The Doctor is in (part 2)

Gordon Brown’s premiership

Why has Gordon Brown’s public standing deteriorated so badly? Tony Blair faced more serious problems, e.g. the Iraq fiasco, yet seemed to hold up better.

Brown and Blair are probably similar in terms of innate abilities. Their different levels of success in the public arena can be attributed partly to the differences in their schooling. State comprehensive schools, like the one Brown attended, purvey a mediocratic ethos. The individual is unimportant: he should regard himself as no better than anyone else, and as subordinated to society.

Blair attended a private school, where teachers are paid to generate an ethos according to which individual pupils are entitled to feel good about themselves. This is much better preparation for a leadership role, or indeed any role which involves interacting with other people. It is also far better preparation for a role in which you have to endure a lot of pressure, scrutiny, criticism and downright hostility. Think of any British individual in the public domain with a ‘Teflon’ quality, and they are almost certain to have been educated privately.

Ironically, an ideology which stresses the social over the individual undermines people’s ability to interact successfully with others. Instead, they tend to come out sullen, resentful and introverted — qualities which in a mediocracy are insultingly redefined as ‘autistic’. (It is one of the paradoxes of mediocracy that some of the characteristics it is intolerant of are ones it tends to foster, e.g. lack of sociability, or politeness to people who are different from you.)

Righteous indignation leads to self-explosion

Why is a play sympathetic to the 7/7 bombers being given a warm reception?

The play Pornography, inspired by the 2005 London bombings and receiving its British premiere at this year's Edinburgh Festival, has received warm reviews in the Telegraph and the Guardian. According to its author Simon Stephens, the bombers

weren’t demons [and] weren’t operating in isolation from their country or their cultural movement – but were absolutely a product of it.

The primary function of culture in a mediocracy is to criticise or challenge bourgeois values. Provided it is understood that only particular versions of ‘critique’ or ‘challenge’ will be tolerated, a cultural producer cannot fail to go wrong by ticking the relevant boxes on the pseudo-radical agenda.

A play such as this functions as a useful legitimisation device for aggression targeted at the non-mediocratic. As Cherie Blair once memorably said, “As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up, you are never going to make progress.”

It is important, however, that the source of the desperation is not attributed to any of the features of mediocracy. Stephens carefully avoids the traps. He does not suggest that the anger of the bombers could have something to do with the boredom and frustration engendered by a culture that is hostile to all values incompatible with reductionism and egalitarianism. No, it must be something to do with capitalism.

[Stephens:] “at the heart of their action was an alienation from the people they were going to kill and from themselves. This seemed to be symptomatic of a consumerist culture, which objectifies everyone and everything.”

And with individualism, of course.

[For Stephens] the bombings were part of a bigger pattern established by the extreme individualism created in people by, amongst other things, modern technology.

Harry Potter and the semiotician's analysis

From last week's news:

Harry Potter to feature on English A-level syllabus ... AQA has defended its decision to add J. K. Rowling's books to its course, claiming: "Harry Potter is a genuine example of literature of our time. It deserves its place in this unit."
(NUT newswire)

From the existing A-level English syllabus:

Read Data Set 1 below. (a) Comment linguistically on five features of language use which you find of interest. (b) How far do children acquire their language skills by imitating adults? In your answer you should: refer to particular linguistic features and contexts; refer to appropriate linguistic research and theory; present a clear line of argument. (Toby is two years old)
Father: are you going to France
Toby: wa
Father: are you going to France (.) for your holiday
Toby: yeh
Father: where are you going
Toby: Fwance
Father: how (2) you’re going on a hovercraft (.) aren't you
Toby: yeh
Father: say hovercraft
Toby: howcwaft
Father: who are you going to see in France
[continues]
(AQA)

The expert opinion:

The examination system is above all a way of policing the profession, making sure that those who qualify to join it understand how its language or symbols are conventionally employed. *
(Professor Catherine Belsey, University of Wales)

What matters in a mediocracy is not whether a person is able to carry on a productive activity, but whether they can conform to the appearance of doing so. Furthermore, it is crucial that cultural disciplines affirm rather than question the prevailing ideology. The criterion of what constitutes an accepted member of a cultural field is therefore redefined.

