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Old 10-05-2006, 07:26 PM
Borodog Borodog is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Performing miracles.
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Default Re: Love it or Leave it

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It's also exactly why all states eventually monopolize the public education system.

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Do you actually think this is true? I can certainly see an argument to the effect that public education is useful in perpetuating statism. But useful and purposeful/designed are different things.

If you mean this literally it appears quite paranoid to me. I don't think there are elite power-brokers master-planning sweeping idealogical schemas like this. Government is on the most part headless and clunky and staffed by individuals concerned only be self interest. I'm quite sure public education evolved as a practicality.

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Bizarrely powerful deja vu. I'm sure I've had exactly this exchange before.

No nefarious machinations or conspiracies are necessary for effects like this to occur. Over time the state as an organism will tend to evolve in ways that benefit the state. This is because changes that benefit the state are reinforced by the state, and changes that harm the state are penalized by the state.

Although specificlaly in the case of public education, a fairly strong case has been made that it was exactly a sort of "conspiracy" that designed and implemented the modern-style system, although not for nefarious purposes (at least not nefarious to the architects), namely to produce more docile workers who were better able to follow orders. Can you see how the state benefits as a side effect?
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