue the next natural step is to start calling those that have an opposing view "racist" or something-ophobic" and by doing so again will only widen the rift between opposing sides.
Mind you having the Socialist-Alliance support your stance is an automatic death knell When Labor announced the Malaysian Solution the boats almost dried up. It was not until the High Court decision and the refusal of the Coalition to allow Labor to change the laws that started them again and resulted in many drownings. The Malaysian Solution showed it was working but the Coalition were have so much success in using asylum seekers as political footballs that they wouldn't allow the problem to be fixed. Drowning after the Coalition blocked Labor's reforms are on the heads of the Coalition, not some mythical open border.
The Malaysian Solution was a particularly good idea. Mr Abbott was playing base cynical politics when he caused it to be blocked in the Senate. If ever the coalition votes with the greens you know it is probably a bad policy. We do know that there have been some dodgy deals being done in paying people smugglers to return their human cargo to Indonesia.
I wonder how many we have not heard of. We also know the psychology of what happens to people when they become jailers and jail inmates - of the viciousness and abuse that can eventuate after only a week, by the guards towards the prisoners. This was demonstrated in psychological experiments - it is proven. Knowing this, it is also clear the deep despair that can occur in prisoners.
Thats why in civilised societies measures are taken to reduce the risk of this happening. The risks are not new or unknown. What is also known is the way that Australian coloniser society was able to close its collective heart to the dispossession, murder, enslavement and mistreatment of Australia's original people. It was considered a necessary evil - tolerable for the benefits it bought the colonisers who now make up mainstream Australia.
It sends a chill down my spine to hear the person holding the Prime Ministership almost quoting verbatim the rhetoric of early colonisers. All this 'not getting misty eyed' about necessity is almost plagarised from the journals and historical accounts of early settlement. Hard nosed pragmatists in this case are being 'racist or something -ophobic'. Thank you for this post, harvey. I agree that Australians must take personal responsibility for the human consequences of any policy formed by their government, especially if they profit from it, but many draw a line at the asylum seeker issue because it s a UN policy in which Australians voters had no say.
Jess, our government is calling the shots. No refugees in Australia. And they are thumbing their nose at the UN. So it is up to us if we dont like what is happening to vote for someone else. The voters have had a say, JessC, in several elections. They demanded and decided on the system as it is. Dear Harvey I have tried several times to state that this story is just not true, but for some reason one can make up stories and get them published, but one is not allowed to correct them.
It is true that some allied commanders forced some locals to march through the camps. But I have never heard of the locals as opposed to the guards having to bury the dead. Nor of them being buried in a town square. Which would probably be a war crime. Nor of allied commanders threatening civilians with summary execution for not doing so. Which would definitely be a war crime. What the "Sunday best" is about is a mystery, but I doubt that many Germans had a "Sunday best" outfit in Anyway, what has this to do with the case in point?
Have you run out of any arguments and just resorted to "You are all Nazis" or "Manaus is a death camp"? Tabanus, there are many photos of German civilians being made to bury the dead of the concentration camps after the war. Photo of German civilians being forced to bury the dead of the concentration camp at Gardelegen Location: Gardelegen, Germany Date taken: I cannot find the reference to the story of the town, it was a war historian who revealed it.
The point is that people will deny inconvenient truths until they are forced to confront them. That is the strategy that this government and the one before it uses to quell any concerns. They have banned journalists from Manus and Nauru. So, Tabanus, you accept then that the logical conclusion of our asylum seeker policy is the destruction of the asylum seekers, whether by their own hand or by a slow mental degradation? But you believe that because the majority has confirmed support for this approach that those of us who find it totally abhorent should shut up?
I love that you moan about "emotional blackmail" while disregarding the mental trauma we routinely apply to those caught up in the system we created. I feel for you, truly I do. I would release you from this mental prison if I could. We could throw our hands up and say "The world is unfair so we can't be blamed if our actions focus that unfairness on some innocent people who are destroyed by our actions". Alternatively, we could accept that our actions are far from blameless and work to improve the outcome for everyone, not just ourselves. We as a nation have chosen a morally repugnant course in order to safeguard our excessive lifestyles.
