Ed Driscoll quotes Rich Lowry on ‘progressive’ parenthood:
As the ultimate private institution, the family is a stubborn obstacle to the great collective effort. Insofar as people invest in their own families, they are holding out on the state and unacceptably privileging their own kids over the children of others. These parents are selfish, small-minded, and backward. “Once it’s everybody’s responsibility,” [MSNBC host, Melissa] Harris-Perry said of child-rearing, “and not just the households, then we start making better investments.”
This impulse toward the state as über-parent is based on a profound fallacy and a profound truth. The fallacy is that anyone can care about someone else’s children as much as his own. The former Texas Republican senator Phil Gramm liked to illustrate the hollowness of such claims with a story. He told a woman, “My educational policies are based on the fact that I care more about my children than you do.” She said, “No, you don’t.” Gramm replied, “Okay: What are their names?” The truth is that parents are one of society’s most incorrigible sources of inequality. If you have two of them who stay married and are invested in your upbringing, you have hit life’s lottery. You will reap untold benefits denied to children who aren’t so lucky. That the family is so essential to the well-being of children has to be a constant source of frustration to the egalitarian statist, a reminder of the limits of his power.
Echoes of this attitude – that your children shouldn’t be privileged in your affections above the children of others – can be found in the pages of the left’s national newspaper. As, for instance, when Arabella Weir insisted that parents must make sacrifices – not for their own children, of course, which would be selfish and irresponsible – but of their own children. For the Greater Good. Children, see, must learn “who to be wary of, who to avoid, how to keep their heads down” by mingling conspicuously with “people of different abilities” and “local roughs,” including local roughs who see bookish children as prey.
By Ms Weir’s thinking, if you had a grim and frustrating experience at a state comprehensive school, you should still want to inflict that same experience on your own offspring. Ideally, by sending them to a disreputable school with poor educational standards, demoralised teachers and lots of people for whom English is at best a second language. This, then, is what makes “a good, responsible citizen.”
The notion of children as collective property, something to be distributed for optimal social effect, as determined by the left, isn’t hard to find. Nor is it hard to find the penalties for thinking otherwise. As when the Guardian’s education journalist Janet Murray, who is presumably familiar with the eye-widening surveys of state schooling teaching staff, decided to spare her daughter those same physical and psychological thrills. And was promptly denounced by her readers in no uncertain terms.
At least a dozen commenters called Ms Murray “selfish” on grounds that she is paying extra for her child’s education while also paying via taxes for a state system that she doesn’t regard as fit for use. (Paying twice, for her own child and for others, apparently makes her “elitist,” “uncaring” and mean.) Amid the inevitable accusations of racism and moral degeneracy, several readers took comfort, indeed pleasure, in the belief that Ms Murray would soon be fired for her heresy thus leaving her unable to afford her daughter’s tuition. Proof, if more were needed, that the Guardian is read by the nation’s most caring, enlightened and tolerant people.
For many on the left, the conventional family structure is at best problematic and, quite often, something to be disassembled. Beatrix Campbell, for instance, tells us that the typical family is “riven by power, patriarchy, conflict and the unequal distribution of resources and respect,” a description that doesn’t remotely fit any family I know.
Not too long ago, the endlessly entertaining Laurie Penny – who entertains us for reasons she doesn’t quite comprehend – pointed her readers to a breathless endorsement of the fatherless family. New Enquiry contributor Madeleine Schwartz dubbed this non-nuclear unit the “anti-family,” thus signalling its countercultural radicalism and general sexiness. We were told, based on nothing much, that “a couple cannot raise a child better than one [person] can.” Apparently, the “diffusion” of the family unit – which is to say, absent fathers, hardship and subsequent dependence on the state – “is one of the most exciting things to happen to the American social pattern since sexual liberation.”
Ms Schwartz was careful to avoid actual data and striking correlations – say, between absent fathers and children’s educational failure, poverty, dependency and criminality – and so, for her, the “diffusion” of the family unit sounded very thrilling indeed, as woolly abstractions can. Buoyed by her own imagined radicalism, Ms Schwartz went on to claim, again based on nothing, that ‘nuclear’ family structures “isolate” people, rather than, say, introducing them to a potential support network of aunts, uncles, sisters-in-law, etc. You see, raising a child without a partner – and therefore without at least half of that familial support structure – isn’t isolating at all. Because somehow the “community” will fill in the gaps. Or more typically, the state and its bureaucracy, at other people’s expense. And gosh, how radical is that?
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what the psychology of socialism looks like.
Bravo, David. *hits tipjar*
Have a drink on me.
Have a drink on me.
