Spanking

 

March 28, 2012

 

My father never hit any of his kids. His reasoning was thus: if I have to resort to physical strength, I am demonstrating that this young mind is better than mine, that I cannot outsmart someone of such tender years. I have never found a rational like that in anything I have read, though others have come to the same conclusion through different paths. Here is one that impressed me lately, from the Roman teacher, orator and writer, Quintilion.

 

"A very pertinent question now arises. What place, if any, should corporal punishment hold in the school ? Quintilian is quite decided in his answer. "As for corporal punishment, though it is a recognised practice. I am completely opposed to it … first because it is disgusting, fit only for slaves and undoubtedly an insult . . . in the next place, because a pupil whose mind so ill befits a free man's son as not to be corrected by reproof, will remain obdurate even. in face of blows—like the vilest of slaves : and finally because there will be no need of such chastisement if there is always somebody present to diligently supervise the pupil's studies . . . If you coerce the child when he is young by means of blows, what will you do when he is a young man who cannot be compelled through fear and has many more important things to learn?" (Institutio, Book I, c. 2, quoted in A Short History of Educational Ideas, Curtis and Boultwood, University Tutorial Press, London, 1953, p. 60)

 

 

 

The Right to Tutelage

Counsel as Right and Obligation

The Next Chapter of Cosmopolis, Volume One

By John Taylor; 2010 Oct 25 Ilm 07, 167 BE

In the previous chapter we looked at how a democratic world republic can avert the danger of increasingly warlike technology by introducing an inherently pacific technology, the cornerstone of which is the stele robot. This promulgating machine can act as the main interface between our living, human word and inanimate cyberspace, both virtual and physical. The software "DNA" of the robotic stele is a personal information manager (PIM) and, for institutional steles, a group information manager (GIM). Every tool and machine will follow the stele's lead, having legal and ethical inhibitions built into it. The transparent security of the cosmopolitan condition will give rise to a new architecture and infrastructure; the second volume of Cosmopolis will concentrate upon that massive design makeover of the built world. For the balance of this volume, I will linger on the PIM and GIM software runs the stele, specifically the aims and grounds, both philosophical and humanitarian, upon which all cosmopolitan citizens will have to agree upon as they manage this "ghost in the machine."

As an educator, John Amos Comenius held that a world government can only come about if it is upheld by universal education. We all are born with brains, so schooling must be available for all, young and old, rich and poor, to grow those brains as much as possible throughout life. In developed countries this is no longer as controversial as it was for Comenius in the 17th Century. However, a close reading of Panorthosia reveals that Comenius went even further. He upheld a kind of "right to counsellors," where everyone, even those who are not full time students, has the right to the best advice available -- in fact we obliged to take full advantage of sage advice.

Theatres of Wisdom

Comenius proposed hiring sage coaches and advisors to increase the chances that each and all will do the right thing at the right time. Like Plato, Comenius understood that wisdom is best taught indirectly, through music and the arts. As a tool for this he suggested what he called "theatres of wisdom,"

"I mean that all men should be wisely guided from the earliest age and constantly thereafter through the theatres of wisdom, and should all have endless opportunities of exercising their senses, their reason, and their faith." (Comenius, Panorthosia II, Ch. 9, para 11, pp. 146-147)

These theatres might be a combination of drama, simulations, games and experiments designed to allow each new generation, as Comenius puts it, to see the world with all their faculties, sense, mind and faith. Once we see all aspects of life from this balanced perspective, wisdom comes naturally.

Today we can do much more with this idea of "theatres of wisdom." Interactivity and social networking could enable our Stele mediators to inculcate in everybody an intimate appreciation of what Comenius called "pansophy," being wise universally, taking the entire human race as the grounds of identity.

Long after Comenius, Buckminster Fuller in the mid Twentieth Century experimented with what he called the World Game, a simulation using data about global resources designed to help youth grasp the complexities of running an entire planet. More recently, Jane McGonigal, director of games research for Institute for the Future at Palo Alto, California, has suggested that we tap into the vast pool of time and talent expended by gamers -- according to her there are now half a billion gamers who average 25 hours a week solving difficult problems. (Serious Fun, by Samantha Murphy, New Scientist, 22 May, 2010, p. 37)

McGonigal points out that we would do well to tap the resource of games and the army of gamers who have grown out of computers and the Internet to solve some of the technical challenges of the present hour. For example, she points out that stopping climate change demands painful sacrifices right now for benefits that tend to be delayed, uncertain and for most all but invisible. It demands major lifestyle adjustments for few immediate rewards.

Such problems were mastered long ago by the authors of computer games. They are experts in tying long term needs with short term incentives in compelling ways. So effective are their techniques that their games can be addictive for some.

Certain computer and video games have already been made available that are specially designed for direct global problem solving. Among these are "Chore Wars," an online game designed to bring the clever incentives of computer games to the common domestic problem of persuading reluctant family members to help with the housework. Other games being developed include "World Without Oil," which makes players think about how to adapt to oil shortages, "Food Force," for disaster relief, and "Fate of the World," where players steer the planet through 200 years of a warming planet.

McGonigal makes an excellent suggestion to enlist this large unused army of online gamers, who are clever problem solvers, to alleviate creeping climate de-stabilization. No doubt the PIM's in the Stele could incorporate interactive games to encourage such creative responses and adaptation in most people's lives. But the technical aspects of global warming are only the visible part of problem. The greater part is lack of wisdom.

