I’m not proposing a return to agrarianism. Nor am I suggesting individual families have the ability to opt out. I’m not even taking the position that the current system is bad.
I’m saying it’s remarkably new, and we don’t understand what it may or may not be doing to our society. I am suggesting we need to consider whether the industrial…
I’m not proposing a return to agrarianism. Nor am I suggesting individual families have the ability to opt out. I’m not even taking the position that the current system is bad.
I’m saying it’s remarkably new, and we don’t understand what it may or may not be doing to our society. I am suggesting we need to consider whether the industrial warehousing of kids, and the fragmenting of the extended family and networked communities, have had unintended consequences which could be ameliorated by different social policies.
If warranted to make a better society, we can create an environment more friendly to labor, so that families can remain rooted in place and grow into a broad network. We can rethink age-based cohorts in education, and the resources we put into how we raise our kids. One-room schoolhouses may not be resource efficient, but they might be a remedy for some of the unintended consequences of the current system. We don’t need to be single-mindedly focused on efficiency as the outcome—efficient mobility of labor, efficient storage and education of children—so as to sacrifice quality. That’s a choice we need to consider if the research and evidence suggests it is creating a problem.
The current social order is so new, we should be trying to see what these methods have wrought, so as to better target what we might do to improve them.
I’m not proposing a return to agrarianism. Nor am I suggesting individual families have the ability to opt out. I’m not even taking the position that the current system is bad.
I’m saying it’s remarkably new, and we don’t understand what it may or may not be doing to our society. I am suggesting we need to consider whether the industrial warehousing of kids, and the fragmenting of the extended family and networked communities, have had unintended consequences which could be ameliorated by different social policies.
If warranted to make a better society, we can create an environment more friendly to labor, so that families can remain rooted in place and grow into a broad network. We can rethink age-based cohorts in education, and the resources we put into how we raise our kids. One-room schoolhouses may not be resource efficient, but they might be a remedy for some of the unintended consequences of the current system. We don’t need to be single-mindedly focused on efficiency as the outcome—efficient mobility of labor, efficient storage and education of children—so as to sacrifice quality. That’s a choice we need to consider if the research and evidence suggests it is creating a problem.
The current social order is so new, we should be trying to see what these methods have wrought, so as to better target what we might do to improve them.