Appropriate entry to a mediocratic elite requires a filter that repels those who might previously have been admitted, while appearing still to be technically rigorous. Those who are interested in a subject for the wrong reasons, e.g. a desire to find things out, are threatening to the stability of mediocracy and must therefore be excluded.

The solution is (i) to reduce the genuine intellectual content of study material, while (ii) devising abstruse techniques which can be used as indicators of expertise, but which are so tedious as to alienate anyone with an interest in reality.

* Poststructuralism: A very short introduction, p.3.

"Helping the gifted" and other deceptions

To those of a relatively uncynical persuasion living in a mediocracy, caution is to be recommended. Things may not be quite as they are presented. The reality may be the opposite of the appearance.

For example, when medical staff and 'bioethicists' (= apologists for medical authoritarianism) speak of promoting patient autonomy, they may be talking not about self-determination, but about the opposite: manipulating clients into choosing the 'correct' option and into feeling they are exercising choice.

When egalitarians speak of improving social mobility, they may be talking about what is now charmingly referred to as "encouraging downward mobility": ensuring that the bourgeoisie do not pass on any advantages to their children, so that more of them drift down the social ladder.

Similar inversions apply to consultation, democratisation — and now, also, liberty.

Likewise, when there is talk of helping gifted children, perhaps in response to the observation that they are being bored and frustrated to the point of despair by the degraded syllabus now passing for secondary education, this needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt.

More analysis here, from a former gifted child.

Opportunities for equalisation

Peter Wilby on educational opportunities:

... more than ten million Britons still work in manual jobs. And as a report published this month reminds us ('Reducing Inequalities' by Leon Feinstein et al, from the National Children's Bureau), many of their children still suffer inferior opportunities compared to their peers from professional families. ...

Wilby does not define 'equal opportunities'. Does he mean 'the same likelihood of socioeconomic success given the same level of innate ability'? But it's not clear whether Wilby (or Feinstein et al) believe in innate ability at all. If they did, they would have to consider heritability, which would mean a correlation between success and parental status, even with perfectly equal opportunities.

The government has two big answers: school improvement and early intervention.

Early intervention? To prevent — what? The correlation from working?

Both have a role, but perhaps not as big as the priority given to them suggests. As another report published this month points out ('Experiences of Poverty and Educational Disadvantage' by Donald Hirsch for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation), only 14 per cent of the variation in children's performance can be accounted for by school quality.

"Only 14 per cent". Does this mean children are only 14 per cent blank slates, only 14 per cent mouldable by the educational process?

As Feinstein shows, the rest is not necessarily set in stone by early home environment.

So the rest must be home environment, except interventionists needn't worry that it is all early home environment?

Politicians now frequently quote research showing that, by 22 months, it is too late for many children because their development has already fallen far behind that of their peers in middle-class homes. This finding, shocking as it is ...

How terrible and shocking: the possibility that by 22 months, it is already too late for interventionists to achieve equalisation of individuals.

This finding, shocking as it is, misses the bigger picture. As Feinstein reports, even those children from the lowest socio-economic groups who are doing well at 22 months then tend to fall back relative to other children. The process continues throughout childhood, and it operates both ways: the initially low-achieving middle-class children improve their position, while the position of the high-achieving working-class children declines. ...

Could this have something to do with the fact that schools spend more and more of their time imparting ideology and propaganda, and less and less of it actually teaching? So that only children whose parents are prepared to compensate for the lack of teaching at school are actually able to learn anything? In any case, the opposite effect could equally well be spun to the same propaganda purpose. Say there was more stability in the performance of working class children, while the position of middle class children was relatively mobile. Then you could argue that schools unfairly benefited the middle class children, allowing them to realign by reference to ability, while the working class children failed to benefit at all, leaving them in the same position as when they started (whether high or low).