Professional Tutelage an Obligation

Comenius held that the right to counsel will have to involve more than plays and games, important as they may be. We will always need personal contact with professional tutors. It is desirable to have at least one generalist teacher in our lives for each of the three main tasks of life, which are one, to maintain a good relationship with oneself, two, relations with other people and, three, with our God -- perhaps for non-believers this could be relations with long term, future considerations. Each relation needs to be well maintained in order to live a full, balanced and creative life.

Like Comenius, Plato recognized that we have an internal three-fold responsibility that extends out into social relations, "A legislator should have three aims in his enactments -- the society for which he makes them must have freedom, it must have amity with itself, must have understanding." (Laws, 701d) A good consultant in one of the three areas would need to be a non-specialist, wise in dispensing advice, but also have enough training to recognize when more specialized advice is required.

Most countries already recognize a limited version of the right to counsel, for example when a person is threatened by serious illness or a long prison sentence. Court systems in developed nations today recognize a limited right to counsel; the state appoints a lawyer for poor or disadvantaged persons who are charged with a serious crime. Similarly, when threatened by illness most countries see to it that paying for medical fees is not the primary consideration. What Comenius suggested was that we broaden this right to counsel by assuring that every citizen has full access to what he called pansophy, universal wisdom.

As it is today, large companies and institutions spend huge sums for lobbyists and consultants of all kinds; celebrities, athletes and the wealthy routinely edify themselves by hiring fitness coaches and every kind of consultant, whose pricy services assure that dependable advice is ready to hand. At first glance, to have the public purse pay for such advisors for the poor seems like an extravagant expense. However, it is the same chain of reasoning that persuaded governments around the world that a good education is cheaper in the long run than courts and prisons, and that preventive medicine is more economical than drugs, surgery and other interventions.

The United States is the only developed nation to reject this reasoning. Michael Moore's documentary film, "Sicko," dramatizes how the American health care system, the most expensive in the world, fails by pinching pennies and intervening only when health is in rapid decline. As the film depicts, much poorer Cubans end up healthier overall by spending on keeping patients healthy in the first place. Similarly, it is cheaper to teach young people how to avoid wrongdoing than to pay for an oversize police force, lawyers, trials and prisons that result. As the recent British statistical study, "The Spirit Level," shows, societies that eliminate extreme inequalities avoid situations where crime tends to occur. Egalitarian nations are better off by almost every measure.

A wise leadership has to go beyond providing timely legal and medical advice. It should see to it that all, rich and poor, can retain appropriate advisors of every kind, and at every stage of life, from cradle to grave. A universal right to advice would not only avert dangers to life and limb, such as accidents, illnesses, and even unhappiness, it would also tend to eliminate outright folly, the long string of bad choices that lead to addiction, suicide and other sorts of disastrous decline.

The roots of this imperative are found in wisdom literature. The Bible, for example, advises: "Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end." (Prov 19:20-22, KJV) Similarly, Plato held it a basic aim of rule of law to uphold wisdom. "... it was ignorance, in its greatest form, which at that time destroyed the power we have described ... it follows that the lawgiver must try to implant in States as much wisdom as possible, and to root out folly to the utmost of his power." (Plato, Laws, R.G. Bury, tr., 688e) Another translation seems to put it more emphatically: "A legislator's aim must be to create all the wisdom he can in a community, and with all his might to eradicate unwisdom." (Laws, 688, Collected Writings, p. 1283)

Pansophy and Perception

Our chief aim must be to establish wisdom and to steer away from folly. The way to do this is systematically to uphold Comenius's pansophy, or universal wisdom. Pansophy is orders of magnitude more powerful than desultory wisdom, wisdom some of the time for a chosen few. Perhaps most persuasively, Comenius held that universal wisdom would completely eliminate corruption. Its first effect, Comenius believed, is that it would clear our perceptions, since folly corrupts both mind and soul.

"Since human nature has been blinded by its corruption, my Universal Education discussed how it should be safeguarded from downfall by wise guidance, and all its senses kept open to everything..." (Comenius, Panorthosia II, Ch. 9, para 11, pp. 146-147)

As technology advances, Comenius' prescience becomes ever more evident. Science today clarifies and magnifies our senses with astonishing efficiency. We can set up an almost unlimited array of sensors, RFID devices, dials, readouts and other indicators to enhance our senses; ever cheaper and more capacious computer memory allows us to store reams of data and retrieve it when needed. As electronics becomes more miniaturized and sophisticated, sensory devices become cheaper and more common.

Comenius would point out, though, that rivers of data input and output does not necessarily add up to wisdom. Indeed, a flood of enhanced sensory data at our fingertips only increases our need for clever intervention by human sages. Even if wise experts are programming the PIM's of the steles that organize our lives, still, nothing can take the place of human contact. Each of us needs a skilled teacher and role model at every stage of our development, someone who is ready to dispense just the right advice at exactly the right time.

What Price Universal Consultancy?

The promulgation of a universal right to advice would empower each new generation to put an end to dangers that now seem engrained in human nature. For example, according to the World Health Organization, the two most mortal killers are tobacco and alcohol -- with other kinds of substance abuse, legal and otherwise, following close behind. Essentially, this marks a failure of advice; the fact that such a danger to human health does not soon disappear on its own is a sure sign that wisdom is being systematically blocked out by folly.

