Shaping Young Minds
A reader, Wayne Fontes, has steered my belated attention to a Seattle after-school childcare programme, the Hilltop Children’s Centre, the staff of which are keen to ensure that children aged 5 through 9 have the correct kind of play and the correct kind of thoughts. In an article titled Why We Banned Legos, published in the Winter 2006/07 issue of Rethinking Schools magazine, two Hilltop staff recounted the pressing political issues raised by brightly coloured building blocks. The article’s authors, Ann Pelo and Kendra Pelojoaquin, ominously related the details of an investigation sparked by the children’s building of a village made of Lego,
“…and the questions embedded in their play about resource sharing, authority, ownership, and power.”
As someone who has, recklessly, bought Lego as a gift for children (and played with the stuff himself, both as a child and more recently), I was shamefully oblivious to the distressing potential of this plastic construction toy. Thankfully, the Hilltop teaching staff has paid much closer attention.
“The teachers’ observations of the inequity and unintended unfairness that this play created led them to launch an in-depth study with the children about the meaning of power and ways to organize communities which are equitable and just. This investigation was anchored in… our commitment to social justice, anti-bias teaching and learning.”
Pelo and Pelojoaquin tell us, shockingly, just how focussed and possessive small children can be.
“A group of about eight children conceived and launched Legotown. Other children were eager to join the project, but as the city grew — and space and raw materials became more precious — the builders began excluding other children.”
The horror continues.
“The Legotown builders turned their attention to complex negotiations among themselves about what sorts of structures to build, whether these ought to be primarily privately owned or collectively used, and how ‘cool pieces’ would be distributed and protected… Into their coffee shops and houses, the children were building their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys — assumptions that mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society — a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive. As we watched the children build, we became increasingly concerned.”
The accidental demolition of “Legotown” presented the Hilltop staff with an opportunity that was eagerly seized upon.
“We saw the decimation of Legotown as an opportunity to launch a critical evaluation of Legotown and the inequities of private ownership and hierarchical authority on which it was founded. Our intention was to promote a contrasting set of values: collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing… We also discussed our beliefs about our role as teachers in raising political issues with young children. We recognized that children are political beings, actively shaping their social and political understandings of ownership and economic equity — whether we interceded or not. We agreed that we want to take part in shaping the children’s understandings from a perspective of social justice.”
The children, being heavily invested in their creations (and, of course, being children), initially had difficulty conforming to the political preferences of the teaching staff.
“So we decided to take the Legos out of the classroom.”
The removal of this favoured toy was apparently “to help focus students’ attention on issues of fairness.” And thus begins the exertion of ideology, disguised, shamefully, as something dispassionate, exploratory and benign. After the withdrawal of the building blocks, the children were “invited to work in small, collaborative teams… set up… to emphasize negotiated decision-making, collaboration, and collectivity.” After weeks of “collegial debate” and “social justice exploration”, a set of specific proposals was eventually arrived at, supposedly without undue influence of the teaching staff. Those proposals were, oddly enough, that:
“All structures are public structures. Everyone can use all the Lego structures.
Lego people can be saved only by a ‘team’ of kids, not by individuals.
All structures will be standard sizes.”
A subsequent article, also published in Rethinking Schools, explains the aims of that publication and its readership, and possibly sheds some light on the politics of Hilltop employees:
“We need a curriculum that honours children’s potential, rather than the scripted lessons… and correct answers, favoured by so many conservatives.”
What’s remarkable here isn’t the children’s grasp of ownership, territoriality and basic capitalism, or the negotiations that took place among the young builders prior to their “correction”, all of which are pretty much innate to human beings. (And which might, of course, explain how readily their assumptions mirrored those of the society around them, built by preceding generations.) What is extraordinary is that Hilltop’s leftist staff not only felt “concerned” by such things, but also felt entitled, indeed obliged, to “correct” them with their own Socialist preferences, carefully redefined as “eliminating bias” and fostering “social justice.”