People are harmed significantly so we achieve this. I see the problem here even if you don't. Dear ingenuous The logical outcome of our policy is that we maintain or even increase our resettlement program for refugees, already amongst the most generous in the world. Why you think having or enforcing such a policy "destroys" asylum seekers I cannot understand. It destroys those who seek to profit from those who wish to migrate here, and prevents people from getting unachievable dreams of being invited to live here. One of the first things the Coalition did when they lied their way into power again was drop the number from a piddly 20, That is a tiny number compared to the half a million each year from permanent migration and visas.
We helped create many, many more than 13, with our illegal and futile invasions of the Middle East. Now we plan to create as many climate refugees as possible by digging up every last lump of coal and selling it off to be burnt. We are very happy to go around destroying countries and the very planet we are on but pretend that Australia is somehow 'special' and beyond reproach when we destroy asylum seekers lives.
So "those who profit" are presumably the "smugglers". But we could also say that "those who profit" politically are those who pander to the fear campaign against Muslim people. As for people "getting unachievable dreams", it is not clear why such dreams are "unachievable". Oz has been built on migration going way back by people who had dreams - and by some who did not want to come here but were forced to do so as convicts, but were given opportunities to live here.
The generosity you speak of is denied by the cruel and inhumane policy currently being implemented. In fact, there is nothing good to be said about it. Refugees could have been treated better in Indonesia with regional cooperation and smugglers could have been stopped without the expensive use of the Navy. The matter should have been a diplomatic exercise, not a military operation which acted like smugglers in reverse.
Australia has a moral responsibility to its tax paying, law abiding citizens first before the citizens of any other country. As a nation we are in record debt and deficit. There used to be free public education but now that money is used to prop up Private schools, even by the ALP.
So we can't even afford ourselves let alone 50, single Muslim males that will eventually each request their family members all come, the dole, Medicare, education, NDIS, jobs etc. That being said we are the greatest and one of the richest nations on earth so we need to contribute.
And contribute heartily we do. What a great thing, and as much as it hurts me to say, but well done Turnbull. Abbott knew what he had to do. Now Shorten says he'll turn back the boats too. Seditious and traitorous are two words that come to mind when thinking about your anti Australian views. Whether you "shut up" as you put it or do not "shut up" is entirely up to you, ingenuous, but the voting public will not listen unless you have something to say that has at least some chance of convincing them to demand something other than what they have been demanding for decades.
What utter rubbish Harvey, most knew what was happening there. You can't hid the unique stench of burning bodies. It also shows an absolute contempt for the millions that were killed to even remotely entertain the concept that Australia's detention centres are concentration camps. Tom - they are still both concentration camps, as were the concentration camps that Boer families were incarcerated in during the Boer War.
However I think what you are trying to express is that obviously the concentration camps in the 's in Germany were far worse. Of course they were. Nobody is denying that. However the fact remains that what we have on Nauru and, illegally, on Manus, are still concentration camps.
Tabanus 'but that when a few people don't like it' C'mon, lets's be honest, it's not a few people - MOST people don't like it. I am sad but not responsible You see, this is the callousness of the whole thing - if your going to have a policy of detention there are some responsibilities that go along with it - like a duty of care, some basic decent accommodation, hygenic conditions and medical care, and a process that doesn't keep you deprived of your freedom for an indefinite period.
Tell me, what if the lottery of birth wasn't so kind to you? What if YOU were the one needing help? Then I think many people like yourself might have a very different view. What is disgusting about this whole policy is that yes, there are solutions, yet the propaganda of simplistic judgmental callousness prevails. I hope I never get to think like you and the politicians that promote this awful policy. The offshore camps should be decent and have adequate medical facilities.
Any failings in this area should be rectified. And the processing should be quick so they can be released into their new communities. As you can see, overall numbers in detention have dropped considerably under this policy and will only reduce the longer it is in place. What's happened is that we've just gotten through the wave displaced by the Sri Lankan civil war and the War on Terror. In a few years, we'll get another mass of refugees from the Arab spring and the war in Syria. I think the best option is to let what refugees we currently have in, as a payment for cruel and unusual punishment made to live in tents during monsoon season, for one , and open processing in Indonesia.