In other words, during their school years, children's performance, far from being equalised, is aligned more closely with their social origins.

(My emphasis.) So clearly equalisation is what Mr Wilby thinks schools should be aiming at.

This might seem a depressing conclusion, but Feinstein argues it needn't be. As he puts it, children's educational development is "malleable", and if everyone were more aware of that, we might make more progress in equalising opportunities.

Children are malleable. Let's make educators and psychologists even more aware of this tenet.

But the answers, Hirsch suggests, probably don't lie entirely, or even mainly, in educational quality as conventionally measured. The nub of the problem for the disadvantaged, he argues, lies not only within classrooms but "in what happens across children's lives". Drawing on a large body of Rowntree research, he suggests that many deprived children "feel powerless as learners" and experience school as a coercive and controlling institution. ...

Extending compulsion, as now seems to be on the agenda, is unlikely to help with that particular problem.

If we are to give less advantaged children a chance, Hirsch argues, we need to rethink educational relationships. He favours, for example, extended school days

I thought it was just implied schools should be less 'coercive'?

but says these shouldn't be more of the same classroom-based, compulsory learning.

Presumably it will be compulsory to attend, just not compulsory to learn anything particular. So we are back to the problem of not learning anything while at school, which is unlikely to help those children from working class backgrounds who do actually want to learn and who would rise socially if they were actually taught anything useful.

Working-class children fall behind because their homes ... don't and often can't provide the same support for formal learning as more affluent homes. Given there's a limit to how much we can change the homes, we may have to consider changing schools, and the way they treat children and parents, more radically than we have done so far.

We can't change homes enough to achieve equality of outcome, so we will have to change the schools. Perhaps by making state schools even worse for middle class children?

The pseudoscience of well-being

Is it a school's business to teach "well-being", or other social and emotional skills? The Department for Children Schools and Families clearly thinks so, and is proposing to make lessons in these subjects compulsory in secondary schools.

The answer to the question should be: depends on whether parents want it. (Or possibly, if you want to be radically libertarian, on whether pupils want it.) The usual test for whether something is wanted is: does the market provide it? At first sight it seems it does, since one of the pioneers of 'happiness lessons' is private school Wellington College and its head Anthony Seldon. It's not clear, however, how much this reflects parental demand, as opposed to supplier pressure — i.e. the ideological preferences of Wellington staff. The majority of British public schools do not offer such lessons as far as I'm aware, and another headteacher has described Seldon as belonging to a "lunatic fringe".

According to management consultancy firm 10Consulting,

for many years now, various employment and business related organisations in the UK, such as the Confederation of British Industry, have been highly critical of employees' lack of (so-called) soft skills. In 2004/5, Sir Digby Jones, then Director-General of the CBI, said of new graduates:

“A degree alone is not enough. Employers are looking for more than just technical skills and knowledge of a degree discipline. They particularly value skills such as communication, team working and problem solving. Job applicants who can demonstrate that they have developed these skills will have a real advantage.”

So you could say that the real point of the SEAL [social and emotional aspects of learning] programme in schools is to start providing kids with the necessary tools to develop their self-awareness, empathy, motivation, social skills and ability to manage their emotions, so that ultimately they can become successful members of the community and successful in the workplace. Makes perfect sense now, doesn't it?

Whether it makes sense depends on how you interpret Sir Digby's comments, and similar complaints about 'soft skills'. Is it that young people can no longer cope with the pressures of everyday life, because modern society is changing so fast, as educational experts would claim? Or is it that mediocracy fosters a mindset in which old-fashioned social skills (politeness, deference, not attacking other people's egos) are seen as redundant? Or is it simply the loss of the bourgeois work ethic, as the director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce seems to be implying in the following quote?

As I go round the country, from West Pembroke to Norwich, every company I speak to is using as much migrant labour as it can get hold of. It is always for the same reasons: workers from Poland come with far better skills and a better attitude — they want to work.