The Hilltop Centre claims to be committed to “the principles of anti-bias work” and to an approach that is both “child-centred and inquiry-based.” The centre also aims to “foster each child’s critical thinking about bias.” Whether that critical thinking extends to the injustices of Socialism, the overt political biases of Hilltop staff, or their willingness to impose them on children in their care, remains unclear. Though readers may draw their own conclusions.
Related, this, this and, er, this.
Please fund my Lego research.
Where once Legotown stood, now there is nothing but a giant asshole.
Also, they forgot to mention the tyranny of the orthogony.
Maybe, to stop the children’s ‘pesky’ creativity, the Hilltop Centre re-programmers should use their Lego bricks to build a scale model of the Berlin Wall — cutting straight across the classroom.
That’ll teach ’em.
They should just ban the teachers from owning property.
Is it called “The Modern School”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Modern_Parents
Setting aside the staggering arrogance of the staff, what’s most interesting to me is the tacit assumption that the children’s sense of territory and property is some heinous artificial construct, rather than an innate tendency of human beings.
I’m reminded of the words of Frank Zappa:
“In every language, the first word after ‘Mama!’ that every kid learns to say is ‘Mine!’ A system that doesn’t allow ownership, that doesn’t allow you to say ‘Mine!’ when you grow up, has – to put it mildly – a fatal design flaw.”
“Into their coffee shops and houses…”
Coffee shops?
Lego was all about James Bond style structures and shoddy Thunderbirds imitations when I were a lad. The only point of building a normal house was to then crash equally ill-made lego vehicles into it.
Tsk. I’m sure you were oppressing something or other. But fear not. Lego will eventually produce a Collectivist Wonderland Lego Set, the buildings of which will be of exactly equal size. And the use of which we be equally disappointing to each child.
Matt M,
I still remember my most crash tested lego car. Lego was a fantastic tool for people interested in learning engineering.
When I do software engineering, I mentally picture bolting together algorithms much like building a physical lego model.
“What’s remarkable here isn’t the children’s grasp of ownership, territoriality and basic capitalism, all of which are pretty much innate to human beings.”
“Innate?” Really? Have the genes been identified yet? Shouldn’t be hard: Roma, Sinti, Bedouins and Irish Travellers lack the gene for territoriality; the one for ownership is missing from a number of non-European societies; and, as for “basic capitalism,” David offers us the teleology of Karl Marx, if truncated. It took 200,000 or so years for homo sapiens sapiens to work its way up, inevitably, it seems, to the capitalist system. Did Lucy of Olduvai have even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?
Personally, I never got into so-called “cooperative games.” But I’m quite willing to blame my upbringing, not my DNA.
I wonder what Pelo and “Pelojoaquin” would say if someone wandered into the classroom and helped himself to the contents of their purses. What could they say? Those purses are “collectively owned”, right?
I assume the classroom itself is “collectively owned”, so they’d have no problem with a group of homeless people showing up with their sleeping bags and making themselves at home?
Dr Dawg,
You jest, I hope. Unless, of course, you actually don’t think notions of property, trade and territory (however limited or portable) are pretty much innate to the human condition? I’m tempted to ask the obvious question: Have you met any human beings? And the almost as obvious question: Can I move into your home and take all of your stuff?
Dr. Dawg: try barging into a Bedouin’s tent, or a Roma’s caravan, without permission and you’ll find that their territoriality works just fine, thanks.
It’s well worth reading Rethinking School’s leader column written in response to criticisms of the Lego article.
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/21_04/edit214.shtml
This makes it clear that the aims of the Rethinking School crowd don’t stop at encouraging anti-capitalist and pro-collectivist thinking. Can you guess what other topics teachers should be introducing into the classroom? And what are the attitudes that should be encouraged in their little charges? Go on, have a guess.
