The Persisting Confusion

Education As A Tool of Control

The real world concealed by the pseudoconcrete and yet manifesting in it, is neither a world of real conditions opposed to unreal one, nor a world of transcendence opposed to a subjective illusion.--Karel Kusick

Dialectical thinking distinguishes between the idea of a thing and the concept of a thing.--Karel Kusik

In the modern world, and to some degree since kings began to enslave others, concepts of time came to organize life, and what concerns us here, the differentiation between work and play.  But it starts not at the moment one is told to go out and become self-supporting, but approximately around five, or somewhat sooner if you include pre-school or other early childhood programs like head start.  At that point we send them off to work.  Oh, wait, children that age are not allowed to work, are they?  

Nevertheless, that is what we do, but we call it “school” ,but they must begin the pursuit of becoming “educated” and the level of success they attain in their first occupation of becoming schooled to a very large extent determines the status they will have once they matriculate to being promoted to actually no longer being unpaid workers to being paid for their servitude.

It does seem somewhat absurd, put this way, and of course, that is why one of our first lessons when we are marched off to school is that the way I just put it is wrong. But that is where it begins.  

First we divide humans’ life into two sections, the time to work, or be schooled, and the time to play. 

Secondly, we force upon them a clock, determined by concepts that measure their lives, and are especially necessary for later work enslavement, but are beginning to be installed at the very beginning of our work,excuse me, school days.  It is now the time for subject A, stop subject A, it’s time for subject B, stop it’s time for recess, but not actually play as it is a sectioned time to relax, but now it’s time to stop relaxing and begin our next subject.  And even in our earliest school years, the day becomes divided thusly.  

Thirdly, we begin our labeling  and classification of the individual and begin to mark their performance.  The superior student or the inferior, forcing them into the early stages of classification that they must carry with them for the rest of their lives.  

Fourthly we begin to teach them what someone has decided they need to learn and not by their personal interests.  The consequence of this is that the option becomes to accept what one is taught as true, and we are also taught to limit our sources and to simply believe what we are taught. Of course, we might either reject,as invalid to our experience, or be rejected for failing to deny our experience in favor of taught truths. 

And finally, we begin a sort of physiologically torture by creating an age system in which you can not only be allowed to know something, but when you are going to be allowed to do something.  Everyone can drink at exactly 12:01 AM on their 21st birthday, but 2 minutes earlier you would be violating the law.  When I was young you had to be 21 to vote, but because of voting cycles I was not allowed to cast my first ballot til I was 22.  At that time, I had been a self-supporting member of the workforce for five years.  But suddenly on November 7, 1972 I was eligible to cast a vote.  Puberty, and thus sexual desire occurs in individuals between 11-13, and those feelings become very heightened in our feelings and sensibilities, but we are forbidden to explore, creating an environment of confusion and guilt and irresponsibility.  It does not matter if you “give in” or don’t give in to those feelings, the concept that you aren’t emotionally responsible to have such passions and to a large degree are attempted to be suppressed from fulfilling, or condemned for doing so, creates a future environment ripe for the promulgation of abuse, leads to the secretifying of those desires and a need to find outlets like pornography which become ingrained into the individual’s personal culture, and a centering on those desires as not natural, but something you earn the right to express, albeit it is initially earned by becoming older.  But because of this sex  becomes, not a physical relationship that all species engage in order to propagate the species, but a method of power and control and a definition that is placed upon what acts can be sanctioned, who can sanction them, when they can be sanctioned, and whether they can be sanctioned.

The Error of Teenagerism

Sex, which should be natural, is the most natural and essential necessity of life but once structured, becomes the most contentious and abnormal behavior in human civilization. Do I need to continue to place quotes upon that phrase?  Do you realize I always use it pejoratively?

To become civilized is to denigrate natural behavior as controllable behavior and therefore define it.

But the concept of the control of sexual behavior didn’t begin with modern concepts of mental maturity, but long ago, at the dawn of history—not the dawn of human evolution.  Now I have discussed frequently that I believe unsuitable personalities, the outcast who was not qualified to be a leader in human communities, but who nevertheless attempted to be, would have been cast aside, or cast out of early human community, and I have discussed it is quite improbable that communities would have welcomed these personalities into their midst just to have their environment made less sustainable and to become enslaved by these personalities.  Such nonsense that this had  to have occurred because people at first saw this life beneficial is starting to finally be questioned, but was formerly almost universally assumed assumed.  But the idea that somehow we developed larger brains and possibly these first civilizers might have been the first to develop these extra large brains is still being promulgated.  There are a multitude of reasons that human “intelligence” developed in the manner it did, but I have to tell you this nonsense that our brain size somehow made us superior just does not hold water.  Elephants, I believe, have the largest brains, and the size of our brain pales in comparison to all large marine mammals.  So some try to say, well it’s the size of the brain ratio to the body size.  But this relationship once again just falls on its face.  Once again, bottlenose dolphins lead the pack, even though the actual human brain is comparable by mass-to-body ratios with bottlenecks,  but sharks are way way up the list.  (and are one of evolution’s longest surviving species),   But the shrew might be the actual winner with 10% of its body weight being in the brain. Certainly crows have a very small brain in actual size but extremely large compared to mass.  