Loss of the work ethic is probably not something which can be reversed with lessons to improve 'emotional awareness'. And, while recovery of politeness and other bourgeois manners theoretically could be, judging by the material I have seen this is not what is going to be aimed at.

Is "well-being" a science, as the University of Cambridge's Well-being Institute maintains? Or just another meretricious humanities discipline, like "women's studies" or "peace studies"? Claims have been made for the efficacy of cognitive therapy (CBT) as a treatment for mild forms of mental illness, and well-being lessons are said to build on that. I personally wonder whether CBT is just another way to modify behavioural appearances without addressing underlying problems — though I suppose it's less objectionable than zapping people with drugs. In any case, it is unclear what place a putative treatment for depression has in a conventional school environment.

Pioneer of happiness studies Nick Baylis writes about the individual's "relationship with reality".

Reality is an environment that can put up a lot of resistance to our making progress and, consequently, it can build the mental skills for problem-solving. By contrast, escapist fantasy is an environment in which anything is possible, so our problem-solving skills begin to atrophy if we spend too long there. ... it is only our response to problems that determines their net effect upon us, not the problems themselves. *

This strikes me as the kind of stuff which is either trivially true — or highly speculative and potentially false. In either case, not really hard science.

The DCSF links to a website with resources for primary schools, where well-being lessons are already in force. Some of the resources, like the teaching aid shown on the left, are merely trivial, and remind me of management theory which teaches the obvious. "How can we help John to know what he is feeling, children? I know: let's get him to think about it. Then we'll get him to talk about it." (hypothetical illustration)

Others are more obviously ideological: for example, this resource about change, apparently designed to encourage warm feelings towards multiculturalism. "Azis forgot that changes are a part of life." "Azis stopped complaining and learned to see the world differently."

* in Huppert et al. (eds), The Science of Well-being, Oxford University Press 2005, pp.243-244.

Update: The Sunday Times reports on research which concludes that happiness classes "leave children depressed and self-obsessed ... It finds little evidence that the classes, which encourage children to express feelings openly and empathise with others, lead to any long-term improvement in emotional wellbeing or academic success." A summary of the research is available here.

Every child shall ... be creative

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority:

QCA is pleased to be launching the new secondary curriculum. The consultation was widely supported by education professionals, parents, employers, industry experts — in fact, anyone with an interest in education. The opportunity to create an exciting and stimulating curriculum that includes classroom activities and out-of-hours learning, as well as a solid foundation in the basic subjects, has been greeted enthusiastically. ["Oh no it hasn't." — "Oh yes it has."]

Our aim has been to increase flexibility. The new curriculum builds on the best of the past by maintaining the discipline of subjects, but at the same time offering greater opportunities for personalised learning, addressing the major challenges that face society and equipping young people with the skills for life and work in the 21st Century. By mixing tradition with a more creative approach to the curriculum, we will achieve our objective of producing successful learners, confident individuals and responsible citizens.

Andrew Motion (Poet Laureate):

One of the several heartening things about the revised Secondary Curriculum is the way it creates more space and provides more encouragement for pupils to discover the value of contributing to a creative culture of learning. Just as importantly, it spreads the benefits of this approach across all subjects and disciplines. It is a very welcome development.

Professor John Mullan:

Arguing for the changes on Radio 4's Today programme, [the Chief Executive of QCA] revealed a philosophical shift of a different kind. The key thing, he suggested, was to address the "needs of the time". By "needs" he seemed to mean "social ills", for he immediately began talking of obesity among youngsters and the rate of teenage pregnancies. You wondered whether the vaunted "flexibility" was going to be so desirable for the teachers. It sounded as if they would now have to teach not just how to draw a graph or use commas, but how to live. What is a curriculum for? Providing fundamental academic knowledge and skills, you might think, but Dr Boston wants you to think more flexibly. "Instead of teaching the Battle of Malplaquet, you teach them how to cook food".