What youth, properly guided, would ever voluntarily choose to sacrifice not only his or her own well being but that of friends and family by becoming an addict? What perpetuates this blight to human health? Nothing but naked folly. Yet every day young people around the world blunder into a new cycle of addiction. In view of the loss of life and trillions of dollars wasted every year by addiction, we stand to gain a great deal by only a slight reduction of addiction rates to tobacco, alcohol and other substances. Even a large expenditure for advisors for everybody could be justified by this potential gain alone.

If we all concentrate upon the harmonies of wisdom, we will find joy in justice. Prudence and long term thinking will become our default.

More Flora Tristan

From the Rise of Women to Storehouses

By John Taylor; 2010 Sep 13, 'Izzat 03, 167 BE

Another revision of a late chapter in the "Comenius and the Cosmopolitan Condition" section of Citizens without Borders.

In this section we established that good government on a world scale will be the outcome of a holistic view of self and humanity. This vision of Homo Universalis takes us in three directions, one, enlightened service, two, expressions of faith and three, participation in the polity. As John Comenius pointed out, citizens and groups can support one another through three institutions based upon these three, one each for science, religion and politics. Using standard PIM software, borderless citizens can coordinate activity within a repeating service decade and election cycle for these institutions. Once everyone participates in this, we will grasp our due proportions as human beings -- which is just how Plato defined wisdom. Wisdom permits us to apply principle without qualm or compromise. We have discussed three world principles so far, those of counsel, harm and need.

Equality of the Sexes

Last time, we broached another universal principle, the equality of women. As women rise to prominence in every region, society will gain the capacity to balance personal and social, local and global control, and manual and theoretical work. Flora Tristan raised an issue rarely mentioned even in feminist circles today, that of reparations to women for centuries of suppression and exploitation. She came up with a sensible way to spend the vast compensation funds owed to women, that is, to found in every locality an institution that she called the Worker's Union, and to erect in prominent places physical buildings to house that institution, which she called Worker's Palaces.

These palaces would showcase the equality of women vocationally, by allowing girls to learn in equal numbers with boys, as well as industrially -- that is, by subjecting housework to the economies of scale that even in the 19th Century were commonplace in industry. The palaces would also provide social services at the most local level possible -- a principle called subsidiarity that we shall discuss in greater detail shortly. Sources of funding would come from all levels of society, and from the palaces themselves. The palaces would include schools whose goal is to introduce every child, poor or rich, to skilled manual labour. Using the latest in educational theory, they would take on the ambitious goal of providing no fewer than two manual trades for each student,

"As for vocational training, each child would choose the trade he feels the most suited for. Besides all the other work, he would have to do, upon leaving the palace he will have to be a competent worker in at least two trades." (Worker's Union, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1983, p. 122)

Although well established in adult education, the idea that children should be allowed to choose their own course of studies is rarely countenanced by mainstream schools, even today. Another reform she envisions is profit sharing. This is rare enough even for adults outside of Europe (where cooperative companies are among the largest employers, especially in Holland and Spain), but Tristan suggests that it be used to motivate the vocational activity of children at the earliest age possible.

"In order for him to become interested in work, as of the age of ten the child will be eligible to share in the profits produced by the work in the establishment. This amount will increase every year until his departure at the age of eighteen. Half will be given to him as a trousseau made in the establishment and the other half in money." (Worker's Union, p. 122)

Outside boarders from rich families would study along with the orphans and pupils from poor families, and, between the ages of six and ten, would also be paid from their share of the profits of their work. She also suggested that the palaces maintain a steady flow of adults from diverse backgrounds, so that young people will not grow up parochial or prejudiced as a result of having friends and acquaintances from a single mould.

The Twin Principles

The rise of women to equality, aided by the social services provided by Worker's Palaces, will endow the home, the neighbourhood, the block and the village with much more power and prominence than we can imagine in our time, an age when the centers of power for most people exist far away, over the horizon. As mentioned, wisdom will be possible, capacity will increase and the principles mentioned before will be applied, as well as two new ones, the twin principles of local governance known as subsidiarity and fiscal transparency. These Jane Jacobs set out in her final book, Dark Age Ahead.

"Subsidiarity is the principle that government works best -- most responsibly and responsively -- when it is closest to the people it serves and the needs it addresses. Fiscal accountability is the principle that institutions collecting and disbursing taxes work most responsibly when they are transparent to those providing the money." (Jane Jacobs, Dark Age Ahead, Random House, New York, 2004, 103)

As Jacobs points out, localizing principles are far from new. They arose in the cities and towns of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire and enabled European civilization to take the ascendant for many centuries. According to Jacobs, they saved civilization from the dark ages, while ignoring them puts us in danger of another dark age.

Jacobs' twin principles of fiscal accountability and subsidiarity are so important, both individually and in combination, that before describing the outward physical conditions of the Cosmopolis, I should go into them in more detail.

Fiscal Transparency and Neighbourhood Storehouses

Fiscal transparency is the key to keeping local governance from the corruption that is endemic today. Behind every great fortune lies a great crime. This is even more true of so-called "hot money." As the song says, evil grows in the dark; blocking budgets from view invites wrongdoing. "Offshore" or "flight" money funds crime and skims trillions of dollars directly off the budgets of corporations and governments alike. Funds are laundered for organized crime, the illegal drug market, tax evaders and so forth. Meanwhile, open books are closing as secrecy and "black budgets" become increasingly widespread, especially in the richest and most corrupt nations. At the same time, the centralized bureaucracies of the monolithic state in effect bribe the populace into quiescence with welfare and other payments. This creates a mentality of dependency on the local level, in spite of the fact that all wealth, by definition, is generated from services performed on the local level.

