While good social outcomes all tend to go together, the state capacity literature fails to show that government is the crucial factor that makes all the others possible. Indeed, as far as I can tell, existing empirics are quite consistent with Sutton’s Law that people rob banks because “that’s where the money is.”
Tag: learning
In the Wake of Mass Shootings, Parents Reconsider Mass Schooling
Instead of overreacting, parents who decide to remove their children from school to homeschool them may be acknowledging the disconnect between the inherent coercion of compulsory mass schooling and the freedom to live in the genuine world around us. Rather than sheltering their children, parents who select the homeschooling option may be endeavoring to widen their child’s community, broaden their experiences, and restore their emotional well-being.
Curiosity Is the Enemy of Conceit
Through the lens of curiosity, self-promotion and conceitedness become pretty boring alternatives to learning more and engaging with others. I’ll spend those first few minutes of conversation asking the questions. If my life story comes up as something valuable, I should know how to use it. But if I hardly speak a word about myself at a networking event or other gathering, it’s not such a great loss.
When You Have a Voice Telling You You’re Inadequate
This week I had conversations with a couple of loved ones who struggle with an inner voice that tells them that something is wrong with them. It made me think about many years where I felt this sense of inadequacy, a deep sense of not being worthy. I still struggle with it sometimes. So what can we do when we have this inner critic, this voice inside us that doesn’t seem to feel that we’re worthy?
Unschooling is not ‘Lord of the Flies’
In the book, the absence of adults to model and nurture responsibility is palpably felt. Adults matter to children. They guide, protect, tend, reassure, and mediate. The lack of calm, care, and stability that adults offer children is what ultimately triggers the boys’ downfall. Of course, the great lesson from this great book is that it isn’t just children who would descend into brutality when calm, care, and stability are missing; it’s all of us.
Funding Higher Education Debate: My Opening Statement
Why should higher education receive government support? There are two main arguments. The first is the economic argument. Government support is allegedly economically beneficial not merely for individual students, but for society as a whole. The second is the humanistic argument. Economic effects aside, government support is vital for the promotion of intrinsically valuable ideas, culture, and values.
Freedom, Not Force, Creates Lifelong Learners
As author Ray Bradbury famously said: “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” If we want an educated and engaged citizenry, with a passion for reading and knowledge and ongoing self-improvement, then perhaps “free choice” should be the norm rather than the exception.
The Myth of Institutionalized Learning
This weekend conversation exposes the deep, underlying myth in our culture that children cannot learn unless they are systematically taught. Whether in school or school-at-home, children can only learn when they are directed by an adult, when they follow an established curriculum, when they are prodded and assessed. How could a child possibly know how to identify plants if it wasn’t part of a school-like lesson?
75 Times Around the Sun
Yesterday I observed the 25th Anniversary of my 50th birthday. On the original occasion, I opined that, like Merle Haggard, I could say “my life’s been grand!” I said at the time that I had lived a great half-century, therefore no matter what happened to me after that I could say that most of my life had been grand. The facts of the matter are that the continuing quarter-century has been even grander.
Your Limitations and the Logic of Self-Discipline
Consistency means routine, and routine means discipline. As I’ve worked to implement a new daily morning routine in the last month, I’ve had to call on more discipline than I’ve used in much of my life. If I wasn’t clear about the reason for discipline, I (like most people) probably wouldn’t be doing it. Again, discipline appears arbitrary and unfriendly when it’s not paired with self-interest.