Look, humans want to be superior to animals, just as some humans want to be superior to others.  The truth is that every species has the brain capacity it needs to survive, and did it not, it would have not survived.  It’s really that simple.  In our own evolution the early Xuchang had a much larger brain (by nearly a pound) than moderns but they are hardly noted for developing civilization (I am not speaking of the modern city in China but of skulls located in the area estimated to be 90,000 years older than the first civilized societies.  Technology builds upon itself and humans obviously exceed the pace of technology the more available technology is to advance.  But almost from the beginning of pre-sapiens human species technology began developing, and in fact was almost certainly needed to be developed for survival

But however they began, and it was not because of superior intelligence, kings arose.  One of the first prerogative of kings  (I discuss Çatalhöyük as a possible anomaly in my book There Never Was…, so I will not repeat that section here); and these first kings were men as far as I can ascertain, and queens arose to power only as a means of consolidating power within a dynasty, and one of the first goals of kings was to control women by granting to themselves their own priority of selection.  At this point sex becomes perverted from natural selection  to certain humans doing the selection, in this case, the initial king, and the initial force of those women selected to submit.  Now we are going to leave the other classes behind us now and focus on the kingly family.  Because it is here that we begin “teenagerism”  The concept didn’t exist beyond the royalty , or the dominant families within the communities as they were forced to work from dawn to dusk, regardless of sex or age.  

But these unsuitable personalities, who wanted to be in charge more than likely because of undue laziness, or inability to properly support the community in other ways, developed into  our first insecure personalities, thus their need for being more important than the rest of the community, had a problem.  Their own insecurity and need to control others left them with their own future heirs in a state of limbo.  They were not the king, but they were supposedly not the slaves because they had to be groomed, or educated to the task of some day being the king.  This created a tension within the family that increased the insecurities if sons wanted to be king too soon, or if upon death, the inheritance could be disputed, and the very first wars in history were these intra-family battles to break out of, or rebel against, this very unnatural state of teenagerism. Of course, it wasn’t defined yet by age, but it set the pattern of a waiting-stage between physical maturity and actually assuming a societal role, because they had no other role. So we saw recently King Charles finally able to assume the only role he had ever been trained for, and finally in his 70’s he got to become king and no longer a teenager.  That may sound strange, he supported causes, he married and had kids, he traveled around the world, but essentially he was a teenager allowed to play but could not become king or enter into the work-stage of his life, so he was forced into a very long era of teenagerism.

As more began to enter into the class of wealth, and then more of the working class became middle-class; there developed more and more need to separate an age to prolong the youth stage of life by denying their full participation into a work-life and they  remained in the limbo stage.  One of the major causes of Victorianism was not a renewed interest in moral behavior, in fact evidentially “morality” ,as such, decreased.  And these new inhabitants who could not inherit yet, began seeking escapes from this state.  They assumed a certain propriety, and presumed a decadence from that appearance.  In other words, they rebelled, just as modern teenagers, from the state of limbo that is created when the human is completely developed as a physical adult capable of fully participating in the societal needs for survival, but are limited in participating within that society.

Now modern, more universal,  teenagerism began developing only in the earliest stages of the 20th century and by the end of the second world war was pretty well defined as an age-defined sub-class that was extended to nearly every class within the structure.  So there now needed to be a reason for this definition, and the reason became that until a certain age one must become educated enough before entering the work-life.

Alternative to Teenagerism

Now I have a life-long friend, who in his 50’s managed to earn a teaching degree and now, nearly as old as I, is still teaching.  I told him a few months ago that I thought teenagers would have fewer social problems, act less immature and would be capable of having a valid voice within society if we quit legislating them into a limbo stage of childhood.  He said no, I was wrong, his experience showed him they were immature and not ready for adulthood.  Then he said, but some are more mature than their parents. I replied, maybe parents are immature because we refused to grant them maturity when they were younger and one doesn’t develop maturity at some magic age but it grows as they are treated more maturely.  Well he became offended, and replied that he thought he had more experience in dealing with, and therefore, understanding, the issue than I do.  I apologized, and told him he was absolutely correct and I did not question his observation whatsoever, but that his observations were observations within the current system of treating them as if they were still children and my proposal to redefine them as full participants in adult society could lead to different experiences with which his observations might have a different result.

So let me propose an observation beyond the realm of current observation, and suggest we look at the observations of those who observed childhood development in less structured, or more basic communities which might be more akin to how our  genetics designed our maturity to occur.