This would provide a better option then the people smugglers, especially if we resettled those with experience and English Language skills in Australia. Add to this the current patrolling and turnbacks though I personally disagree with them , and you have a system that will process much more humanely whilst solving the problem. Oneiros, no we've gotten through a wave created by the change in policy settings by the previous government. Once you have open processing in Indonesia, what yearly limit would you place on resettlements? What do you do once that limit is reached and asylum seekers start hopping back on boats?
How do you deal with the inherent unfairness of giving preferential treatment to those with enough money to reach Indonesia rather than those most in need of assistance? The fact that you believe that a single factor governs the number of asylum seekers shows your willful ignorance on this issue. The way it goes is this, the wave comes, it spawns the business of smuggling, and the extent of that business is managed by government policy. We wouldn't, for example, get asylum seekers if there weren't in Indonesia to begin with. The idea that government policy is the determining factor is self-centered and operates on the default assumption that these refugees are not genuine.
Next, I wouldn't set a yearly limit, as such. Rather, refugees could ask for assistance for resettlement in the region, or apply for a second process for Australian resettlement, with places being determined on a case by case basis separate to the humanitarian intake. This would work most to our favour if we can gain Indonesians cooperation. Finally, to ensure that boats don't start up again, I would keep the patrols and turnbacks in place as much as possible. By doing the two together, you create a better alternative to the smuggler programs, thus making their pitch all that much harder to sell.
I asserted that the change in government policy was the leading factor in the change in arrivals we received in that period and it clearly and demonstrably was. It was controlled far more by pull factors than push factors. If you refuse to accept someone for resettlement in Australia, there is nothing to stop them bypassing the system by hopping on boats. The patrols can never by effective enough if there is significant pull factors operating.
And you didn't answer the question about equity. Your system gives preferential treatment to those with the means and ability to get to Indonesia. Surely this type of humanitarian system must be based on need rather than money? You only mentioned government policy, saying that it caused the wave, a notion that is still under much dispute, and can't be properly addressed under the confidentiality of the current system.
Once again, I am talking about opening up the process, but I don't intend Australia to be the only load bearer. I want the region to work to process and resettle, with Australia taking its fair share if you're worried about migration numbers, we can crack down on holiday visa overstayers, and shift more of our migratory intake into humanitarian programs. As for the patrols, we don't know what they can and can't manage, but what I am trying to do is create a better alternative, stealing their demand.
Finally, equity is difficult enough already. It can be understood as the ensemble of techniques by which a society instructs the young in the knowledge, values, and attitudes necessary for becoming responsible members of society, reproducing the dominant social order. The bells, the classes, the rules, the discipline — all are important aspects of a controlling process aimed at molding the individual into a form more desirable to others — to authorities. Schooling, like work, is based on coercion.
Generally speaking, one does not do schoolwork because the experience itself is rewarding. Also, there is a carrot or a stick guiding your progress — usually both. The most important life-skill taught in schools is subservience. It is absolutely essential to all hierarchical social systems. Education, as William Torrey Harris U. There is an essential tension here: The necessity of schools is deeply ingrained in the modern psyche. Implicit in the acceptance of any modern political ideology is the assumption that the individual exists to serve the common good or some higher principle exterior to personal subjectivity — in fact, this seems to be the basis of all ideology, all political systems, all forms of rule.
So, proceeding from this assumption, the sufficiently schooled person — the university student, for example — assumes the thinking of a social planner with regard to all political questions. One can dislike school and still believe in its mythology — most people do. The stereotypes of good students, bad students and every other category of student conceal the question of the desirability of systems of grading and categorization. The student, like society, is continually making progress. When Derrick Jensen asked himself why schooling takes so long, the answer he came up with was straightforward and truthful: Schools are obviously not organized by the students — they are the population that is to be controlled, monitored, measured, and disciplined.
Discipline is essential, but it does not explain all aspects of schooling. Knowledge, the commodity that the school deposits in you or showers you with is something exterior to the student, who accumulates knowledge in a process beyond her control. Knowledge is power, most commonly to the extent that one can serve the interests of power and secure a comfortable or powerful place in the social order.
