Author Archives: Ian Perry

Getting Off to a Bad Start

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Machiavelli woule surely agree with the structure of the class monitor elections. Destroy your opponents while ensuring your rise to the top. Personally, I thought that these elections showed how non-democratic societies often replicate the corrupt. broken democracies countries like America has, thinking that’s the best version of democracy there can be. If kids being taught the basics of democracy are told to tear down the other people running for office, to run for your own selfish desires, and to treat your constituents like pawns to be cajoled into voting for you, rather than people who should be listened to and treated with respect, I wouldn’t be surprised if a future Chinese democracy became as much a corporate sewer pit as American democracy has become. One could make the argument that these dirtier aspects of politics are inevitable. But if we are teaching children from the start to expect and reward these tactics, aren’t we simply creating a self fulfilling prophecy? It’s scenarios like this that make the “second best” option we have seem like the seediest.

Fall of Liberal Democracy

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It seems to me that Fareed Zakaria is on the right track, namely that democracy may not necessarily be disappearing, but liberal democracy is. When you look at the places around the world that have been recently becoming more and more authoritarian, whether that be Poland, the Phillipines, Turkey, or even to some extent America, it’s not the case that tanks are rolling through the streets and soldiers are taking people from their homes. All of those countries have regularly scheduled elections that are largely free and fair, yet authoritarianism keeps winning at the ballot box. It’s my belief that capitalism is largely to blame for this, particularly the income stagnation and general absurdity that has arisen from late capitalism. To put it in the most reductive and simplified way possible, it has caused people around the world to feel as though they have lost all agency and control over their lives and the world around them, and so they turn to populists and demagogues who promise to be their champion, in return for the people granting them even greater power. We’re seeing this scenario play out all across the globe, particularly in Europe these past couple years, though I don’t think many Americans paid attention until it happened in their own backyards. While I can see the crisis, I can’t see a solution besides the dismantling of the capitalist system, either in part (ala the return of New Deal/Keynesian economics) or completely (socialism). Democracy isn’t imperiled, but liberal democracy is currently on its knees.

All Aboard

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Lerner has wholeheartedly bought into what Gray calls the “modern myth”. To him, before the rise of the Demokrat party, the introduction of shops and neckties, Balgat was out of sync with the universe. To steal a metaphor, modernity is a train that’s leaving the station, but luckily the villagers just managed to board on time, with the help of the Grocer, “the cleverest of us all”. This is made eminently clear when Lerner writes, “the irony of the route by which Balgat had entered History stayed with me”. History with a capital H, that irrepressible force that pushes everyone and everything towards one endpoint, or at least that’s how it’s presented in the religion of modernity. Before the arrival of the neckties, the people of Belgat refused to “get out of their holes”, but now there are radios and shops, and everyone has obediently gotten their tickets stamped and boarded the train.

To harken back to last weeks’ topic, on social sciences and the like, I have the same problem with Lerner as I had with Gessen. Its not hard to understand why social science has a bad rap when writers like these wear their biases and ideologies on their sleeves. You have absolutely no doubt what Lerner’s opinion is of these people. The Grocer was a prophet who knew the Word, and the rest of them were ignorant and needed to be shown the light. Yes, he has respect for the Chief, but in the same way Rousseau respected the noble savage.

Not Buying It

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I’m generally of the opinion that as long as social science is carried out with rigorous scientific methodology, it is no less valid than that of a “hard science”, such as the sort Eberstadt is employing. Smug positivist STEM majors sneer at social science, forgetting that their idols once revered such illustrious “sciences” as phrenology, astrology, and alchemy. That said, I still have a problem with Parson’s research in that it seems quite haphazard. For example, if young people are dying the most, why interview people who were middle aged during the 90’s, the focal point of the crisis? That sort of research is bad whether it’s anthropology or physics.

However, Masha Gessen’s explanation is the worst of the three. She tries to combine historical, political, and sociological analysis in order to come to the conclusion that Russians are dying of broken hearts, but her analyses of all three are flawed. Correctly or not, Russians today largely have a positive view of both the Soviet Union and Josef Stalin, yet Gessen writes that they made, and continue to make, Russians feel hopeless and worthless. If totalitarianism is to blame, why does China not have the same situation? Under Mao’s totalitarian system there were famines, large losses of life, high amounts of poverty and social upheaval. Where is the record breaking death rate?

I don’t believe this is a situation where the truth is outside the scope of the scientific method. Perhaps outside the domain of the “hard” sciences, but not of the social sciences. But if researchers approach the problem with ingrained ideological leanings the way Gessen does, I don’t think it’ll ever be solved.

The Uncertainty of Power

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Power is a rather nebulous thing. Orwell was the one with the gun, the authority. If he had declared that the elephant would not be killed, that’s exactly what would have happened. But the desire to save face, or to command respect, perhaps to be liked, these desires can make it seem as though we have no power, no choice, in any given situation. For example, when called upon to defend a loved one’s honor, it often doesn’t seem that we’re the ones holding the power to choose our actions in that situation. It seems some force is inexorably dragging you towards one path, “power” be damned. Orwell is describing this very phenomena with his elephant story. Colonizers came in thinking they would be like gods, and discovered that they were still men. Men with power, men with guns, yet still governed by the same desires as the rest of us. In the face of those desires, power is revealed to be far less concrete than it is presented in the movies.

Another confounding factor is that power in Orwell’s case lies only in the threat of violence. There are plenty of other forms of power, each with their own strengths and limitations. If he had rapport with the villagers, if they trusted and respected him, he could have avoided killing the elephant. That’s certainly a different sort of power than the kind his gun and uniform represents, but it’s no less authentic.

Masking the “Grandpa” Mentality

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Throughout this essay by John Gatto, I was looking to see what it is that he really wanted to say, and by the final few paragraphs it finally became clear. Yes, many of the points he makes about the origins of our school system are true, yet I was certain that his real gripe was something that many people whose careers are inextricably entwined with younger people feel: Why aren’t these youngsters are smart, enterprising, brave, (insert adjective here) as prior generations?! Gatto is not a brave school reformer, he’s just another grandpa claiming that his son isn’t as couragous because he didn’t fight in the great war. By ending his essay by railing against consumerism and comparing modern children to Ben Franklin, he’s giving up the game. Men like Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin were not the norm in the 1700’s. They made up the small elite of American society. In every age, for every Washington and Twain, there are millions of people who are dull, painfully average, and yes, bored. No amount of homeschooling and theology tutoring will change that. In this age of souless education systems, we still produce geniuses and inventors in public schools. The system may be designed for a  nefarious and specific purpose, that does not mean it succeeded. Lastly, on his point concerning the virtues of homeschooling: every homeschooled kid I ever knew was the least socially adjusted person in the room. I hope that’s merely unfortunate anecdotal evidence, otherwise Gatto’s dreamworld is a nightmare.