Education system produces addicts and drunks

I just wanted to make a couple of comments on the editorial on education, published Aug. 29.

I think I know where you’re coming from. Self-determination, empowerment, knowledge economy; these are hollow, empty packages for equally illusive concepts of political and economic self-sufficiency. The “fifth column” (or was it the market place?) is a dangerous, vicious animal that has been stirring and threatening to wake up since the industrial age began. And the school system is the answer.

Though its beginnings are spread out over space and time, the development of universal schooling as we know it today can be traced back from Bismarck’s Germany to the modern day United States. Universal schooling was never intended to produce self-sufficient, empowered individuals. It was to train and develop non-thinking, unquestioning fodder for the engines of industry and war (consumers of prepackaged illusions and dreams).

This is Plato’s Republic writ large for it also uses very subtle and not-so-subtle filters to process the division of labour and classes through a system of social, political and economic rewards and punishments, and more specifically, through rights and privileges. To be considered for any position, one needs the “right” pedigree, education, and position. Harvard, military colleges, political office and the attendant privileges; one needs connections and family history to be taken seriously.

A dinky little jurisdiction like Nunavut? You’ve got to be kidding! The wandering wraiths, addicts and drunks (Inuit mostly) that you see around town didn’t just come about out of the blue — they were produced by the education system.

How and what makes one reflexively think that it’s the fault of the marginalized individual, and not the system, when we see these people, reflects our uncritical acceptance of the teats of the beast.

Jay Arnakak
Iqaluit