Foucault pointed out that power necessarily produces knowledge: It is obvious that any critique of schooling must have within it a critique of the social order of which the schools are a part and vise versa. Schooling seems to be a positive feedback system: It is obviously helping people to adapt to the insanity of modern society.
We become automatons, docile bodies — boring, dumb, and monotonous from doing schoolwork with the same characteristics. By and large, students submit to their behavior modification and faithfully reproduce the current social order.
The development of writing systems in Sumeria and Egypt set the stage for the first specialists in the modern sense: Writing evolved as a way of monitoring wealth, keeping track of the size of armies, and recording monetary transactions — important functions of power for early cities. Schooling was originally intended for scribes and other functionaries who occupied administrative and priestly roles.
The impersonal relationship of students to an authority figure who instructs them is thus historically very intimately tied to the functioning of power. Schools developed as adjuncts to the temple-courts of the ruling castes of ancient cities. Accounting, mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, and a significant amount of literature concerned with religious themes grew out of these first specialized intellectual environments.
Along with all of these cultural pursuits, emphasis was always placed on morality and good manners — renunciation being at the root of the work ethic so essential to schooling. Hindu schools stressed mental purity and self-discipline, which were religious as well as school virtues. It is with Greece that the Western tradition in education is said to begin. Greek education was originally concerned with the ideal of the noble warrior.
Slowly this heroic culture became more of a scribe culture, although the written word was not to be the sole concern of education until all learning was organized around the Book of Books, the Christian bible. In Sparta, education had an essentially military character, its chief purpose being the training of the hoplites, or heavy infantry. Athenian education was never as strictly organized as that of Sparta. Nonetheless, the ephebia of Athens were schools for future soldiers organized by the state. The ephebia, however, eventually lost their military focus, ceased to be compulsory, and began teaching philosophy and rhetoric to the wealthy that would never have to work.
Prior to the sixth century B. This more democratized Athens developed forms of collective education that paved the way for the development of the school as an institution. The Sophists responded to the need for a new ideal of education and began to teach students with the intention of molding successful citizens: Their approach was looked upon contemptuously by many who saw education as encompassing so much more than practical pursuits; nonetheless, they laid the foundation for the more highly developed Hellenistic education that would consist of a complex course of studies undertaken from the age of seven to twenty.
Although there were no infant schools in Greece, Plato felt that children should go to school at six. Aristotle felt that five would be the most sensible age to begin, and Chrysippus was modern enough to say three. Schooling was beginning to assume great importance in the minds of influential thinkers. Roman education was originally very different from intellectual Hellenistic education.
Whereas the Greek boy was led to school by a slave, a pedagogue, the Roman boy stayed at home and was raised by his mother and educated by his father until he was old enough for military service. As Rome extended its empire, Greek influence increased and eventually Roman schools were created for the purpose of training administrators and state functionaries.
Still, there was never any general scholastic policy as was to be developed later by the modern nation-state. Christianity developed in the midst of Greco-Roman civilization, and its educational practice would incorporate both Greek intellectualism and Roman severity, absorbing what is perhaps the most persistent theme of Western Education, the ideal image of man — man who bowed down before the law and sacrificed himself for an ideal.
The first Christian schools were the catechetical schools of the first centuries A. They were institutes of higher learning in the sense that they were geared toward an older audience. They were principally concerned with instructing pagans in Christian beliefs so that they could be baptized. At the same time, the characteristics of higher education were being established between the 11 th and 16 th centuries. Almost all had the blessings of the Pope, even if they did not owe their initiation to papal decree Most of the students were laymen, and secular subjects such as law, medicine, and the sciences dominated their interest [more and more].
Discipline was becoming ever more precise as living and learning became more and more conditioned by set parameters of space and time. The 16 th and 17 th century grammar school that was physically separated from the church was the product of the Renaissance and the Reformation. The humanism of the Renaissance stimulated a greater interest in intellectual activity and classical learning, while the reformation moved beyond the traditionalism and formalism of medieval times.