The banking industry with its "private clients" is so heavily complicit in this and other types of skulduggery that it would be appropriate for reformers to oust them from the table completely. We can re-introduce fiscal transparency at a stroke by replacing large, centralized banking institutions with community-owned "storehouses." Here everybody has a right to a bank account, and has to use it, at least for local transactions.

These local storehouses, perhaps a part of the Worker's Palace, will take on most banking functions, and even devise their own local currencies, all rooted in local needs. As semi-public institutions, they will be responsible solely to the people, both locals and the entire human race. As such, they are required by law to have "glass pockets," or open bookkeeping methods, and everyone working there is accountable to a democratically elected leadership. As the story of Joseph in the Bible illustrates, these local financial institutions offer stability by storing up the windfall profits of good times and re-distributing them during down cycles. In order to work well, though, these storehouses need to function on the most local level possible. This leads us to the other twin principle, subsidiarity.

next time: Subsidiarity

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Children's Votes

Apprentice Citizens (draft II)

By John Taylor; 2010 July 10, Rahmat 17, 167 BE

My 15-year-old daughter often points out with characteristic ardour that it is unfair that children cannot vote. I respond with the usual objections to children's enfranchisement, that it might subject them to manipulation by unscrupulous adults, or that unformed minds are unready, irresponsible and unduly prone to frivolous influences. She is not convinced, and I am beginning to see her point. If we treat the young as irresponsible, even if they are irresponsible, they will remain that way. But if we treat them as concerned citizens, at least some, if not all, will surely respond by becoming responsible. And such an improvement would have an effect on society for many decades.

It may be true that children would make more mistakes as first-time voters, but the same is true for a novice in any trade. We have no choice but to accept the higher rate of errors for new doctors and apprentice carpenters. Such is the price of replacing the old with a new generation. Why do we not have the same tolerance for error among novice citizens?

My favourite educational reformer, John Amos Comenius, thought that schools should take on the attributes of the society they are preparing children to enter,

"Every School should be a miniature Republic, abiding by definite laws and executing them strictly, both for our present purpose (that everything appertaining to School should be maintained at full strength), and with a view to the future, so that the schools are like preludes where the serious duties of life are correctly rehearsed." (Comenius, Panorthosia, Ch. 22, para 31, p. 53)

I submit, therefore, that under the controlled conditions of a school, children could safely be given a full adult vote. If their vote is as "real" as any adult's vote, most pupils would take their studies much more seriously than they do examinations (in the case of my son and his nine-year-old buddies, this is not very seriously at all) and study the issue in question more diligently.

I deplore our educational system's over-reliance on tests and examinations. A course that ends in a vote rather than an examination would tend to reduce the need for such brutal, Darwinian assessment. A course in health, say, would not end in a gruelling test that teaches nothing, is soon forgotten and takes up class time. Rather a class might vote in a plebiscite or poll on a matter of health concern for their household or neighbourhood.

Because such votes are over specialized issues that parents and significant adults in their lives are not directly involved in, it is unlikely that any of them would try to manipulate the children's opinions. Usually, recently-learned knowledge in specialized issues counts more than long life experience. There is no reason, then, that children should not be as qualified as any adult to vote upon such questions.

Very young children could start off by routinely having what Comenius called "rehearsals" for their role in the democratic element of our republic, perhaps with votes among themselves in group projects. I think that the educational system is to blame for the fact that, after hundreds of years of nominal democracy, the workplace is still all but untouched by democracy.

Another interesting possibility to invite pupils to participate in active research on the democratic process itself. Older pupils would be ideal investigators to experiment with elections for members of student councils.

One of the most interesting experiments in linguistics that I have heard about took place in an unusual multi-ethnic pre-school in Hawaii. A group of infants, none of whose families spoke the same language, were put together in a classroom. After a couple of years together they had invented their own language. It was entirely unique, not a lingua franca, but a complete language with its own vocabulary, grammar and syntax. I have often thought that this would be an equitable way to invent the world inter-language; if the number of children is proportionate to the population of a given culture, its influence on the international language would be approximately fair. In any case, if youngsters are so creative with language, there is no reason why they could not also invent their own, improved forms of democratic elections as well.

Even if it is decided that children cannot vote in real political elections, they should at least be called upon to vote frequently in lesser matters, especially whatever has an immediate effect upon them. For example, if a school corridor is to be painted, why not let pupils vote on the colour? Habits gained in childhood last a very long time, and are an essential part of one's education.

It certainly was to mine.

When I was about eight-years-old Canadian schoolchildren participated in an open vote for the design of our new flag. As I recall, it was a choice between a single and a triple maple leaf. I think I voted for the flag with the single maple leaf, and was gratified when it won. Silly as the election was, it is something I have remembered all my life. Since it was something I did at his age, I shared this story of this children's vote to my son, Thomas, who is now ten years old. Every once in a while he remonstrates with me for voting for the single maple leaf, a poor choice in his opinion.

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Learning from Play

This idea for early childhood education seems close to what the Master said about teaching young children through play ...