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I don’t understand the Left’s hatred of patriarchy. No system is perfect of course, but patriarchal societies have lasted a long time. Where are all the successful matriarchies?
Posted by: Jason | July 12, 2013 at 18:39
IT is not the Patriarchy they hate so much as it is the Core Family Unit. The Destruction of Patriarchy is but one step along that greater goal. The Family not only fosters and encourages freedom but reinforces the notion that we need to be free.
In order to destroy freedom, they must destroy the family. In order to destroy the family, they must destroy Patriarchy, fatherhood, and fathers by extension.
As for your other question about where all the successful matriarchies went… I hope you already know the answer to that question.
Rich Rostrom,
The whole child benefit payments thing seems to be a lesson in Blazing Saddles style hostage taking.
Pay up or the child gets hurt.
Never a good idea to reward hostage takers
Apparently, the “diffusion” of the family unit – which is to say, absent fathers, hardship and subsequent dependence on the state – “is one of the most exciting things to happen to the American social pattern since sexual liberation.”
“Lone parent families are increasing at a rate of more than 20,000 a year and will total more than two million by the time of the next election, according to a major new report.”
http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/UserStorage/pdf/Press%20releases%202013/CSJ-Press-Release-Lone-Parents.pdf
Utopia!
“Lone parent families are increasing at a rate of more than 20,000 a year and will total more than two million by the time of the next election…”
I feel an urge to quote Mark Steyn:
I can’t help thinking this “exciting” “anti-family” model might be losing its lustre.
Charles Hammond wrote: “As for your other question about where all the successful matriarchies went… I hope you already know the answer to that question.”
I know that various feminists have claimed that prior to the rise of Patriarchy, the entire world was a Matriarchal paradise, but I’m not aware of any empirical evidence that supports that case. And given that such societies, if they did exist, failed to create civilizations and have failed to survive into the modern, or even the historical, era, I don’t know that they could be considered “successful” by any meaningful metric.
As a model for a hunter/gatherer society, matriarchy might work, but I have no particular desire to live in such a society, and I doubt that most feminists would embrace such a lifestyle either.
My wife is a nurse at an inner-city hospital in Chicago. Penny and Schwartz are welcome to visit and observe the effects of absentee dads and barely literate moms (“educated” by public schools) on their offspring.
‘The Millers and the Weirs, behind their smokescreen of egalitarian posturing, are in fact the greatest imaginable beneficiaries of class privilege’.
IIRC, didn’t Polly Toynbee managed to make it to Oxford despite only getting one A level?
According to Wiki, Pollyanna went to Holland Park School, the ‘flagship for comprehensive education’:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_Park_School
‘In the early 1960s, each school year was divided into A, B, C, D, and E streams up until the 3rd year. As the groups were so large, they were again divided, typically into 3. Later the “A” “B” etc. grading was considered to be bad for children’s self-esteem, so “A” “B” and “C” were replaced by “H” “P” and “S” (Holland Park School).
In the late 1970s, under Derek Rushworth, streaming was totally scrapped in favour of total egalitarianism. Another aspect of egalitarian thought was that many school traditions were scrapped and in the late 1970s there were no awards for academic achievement, in order not to demoralise low achievers. Dr Rushworth nevertheless favoured high achievement in niche areas, and himself continued to teach Latin to children who requested lessons. His motto was “Everyone should know about everything,” and critics saw this as leading to a dumbing down of the curriculum.
The theory was that poorly achieving students would perform better if not segregated, but rather immersed in an equal learning environment. Some argue that such and (sic) educational philosophy causes teaching to drop to the lowest common denominator, and in the 1990s the school began to revert to more traditional teaching practices’.
Interesting.
As a coda, the ‘timeline of events’ notes that in 1985 ‘the Head, Dr Rushworth, was beaten up and had both his ankles broken’. A mere coincidence, I presume.
sackcloth and ashes,
Later the “A” “B” etc. grading was considered to be bad for children’s self-esteem, so “A” “B” and “C” were replaced by “H” “P” and “S” (Holland Park School).
Heh. The comprehensive I went to wasn’t quite like Holland Park. It didn’t, for instance, have an indoor swimming pool or even a “butterfly room.” It did, though, have a number of predatory thugs, one of whom amused himself by using a bootlace to whip and cut the faces of anyone looking overly studious. He and the other predators tended to single out anyone who seemed too clever for their liking or, by their reckoning, “posh.” Which is to say, just about anyone able to string words together. Oddly, the self-esteem of their victims, or indeed their safety, didn’t seem a priority for the school. Which may explain why I became quite good at throwing chairs in order to deter similar treatment. Successfully, I might add.
Happy days.