In terms of schooling, the two movements seemed to work in harmony. Christian schools not only trained docile children, but also tried to make sure parents stayed faithful and replicated the discipline of the school in the home. The advancements of science during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries permanently changed the ways in which schooling was viewed and implemented. Such is the shape of the new schooling being forged during the Enlightenment, soon to be systematically applied by the nation-state.
In the United States, the Puritans were the first people to be preoccupied with schooling. Tutors were often hired by the wealthy to prepare their boys for College usually William and Mary or a European school , but the poor had less opportunity for education. The character of American education was nothing new: The founding of the Massachusetts Board of Education and the appointment of Horace Mann as its first secretary marked the transition into the modern epoch of education in America.
Katz disproves the myth that the working class struggled for popular education: School committees were unashamedly trying to impose educational reform and innovation on this reluctant citizenry. The communal leaders were not answering the demands of a clamourous working class: Promoters represented educational reform, especially the high school, as an innovation directly aimed at urbanizing, industrializing communities. The high school was simultaneously to foster mobility, promote economic growth, contribute to communal wealth, and save towns from disintegrating into an immoral and degenerate chaos.
This development paved the way for the sterile bureaucracy of the 20 th century. An important transitional period — in the development of industrial society in England and America was marked by a type of school known as a Lancaster or monitorial school.
In the place of our original transparent relations to our world, we created a structure of barriers to our self-expression which hides us from ourselves and others. Helping people because it's easier than providing assistance to those who need it most doesn't cut it. Sinister rhetoric, very scary. By this mode of education we prepare our youth for the subordination of laws and thereby qualify them for becoming good citizens of the republic. As for conditions on exit, many can't find work, don't have a support network, and either become the perpetrators or the victims of crime.
Joseph Lancaster, after reading a report of the Hindu system, worked to establish similar schools in England and the United States. These schools were very much like factories, emphasizing economy, routine, and competition. While this particular form of school did not survive, the ethos that informed the Lancasterian system continued. In other words, the factory continued to be a model for schools.
Schooling became inextricably tied to the reproduction of the new industrial order and capitalist social relations. Given the importance of the new schooling system, it is no wonder that schooling would soon become compulsory. Creating a massive compulsory education system aimed at creating patriotic masses that would die for their country was seen by leaders as the way to assure national greatness. He toured empty classrooms, spoke with authorities, interviewed vacationing schoolmasters, and read piles of dusty official reports.
He was particularly impressed by the Prussian classification of scholars throughout their course of instruction and their enforcement of compulsory school laws: The German language has a word for which we have no equivalent either in language or in idea. Slowly but surely, the state was able to impose compulsory attendance on the citizenry. During the latter half of the 19 th century, the United States, France, and England, all established systems of public education with compulsory attendance. It was resisted — sometimes with guns — by an estimated eighty percent of the Massachusetts population, the last outpost in Barnstable on Cape Cod not surrendering their children until the s, when the area was seized by militia and children marched to school under guard.
During the years following the establishment of a Jesuit missionary school in Havana, Florida in , Catholic and Protestant religious groups dominated attempts to educate Indian youth. It was in the 19 th century that schooling came to be seen as a way of assimilating young Indians into the dominant white society. Civilization, Christianity, and farming were to be the values forced upon the uncivilized. In many treaties with Indians from till when Congress stopped recognizing tribes as independent powers , the government made education provisions, but it was not until after the reservation system was established following the California Gold Rush of and the building of western railroads and the Bureau of Indian Affairs took control that Indian education became more of a systematic effort of acculturation.
The fact that there was little contradiction between killing Indians and educating them says a lot about the way many educators viewed the natives. Pratt felt that in order to save the man, it was necessary to kill the Indian. He believed that Indians could, if instructed properly, be fully incorporated into American society. After the defeat of the Southern Plains tribes, Pratt took on the task of being the jailor for 72 of the most intractable Kiowa, Comanche, and Cheyenne at a new prison in Fort Marion, Florida.
In three years, he was able to convince himself and others that Indians could be transformed into proper citizens. Between and the Bureau of Indian Affairs created twenty-four off-reservation schools roughly modeled after the Carlisle prototype. By the Indian School system had taken on the shape of an institutional hierarchy.