David and LAM:
Surely you’ve got past the notion that, in a collective, my toothbrush is also yours. Marx was clear on the distinction between personal and private property. So should you be. I know that nearly everything gets commodified these days, including human emotions and human remains, but not my razor, nor the contents of my fridge, nor my bed.
Good link. I love the way educators and academics use the terms “conservative” and “right wing” as terms of abuse and then expect everyone else to see that as proof of their unbiased stance.
Marx was clear on the distinction between personal and private property.
There are millions of Ukrainian kulaks who might disagree, but they’re not able to say much about it, are they?
The only thing that’s “clear” is that Marx had absolutely no understanding of human nature, and that attempting to build a Marxist state produces slavery, starvation, and mass murder. Every time.
Dr Dawg,
Methinks I detect an almost religious devotion to malign and discredited gods. As I suggested earlier, the fact that some people take their territory around with them is entirely beside the point. And the fact that people with severely limited space tend to develop heightened proprieties regarding whatever space they have again suggests an innate function, not some heinous social construction. Your reliance on Marx does you no credit and, if anything, underlines a fundamental flaw of quasi-Marxist belief, which generally denies the possibility that capitalism is, broadly speaking, much more conducive to human nature than the alternative it proposes.
Horace:
Thanks for the link. I knew there had to be more to it, and it’s an excellent response. I enjoyed the idiot who equated the teachers to “Islamofascists.” Demonization is such a wonderful substitute for thinking, isn’t it?
David:
The essentialist notion of “human nature” seems quaint to me. It always seems to be aligned with the politics of the person who uses the term. 🙂
Horace,
Yes, I did raise an eyebrow when I read the comments on the Iraq war. One wonders if this too will be “discussed” with the under-tens in an equally dispassionate way. I also noted the claim that these “anti-bias” teaching methods “call into question existing cultural patterns and systems of ownership and control that are at the root of today’s crises.” Perhaps Professor Rosling might be invited to their “discussions” to offer a different view?
https://thompsonblog.co.uk/2007/08/end-not-yet-nig.html
Somehow, I guess not.
Dr Dawg,
“The essentialist notion of ‘human nature’ seems quaint to me.”
I’m sure it does. And your practiced missing of the point is faintly amusing to us. 🙂
In the past “progressive” school-teachers would twitter on about how important it was to enable every child to realise his or her own potential. It was about individuality, creativity and non-conformity. The progressives educationalist lamented the stifling and inhuman influence of all those rules on developing minds.
This lot are at least open – indeed aggressively so – about their true desire to impose systems of thought on their charges. Their duty is to use their influence on children in order to create a society different from the one “that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive”. Well there’s honesty for you. It’s all about rules and compliance after all.
What point is that? One that you have supported with evidence, or one merely asserted? I raised several examples of other cultures in which territoriality, “basic capitalism” and property don’t exist per se. I brought up the important distinction between personal and private property that is being obfuscated on this thread. With the greatest respect, all I’ve seen in response is spluttering re-assertions.
I thought the link provided by Horace gave a pretty good account of what really happened at the school in question. Yes, they pose an ideological alternative, and get the kids thinking about it. Horrors! They might grow up to be cultural critics!
Horace:
“This lot are at least open – indeed aggressively so – about their true desire to impose systems of thought on their charges. Their duty is to use their influence on children in order to create a society different from the one “that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive”.”
Whereas the regular school system uses its influence to mold conformity and unthinking acceptance of the unmarked dominant ideolo–whoops, I of course mean the natural order of things.
The teachers are trying to get the kids to think, which appears threatening to some here. But not to worry–that’s only a few hours a week, compared to many more hours of telly, parents, the newspapers and in general the social values in which they are immersed on a daily basis. They’ll turn out all right, never fear.