(Emphasis mine.)

PS
Further to the theme of "every child shall [be offered state-approved goodies]":

Every child shall have ... five hours of sport per week, the government has announced.

Every child shall have ... one free piece of fruit or vegetable per day — and has had for some time. But it appears the effects so far are minimal, though this conclusion is denied by the government.

Bildung macht frei

1938:

We are young; we must protect, preserve and promote this capital, the only capital we have: our industriousness, our skills ... We simply cannot do enough to increase the German's skills. ... There should no longer be any unskilled workers in Germany. Don't tell us that our social measures are a luxury. On the contrary, they make the greatest economic sense. ...

Maximum performance can only be achieved within the community. People's happiness can only come from the community. We see our highest aim as a community of people, as an organic, meritocratic whole. We don't just want a mass of people. We wish everyone to have their place. But if we want this ordered community, then we must also grant that the individual has rights in this community. If we impose duties on him we must also give him rights. The first and foremost right: to make way for efficiency. The young man from the last village on earth should be able to make his way upwards if he is capable.

We have cleared the way for individual people. The opportunity for development must be independent of wealth and social origin. The poor person should have the same chances as the rich.
(Robert Ley, head of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront, source of the phrase 'Kraft durch Freude' — 'strength through joy' *)

2007:

Historically as a nation, we have long believed that young people should be in some form of education and training at least up to the age of 18. … The benefits of young people remaining in education or training up to 18 have continued to be widely recognised. These benefits are even more obvious now given the sharp decline in unskilled jobs.

That is why we have been working hard to provide young people with exciting and valuable opportunities to develop skills that will set them up for life. … Young people have access to a broad and engaging programme of education and training — a programme which will be extended over the next few years to increase choice further still. By 2013 every young person will be able to take a course which is inspiring, motivating, and challenging, and which will give them the skills to be more successful in life. …

It is unacceptable that a young person’s background is still a key factor in whether they progress into post-16 education. This inequality is compounded by the fact that participation and attainment post-16 directly impacts upon life chances for young people. The undeniable truth is that if a young person continues their education post-16 they are more likely to achieve valuable qualifications, earn more, and lead happier, healthier lives. It is my goal that every young person is able to make the most of their education and training.

The world economy is developing at an ever more rapid pace. If we do not act now, we could be left behind. ... In the very near future, those without skills will find it increasingly difficult to find employment. If we cannot supply businesses with the skilled workers that they require, they will struggle to remain competitive and our position as a world leader will be under threat.
(Education Secretary Alan Johnson **)

(*) Extract from Soldaten der Arbeit, taken from Norbert Frei, National Socialist Rule in Germany, pp.180-181.

(**) Raising Expectations: staying in education and training post-16, HMSO 2007, p.3.

You awful, awful person (no. 2)

(The previous recipient of this award is here. Once again, I stress that I'm not suggesting the individual in question is any worse than their peers. They should, rather, be assumed to be representative of their particular profession.)

This is what Alexandra Frean, Education Editor of The Times, had to say this week about the proposals to force "education" on unwilling 16-18 year olds.

Plans to enforce compulsory education or training up to the age of 18 have as much to do with economics as education. As the Lord Leitch’s review on skills stated last year, Britain’s businesses will need ever more skilled employees if they are to remain globally competitive. ...

So the real question facing ministers as they contemplate what could prove to be the most radical educational reform in a generation is not whether Britain can afford to raise the school leaving age from 16 to 18, but whether it can afford not to. ...

Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, has made it clear that there is no point introducing a new compulsion for education or training unless the government also demonstrates that it is willing to get serious about enforcement and sanctions. This is why he is proposing to impose criminal action and £50 penalty fines on what he expects to be a small “hardcore” of teenagers who drop out of education at 16 and refuse to go back.

Not even a hint that there might be a moral issue here. The interests of British industry are sufficient to justify coercion.