When the system functioned according to plan, students progressed from reservation day schools to reservation boarding schools, finally moving on to Carlisle-type off-reservation schools. By three quarters of all Indian children were enrolled in boarding school, with approximately a third of this number in off-reservation schools. Students, often with the help of their parents, sometimes went to great lengths to resist the schooling experience. At Fort Mojave, several kindergartners were locked up in the school jail for repeatedly running away from school.
During breakfast one morning, the kindergartners not locked up used a large log as a battering ram, broke through the jail door, and ran for the river bottom with their rescued classmates.
Schools represented, especially to American Indians, a new relationship to space, which was conceived of in linear terms. Space was colonized by the disciplinary imperative: By the time the common schools had proven their utility, the very wealthy took a marked interest in education.
The universities were meant to train the middlemen of the American system who would uphold its values: As late as , Carnegie and Rockefeller alone were spending more on education than the government was. The Irish community, for example, boycotted and may have tried to burn down a school in Lowell, Massachusetts; but, over time, truant officers were employed and the institution moved ahead, as it did across the United States.
The Progressive movement — was philosophically concerned with tailoring education to the needs of the child. Practically, this meant categorizing, observing, testing, and controlling the child to smooth the transition to corporate capitalism. Progress is what matters — the truth behind the capitalism. Callahan observed the real structural changes shaping modern schooling: In , William C.
There was much enthusiasm for scientific management in the corporate world and especially the corporate media: Thereby to increase the amount of output and the value to the capitalist Wirt, superintendent of schools there at the time. The Gary Plan allowed administrators to show how efficient they were. After it was endorsed by the Federal Bureau of Education in , it was blocked in New York in where riots broke out in opposition to it: Nonetheless, by , the Gary Plan or variants of it were in operation in 1, schools in cities. With the increasing specialization of American life came the growth of specialized training in education.
Also in this era, higher education experienced tremendous growth in industrialized nations. More and more money is being put toward postgraduate training and scientific and engineering research and experimental development. Technology has obviously served to institute new forms of social control, as Marcuse observed in One-Dimensional Man. When Jacques Ellul wrote about modern propaganda in Propaganda: Ellul pointed out that not all propaganda is explicitly political. Schooling is a type of sociological propaganda, aimed at the integration of the individual into the social group.
And as leftists drone on about better education for the people, for the masses of people, they are unaware of what an important role they play in reproducing existent social and economic formations. Schooling is seen as a good thing. Those who are uneducated are seen as lacking something essential to being fully functioning, fully human. From Plato to Comenius to Kant, humanity is something that is imposed upon the young.
Today it is of the utmost importance to conceal the role of schooling in society. Submission to authority is always the goal of schooling. The power wielded by authorities — the power to reward and punish, to habituate the individual to desired patterns of thought and action — works to integrate the individual into a hierarchical social order. Both groups were humanitarians because they sought to make the individual better adapted obviously doing her a great service to a new set of social conditions; society had to be shaped into a different form, re-formed.
Society is the main actor, and individuals merely respond. Removal of the Robert E. Lee Statue The city of Charlottesville decided, in some closed board room, to rename a park that had been known. Hello All— The reading list expands as follows: An Article of Interest!
Review of Life on the Run. Bill Bradley This may seem odd—I am reviewing a book that is now more than forty years old. Yes, I am, because I feel that it is an important and noteworthy book that should be on modern reading lists. Later he became a United States Senator, serving three terms. Life on the Run covers a twenty-day str. Some Additions to the List. I have updated the reading list and again I think I may have forgotten some of the things I read ; it now includes the following: Mike is a VERY interesting and knowledgeable man. Popularity Popularity Featured Price: Low to High Price: High to Low Avg.
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He wrote The Bubble Boys: How Mistaken Educational Ideals and Practices are Causing a Warped Social Fabric in at the age of 22, exploring the role of. (Everything you know about intellectual property is wrong.) In either case, the conceptual heart of patent was the material result. . Humanity now seems bent on creating a world economy primarily based on To the extent that law and established social practice exists in this area, they Filter Bubble.
The Decline of the Epic?