4 Authority - Fair Play: What Your Child Can Teach You About Economics, Values and the Meaning of Life by Steven E. Landsburg - #rubinettiedentifrici #pensierocritico #troppomaleotroppopoco #meglioromereleleggiofarle?
The cult of environmentalism demands that children abandon all independent thought about the nature of rights and obligations, replacing it with mindless subservience to the value judgments of their teachers. It wouldn’t be difficult for teachers to address environmental issues in a refreshingly different way—as invitations to critical thought. I believe, for example, that my child is old enough to think sensibly about the issue of whether to leave the water running while she brushes her teeth. When she lets water run down the drain, she denies other people the use of that water. The value of that use, to a very good approximation, is measured by the price of the water. Cayley, now aged nine, is capable—with a little assistance in the form of leading questions—of estimating how much water escapes during a toothbrushing session, the value of that water, and whether that value is or is not high enough to justify the effort of turning the faucets off and on. That’s a good exercise in estimation and a good exercise in arithmetic. It’s also a great way for her to discover the true miracle of the marketplace: As long as Cayley cares about her own family’s water bill, she will automatically account for the interests of everyone else who might be interested in using that water. But Cayley’s teachers have not wanted her to think clearly about such issues, perhaps out of fear that clear thought can become a habit, and habitual clear thinkers are not good candidates for subservience. Instead, those teachers have pronounced from on high that because water is valuable to others, we should be exceptionally frugal with it. In an inquisitive child, this raises the question: With exactly which valuable resources are we obligated to be exceptionally frugal? A child who is observant as well as inquisitive will quickly recognize that “all valuable resources” is not the teacher’s preferred answer. For example, teachers rarely argue that “because building supplies are valuable to others, we ought to build fewer schools”; even more rarely do they argue that “because skilled workers are valuable in industry, we ought to have fewer teachers.” Where is the pattern, then? What general rule compels us to conserve water but not to conserve on resources devoted to education? The blunt truth is that there is no pattern, and the general rule is simply this: Only the teacher can tell you which resources should be conserved. The whole exercise is not about toothbrushing; it is about authority.Read more at location 377
That’s why American junior high school kids can tell you exactly how fast the Amazon rain forest is shrinking, but have absolutely no framework for thinking about whether it’s shrinking too fast or not fast enough. It’s easy for a teacher to write a number on a blackboard (the rain forest is shrinking by such-and-such a number of square miles per year) and demand that students memorize that mere fact,Read more at location 410
unilluminated by any theory. It’s much harder to get students to think sensibly about the alternative uses of that land, and the difficult issue of how to weigh those alternatives against each other. Because it’s so much harder, most teachers don’t bother.Read more at location 413
Professor John Lott of the University of Pennsylvania has presented evidence that across countries, expenditures on public schooling (as well as expenditures on public broadcasting) are positively correlated with levels of totalitarianism. (That is, by and large, the more totalitarian the country, the more it spends on public schooling.) By contrast, expenditures on public health, and other services with no obvious propaganda value, are not positively correlated with totalitarianism. This suggests that public schooling serves a rather unsavory agenda.Read more at location 450
the airline presidents are conspiring to break laws, while the politicians are conspiring to make laws.Read more at location 552
My guess is that making laws is on average worse than breaking them.Read more at location 554
My colleague Alan Stockman faced this dilemma when his oldest daughter Gwendolyn turned three and curious. Alan opted for the hide-the-detector strategy, lest Gwendolyn get the idea that all rules are made to be broken. The truth, of course, is that some rules are made to be broken and others are not, but philosophers as subtle as Saint Thomas Aquinas have grappled with the question of where to draw the line. For Aquinas the key criterion was conformity with natural law, which is all well and good for a sophisticated adult, but Alan didn’t think his three-year-old was quite prepared to grasp the concept of a natural speed limit. So to maintain his daughter’s respect for the rule of law, Alan lived without a radar detector for a few years. There would be time enough, as Gwendolyn grew older, to show her that between black and white there are many shades of gray.Read more at location 559
I told Alan he had the analysis half right and half wrong. The part he had right was this: It’s true that a very young child is likely to be confused if you tell her that some laws are bad while others are good. But it’s wrong to conclude, as Alan did, that very young children should be allowed to believe that all laws are good. My own inclination is to go the opposite route, by teaching the very young that all laws are bad. As those children grow older and more sophisticated, they can be gradually introduced to the advanced Aquinean concept that some laws are actually just.Read more at location 565
You walk a thin line with these things. I do want my daughter to know that policemen are good, in the sense that if you are lost they will help you find your way home. But I also want her to know that policemen are bad, in the sense that they enforce a lot of bad laws. I’ve talked to her about this paradox, and she has no trouble grasping it.Read more at location 361