Dr Dawg,
Fretting about “essentialism” as “quaint” is a way of missing the obvious point that, however loosely one defines human nature, there are nevertheless tendencies that are, so far as one can tell, common to the species across vast stretches of time and in a very wide range of situations. (I scarcely need to point out that the denial of human nature – however one defines it or some part thereof – is very often aligned with the politics of the person doing the denying.) And we’re not discussing the quoted blog reactions to the Lego saga; we’re discussing the saga itself, its stated rationale, and its implications. I did take care to use the participants’ own words wherever possible.
“What point is that?”
Setting aside momentarily the peculiarities of the beliefs in question, I suppose a key point being missed is this: Do you think this is an appropriate way for the Hilltop staff to behave, and do you think their personal beliefs, loaded as they are, should be imprinted in this way on the children in their care? Were they, in fact, “eliminating bias”?
David:
I think our last messages crossed cyber-paths. Just let me note that the kids are being asked to think, not being brainwashed, the latter, as you know, requiring weeks or even months of isolation, imprisonment, and ill-treatment.
Why the notion of thinking about alternatives has everyone’s knickers in a twist, I cannot fathom. If your “human nature” is solidly in place, then there’s really nothing to worry about.
Dr Dawg,
“The kids are being asked to think…”
Yes, of course they are. And that would be your practiced missing of the point.
Doesn’t it strike you as even slightly curious that the children should eventually (and after the removal of their favoured toy) have arrived at the proposals listed above, which happen – quite remarkably – to reflect the obvious preferences of the leftwing staff? Would a similar degree of “critical” and “anti-bias” thought be directed towards the favoured politics of the staff and their willingness to share them with children in their care? Will the children be encouraged to ruminate at length on whether Lego was more fun to play with before the new rules were imposed? Will they, I wonder, be encouraged to ponder whether days of careful building work entitles one to something?
David:
Again with respect, I believe that it is you who keeps missing the point. Rather than unthinkingly pass on/approve of certain modes of behaviour that you, for one, thinks is “innate,” the teachers got the kids to step back and reflect and discuss them. That the kids came up with new proposals no doubt is due in part to the teachers’ positions–it would be naive to think otherwise–but is it not even a possibility that the kids participated as actors in that eventual outcome?
Moreover–and here’s the main point, at least in my opinion–this series of events isn’t taking place in a vacuum, or a North Korean attitude readjustment camp. It’s going on in a society whose dominant values are a sea in which these kids swim. At least now they have the opportunity to make “the natural order of things” conscious, and see the possibility of alternatives. That’s good pedagogy in my book. Unthinking transmission of “the natural order of things” is not. Either way, ideological preferences are being expressed. But at least in the instant case, the kids actually have alternatives placed before them.
The kids aren’t being asked to think at all. They are being prevented from playing with a educational toy that highlights the fallacies that leftist faith revolves around.
Apart from not understanding
money,
comparative advantage,
time,
productivity,
limitations on economy of scale,
human nature,
property and
reciprocity
Marx did understand Envy, but as you can see basing a society on envy leads to slavery etc.
Dr Dawg,
If one redefines one’s terms sufficiently, not least regarding “bias” and “social justice”, then I’m sure one might regard the behaviour of the staff as reasonable. But that would, I think, require a measure of ideological distortion roughly equal to that of the staff themselves.
I repeat my questions: Do days of careful building work entitle one to something? And, by apparently assuming that such efforts do not, were the staff, in fact, “eliminating bias”?
From which we deduce that “Dr. Dawg” does not have any children of his own, or at least doesn’t spend much time observing them.
Dawg: try this experiment. Find a two-year-old. Give the two-year-old a toy, and say “this is yours.” Now tell the two-year-old to give it to another two-year-old. Now count how many adults with crowbars it takes to pry the first two-year-old’s fingers off the toy.
ACO:
As it turns out, Lego was not banned for long. Horace’s link sets out the chronology.