Let us say we accepted the arguments — which I don't — that (a) "we need more skills", and (b) additional incarceration in comprehensive schools of the individuals concerned will increase their skills rather than reduce them. How are we supposed to get from this to making it acceptable for people to have their wishes overridden? No explanation is given, implying Ms Frean thinks none is needed.

What this shows, among other things, is how little support remains for Mill's original principle of liberty among the il-liberal elite.

From the archives: Compulsory education beyond 16

Debate needed on possible methods for enforcement

Via Not Saussure: the debate has started, with "education Asbos" and fixed penalty fines apparently on the menu.

By the way, I'm not sure I agree with NS's view that <it’s better for young people to be educated rather than not> is "a decent-sounding idea". This obviously depends on what you mean by "education", but I would query whether everyone benefits from secondary education, even in its pre-ideologised form. A sacred cow which I reckon it is time to put on the stand.




Originally published 18 Jan 07.
For background see earlier post and discussion at The Grauniad.
Painting by Delaroche, courtesy National Gallery London.

Comprehensives: worse than prison

The hypocrisy of the mainstream media. The double standards.

A whole book could — and should — be written about the topic. If it were, it wouldn't of course get published. The last thing the MSM does is permit genuine criticism of itself. Phoney critique, yes. So if you want to pretend (say) that the media is inhibited about presenting sex, or injury/suffering — which is nonsense but a trendy thing to say — you could no doubt make a TV programme based on that assertion. As for real self-critique: when has the BBC ever made a programme about the cultural establishment's 'liberal' bias? Or a British university sponsored research about the anti-capitalist agenda prevailing in the humanities?

Take education for example. We hear endlessly about the faults of private schools. The drugs, the dodgy housemasters, the sexual shenanigans, the exorbitant fees, the strange admission policies, the terror of boarding, the artificiality of gender segregation, etc. etc.

Yet the horror of state comprehensives is rarely talked about. When it is — as recently by Andrew O'Hagan in the Telegraph, commenting on the Ruth Kelly incident — it's all mince, mince, I'm so sorry to say something unacceptable. It doesn't help, of course, that the people who feel most entitled to express themselves are those lucky enough to have been educated privately. State school products are often too crushed to even feel resentment at the system which damaged them, let alone express it. When they do feel resentment, they are more likely to rail against those who escaped the system than against the system itself. See e.g. Polly Toynbee, whose entire political philosophy probably stems from having failed the 11-plus and ending up at Holland Park Comprehensive. (Which, mind you, is barely a comprehensive in more than name, being used as a kind of posh 'state' school by well-heeled Kensington socialists.)

As someone who has personal experience of both sides of the private–state school divide, I say that comprehensives are places of horror, particularly for anyone of above-average intelligence. Middle class parents should try at all costs to keep their children out of these hellholes.

If you have never attended a comprehensive for any length of time, don't even begin to think you can make a considered judgement about whether they're tolerable. We ought to have a rule (particularly for Labour politicians) that no one should be able to advocate state education unless they have had personal experience of it.

So what punches does our dear Mr O'Hagan pull, implicitly praising state schools with his faint damnation?

It would be disingenuous for me to pretend that our local state secondary would be perfect for my teenage stepsons. For good or ill, they have been brought up with some sensitivity and with some - perhaps too-great - application of adult attention, and this could very easily make them cannon fodder in a rough school.

Ah, "too great" bourgeois parental attention to kiddies. Perhaps like the "too great" attention to individual liberty which we (used to) have in Britain — compared to, say, former Czechoslovakia. Or the "too great" attention to animal welfare.

It's almost taboo to admit that, but there you have it. Every middle-class parent knows it's true. I'm afraid some parents like to dress it up with talk of learning difficulties and troublesome catchment areas and all the rest. Our local Church of England church is crammed with people every Sunday, a great many of them keen to catch the eye of the minister who will sign forms allowing their children to attend the reputedly very good primary school next to the park. And all the parents I know - Lefties no less than Right-wingers - look with hungry eyes at the property pages, imagining the good schools that might lurk just beyond the boundaries of those small London gardens.

