All Episodes
Previous Next
July 13, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
27:17
Is education a human right?
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Chris wrote in and he has a couple questions on education.
But the first one is, is education a human right?
Go on.
G'day Stefan.
So when I think about human rights, I'm talking about human rights, they kind of come with a responsibility.
So someone has the right to life, but I feel they have a responsibility to live well.
I'm not encouraged to look after them, for example.
You know, that's their responsibility.
When I think about education as a human right, I still don't know what right is.
What is a right?
Sorry, it's not something that exists materially, right?
Yeah, of course.
Some people talk about the difference between positive and negative rights.
So, for example, a negative right would be, I have the freedom not to be shot in the street.
But that's a statement.
Yeah, so I'm saying... Some people might say... So, right is like... I would like not to be shot in the street.
Right.
So, let me... Hang on, hang on.
We need to be more precise then, right?
It's a statement of preference.
Yes.
So, for example... Sorry, it's clearly a statement of preference that's not shared by everyone else.
Nobody says, I have a right to gravity, because everyone is subject to gravity, right?
And so, if you're going to say right, what you're saying is some people believe it would be nice if... Hamana, Hamana, Hamana, right?
Yeah, exactly.
So, for example, in both America and where I live, education is currently enforced upon people.
So, you need to send your child to school or at least have some kind of education happening to them.
Up until the year 10 for where I live.
So that means that, for example, in a government school, which I don't work in, a child, you know, if they do the wrong thing and they get expelled, they actually move to a different school.
So there's no consequence, I guess, for not accepting or taking your education responsibly.
So I'm wondering if in that case, does that constitute an overreach of government, I suppose I would say?
Well, you're packing a lot of language and a lot of suppositions into very few statements, which is fine, but we need to unpack it, right?
Yeah, sure.
So I don't, I don't believe in rights.
I think rights are extremely unhelpful in philosophical or political discussions because rights do not exist.
Rights are A begging, a preference, a I would like it if, and it's a wish fulfillment.
It's a plea for the dragon to eat you alive.
But I don't believe in rights.
I don't think that they're useful.
I think that they're a word that are used to create some sort of absolute where no such absolute exists.
I mean, you don't have a right to anything in this world.
And, you know, to me, it's like zebras saying that I have a right to not get eaten.
Okay, well other zebras aren't going to eat you and lions don't care about your rights.
So rights are a statement of claim that is used to attempt to protect you from people who would never harm you and give you no protection or illusory protection, which is even worse, from people who will do you harm.
Like if I think I have some magic shark repellent shield around me when I don't, I'm going to be a hell of a lot more dangerous around sharks.
Thinking I have protection when I don't makes life a hell of a lot more dangerous for me.
And so my concern is that I say, well, I have a right.
I have property rights.
It's like, well, um, anyone who's going to accept that you have property rights isn't going to steal from you anyway.
Right?
And if you think you have property rights, well then just look at your income tax bill or your property tax bill.
You don't have a goddamn shred of property rights.
You, you rent stuff from the government the way that you rent your store from the mafia by paying the protection money.
So I'm just, I don't like, the word rights in discussions because it's not describing anything that is empirically real and it's not describing anything that is universally consistent or rational.
So since it neither describes universality, rationality, or empirical reality, I find it useless.
And the word rights, worse than useless, because the word rights always is used as the foundation for A government is instituted by men to secure rights which are given by God and blah-di-blah-di-blah, right?
Yeah.
So the word rights is always something that governments need to provide you and protect you from.
The governments are the basic violators of all human rights.
We need a rapist to protect me from being sexually harassed.
No.
So I find rights to be enormously unhelpful.
So when you say, is education a right?
I don't know what that means, other than you're using the word right, which is usually the opposite of helpful.
So maybe we can reframe that.
Are you saying, is education universally preferable to hate, or is being educated?
Yeah, so to come at it from the other side, would you say a school is in its power to say to a certain child, I don't want to educate you.
Therefore you're on your own or find a different school, because at the moment the government is saying that certain schools, public schools, not private schools, need to educate certain people and keep them in classrooms.
Yep.
So they're the ones saying education is a human right, but I'm of the position that, currently anyway, that it's not necessarily the school's prerogative to educate the student if they're sufficiently undesirable.
I know you're describing the state, but forget about the abstractions.
Let's just talk about what happens.
Okay.
So, people need to eat, right?
Yeah.
So can I set up a restaurant and say the right to life means the right to eat because without eating there is no life.
Therefore, everyone who doesn't come and eat at my restaurant, I will shoot them.
And then this way I'm guaranteeing their right to life.
Would that make sense to you?
No, I wouldn't.
Why not?
Because I don't think you have the right to shoot someone for not going to your restaurant.