As I understand it, the research behind the call for the abolition of things like “tracking” and “honors” versions of courses, says that it’s no the “poor” ability students, but the “average” ability students who benefit from having the “high” ability students in the same class with them. Two plausible non-mutually exclusive explanations I’ve heard for this are: 1) If you have a “regular” and an “honors” class, teachers will demand less from the “regular” class; and 2) If an “honors” class exists, the students who are not in it will see that as a suggestion that they’re not all that smart, hence they won’t work as hard or achieve as much.
I think those are fair points, and I think that it’s true that “mixed” classes could work very well under the right circumstances. But the rub lies in those last four words. That is, to derive the benefits promised by a “mixed” class, you’d have to make a lot of assumptions about teacher competence, student maturity, and administrative support (among other things) which I’m sure are nowhere close to resembling normal circumstances.
But of course, the failure of promised results to materialize just means we haven’t thrown enough money at the problem…
If you mix in the smart kids with the dumb kids and shanghai the drama teacher into teaching 10th-grade English, the class never progresses beyond capitalization and punctuation because the dumb kids keep flunking the quizzes. It was the only class where I sat in the back, dinked around, and was yelled at by the teacher for disruption.
Consequently, I never really learned English formally, because 10th grade was where we were supposed to learn parts of speech and diagramming and the like. Had I not learned Spanish and a bit of Latin, I’d never know.
If you’re in the “stupid” or “less stupid” class but it’s going at your pace, then you’ll learn something. If you’re in over your head, you’ll learn nothing, because it’s going to fast for you. If you’re in a class that’s too slow for you, you also learn nothing, because they’re covering stuff you already know.
Furthermore, when you put them in mixed-ability groups, the smart kids to all the work and the dumb kids just sit there, grateful to not have to do anything.
Just make sure that in gym class, you’re also dividing kids by ability: most of the brainiacs will be in the “dumb” athletic group, which helps with the humility thing. I also would have been in the “dumb” classes for math and chemistry.
Most people are pretty good at something; not all of those somethings are measured in schoolwork.
School doesn’t last forever: deal with being bad at something and then when you’re out of school, do what you can and be happy.
‘The comprehensive I went to wasn’t quite like Holland Park. It didn’t, for instance, have an indoor swimming pool or even a “butterfly room.” It did, though, have a number of predatory thugs, one of whom amused himself by using a bootlace to whip and cut the faces of anyone looking overly studious. He and the other predators tended to single out anyone who seemed too clever for their liking or, by their reckoning, “posh.” Which is to say, just about anyone able to string words together. Oddly, the self-esteem of their victims, or indeed their safety, didn’t seem a priority for the school. Which may explain why I became quite good at throwing chairs in order to deter similar treatment. Successfully, I might add’.
One of the Holland Park alumni, John-Paul Flintoff, wrote a book (‘Comp: A Survivor’s Tale’) to describe what being educated in the school was like. I haven’t read it, but the summaries of it look pretty grim.
About a week ago one of the ITV channels showed the Alan Clarke drama ‘Scum’, which provides an unflinching picture of Borstal. Reflecting on it and Flintoff’s own work, I found comparisons between the two institutions which the ideologues behind comprehensive education would no doubt find appalling. Admittedly, Holland Park in Flintoff’s time (and the inner city comp my mum taught at) didn’t have brutal warders, but both institutions had a fatuous and ideologically hidebound head/governor spouting platitudes, whilst the grim reality was that the institutions concerned were like gladiatorial hell-holes, in which the strong inmates/pupils bullied the weak mercilessly.
Flintoff apparently makes it clear in his memoir that in order to cope in Dr Rushworth’s utopia, he had to orchestrate the bullying of weaker pupils in order to avoid being picked on himself. Being in his early teens I can understand his cynical survival methods (hell, I would have done the same in his shoes) but I can’t help feeling a sense of disgust. How many kids had their lives wrecked because the ‘progressive’ head and teacher remained above the fray, and created the conditions for a vicious form of social Darwinism which you yourself experienced in your own school? How many teachers were turned into nervous wrecks as a result of their own experiences of mob rule by pupils who were allowed to abuse and attack them with impunity?
The Rushworths of this world have created their own little Borstals, and have tried to pretend that they were building something different. I thank my parents daily for the fact that they put their hard-earned money together to put me through a fee-paying school. God knows where I’d be if they hadn’t.
sackcloth and ashes,
One of the Holland Park alumni, John-Paul Flintoff, wrote a book (‘Comp: A Survivor’s Tale’) to describe what being educated in the school was like.
I may have to pick up a copy and see how it compares. It’s often interesting to see how socialist theory collides with reality. It’s just a pity it has to happen at the expense of actual people.
