The Art of Memorization
The primary mechanism our society uses to determine one’s eventual wealth and place in the social hierarchy is their academic performance. As such, many put forward an incredible sustained effort to succeed at each rung of the academic ladder, and in many cases, at the urging of their parents, begin that effort from a very young age. However, while a variety of justifications exist for the society adopting this convention, there are also major issues with it, such as:
•Far too many who go through it and put in a sustained effort to “succeed” end up with nothing to show for it.
•Because education has essentially established a monopoly on moving up the social ladder (which forces everyday citizens to participate in its rat race), it has no incentive to provide quality education to those it trains—particularly since unconditional federal support (e.g., student loans) subsidizes education and is allotted based on how many students attend each institution, not the quality of the education offered.
•Education primarily focuses on telling you what to do, not how to do it. As a result, those with inherent talent do much better than their peers, whereas many of those who simply try to do what they are told to do fall short regardless of how much effort they put in.
•By making people believe they need to be “taught to learn” through copying what the teacher does rather than encouraging the natural learning capacity of each student to emerge, the educational process makes students lose their inherent ability to learn or think critically.
Note: a recent study found that throughout history, whenever there are periods of internal conflict, states have introduced education reform that is designed to indoctrinate citizens to accept the status quo.
As such, the primary function of schooling has become more and more dependent on conditions of subservience and conformity rather than creating a generation of creative critical thinkers who can solve the issues our country faces and innovate solutions that advance us into the future. This in turn, is both highly unfair to those who are put through the academic grinder (but not inherently suited for success within it) and an immense waste of national resources. For example, as the years go by, we keep spending more money on research and education:
Yet primary educational outcomes (e.g., literacy) keep worsening, and valuable scientific innovations keep becoming rarer:
Note: I believe one of the most significant issues with the profit-focused debasement of American educat
Article from LewRockwell
LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
