In some agreement with Keith, I don't see the increase of
opportunities for the young as being a matter of political ideology
or politics or even a matter of what the modern human sciences are
telling us. The thing that has generated opportunities that enable
young people to get ahead and transcend the barriers that prevented
their parents from doing so are massive changes in the socio-economic
world. I was a depression baby, born in western Canada to immigrant
parents in the early 1930's. I remember adults talking about how
gloomy things were. One of my cousins, ten years older than me,
wanted to go to university or at least get some form of higher
education. He was told to forget about it, that's for rich kids.
Then came the war and the postwar years. There was an explosion of
opportunities, even a kid like me, born poor and without much hope,
wound up at university with ever so many kids from similar
backgrounds. My major regret at the time was that the wide open
world I was now in came at the cost of the lives of some six million
Jews and millions of other people. There is another, a more
pervasive regret that has dogged me and I'm sure many other
depression babies. The fact that my earliest growing up took place
in a word of almost zero hope has made me a rather gloomy person --
expect the worst; there is no best.
I would disagree with Keith on his view that the plight of the
African child in the diamond or gold mine is a product of bad luck.
I'd argue that his or her plight is a product of centuries of
colonialism and capitalist repression which at some point has to be,
and hopefully will, be swept into the dust bin of history, though
right now I can't say how that might happen. I would, however,
totally agree that political parties, whether right or left wing,
will have very little to with it. I see political parties as
corporate entities looking after their own interests and not those of
the public, though there are large exceptions. It will likely take
some major conflagration, a major war perhaps, to enable the African
child to walk out of the gold or diamond mine, get an education, and
become something other than a socio-political causality. If we can
do it, he or she can do it, though I have to admit it will be much
harder for them.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: Keith Hudson <mailto:[email protected]>
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, ,EDUCATION
<mailto:[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 11:22 PM
Subject: [Futurework] A Plague on Both Houses
The rapidly accumulating evidence of the modern human sciences is
now telling us with increasing clarity that the fundamental
assumptions of both left- and right-politics are fallacious. Even
the wonders of a "mixed economy" or a "third way" -- as
individually promoted by both Labour and Conservative prime
ministers in this country in the last 20 years -- have proved to
be risible. Differences of poverty, opportunity and political
power remain much the same as always in any advanced country
whatever type of government, sometimes slightly reducing when
great effort and spending is made under a socialist government,
more usually expanding when eyes are taken off the ball in
so-called free-enterprise government..
The whole debate can be reduced to a simple example in which the
observations, large-scale surveys and lab researches of
educationalists, psychologists, anthropologists, neuroscientists,
geneticists and evolutionary biologists are all in almost total
agreement. It is that, at the time of puberty, the adolescent is
the recipient of his or her personality and potential skills. He
or she is hardly at all the creator of those specifications. The
individual has had very little to do with laying down those
specifications nor, apart from luck, the way that those
specifications subsequently play themselves out and largely
determine the experiences and happiness in the remainder of his
or her lifetime.
Excluding the luck of a lottery draw or inheriting a million from
an unknown relative, there are three main lucks in life. They're
all interlinked but are sufficiently different in their effects
that they can be discussed separately. The first is the
emotional, informational and cultural environments mainly
imparted by parents but also influenced by school-teachers in the
early years of childhood. By the age of puberty, any social or
intellectual skills not laid down by then will never be fully
recoverable in later life, no matter how hard one tries.
The second luck is the nature and abilities of one's post-puberty
peer group to whom the individual now devotes much more attention
as, together, they approach adulthood. It is in this period that
the individual can now develop and enhance the comparative
advantage of his or her best skills, testing them against others
in the peer group and finding a role within it. As the prospect
of adult life draws closer, friends made in this period are
usually friends for life.
The third luck is the nature and abilities of, usually, just one
or two patrons (often one's parents) who have a sufficient span
of like social contacts which enable a young adult to finally
find an initial lodgement in an adult group which, to a greater
or lesser extent, is normally protective of entry by any young
hopeful. This third luck also includes the size of the income
made available in a particular group, or the intrinsic interest
of a job, and also whether that particular specialization
continues to be favoured by the changing economic environment.
To summarize:
1. Unless a socialist government interferes in the intimate
family life of every child from his or her earliest months and
years in the hope of equalizing opportunities then inequalities
of personalities and abilities are broadly set by the age of
puberty. No amount of good intent by governments can change this.
2. A right-wing government cannot make claims of virtue for its
apparent heroes. Those individuals are the product of good luck
just as an African child working and dying in a diamond or gold
mine is the product of bad luck.
Politics is already in a bad way. It's not likely to get any
better in the coming years as we try to work off the immense
private, corporate and governmental debts that the policies of
both left-wing and right-wing governments have lumbered us with.
The modern human sciences are telling us quite radical things
about what we really are like. The new politics will probably be
concerned with how power can be confined within groups -- where
it is more accessible to be pulled down if necessary -- rather
than between groups as now. I can take this no further. For now,
until the findings of the human sciences spread around for a
generation or two, I would join the refrain of an increasing
number of the young. It's not very constructive, I'm afraid: A
Plague on Both Houses!
Keith
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
<http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/>
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