Well then, didn't you just answer your question about schools?
Yes, but that's also an agreement with what I think as well.
So I was just looking for clarification because when I express this opinion in public forums, you know, at schools, I generally get a negative backlash, even from libertarians who think that You know, because of all the data that shows that education, um, fixes income problems, fixes violence problems, all these different problems, they feel that it's something that should be, you know, mandatory, I guess would be the word, but I'm not of that opinion.
Well, no, but you see, then, then the government should raise the children, right?
Because usually education, mandatory education kicks in when the children are five or six years old, right?
Yeah.
Now by that time the brain is more than 80% complete, the personality is complete, the presence or absence of mirror neurons is complete, the presence or absence of empathy is complete.
So if for the social good or for the betterment of the child the government needs to instruct the child then the child should be taken from the parents from birth until the age of five and then returned to the parents.
Because because that time the damage is either done or not done, right?
Yeah, by that time.
Right.
So so the idea that we like if parents are so ridiculously incompetent, and selfish, stupid, lazy, greedy, unmotivated, shitty parents, that we don't trust them to even try and educate their own children.
If that's what the parents are like, then for fuck's sake, you shouldn't leave kids with those monsters for the first five years.
Because if there's any time you should intervene with parents like that, it's the first five years to hell with the rest of the time.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, so if people think, oh, well, you know, we have to force parents to educate their children after the age of five or six, because they're stupid, selfish, lazy, good for nothing, don't care about the health and welfare of their children whatsoever.
It's like, what the fuck are you leaving the kids for the first five years with these monsters then?
It's like saying, well, you know, this guy, man, this guy Bob down the road.
God, let me tell you about Bob.
Fuck me, that guy's a monster.
Holy shit.
Let me tell you, Bob is a terrible driver.
Like every week he wraps at least one car around a telephone pole.
Bob never changes the oil on his car's engine.
He never changes the tires.
He never even washes the goddamn thing.
He just drives them until the engine seizes up.
You have to throw out the whole engine block, set fire to it, and start again.
Bob is like the worst car owner ever.
So I'm only going to lend my car to Bob for five years.
Then I'm going to demand that he give it back.
What would you say to someone like that?
I would say get the fuck out.
I'd say if Bob is such a terrible car driver, why are you lending your car to Bob for five years?
Right?
So if these parents are so terrible, why do they get the kids for the first five years?
If parents are competent for the first five years, which is kind of the toughest time and the most important time.
I mean, parenting from I mean, in many practical ways, parenting a A 12 year old is a lot easier than parenting a two month old, right?
They're not getting up all the time.
And yeah, of course.
Yeah.
Right.
They got words and so on.
Right.
So this argument, it's, it's so patently ridiculous that these people are making.
Look, if you don't trust the parents, sterilize them, right?
If you, if you just prevent them from having kids and put those birth control pills that go in under the arm for a couple of years, put those in, put those in.
If you don't trust the parents, then don't let them keep the children at all.
Government should just swoop in, raise the children in government-sanctioned nurseries and daycares 24-7, maybe let the parents come visit a couple of times a week.
But if those parents then at least give the kid back when the government has fixed it for the first five years.
I mean, if you are an animal shelter, And someone comes in and they want to buy a cat and they say, oh, well, you know, I travel three months of the year and I don't have any neighbors who will want to take care of the cat.
So I don't know.
I just leave some food around and I'm sure they can figure out what to eat.
Would you get that cat?
No.
Of course not.
They'd say you are in no way, shape or form.
They wouldn't say, okay, you travel three months of the year.
You're not going to leave any cat food around other than a couple of open bags.
So we're only going to give you this cat for five years, but then we better take it back because you're really terrible at owning cats.
So only five years do you get this cat for?
It's like, no, you just don't give that person the cat because they're terrible at being cat owners.
So you don't give the cat for five years and then swoop in.
Anyway, I think I may have labored the point too much, but But it kind of leads into my second question, which is, you know, in supplement to the first one, which is, what are the major problems with education and how can they be fixed?
I'm sorry, what are the major problems with what?
Education and how can they be fixed.
So, you know, two problems that you can think of.
Well, it's the only problem that exists, which is the gun.
You know, I mean, as long as we associate education with that which is enforced upon children and parents at the point of a gun, it's like saying, well, enforced violently inflicted arranged marriages among eight-year-olds, what's the problem with that and how can it be fixed?
Well, what's the answer?
Sorry you just cut off there.
So if there's a society where eight-year-olds are forcibly married together, and never allowed to divorce, and someone were to say, well, what is the one major problem with forcibly arranged marriages among children and how can it be fixed?
What would you say?
I would say get rid of the forced marriages.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And in so doing with switching back to education.