The School Issue: Preschool
Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?
By PAUL TOUGH
Published: September 27, 2009
Can imaginary play teach children to control their impulses — and be better students?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27tools-t.html

Stacking the Deck for Agrarianism in the College of Light

Freedom in Science and Education, Part II

By John Taylor; 2009 Aug 31, Asma 12, 166 BE

Yesterday, we broached two questions. The first question concerns freedom and the internal workings of the College of Light, the independent world institution charged with the advancement of science and the spread of education. The other asks: what kind of relation would the college of light have with the other wings of the Comenian world government, the political and religious? Let us try, however briefly, to answer these questions today.

The distinguishing mark of governance over the last century is a persistent, systemic failure of policy makers to listen to expert advice. Instead of working with the delicate climate and other environmental systems of this planet, we systematically upset and destroy them. At the same time, science has made tremendous strides in understanding how the delicately balanced ecosystems on our beautiful planet work.

From a democratic point of view, the chief reason for this obliviousness to our basic survival is that world population over the past century has undergone a complete shift from agrarianism, where more than 90 percent of the population work the land, to an urban society. Today, the majority of the world's population live in cities.

The way cities are built means that the surroundings of city dwellers from cradle to grave tend to be completely artificial. They live a lifestyle cut off from the cycles of nature that sustain them and in their professional lives they rarely gain direct experience with agriculture or energy production. As a result, voters simply are too ignorant to care what happens to the natural environment, although they may be vaguely aware that it does keep us alive. This is why some of the worst polluters in the world are democracies. Leaders there have little concern for where food comes from and for what must be done to assure that we continue to eat well and safely.

The formation of a democratic world government would not in itself be sufficient to solve this maladjustment. It might, as we have been arguing here that it would, shift authority from the nationalist state towards a world center and out to the periphery (stronger local governance). That is, power would go to exactly where environmental dislocation is addressed most effectively. However, that in itself is not enough if the electorate, however universal and world-embracing, remains primarily urban. As long as voters know and care little for nature or agriculture, leaders will hardly push their electorate to make the sacrifices that stopping climate change demands.

The College of Light, as imagined by John Amos Comenius, is a democratic and meritocratic entity devoted to research and the spread of useful knowledge. In its operations the College of Light would have to balance the imperious demands of knowledge with the freedom and equality that democracy requires.

First, meritocracy. As we saw last time, knowledge imposes its own power relations by selecting for those who prove their love and devotion to it. Knowledge sets up its own meritocracy that raises those who command it and subordinates the ignorant. It is the duty of the learned to see to it that any inequality that does exist is natural; that is, any inequality that persists is not based on externals such as skin colour or place of birth but solely upon demonstrable knowledge and experience.

This evolutionary process of artificial selection is true in politics, where any measure that conduces to peace is chosen over what leads to war. John Stuart Mill pointed out the utility of freedom in picking out lessons about essentials from out of the vast diversity of experimentation in human groups.

"Government operations tend to be everywhere alike. With individuals and voluntary associations, on the contrary, there are varied experiments, and endless diversity of experience. What the State can usefully do, is to make itself a central depository, and active circulator and diffuser, of the experience resulting from many trials. Its business is to enable each experimentalist to benefit by the experiments of others, instead of tolerating no experiments but its own." (On Liberty, 181)

The need for selection is also evident in religion. The Qur'an, for example, has God applying it to Holy Writ, "Say: `Bring down from God a scripture that is a better guide than these and I will follow it, if what ye say be true!'" (Qur'an 28:49) and it extends it also to entire peoples,

"Thy Lord is self-sufficient, full of Mercy: if it were His will, He could destroy you, and in your place appoint whom He will as your successors, even as He raised you up from the posterity of other people. (Qur'an 6:133, tr. Yusuf)

But in the realm of science and education, the principle of selecting for fitness according to merit surely applies most of all.

At the same time, the College of Light is also democratic in nature. As such, it will make every attempt to adhere to the assumption of equality and the yearning for freedom that are basic to its democratic element. Therefore, the College will see to it that everyone votes in elections of its members in some capacity. In a Marxian sense, everybody is a productive worker, actively supporting herself by her own efforts to learn and adhering to standards in service.

Although they may have to be appointed at first, eventually the membership of the College of Light (whose affiliates extend from the world center right down to a school-room in every family and neighbourhood) would be selected by tradespersons and professionals around the world in a series of planetary elections.

Unfortunately, suffrage may not include everybody at first, since all are not presently qualified tradespersons or professionals. However, the first constitutional priority of this institution is to see to it that as soon as possible every citizen attains the right to vote for the College, virtually without exception. This ambitious goal of a universal franchise could take as long as a generation to implement completely. Every world citizen would have to be trained and apprenticed to an approved trade or profession. While challenging, this commitment by leaders and constituents alike to science and education is a necessary condition for the Universal Civic Society to come into existence. The goal of a UCS is to see to it that learning extends throughout one's life and service to society, through both membership in a family and in some trade or profession.

The next question is how the College might be organized. That requires an answer to questions like:

What kind of expertise should take precedence over others?

What kind of knowledge is most useful?

This is an extremely difficult question. There are thousands of disciplines and trades whose usefulness fluctuates as wildly as the stock market. We should probably leave the choice of what is the most valuable kind of knowledge to philosophers and educators to answer. However, it seems plain that the medical and teaching professions are among the most useful kinds of expertise, since they nurture and protect both body and mind. Even more important are farming, fishing and other agricultural trades, since we depend upon them for our food. If the College of Light bases voting rights on an established hierarchy of utility, it could help reverse the trend from urbanism and turn even cities back to agrarianism. As we mentioned already, a strong democratic base in an agrarian majority will be necessary if we hope to make industry and civilization environmentally sustainable.