On a rating of A to E, with A being decent and E being bedlam, I’d say the comprehensive I attended was probably a D. A few months ago I checked the Ofsted report for the school – now a “community arts college” – and it’s still grim reading. “Attainment in key subjects” – English, maths and science – is rated “low” and “well below average.” Attendance is a major issue. And it’s worth pointing out that at the time the school was pretty typical of others in the area. In local terms, it wasn’t regarded as a failed school; it wasn’t remarkable at all. It was how schools were. I don’t mean to suggest any great martyrdom on my part. I managed to avoid the worst of what went on, thanks to a mix of humour and the aforementioned proficiency in throwing chairs. But I saw other kids, including friends, being made miserable. I’ve mentioned before how one new arrival – well-spoken and obviously from a fairly middle-class background – was bullied immediately. Jostling, theft, intimidation – the usual crap. And the fact that he was smart, amiable and scrupulously polite was precisely why he was picked on.
But remember, the Observer’s class warrior Barbara Ellen wants us to believe that the treatment he received, along with many others, is “part of an instinctive protest that lies at the very core of sociopolitical emancipation.” The teenagers who stole his bag and threw the contents out of a window were “responding to oppression.” And their shoving and intimidation, which ran for days on end, was apparently “an instinctive protest against inequality.” He, being “posher” than them, is somehow expendable. His misery, and the miseries of those like him, doesn’t count. Because the oiks who were stealing his stuff and getting in his face, just because they could, they were the real victims. Remember too that this well-spoken pupil, the one who was being picked on, is exactly the kind of person that the Guardian’s Zoe Williams would like to see tormented and humiliated in the name of “social justice.” (“As for vindictive, ha! Good.”)
Again, the psychology of socialism. It excuses all manner of malice and makes a person stupid.
‘But remember, the Observer’s class warrior Barbara Ellen wants us to believe that the treatment he received, along with many others, is “part of an instinctive protest that lies at the very core of sociopolitical emancipation.” The teenagers who stole his bag and threw the contents out of a window were “responding to oppression.” And their shoving and intimidation, which ran for days on end, was apparently “an instinctive protest against inequality.” He, being “posher” than them, is somehow expendable. His misery, and the miseries of those like him, doesn’t count. Because the oiks who were stealing his stuff and getting in his face, just because they could, they were the real victims. Remember too that this well-spoken pupil, the one who was being picked on, is exactly the kind of person that the Guardian’s Zoe Williams would like to see tormented and humiliated in the name of “social justice.”’
If they had experienced that level of bullying, would they have stood for it?
Sooner or later you run out of chairs.
Ironically, by using the phrase ‘sociopolitical emancipation’ Ellen would have earned an immediate and merciless beating at precisely the sort of school she wants people like her to attend.
I can only assume it is the upper middle class Left’s standard self-loathing and hatred projected onto others, as per normal.
Socialist theory collides with people, not reality.
sackcloth and ashes,
If they had experienced that level of bullying, would they have stood for it?
Hopefully not. But if their own parents had pretended to have the values they themselves pretend to have maybe they’d have been made to put up with it. In the name of fairness and being “a good, responsible citizen.” Either way, it does rather show how Marxoid dogma excuses routine malice and leads to moral absurdity. Like Fabian Tassano, I tend to think that before leftwing columnists profess the alleged virtues of comprehensive schooling they should first have spent a couple of years in one, at the very least. And not in one of the more fashionable ones.
Rob,
Ironically, by using the phrase ‘sociopolitical emancipation’ Ellen would have earned an immediate and merciless beating at precisely the sort of school she wants people… to attend.
It’s rather like how her fellow Guardianista Zoe Williams tells us how lovely and morally improving comprehensives are while having little direct experience of the subject. Which makes me wonder what would have happened if Zoe’s own children – named Thurston and Harper – had walked through the doors of the shithole I attended. It seems quite likely that they’d have attracted unwelcome attention simply for being named Thurston and Harper.
Sooner or later you run out of chairs.
The trick is to make just one or two very dramatic displays, winging a couple of the thugs when they don’t expect it, ideally drawing blood, and thereby deflating their egos. Once you’ve done the whole I-Can-Play-Psychopath-Too routine, it buys you a bit of peace. They’re not quite sure what to expect and generally go and pick on someone else because it’s less risky. Which is, I grant you, unfortunate for whomever that someone is.
The more of this I see and read, the more I realise it’s all just a game. An amusement involving some smug self-styled intellectuals trying to make new ‘fairer’ rules but a game moving towards an outcome that will result in the whole board being knocked off the table.
And then the table gets trashed, too.