"Obedience is so important to education that all education is nothing other than learning how to obey. It is a generally recognized principle that persons of high estate who are destined to rule whole nations must learn the art of governance by way of first learning obedience. Qui nescit obediere, nescit imperare: the reason for this is that obedience teaches a person to be zealous in observing the law, which is the first quality of a ruler. Thus, after one has driven out willfulness as a result of one’s first labours with children the chief goal of one’s further labours must be obedience. It is not easy, however, to implant obedience in children. It is quite natural for the child’s soul to want to have a will of its own, and things that are not done correctly in the first two years will be difficult to rectify later. One of the advantages of these early years is that force and compulsion can be used. Over the years children forget everything that happened to them in early childhood. If their wills can be broken at this time, they will never remember afterwards that they had a will, and for this very reason the severity that is required will not have any serious consequences."
From : 'An Essay on the Education and Instruction of Children' J. Sulzer 1748
"It is my view that one should never strike a child for offences they commit out of weakness. The only vice deserving of blows is obstinacy. It is wrong therefore to strike children at their lessons, it is wrong to strike them for falling down, it is wrong to strike them for wreaking harm unwittingly, it is wrong to strike them for crying; but it is right and proper to strike them for all of these transgressions and for even more trivial ones if they have committed them out of wickedness. If you son does not want to learn because it is your will, if he cries with the intent of defying you, if he does harm in order to offend you, in short, if he insists in having his own way :
The whip him, well till he cries so
oh no Papa, oh no!
Such disobedience amounts to a declaration of war against you. Your son is trying to usurp your authority, and you are justified in answering force with force in order to insure his respect, without which you will be unable to train him. The blows you administer should not be merely playful ones but should convince him that you are his master. Therefore you must not desist until he does what he previously refused out of wickedness to do."
From : 'Some Thoughts on the Education of Children' : J. Kruger 1752
These are but a few examples of the texts from the 1700s that formed the basis for Compulsory State Education, a project that originated in the Textile Factories of the North of England... as a means of training workers and controlling the masses...
Most Urban workers and managers and all the Elites treated their children in this manner, in one way or another, consciously or unconsciously, up to the the present day. Indigenous peoples rarely do, nor do peasants... in general. There are always exceptions, on both sides.
What is terrifying, to me at least, is the understanding or psychological insight that is illustrated in these tomes. THEY KNEW EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE DOING. 300 years ago! There are older texts, dating back to Roman and Spartan timers. And they too knew exactly what they were doing.
Driving out willfulness, instilling blind obedience, all through force and compulsion rationalised on the basis that they assumed ALL children were prone to 'wickedness' (a mime of Original Sin), as much as they assumed all peasants, all indigenous peoples were too. The Laws of Europe show this clearly. The Art of colonising harsh lands with petty convicts drawn form the poorest of their societies is part of the same world view.
This world view exists today, though it was only in 1998 that the UK Government banned corporal punishment in all schools. Following on from that testing and exams took a more and more important role in 'conditioning' children, justified as ever by spurious claims about needing to have some kind of way of ensuring that educational targets were being met, with various sanctions for those who fail.... being held back, insulted, humiliated, labelled with 'learning difficulty', the threat of a life of menial work etc etc as much as rewards for those who 'succeed' stars, marks, approval and 'good jobs'..... the psychological abuse taking over from the physical abuse. All of this carefully meditated. And guaranteed by an overarching enforcing bureaucracy.
Teachers are given huge amounts of paper-work to do to fill their time, are dependent upon ensuring children do go through the process for their very jobs and income, and are reduced to policing children through these exams .... simply because they have not and are not given the time to spend with the children that is required for healthy learning and exploration... and the same can be said for most parents today in our cities and towns, with both parents working, spending more of their energy on paying off mortgages than on easy time with their children.
This world view is one that Blair, Brown, Obama and Bush demonstrate in their warmongering. The Policing at G20 is more of the same. The media repeats the message most of the time.
The question raised by all this is not how come so many succumb, but how come so many even today fail to see the damage, how come so many simply accept all this, in the 21st Century ... even some of those who have awakened to their own experiences can rationalise these kinds of behaviours.
And it is the case that these world views are resilient, are internalised by those who survive, and by those who escape, (unconsciously for most - we forget those early years..) and thus they form a large part of our cultures rules and regulations (though enforced mostly against the poorer sections of our society... with the rulers getting away with murder ... De Menzes murder in Stockwell Tube Station is a case in point..Iraq? Afghanistan? Pakistan? Columbia? Bolivia?. there are many, many more examples closer to home...- nearly 30 people every year die in Police Custody, yet no police man has EVER been brought to justice for these deaths!)
Every leader over the age of 40 who has been through these kinds of damaging experiences, and is unaware of how deep the damage is, will of course inflict the same on those they 'rule', will obey the Bureaucracy and most are easily corrupted, for the weakness is inherent in someone whose will has been broken.
This is not to let them, or anyone off the hook. This is to say LOOK at these realities. UNDERSTAND what we are dealing with in Politics.
Homeschooling is under severe attack in this country as I write, and all of the above is the real WHY of that attack. The state requires that ALL CHILDREN'S minds be colonised and controlled. To the extent that we as adults seek to 'train' or 'control' our children is the extent to which we have internalised those values. To the extent that we can rationalise violence and coercion is the extent to which we have succumbed to the conditioning.