Specifically, I have something like this in mind. Let us say that there are twenty members on the College of Light with each major discipline voting in one representative each, except teachers and doctors who get two representatives, and farmers who receive three or four. This slightly disproportion of power, along with other measures, would encourage a greater proportion of young people to go into farming, medicine and teaching before they consider other trades.

The College could speed up the swing back to an agrarian society by starting and regulating a secondary trade of "gardener," who would assist farmers in the same way that nurses assist doctors. This new trade would encourage city dwellers to start gardens and eat locally. It would encourage most city dwellers to participate, if only on a part-time basis, in the branch of agriculture known as "urbiculture." It would also speed the spread of vertical farms and rooftop gardens, which agriculturalists would gain a new right to farm. At the very least, more pervasive gardening within city limits would increase the appreciation of city dwellers for nature and would make democracy friendlier to the environment.

John Taylor


email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/

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Long Live the Philosopher King!

The Democratization of Expertise

2009 July 02, Rahmat 08, 166 BE

Precis: Popular, general elections are only a first step to democracy. In future every government will surely be moderated by a UCS, a partnership between politicians chosen by a general election and experts chosen by their peers to consult with them in view of the consensus of scientific and religious opinion, and to carry out the resulting plans. Their own de-centralized justice, enforced by constant peer review, will assure that power will never corrupt the learned, as it has every centralized human institution in the past.

Over the past week we have discussed on the Badi' blog the empowerment that would be released by the establishment of permanent peace. Nothing less than the evolution of the natural world and human nature, Kant predicted, must eventually bring together east and west, north and south in a constitutional world government. The perpetual peace that this body enacts and protects would enable a universal polity that Kant called a "universal cosmopolitan condition." He envisioned this condition arising from a series of "reformative revolutions" consummating in a Universal Civic Society, or UCS. Like every social benefit, the UCS will be the outcome of improved education.

Schooling for a UCS will de-emphasize individual competition, tests, examinations and sorting the wheat from the chaff while emphasizing the ability to work creatively in a group; the curriculum will operate under the twin principles of irreducibility and subsidiarity, meaning that half a student's time is spent learning a trade (subsidiarity, learning what is close to hand for practical independence) and the other half gaining a liberal education, that is, learning whatever should be common knowledge for all world citizens (irreducibility: a cosmopolitan cannot be reduced to anything less than a master of universal learning).

We have discussed the introduction at an early point in this training of a full vote for children, as soon as they prove themselves to be serious apprentices of a given area of expertise. From their first day, primary pupils would prepare for their plunge into democracy by practicing peer review and meta-review along with group study projects teaching not only how to consult and learn in a group, cooperatively, but also how to teach group members while doing so.

Lacking such training, we now allow token, sporadic voting in politics (which is a sham because the numbers are too large for direct personal knowledge by electors) but the workplace, the trades and professions, education, law, corporations, families and neighborhoods are all more or less bereft of democracy. The result is that in politics we confuse populism with democracy. We set the mass of the people against the learned, and vice versa. Experts do not vote for one another, in spite of the fact that they, more than any other group except perhaps the family, have intimate and extended face-to-face contact with one another on a daily level. This extended contact is surely the first pre-requisite for pure democratic choice.

Ignorance of how to integrate on-the-spot peer review into group projects banishes experts from taking their rightful claim to primacy in the decision making process, especially in technical matters and in planning social reform.

The reason is clear.

The powers that be are very reluctant to encourage democratized expertise either in education or the workplace because this increased legitimacy of expert opinion would make it impossible to corrupt the decision making process. The privileged now manipulate policy by seeing to it that the only way for a politician to be nominated for democratic choice is to become beholden to lobbies and vested interests. The people are forced to take a gun to their own head and sell themselves to the highest bidder.

With firm guidance from a democratically chosen body of the learned, it is certain that other, more effective forms of democracy and capitalism would soon prevail. Bodies of experts would not only have the latest consensus of opinion of their fields of study on their side but they could also claim to be elected by their peers in a free and open elective process.

The best recent proof of how experts can intervene effectively and how they might operate in future is the U.N.'s panel of scientists (the IPCC, International Panel on Climate Change) studying the current statistical consensus on climate change. In spite of the fact that this body of experts has no direct political power and cannot do more than make recommendations, the IPCC has had spectacular success in grabbing the attention of policymakers everywhere (though most would argue that even this is still not enough). The IPCC's members are not elected by their peers, they are appointed under the oversight of a U.N. committee, and the U.N. itself is not a non-democratic body. Nonetheless the increasingly dire danger that they are studying has jettisoned them to an influence over the past five years that is unprecedented in the history of science.

The inexorable advance of global warming demands a quick and complete response. The problem demands radical change on every level of society, from individual behaviour (to point at just one example, the inefficiency and greenhouse gasses produced by meat production calls for a rapid increase in the numbers of vegetarians) to home construction (the wastefulness of buildings and neighbourhood design are major contributors to warming), to the way we travel (as George Monbiot points out, we should seriously consider grounding jet airplanes until we can figure out how to keep them from polluting the atmosphere at its most sensitive location).

