Site Meter Reflections on Playboy: Prolonged adolescence comes from big government, not capitalism; accidentally, not on purpose

January 15, 2007

Prolonged adolescence comes from big government, not capitalism; accidentally, not on purpose

Anxious Grad Student left this comment on an earlier post:
Interesting post and I definitely agree with the assertion that US public education, and its evolution in our society into its current state and form, encourages a prolonged adolescent period which did not exist in human societies until our very modern period of institutional education. To take it further, perhaps you should discuss the inherent power structures established in secondary education and their relationship with the overarching power structures of our capitalistic republic and Western society in general. Particularly the relationship between authority figures and the emerging independent thinker our system is supposedly set up to produce, which in actuality is geared towards making citizens easier to control and manipulate.

Also - I wonder what your solution to the problem of institutional education would be.
Thanks for the post idea, AGS. I propose a two-part solution:

1.) Have the law treat teenagers less like children and more like adults in terms of both liberty and accountability.

2.) Privatize the entire education system. Compulsory, government-run schooling as we now know it—barely a century old—is a road to hell paved with good intentions. Not every civic impulse born of the Progressive Era deserves our ongoing respect. Jim Crow, a regrettably fitting example for Martin Luther King Day, is one of its bastard children. Even many radicals of the day, like Eugene V. Debs and Jack London, saw no problem with it. Left to more of its own devices, the free market would almost certainly have weakened racism, and it could do much to liberate teens. Our system isn’t too capitalistic; it’s not capitalistic enough.

In related news, the bureaucracy of the Food and Drug Administration, another spawn of the Progressives, almost killed an entire family of six.

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 4:52 PM

  • Blogger Salihah סליחה صالحه left this comment at January 21, 2007 11:04 AM  
    Amen. I still remember sitting in a high school class listening to the girl next to me ask her friend what the difference was between "America" and "North America". How about the basketball player that went through college...only to admit years later that he is illiterate.

    Yikes. And our tax dollars continue to be pumped into the black hole of education in more vast amounts than ever before.

    Sorry, Johnny, you don't get a new laptop computer for your second grade class. Open a damn book.

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