Yeah.
Most people and by most I mean everyone except you, me and maybe 12 other people that I know.
Everyone in the world follow their base naked self-interest and then pretend that what they're doing is virtuous.
Ex post facto reasoning.
I'm going to do what I want and then I'm going to find a way to convince myself it's virtuous.
I'm going to do what benefits me in the moment and then I'm going to convince myself that it's virtuous.
And irrationality is not the great enemy of philosophy.
Evil is not the great enemy of philosophy.
Sophistry is not the greatest enemy of philosophy.
All of these are effects of base self-interest.
And sophistry and all of that all manifest as attempts to cover up the immorality of those who profit from evil.
It's the profit that is the enemy of philosophy, not the sophistry.
That's merely the effect.
So I think Wednesday we had a guy who called in who had a hot ex-wife who wanted to sleep with him again and he tried to tell me all about how virtuous she was.
He gave a good try.
It was good penis driven imaginary virtue.
Now he was lying to himself, he was lying to me, he was using sophistry and all of that but the problem was that he wanted to have sex with his hot ex-wife.
It was the drive, the emotional need, the preference that drove all of the falseness and sophistry and lies that he put forward.
And I liked him a lot.
I'm not dissing him or anything like that.
We've all done it.
So the big fundamental problem with education is that the way that the educational system is set up almost entirely throughout the world is that By making teachers profit from the gun or by setting up a system where teachers profit from the gun, they can never ever see or say the gun.
So if you go to teachers in government schools, if you're a kid, right?
Yeah.
And, you know, if there was truth in advertising, then the teachers would have to say, all right, kids, welcome to school.
I am your teacher.
Miss Nursi Gertl brought them.
And I just want to tell you that I get paid whether you learn or not.
I can't be fired.
And your parents have to pay me whether I do a good job or a bad job.
And if your parents don't pay me, then men in blue costumes with guns will drag your parents screaming from their houses and lock them up indefinitely.
So basically I'm the wicked witch of the state and I profit from threats of violence against your parents.
If your parents, I mean they can send you to another school if you want, if they want or if you want, but they still have to pay me either way.
Yeah.
Now since I profit from violence, since I profit from the gun, you might consider it hypocritical for me to say to you, don't use violence to get what you want.
Well, the good thing is I can say whatever I want because I can't be fired and I can't not be paid.
Because if somebody decides not to pay me, well, the cops go there with guns and drag them off to jail.
So here we go.
12 years and you're out.
Good luck.
Right?
That would be an honest statement from a teacher.
Now, do teachers ever say that?
No.
Of course not.
And so The great thing about the state is that by giving people the opiate of stolen money, they render people insensate to theft.
I mean, if you ever want to, I mean, if they had simply given people money from the proceeds of every sale of a slave, Then the end of slavery would scarcely have occurred.
If that were possible, right?
So, this is the great problem of education.
Is that when it's in the hands of the state, the evil of the state becomes invisible.
Because no teacher will ever talk about the violent source of their own power and income.
And that is so foundational that you don't need to instruct teachers on how to do pro-state propaganda.
You don't.
You don't need to get back smoky rooms and give them handouts and pamphlets and say, well, you know, you've got to focus on this.
All you do is you give them the steady, steady stream of stolen money and they'll never, ever mention theft.
It's just the way the mind works.
I'm taking stolen money.
I have to pretend it's not stolen.
Right?
I defraud my insurance company.
Ah, you know, they'll just write it off.
As Kramer says, he's like, you don't even know what that means, do you?
They just write it off.
You know, they're a big company, they do immoral things, you know, whatever, right?
People will justify whatever the hell they do.
And if you can get people addicted to the blood gold of stolen money, they won't even talk about the blood, the gold, the theft, any of that.
The teachers, what do they always try and present themselves as?
Oh, we just love the children.
We're just in it for the children.
But what do you mean you might take away some of my two months off in the summer?
Well, fuck you, we're on strike.
Oh, yeah, you're on strike, stepping on the children because of your love of the children.
And so this is why government education is the most powerful and foundational arm of government propaganda.
Because the moment you get people dependent on evil, The moment you get people colluding to a crime, the moment you get people profiting from immorality, that immorality vanishes from their minds, vanishes from their conversation and is replaced by a sentimental, treacly, hallmark, card, bullshit version of the exact opposite.
And you can't solve that.
I mean, you can keep your kids away from government schools.
Of course you would.
I mean, I think you should.
Yeah, of course.
You can keep them away.
I mean, you still got to pay the bastards anyway, but you know, just because you have to pay the mafia doesn't mean that your kid's got to become a hit man.
You keep them away from government schools, but you can't, you can't solve.
You certainly can't solve it from the inside.