David:
I’m making a sincere effort to wrestle with your questions, and not to misunderstand them. They appear to have been added to your earlier comment, but perhaps it’s my eyes that are at fault–I didn’t see the following in your note earlier, so I was not evading them:
“Will the children be encouraged to ruminate at length on whether Lego was more fun to play with before the new rules were imposed? Will they, I wonder, be encouraged to ponder whether days of careful building work entitles one to something?”
And then, in your last comment, “[W]ere the staff, in fact, ‘eliminating bias’?”
On the first question, the kids will do their own ruminating, now that the issue has been problematiz–that is, placed before them. They may, indeed, decide that the former approach was the better one. Or not. Again, were the new rules bluntly “imposed,” meaning that the kids had no agency, or were they arrived at after discussion (taking into account, of course, the power relations between the teachers and the kids, even in a progressive school)?
On the question of entitlement, I really am at a loss. I’d have to say, “Sometimes yes, sometimes no.” I frankly don’t understand your usage of “entitlement,” and I’m not playing dumb. Should we enjoy the fruits of our productive labour, including the surplus value thus created? Why, yes. 🙂 Should the months of careful planning by al-Qaeda entitle them to something other than a fair trial? I’d have to say No. Perhaps I’m (inadvertently) missing the point here: perhaps you could clarify.
On your last question, we might find more grounds for agreement. I don’t believe that absence of “bias” is possible, any more than I accept the nugatory concept of “objective reality.” So, no, I don’t think the staff ‘eliminated bias.’ But I note in their article for which Horace provided the link that they make no such claim. A straw man, perhaps?
Cambias:
The earlier argument was that the kids were demonstrating “innate” capitalist behaviour. Please note that I have already drawn attention to the distinction to be made between personal and private property. In any case, the issue of whether the Lego in question was “personal” or “private” is interesting: I would argue that it wasn’t, strictly speaking, the children’s property at all. Their earlier behaviour, however, resembled that of people with respect to their personal property. My toothbrush, as noted, is mine, and I’ll make that point strongly if someone else tries to use it. Doesn’t speak to innateness, or “basic capitalism” or anything of the kind.
Dr Dawg,
Well, I suppose much of this hinges on how one feels about a person’s efforts and ingenuity counting for something in related decision making. Specifically, should the children who did the bulk of the building and invention – and who arguably made “Legotown” interesting to others – have some say in how the project develops? And are they entitled to a level of consideration that might not necessarily be extended to those with no particular interest in “Legotown”, or in Lego generally? By apparently rejecting the idea of such entitlement, it seems the staff was pursuing a political bias of its own. One which would, I think, jar with the proprieties of quite a few children, and one or two adults.
“My toothbrush, as noted, is mine, and I’ll make that point strongly if someone else tries to use it. Doesn’t speak to innateness, or ‘basic capitalism’ or anything of the kind.”
Ah, but I think it very much does.
Dawg, and gang,
The Laws of Thermodynmics, especially the Law of Conservation of Energy, drive all homeotherms’ evolution and societies. Hoarding, patronage, territoriality and defense of property are just some of the natural, predictable results.
I am always amazed at this convergence of PoMo Lefitsts with fundamentalist Religionists. Both need to divorce Mankind from his Biotic context in order for their respective faiths to hold.
Dr Dawg: Just let me note that the kids are being asked to think
Dr Dawg, I’m not sure that is the case here. They were asked to explore socialist scenarios, and the teachers got stressed when the children didn’t play ball.
Dr Dawg: Whereas the regular school system uses its influence to mold conformity and unthinking acceptance of the unmarked dominant ideolo–whoops, I of course mean the natural order of things.
It’s rather insulting for you to insinuate that non-socialist teachers (“regular school system”, I guess), like myself, being uninterested in your ideology, don’t get children to think critically or independently. That’s rubbish. I don’t see these teachers asking children to be independent, I see them wanting the children to accept their worldview and designing activities accordingly. That’s not good pedagogy. That’s terrible pedagogy.
