based on the focus of America. I have been deep in study of Greek society and philosophy.
I am currently reading Jaeger book, “Paideia” which is about Greek education.
The Greeks goal of education was different than ours and this difference points to
the reason we are in the midst of crisis and failure. The Greeks point of education was
about MAN. The Greeks felt everything they needed to know was in Homer. The key point
in education for the Greeks was Arete. This means excellence. Now in Homer, arête, was
about military excellence, excellence as a warrior, fighter. Homer meant arete as a concept
was a noble ideal. Nobility had arête, not the common man. The means to finding excellence
was the point of Greek education. By the time of Socrates, arête, could mean excellence in
any endeavor, not just as a warrior. Now notice this search for excellence, arête, was not about
getting a job or having a career, no, it was about being a better human being. Our educational system
has no interest in finding out what makes better people or what makes a better citizen, but
our educational system is about training people for jobs or a career. We have totally accepted the
basic premise of both Karl Marx and Adam Smith, which is that man is an economic being.
We are what we make and sell. Our entire educational system is about creating economic beings.
Our educational system doesn’t care about whither people are good, bad, excellent, or indifferent.
It doesn’t matter to our educational system and in fact our economic activities such as in companies,
factories, buying and selling, discourages such thought into good, bad and excellence. Excellence
is discourage unless it brings about greater profit. The entire educational system is about the creation
of profit, money and this is what companies are about, profit, money. This is also why philosophy has
become the unwanted child of the educational system. Science can (and has) brought about
wealth, profit, money, so science has a role in the American educational system, but philosophy
does not and cannot bring about profit, money, so it is neglected, unwanted, discouraged.
Philosophy basic goal of understanding man’s place in the universe is not needed in a world
that only values the creation of profit. I work with a lot of kids and most of them are getting
business management degree’s, one is into biology, which is science. Not one of the dozens of
kids I work with have any interest or inclination to explore the humanities or philosophy. It
has no prospects or future as a job or as a career. There is no interest or understanding in
discovering who or what is excellence, arête, in people. this lack of interest has
allowed people like Palin to be a heartbeat away from the being the leader of the world.
We have no interest in whether she has excellence or understands what is excellence
because we ourselves, have no understanding of what is excellence. Someone has to tell
us if an idea is good or bad, because we have been taught in terms of getting a job,
not in terms of what is good or bad or even what is honest or any other intangible
trait because those traits do not create profit or money. As our educational system is a reflection
of our values, it means the failure of America is because of our failure in pursuing what
we should be pursing which is not man as an economic being, but man in pursuit of
man’s place in the universe, man as a philosophical being. We are complicit in the
ongoing failure of America. We will be complicit when America finally collapses.
America failure is my failure and America failure is your failure. We have collectively
failed and we will continue to fail until we change the basic premise of America’s educational
system from creating economic beings to philosophical beings.
Kropotkin