As Kant said, both nature and human nature impel us to a single conclusion. Before we take a step to halt climate change we need to work out a happy combination of meritocracy with democracy by increasing the power and influence of experts at every level, and by making their education and daily operations as close as possible to the democratic ideal.

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Peer Meta-Review

Peer Review in a Meritocratic Democracy

By John Taylor; 2009 June 28, Rahmat 04, 166 BE

We have been talking over how to improve democracy. Yesterday we considered votes for children and what might be called meritocratic democracy (earning the right to vote on an issue by formally studying it and gaining work experience in that area). We also have been discussing "face-to-face democracy," where a citizen's own integrity limits voting only for individuals that they know directly and have worked or interacted with recently, or from participating in consultations only on issues that they are duly familiar with.

Behind these are other ideas that we have gone over on the Badi' Blog in the past. One i democracy in the workplace through a worker's constitution and bill of rights, privileges and responsibilities. Another is democratizing corporations by means of a revised corporate charter and, through profit and power sharing, the erasure of artificial dichotomies among workers, managers and owners. I also advocate giving much more power to essential trades and professions, especially teachers, doctors and farmers, in exchange for their full participation in a meritocratic democracy. These learned experts would be duty bound, as a result, to help extend democracy into the earliest roots of education.

Before going further, let me say: at the heart of any democracy is a universal duty that in any bill of rights should come before all rights and privileges: the obligation of every citizen to learn and earn a living from a trade or profession (that is, everybody learns a trade or craft, and those who show interest and ability learn a profession as well).

Given all this, in a meritocratic democracy each child would apprentice at an early age to a craft or tradesperson, preferably in an area in which the pupil has expressed interest or shown an aptitude in. These very young apprentices would be encouraged not only to help with his or her master tradesperson's labor but also to participate fully in every deliberation and policy decision that the trade obliges her to participate in. As I said yesterday, there is no reason that a young apprentice who works hard and qualifies technically should not be given a full vote. This, rather than writing a test on theory that is soon forgotten, that earns a mark and then is thrown away, would encourage a sense of grave responsibility in children at an early age.

One aspect of face-to-face, meritocratic democracy that I have not gone into yet is peer review.

Our educational system at all levels ignores completely the ability of a student to work well in a group. The only thing that will get a student ahead is his or her ability to write a test, alone and unaided. Teachers are chosen for how well they write examinations, not for how well they can teach, which is itself a highly social group skill. When a group of kids do work together on a group project, only the result is marked. If one of them does more work than the others, or even if one blocks the group, the assessment is done exclusively by the teacher. Our autocratic traditions preclude the obvious conclusion: the most qualified person to assess one's ability to work in a group is another member of that group.

In the workplace it is the same. Co-workers are in a better position to judge a worker's social contribution and group skills than the boss. In politics it is the same -- and this is a fundamental flaw of democracy that must be addressed. From every point of view the people best qualified to say how well a leader is doing are not the people, not even his own party, it is those who work with him behind closed doors. Not coincidentally, these are least in a position to offer a frank assessment, even if they were immune from retaliation and were properly trained to give a fair judgement in the first place.

In order to address this flaw we must go back to the kindergarten level, the very moment children first come together. That is the moment training in cooperation must start. The teacher in kindergarten should have the children play cooperative games and report afterwards on how well their peers helped the group. If necessary the whole game and each child's later comments can be videotaped and reviewed together -- football teams use this method of review routinely together to improve their teamwork, and this is far more important than any game. This group review -- and review of their own assessments -- would force the children to think about the consequences of their attitudes and behavior in a group. When the next game comes up, which is designed to follow up on what the first cooperative game taught, the child will be ready to improve upon his or her previous social performance.

If similar peer reviews went on with increasing sophistication throughout our education we might expect that a prime minister or president -- if such a powerful position is tolerated -- would not surround himself with cowering toadies offering a front to the world, but he would want rather to challenge himself by seeking out as diverse a group as possible. This would assure that he sees every point of view early on and would also enable him to display their obligatory peer reviews to the world, showing that his ability to work well with others is worthy of one occupying the highest position in the land.

This peer review, I think, is essential to the cosmopolitanism that Immanuel Kant, in the last words of his Cosmopolitan History, held up as the goal of our human nature.

"Although this government at present exists only as a rough outline, nevertheless in all the members there is rising a feeling which each has for the preservation of the whole. This gives hope finally that after many reformative revolutions, a universal cosmopolitan condition, which Nature has as her ultimate purpose, will come into being as the womb wherein all the original capacities of the human race can develop." (last words in: Kant, Cosmopolitan History, p. 260)

John Taylor

email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/

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Before the Class (another satire of her generation by Silvie)

Corporal Mnemonics

JANUARY 15, 2009

Corporal Mnemonics

The Changing Times Blog offers an essay that starts off like this,

"Kitab-i-Hearsay

`"I hear a lot of things from a lot of people who are absolutely sure they know what they're talking about. "Shoghi Effendi said 2/3 of the world's population would be wiped out before the lesser peace is established." Mmm. "'Abdu'l-Bahá used to smack people." Really. "You can have your pets with you in the next world." Aha. "There could be women on the House of Justice someday." Is that so? Where did you read that? "Umm… I think it's in, like, God Passes By." Are you sure? "No, I haven't read it…maybe it was in pilgrim's notes…" Pilgrim's notes. "Or a talk or something. I remember someone saying that." Someone.'