And only it is we. it is only ourselves that can undo this. That is the deepest ecological act any humane being can do - to reclaim what was lost in the past, to reclaim our true and honest identity and to learn again to think and feel for ourselves and to allow, and to also to encourage that original sensing for the next generation of children.
Kindest regards
Corneilius
Do what you love, it's your gift to universe
From : 'An Essay on the Education and Instruction of Children' J. Sulzer 1748
"It is my view that one should never strike a child for offences they commit out of weakness. The only vice deserving of blows is obstinacy. It is wrong therefore to strike children at their lessons, it is wrong to strike them for falling down, it is wrong to strike them for wreaking harm unwittingly, it is wrong to strike them for crying; but it is right and proper to strike them for all of these transgressions and for even more trivial ones if they have committed them out of wickedness. If you son does not want to learn because it is your will, if he cries with the intent of defying you, if he does harm in order to offend you, in short, if he insists in having his own way :
The whip him, well till he cries so
oh no Papa, oh no!
Such disobedience amounts to a declaration of war against you. Your son is trying to usurp your authority, and you are justified in answering force with force in order to insure his respect, without which you will be unable to train him. The blows you administer should not be merely playful ones but should convince him that you are his master. Therefore you must not desist until he does what he previously refused out of wickedness to do."
From : 'Some Thoughts on the Education of Children' : J. Kruger 1752
These are but a few examples of the texts from the 1700s that formed the basis for Compulsory State Education, a project that originated in the Textile Factories of the North of England... as a means of training workers and controlling the masses...
Most Urban workers and managers and all the Elites treated their children in this manner, in one way or another, consciously or unconsciously, up to the the present day. Indigenous peoples rarely do, nor do peasants... in general. There are always exceptions, on both sides.
What is terrifying, to me at least, is the understanding or psychological insight that is illustrated in these tomes. THEY KNEW EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE DOING. 300 years ago! There are older texts, dating back to Roman and Spartan timers. And they too knew exactly what they were doing.
Driving out willfulness, instilling blind obedience, all through force and compulsion rationalised on the basis that they assumed ALL children were prone to 'wickedness' (a mime of Original Sin), as much as they assumed all peasants, all indigenous peoples were too. The Laws of Europe show this clearly. The Art of colonising harsh lands with petty convicts drawn form the poorest of their societies is part of the same world view.
This world view exists today, though it was only in 1998 that the UK Government banned corporal punishment in all schools. Following on from that testing and exams took a more and more important role in 'conditioning' children, justified as ever by spurious claims about needing to have some kind of way of ensuring that educational targets were being met, with various sanctions for those who fail.... being held back, insulted, humiliated, labelled with 'learning difficulty', the threat of a life of menial work etc etc as much as rewards for those who 'succeed' stars, marks, approval and 'good jobs'..... the psychological abuse taking over from the physical abuse. All of this carefully meditated. And guaranteed by an overarching enforcing bureaucracy.
Teachers are given huge amounts of paper-work to do to fill their time, are dependent upon ensuring children do go through the process for their very jobs and income, and are reduced to policing children through these exams .... simply because they have not and are not given the time to spend with the children that is required for healthy learning and exploration... and the same can be said for most parents today in our cities and towns, with both parents working, spending more of their energy on paying off mortgages than on easy time with their children.
This world view is one that Blair, Brown, Obama and Bush demonstrate in their warmongering. The Policing at G20 is more of the same. The media repeats the message most of the time.
The question raised by all this is not how come so many succumb, but how come so many even today fail to see the damage, how come so many simply accept all this, in the 21st Century ... even some of those who have awakened to their own experiences can rationalise these kinds of behaviours.
And it is the case that these world views are resilient, are internalised by those who survive, and by those who escape, (unconsciously for most - we forget those early years..) and thus they form a large part of our cultures rules and regulations (though enforced mostly against the poorer sections of our society... with the rulers getting away with murder ... De Menzes murder in Stockwell Tube Station is a case in point..Iraq? Afghanistan? Pakistan? Columbia? Bolivia?. there are many, many more examples closer to home...- nearly 30 people every year die in Police Custody, yet no police man has EVER been brought to justice for these deaths!)
Every leader over the age of 40 who has been through these kinds of damaging experiences, and is unaware of how deep the damage is, will of course inflict the same on those they 'rule', will obey the Bureaucracy and most are easily corrupted, for the weakness is inherent in someone whose will has been broken.
This is not to let them, or anyone off the hook. This is to say LOOK at these realities. UNDERSTAND what we are dealing with in Politics.
Homeschooling is under severe attack in this country as I write, and all of the above is the real WHY of that attack. The state requires that ALL CHILDREN'S minds be colonised and controlled. To the extent that we as adults seek to 'train' or 'control' our children is the extent to which we have internalised those values. To the extent that we can rationalise violence and coercion is the extent to which we have succumbed to the conditioning.
And only it is we. it is only ourselves that can undo this. That is the deepest ecological act any humane being can do - to reclaim what was lost in the past, to reclaim our true and honest identity and to learn again to think and feel for ourselves and to allow, and to also to encourage that original sensing for the next generation of children.
Kindest regards
Corneilius
Do what you love, it's your gift to universe