Incidentally, in a socialist system, would you be keen for teachers to try and challenge socialist norms, and get children to play capitalist games, with a view to them thinking more sympathetically towards capitalism? Or would you want a socialist system to be consistent and conformist?
Steveas:
Wow. And here I thought that sociobiology was the ultimate in reductionism. You’ve got it down to the Laws of Thermodynamics! (I’m aware of Leslie White’s neo-evolutionary model of human society, although I’m not sure that he goes as far as you do: but he’s not without his critics in any case.) Perhaps we need to drill down into quantum-level explanations. Indeed, I believe that some intrepid souls have done just that with respect to the vexed question of free will.
David:
My concern about my toothbrush isn’t necessarily pre-cultural–after all, there are the ceaseless admonistions we receive as children, our acceptance of the germ theory and so on.
Kevin:
I don’t get the impression that the teachers were “stressed.” Did I miss something?
“I don’t see these teachers asking children to be independent, I see them wanting the children to accept their worldview and designing activities accordingly. That’s not good pedagogy. That’s terrible pedagogy.”
I find this not a little ironic. Obviously this worldview concerns you, and I would bet that you wouldn’t want to expose your charges to it. Better to accept the natural order of things. I mean, I don’t want to be overly presumptuous, so perhaps you could tell me whether you encourage your pupils/students to question notions like property, capitalism, power-relations and so on.
In a socialist system, I hope teachers would encourage kids to put everything up for scrutiny and challenge, and have the debates.
Sorry, that’s “steveaz.”
Dr Dawg: I find this not a little ironic. Obviously this worldview concerns you, and I would bet that you wouldn’t want to expose your charges to it. Better to accept the natural order of things. I mean, I don’t want to be overly presumptuous, so perhaps you could tell me whether you encourage your pupils/students to question notions like property, capitalism, power-relations and so on.
I get them to question as much as I can, as far as it is relevant, without expecting them to come up with the “right” answers, writing outraged magazine articles when they don’t, and then whinging about my own ideology being heartlessly marginalized by this brutal world of ours and of course the war in Iraq. I don’t mind what my pupils say as long as it is lucid, intelligent and unpretentious. I also don’t withdraw things from the classroom that don’t fit my worldview, or I’d have furiously chucked out everything by Michael Rosen ages ago.
Dr, socialism doesn’t concern me per se. Promoting it under the guise of being unbiased does. I don’t think any school system should be used as a stalking horse by ideologues who know they have total control of that system but are still cheesed off because people don’t agree with them. Still, I guess it proves they’re not doing a very good job of promoting socialism. Maybe they should try harder.
Dr Dawg,
“In a socialist system, I hope teachers would encourage kids to put everything up for scrutiny and challenge, and have the debates.”
[ Wipes tear from eye ] That you would hope for such a thing, apparently in all seriousness, says more than perhaps you realise.
That the Hilltop staff regard a capitalist society as “unjust and oppressive”, yet don’t regard their own implicit quasi-Marxist alternative as much moreso says much of what one needs to know about the people concerned and their grip on reality. That the publication in which their articles appeared disdains “correct answers” in schooling pretty much ices the cake.
Kevin:
I think you’re caricaturing the teachers’ practice and their arguments. I don’t find their article “outraged” in the least. Indeed, it was measured–far more so, I warrant, than the comments on FauxNews, not to mention the charges of being “fascists” and “Islamists” and so on.
As already noted, the teachers didn’t use the word “biased” or “unbiased” that I can find–but I’m willing to stand corrected on that point. On the more general issue, everyone is an ideologue, consciously or (more invidiously) unconsciously. But the dominant ideology is never an ideology–it’s the natural order.
Uh…I should qualify one of my previous comments by saying that actually I do care if my pupils don’t get the right answers in maths and that. I was thinking history, politics, etc. I’m quite keen on spelling but I don’t let it stop the mass production of creative writing and the private ownership thereof. And I do get my older pupils to study left and right interpretations of history and critique them. Collectively, of course.