And if we look at that, we see children being more central to the community from a much earlier age.  There is a greater opportunity for a child to explore within his community and learn the tasks his community are involved in.  The child’s natural curiosity is welcomed and when he seeks to participate in a task , he is allowed to not only watch but to make elementary steps to emulate the community mentor and rather than being chastised or graded on his errors, he is reshown how to accomplish or learn what he desires and patience is illustrated as he learns to accomplish the task.  But he can also wander off and observe others, he is never confined by a clock to how long he can participate in any particular task or adventure and he is never graded as incompetent.  By the time he reaches physical maturity (puberty) both he and the community know his strengths and interests.  He can participate in community discussion, and he has learned the wisdom of continuing to seek information in any communal debate, but his upbringing allows the elder members to continue to explain and his questions allow the elder members to further elaborate on differences of opinion.  And then he can make a full decision on which mentor he chooses for further acceptance.  He doesn’t need to demand attention because he has always had it, and the community has always recognized him as an individual personality who has never been forced to abandon that personality because the community knows the importance of the individual personalities to the whole.  So the youth knows the community accepts him and he, at this stage, is not rebellious but still eager to be mentored because the community has always recognized him as an individual, and as such he recognizes and welcomes the experiences of the mentors and as he grows and begins to mentor himself as his skills and experiences develop and expand he continues to listen and appreciate their differing opinions.  It’s not perfect, and sometimes communities divide, but somehow to me it seems better.

The Confusion of Teenagerism

If the body is mature and the person is told he is not, confusion sits in. This is experience contradicting “truth” and so “truths” one has learned begin to be considered untrue and he develops an inability to discern.  He discerns a maturity he is told he doesn’t have, and what is denied him becomes important to have.  His life becomes depressing and sex takes a more-than-it-should importance.  In my day that behavior might suffer severe consequences, today it might be passed on with a condemnatory wink.  If we accept Piaget’s four-staged development of human growth (and many psychiatrists do not, but it seems a reasonably accurate model to me), then at this stage of development the mind is also, along with the body, reaching its last stage of  development.  The human is physically and mentally capable of being an adult within the confines of our  genetic development.  From that point the body begins to age, although full strength might not occur for another twenty years, depending on continued development, but it is mature in its capacity as an adult.  When a young male lion reaches this stage he’s not strong enough to challenge for his own harem, but he is mature enough to survive as an adult lion.  The females will be taken into a harem, the males form hunting gangs.  But physically they are adult, and the next stage is to become strong enough and wise enough to become sires in their own right.  

So it is with the human.  Not the finished product, but matured into an adult of the species.  Throughout our existence the thirteen year old has been capable of survival through work and propagation.  I’m not making a statement about the morality of whether he should need to do so, I am merely stating that observationally, he is capable of doing so.  And not to sound excessively misogynistic by the use of the male pronoun, I have an elder daughter whom I had very little participation in “raising” who did exactly that, well, she accomplished it at 14.  So today I may be the least admired in my immediate, or birth  lineage, but she is the most admired within that same lineage.  Whenever decisions need to be made they turn to her for advice.  In fact she even gets my social security and makes sure my bills are paid.  That occurred mostly because I was incapable three years ago when I was hospitalized for a good portion of the year and not always able to get the rent paid physically.  I could do it now, but there’s no need since she does it competently and doesn’t seem oppressed by doing so.  I order my own groceries and supplies, I determine what to spend the little money I have on, and she pays the bill and doesn’t dictate what I have to buy. So it’s okay.  But the point is, she is very good at doing this and she had herself emancipated from her mother’s control at 14, so the human is capable of adulthood.  I only have a outline, but I know she was just as confused as other teenagers, was assumed to suffer from depression and had become heavily involved with drugs and alcohol, so she doesn’t seem to be a likely candidate for being emancipated, nevertheless, it happened, but she has never told me of any of the circumstances.  I suppose it could have turned out badly, but it didn’t.  And I really do not believe it would for many others.  I am not suggesting every teenager be cast out of the home and forced into work.  But if we granted them legal adulthood  then they might be more willing to be mentored.  We might prevent a lot of the confusion that perplexes and perpetuates the definition that denies experience of feeling “grown”. Legal responsibilities as adults that allowed them to participate and “mature” more successfully could possibly eliminate much of the wastefulness they perceive in their lives; the purposelessly that leads to partaking in mental stimulants, the displacements that lead to idle misbehavior, and sometimes more serious crime, and the depressions, despairs, and suicides that their status of “in-waiting” has put upon them, and, consequently, will continue to delay, rather than enhance expedited maturation (as what we perceive maturation is supposed to be).  

And perhaps if parents did not “own” children, did not have the power to both make and enforce all decisions and allow these youth to become full participants, many of the perceived ills that continue beyond the magic age line might be reduced.  Children are the last vestiges in human ownership over other humans, at least in the legal sense.  But especially the concept of control expressed over the first years of human adulthood is somehow repugnant not only to our own genetic development, but to all of evolution.

Most people I know say that they were the worst years of their lives.  But they are the remaining vestiges of  the king’s desire to subdue his children into a waiting period for his turn to assume his role.  It created havoc and division within the kingly societies then, and continues to be troublesome today as “kids-in-waiting”, and often they are not even sure what they are waiting for, but they surely feel reprieved on their own day of emancipation and they are finally allowed semi-adulthood at graduation.