(http://blog.changing-times.org/tag/kitab-i-hearsay/)

I could not resist offering the following comment on this confident statement on that blog:

John Says:

January 14th, 2009 at 11:52 am

As for your comment: "'Abdu'l-Bahá used to smack people.' Really.", I would answer, really.

I do not want to repeat the references, but go on Ocean and use the keyword "slap." On at least two occasions just that happened, both done not out of anger but to protect the Cause from folly. Both references are documented and legitimate. And don't get me started on the wallop He gave a young Shoghi Effendi who had been late for prayers, as mentioned in Priceless Pearl.

For a whole book full of hearsay, see Piff's "Baha'i Lore." I found it amusing to go around memorizing parts of it and quoting passages to staid older believers as if it were an authority.

I would add right now that the fact that the purpose of politics is peace does not mean that there cannot be a just war; similarly, the fact that a teacher is most effective most of the time using what Baha'u'llah calls "words of milk" does not mean that there are not times when "words of fire," and even blows, are necessary. Sometimes, as one of these incidents implies, it is necessary to hit someone who is endangering everybody. 

And it is not unknown to use blows in teaching.

I often mention an anecdote about a teacher whose memoire I once read who taught in a school in remote, rural Iran. His students would not respect their teacher without fear, because they were used to being hit routinely at home. So he had to adapt. He found that this worked: on the first day of school he would suddenly hit a kid (one that he knew could take it) in front of everybody for no good reason. For the rest of the year they would treat him with the utmost respect. They were model students and no further violence was necessary.

As another example, some Ancient Greek philosophers would haul off and smack one of their students just after making an important point in order to be sure that the student would remember it forever, and for sure. Call it corporal mnemonics. Corporal punishment is bad, but corporal mnemonics is legit.

Anyway, here are the full quotes that I mentioned indirectly in that response:

"Many years before, in the days of Bahá'u'lláh, 'Akká had had an official, in charge of the secretariat, named Mustafa Effendi, who constantly incited the Governor to make life unbearable for the Bahá'ís. And the Governor was not averse to using the occasion for personal gain. To his various stratagems 'Abdu'l-Bahá paid no attention. The Governor hit upon the idea of forcing the Bahá'í shopkeepers to close down. 'Abdu'l-Bahá forestalled him and advised them to stop trading. Baulked, the Governor called a meeting in his residence of the notables and the divines who were hostile towards the Bahá'ís. It was intended to concert a plan of action. In the meantime, Sa'da'd-Din Ramadan, the chief of the merchants, hurried to see 'Abdu'l-Bahá. He begged for money. Only money, he pleaded, would make the Governor give up his machinations; there was no time to lose. 'Abdu'l-Bahá kept him waiting, while he thought that 'Abdu'l-Bahá was filling a purse with gold that he might take it to the Governor. For his pains he had only a hard slap in the face from 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and was told not to tarry there, as money had already been sent to the Governor. But what the Governor of 'Akká received was a telegram from the Vali in Beirut, dismissing him and other officials. Three months later this ex-Governor was further humiliated and banished to Damascus. He had to leave his family behind in 'Akká. 'Abdu'l-Bahá provided both for him and his family; and in due time, meeting all the expenses, He arranged to reunite them. Thus did 'Abdu'l-Bahá treat the fallen adversary."  (H.M. Balyuzi, Abdu'l-Baha - The Centre of the Covenant, p. 115-116)

'The first night of our arrival we suffered because of lack of water The water in the pool had become malodorous. We wanted to go out and procure fresh water, but they would not permit us. From the house of 'Abdu'l-Hadi Pasha, the Mutasarrif of 'Akká, they brought some cooked rice, but it was not enough. The next day, officials came to see what was happening to us. They went into the presence of the Blessed Perfection, and to them He spoke such words of knowledge and wisdom that, in that very first meeting, they realized that here were people endowed with erudition, wisdom and rare understanding One of them had said, there and then, that never before had such pure and sanctified souls set foot in 'Akká. Some days later they brought Haji Ja'far and his brother, Haji Taqi.' 

The ration for each person, according to Aqa Rida and Aqa Husayn-i-Ashchi, was three loaves of black bread, salty and inedible. So revolting was this ration that Aqa Husayn, young and headstrong as he was, made rude and insulting remarks about it in Turkish, directed to the Mutasarrif. This earned him a sharp slap in the face from the Most Great Branch. But it also caused the Mutasarrif, Aqa Husayn says, to take note of the situation. Soon the officials discontinued this ration; instead they gave the exiles a sum of money each day, which was shared by all the companions." (H.M. Balyuzi, Baha'u'llah - The King of Glory, p. 275-277)

This is the reference to the "chastisement" given to the Guardian:

"In those days of Shoghi Effendi's childhood it was the custom to rise about dawn and spend the first hour of the day in the Master's room, where prayers were said and the family all had breakfast with Him. The children sat on the floor, their legs folded under them, they would chant for 'Abdu'l-Bahá; there was no shouting or unseemly conduct. Breakfast consisted of tea, brewed on the bubbling Russian brass samovar and served in little crystal glasses, very hot and very sweet, pure wheat bread and goat's milk cheese. Dr Zia Baghdadi, an intimate of the family, in his recollections of these days records that Shoghi Effendi was always the first to get up and be on time - after receiving one good chastisement from no other hand than that of his grandfather!" (Ruhiyyih Khanum, The Priceless Pearl, p. 7)

--
John Taylor

email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/