The cult of environmentalism demands that children abandon all independent thought about the nature of rights and obligations, replacing it with mindless subservience to the value judgments of their teachers. It wouldn’t be difficult for teachers to address environmental issues in a refreshingly different way—as invitations to critical thought. I believe, for example, that my child is old enough to think sensibly about the issue of whether to leave the water running while she brushes her teeth. When she lets water run down the drain, she denies other people the use of that water. The value of that use, to a very good approximation, is measured by the price of the water. Cayley, now aged nine, is capable—with a little assistance in the form of leading questions—of estimating how much water escapes during a toothbrushing session, the value of that water, and whether that value is or is not high enough to justify the effort of turning the faucets off and on. That’s a good exercise in estimation and a good exercise in arithmetic. It’s also a great way for her to discover the true miracle of the marketplace: As long as Cayley cares about her own family’s water bill, she will automatically account for the interests of everyone else who might be interested in using that water. But Cayley’s teachers have not wanted her to think clearly about such issues, perhaps out of fear that clear thought can become a habit, and habitual clear thinkers are not good candidates for subservience. Instead, those teachers have pronounced from on high that because water is valuable to others, we should be exceptionally frugal with it. In an inquisitive child, this raises the question: With exactly which valuable resources are we obligated to be exceptionally frugal? A child who is observant as well as inquisitive will quickly recognize that “all valuable resources” is not the teacher’s preferred answer. For example, teachers rarely argue that “because building supplies are valuable to others, we ought to build fewer schools”; even more rarely do they argue that “because skilled workers are valuable in industry, we ought to have fewer teachers.” Where is the pattern, then? What general rule compels us to conserve water but not to conserve on resources devoted to education? The blunt truth is that there is no pattern, and the general rule is simply this: Only the teacher can tell you which resources should be conserved. The whole exercise is not about toothbrushing; it is about authority.Read more at location 377
That’s why American junior high school kids can tell you exactly how fast the Amazon rain forest is shrinking, but have absolutely no framework for thinking about whether it’s shrinking too fast or not fast enough. It’s easy for a teacher to write a number on a blackboard (the rain forest is shrinking by such-and-such a number of square miles per year) and demand that students memorize that mere fact,Read more at location 410
unilluminated by any theory. It’s much harder to get students to think sensibly about the alternative uses of that land, and the difficult issue of how to weigh those alternatives against each other. Because it’s so much harder, most teachers don’t bother.Read more at location 413
Professor John Lott of the University of Pennsylvania has presented evidence that across countries, expenditures on public schooling (as well as expenditures on public broadcasting) are positively correlated with levels of totalitarianism. (That is, by and large, the more totalitarian the country, the more it spends on public schooling.) By contrast, expenditures on public health, and other services with no obvious propaganda value, are not positively correlated with totalitarianism. This suggests that public schooling serves a rather unsavory agenda.Read more at location 450
the airline presidents are conspiring to break laws, while the politicians are conspiring to make laws.Read more at location 552
My guess is that making laws is on average worse than breaking them.Read more at location 554
My colleague Alan Stockman faced this dilemma when his oldest daughter Gwendolyn turned three and curious. Alan opted for the hide-the-detector strategy, lest Gwendolyn get the idea that all rules are made to be broken. The truth, of course, is that some rules are made to be broken and others are not, but philosophers as subtle as Saint Thomas Aquinas have grappled with the question of where to draw the line. For Aquinas the key criterion was conformity with natural law, which is all well and good for a sophisticated adult, but Alan didn’t think his three-year-old was quite prepared to grasp the concept of a natural speed limit. So to maintain his daughter’s respect for the rule of law, Alan lived without a radar detector for a few years. There would be time enough, as Gwendolyn grew older, to show her that between black and white there are many shades of gray.Read more at location 559
I told Alan he had the analysis half right and half wrong. The part he had right was this: It’s true that a very young child is likely to be confused if you tell her that some laws are bad while others are good. But it’s wrong to conclude, as Alan did, that very young children should be allowed to believe that all laws are good. My own inclination is to go the opposite route, by teaching the very young that all laws are bad. As those children grow older and more sophisticated, they can be gradually introduced to the advanced Aquinean concept that some laws are actually just.Read more at location 565
You walk a thin line with these things. I do want my daughter to know that policemen are good, in the sense that if you are lost they will help you find your way home. But I also want her to know that policemen are bad, in the sense that they enforce a lot of bad laws. I’ve talked to her about this paradox, and she has no trouble grasping it.