How very amusing. Middle class parents forced to scurry around in desperation, hoping there might be some loophole which will allow their offspring to escape being herded into mass indoctrination/torture centres. That's probably not unrelated to the kind of amusement Gulag prison wardens (I'll resist the Nazi analogy) enjoyed, watching their charges try to derive small amounts of escapism among their daily routine of suffering.

I'm reminded of Peter Mandelson's comments on state education in his book The Blair Revolution:

How can schools cope with unwilling attendees? Teaching can be a gruelling and dangerous experience. Schools require a much tougher set of disciplinary sanctions to deal with unruly pupils – such as weekend detention, and banning of favourite leisure pursuits.

If you try to evade the bullying, you will be persecuted even harder. Something which will no doubt also apply to those who will, in the future, have to stay on at school beyond 16.

Update
For a link between the absurdity of Celebrity Big Brother, and ideological indoctrination in state "schools" — of course there is a link, this is New Britannia — see Tom Paine's Last Ditch.

You awful, awful man

Sorry, I don't really mean to get personal. I'm sure Ben Rogers of the Institute for Public Policy Research (New Labour think tank) is no worse than a lot of other leftists working in the overlap between Labour politics and "research" on "social welfare" (= statism studies).

But I was mildly sickened to see two horrible articles by him in a row. First, via the current Prospect, comes his assessment of the recent advances in including social engineering in the objectives of state schools.

With studies showing that early-years experience is crucial in shaping character and capacity, nursery care and schools have become the new frontier not only of the "welfare state" but the "opportunity state"

he notes approvingly, and goes on to conclude that

by and large, the new expectations being placed on schools represent a reasonable reaction to [recent social changes].

Of course it is all nonsense, and demonstrates why you cannot have education provided by the state. A welfare state will never restrict itself to duplicating the services offered by the private sector (which roughly correspond to what people actually want). So not only is the actual real teaching provided by state schools rubbish, because it is completely immune to market forces. You don't even get decent education being aimed for, but rather some vague nebulous programme of making things fairer, improving chances, promoting inclusion. To the extent this comes out as anything other than mere chaos and anarchy, it means indoctrinating children with pro-state ideology.

Then, clicking on the next available article by the same author, I was appalled to find that it consisted of Dr Rogers promoting compulsory voting. (His paper on the issue can be found here.)

Compulsion seems to be the currently fashionable option (= "counsel of despair") favoured by lefties who realise that all their tinkering to produce justice, fairness or whatever else they spout about, doesn't actually achieve what it's supposed to and in some cases results in the opposite. This is partly because their goals are unachievable (e.g. making the working class produce the correct proportion of university graduates) and partly because their policies aren't really motivated by, say, wanting to see clever children from poor backgrounds do well. (See earlier post.)

Thus, for example, since there is still too much educational disparity between the classes, working class children are to be forced to stay on at school after 16.

In the case of voting, the ideology which has inspired New Labour - phoney democratisation, expressed as dumbing down and style over substance - has resulted in fewer and fewer people having enough confidence in the political process, or belief in the importance of principles such as civil liberties, to be bothered with voting.

Solution? Try to address voters' concerns and suspicions? Rethink the current political ideology? Perhaps consider the possibility that recent attempts at populism were unrealistic and disingenuous, and therefore bound to be phoney? No, force the buggers to vote.

Which, according to Rogers, "does not violate any important liberties". Well, they may not be important to you, Ben, but they're important to me. And I don't care one iota that Belgium already does it. Belgium has done some pretty dodgy things in its time, such as human rights abuses in the Congo. Even if a majority of European countries did it (they don't), that isn't really an argument in favour. You have to consider a proposal to tinker with civil liberties on its own merits. In 1942, most of Europe was busy organising or condoning the extermination of Jews.

More detailed analysis of Rogers's article is over at Not Saussure.