David:
“That the publication in which their articles appeared disdains “correct answers” in schooling pretty much ices the cake. ”
Now I’m thoroughly confused. Some commenters here are upset that the teachers have “imposed” what Kevin referred to as “right answers.” (Outrageous. Marxist ideologues!) And now we find that the school in question eschews the very notion of “correct answers.” (Outrageous. Postmodernists!) They can’t win–posing alternatives to the “natural order” does, assuredly, carry with it some risk.
For the record, David, my notion of socialism is in part precisely what I set out. I’m sorry I caused you grief.
Dr Dawg: Now I’m thoroughly confused. Some commenters here are upset that the teachers have “imposed” what Kevin referred to as “right answers.” (Outrageous. Marxist ideologues!) And now we find that the school in question eschews the very notion of “correct answers.” (Outrageous. Postmodernists!)
Tut, tut, Dr. You know precisely what is meant. And I don’t find it that odd that teachers who disdain correctness in maths, spelling and any kind of factual knowledge (in so far as it is culturally determined blah blah) are quite keen for people to adopt their politics. It fits with my experience.
Kevin:
I think you’re wandering. Did these teachers support mathematical and spelling anarchy? I see no evidence of that. But, not to get too Aristotelian about it, the teachers either imposed “truth” or they didn’t. Commenters here would have it both ways–damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
Dr Dawg,
“That the publication in which their articles appeared disdains ‘correct answers’ in schooling pretty much ices the cake.”
“Now I’m thoroughly confused.”
I thought you might appreciate the irony. What I suspect the authors mean is they dislike answers (and behaviour, and indeed facts) that refute their theories and beliefs. This is, I think, a signature of the postmodern left. There are no “correct” answers, except of course their own, which are “correct” because they wish them to be. It is, I fear, an article of faith, or possibly derangement. Hence my amusement at your confidence in Socialist impartiality.
I trust “gene” is being used metaphorically.
“Roma, Sinti, Bedouins and Irish Travellers lack the gene for territoriality”
Uh, no. Their territory is wherever they happen to be. Try trespassing on a Bedouin camp, and see how many bullets you get in your derriere.
“the one for ownership is missing from a number of non-European societies”
You cannot name one single human society that has not revolved around the concept of ownership. Not one has ever existed. Not one.
“It took 200,000 or so years for homo sapiens sapiens to work its way up, inevitably, it seems, to the capitalist system.”
Uh, no, but thanks for playing. I see you’ve taken too many of those anthropology classes, based on no data at all.
And finally:
“I raised several examples of other cultures in which territoriality, “basic capitalism” and property don’t exist per se.”
No, you have not. In every one of those societies, territoriality, property, and capitalism are alive and well.
Dr: I think you’re wandering. Did these teachers support mathematical and spelling anarchy? I see no evidence of that.
No idea. Isn’t that what is usually meant by a school which doesn’t like “correct” answers? In any case being good at maths is clearly the result of cultural conditioning in a numbers-oriented capitalist system where we all function as just numbers and “correct” spelling (cah!) is surely the worst kind of middle class exclusivity, privileging the decisions of ancient grammarians over the more relevant non-hierarchical based and democratic spellings of young people today.
> In every one of those societies, territoriality, property, and capitalism are alive and well.
Perhaps there was a society without territoriality, property, and reciprocal benefit… Of course its absence from this era would mean they were failed societies.
Just like other the USSR and Chinese communism have imploded in fact.
As Kevin has suggested, the disdain for objective standards in, say, spelling or arithmetic very often goes hand in hand with an ideological obstinacy and an urge to impose one’s politics on others wherever possible. It’s rather incoherent, I grant you, but we’re not talking about people who are particularly troubled by such things. It is, as I said, largely a matter of faith, or personal psychodrama.