I mean, you just can't.
Because the moment people are dependent on government money, they rationalize the government money as virtuous, as necessary, as earned, as my rights, as blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
You people talk about raising the retirement age by even one day, right?
These people have paid into the system.
It's like bullshit they have.
Of course they haven't.
There's no money.
They didn't pay into the system.
It's like saying, well, I, I paid into the Las Vegas casino.
Where are my winnings?
I want five to one, which is a lot of people get out of the bullshit called social security or retirement pensions.
I paid into that system.
It's like, nope, you gambled.
You gave your money to the government and they stole it because you're idiots.
And the price for idiocy is the wake up call of fiscal reality.
So, um, You can't solve that system from the inside.
All you can do is shame the evildoers by repeatedly speaking the basic truth about the immorality of the situation.
I don't mean all teachers are evil.
I mean, some teachers are very nice people, but the nicest people that I've ever heard about, like the Stand and Deliver guy and John Taylor Gatto, got the fuck out of the system, right?
You can't claim to have found Jesus and still be a hitman.
You find Jesus, you You get out of the Mafia, that's sort of the point, right?
And so all the best teachers are out and all those who've remained are by definition just corrupt scumbags.
And again, there are private school teachers who I think are very good and they're working in a whole different kind of environment.
And there are, you know, I've talked to some public school teachers who are struggling with this issue in this very show.
And you know, good hearted people trying to do the right thing.
But in the long run, they have to recognize that they're getting blood money and they should Go elsewhere, in my opinion.
Tell anyone what to do.
I mean, everyone's got to sort of figure out how to survive within this blood-soaked, kibble-coughing machinery that we live in.
But no, we just simply have to keep speaking the reality of the ethics of the situation.
That you bring a gun to a classroom, you're suspended.
When your classroom is a gun, yeah, everyone should be suspended.
So, just to make sure, I'm going to provide a quick summary of what I think we've talked about and you can tell me if I've got the right picture here.
So, the major problems with education will be majorly fixed by deregulating schools and putting the power back in the hands of teachers who actively deal with kids.
Well, I don't know.
See, I don't know.
I don't know because I don't know what the hell education looks like in a free society, right?
Okay.
So, the whole point is we don't know.
If somebody knew exactly what the best education was for everyone, that person would Run everything, but there's no way that that could ever work.
What does education mean when every child, for a couple of bucks a month, can get access to all the world's information on a smartphone?
I don't know.
But it sure as hell has nothing to do with a bunch of chairs in a room and a teacher up there at a blackboard, right?
Yeah.
Right?
I mean, back in the day, people used carrier pigeons and smoke signals to get their messages across.
You know, did they ever think of instantaneous messages you could send and receive from your watch all around the world for free pretty much?
No, of course not.
But that's not improved carrier pigeons or better smoke rings, right?
Or better smoke signals.
That's just a whole different planet.
I don't know what education looks like.
I don't know what the best way is to educate children.
No idea.
I think that the free market should experiment a hell of a lot.
You know, what's the best way to communicate?
What's the best technology?
I don't know.
Nobody does, but people keep trying stuff and they find stuff that people like that works.
So, I mean, there are some transitional stages.
So I think in Belgium, yeah, the public schools are fairly good because in Belgium you get a voucher for, I don't know what it is, 10 or 12,000 bucks a year, and you can take it to a government school and pay there, or you can take it to a private school and pay there.
Right.
That would be a good idea.
But of course, The government unions hate that.
Right?
Yeah.
So, I mean, you know, whether that is the transitional phase or not, I don't know.
And I don't really care.
That's not my job.
My job is simply to point out the ethics of the situation that we have a very violent, a fundamentally violent educational system that doesn't even have the guts to admit how violent it is.
And, you know, so we're not even at the stage where people recognize there's a problem.
So, you know, it's earlier than you think.
It's not going to be solved in my lifetime, may not be solved in your lifetime, but the reality is we just need to keep pounding that same drum.
People need to hear even agreeable messages several times before they remember them.
Disagreeable messages takes hundreds of times before people will even consider them.
Can I slip in a little bit of a plug here?
Because I'm actually doing A bit of work with a group of people who are aiming to achieve the things we've talked about here.
So free market education, getting the gun away from schools.
Great.
And is that a book or a website or what?
No, it's actually a political party down here in Australia.
It's called the Liberal Democrat Party.
It's a libertarian perspective.
And if people want to sign up to that party, it's free.
Where I personally live, the state I live in, we need more members so we can run for government.
Which is a bit funny because our role is basically to remove government or reduce government.
Which is not a very good business model but I think it's worth trying for.
So thanks for talking to me and thanks for letting me plug that as well.
Alright.
▲
Export Selection