Author Archives: joeptak

So, my previous post was very ranty and not all that helpful in developing and driving the discussion forward. In its self-indulgence, I suppose I out myself as a wanna-be academic. Or blogger. So, let me take this post to provide a more straightforward position.

I agree with what one reader, Lanny, said in response to one of the earlier posts: the problem is not moral relativism, but rather the problem is system-wide confusion. It is, in a way, knowledge relativism as a result of an education system that would not be universally standardized. Localism is a nice dream, but rather useless, if the locals don’t know anything. If there is no consistency in education or standards from one family of homeschoolers and the next, then there is a risk of resulting in a nation full of conservatives. Some Protestant. Some Catholic. Some Muslim, Some non-religious. Perhaps a few liberals will be produced. The point is that the result will be pluralism in the most absurd definition of the concept. And this pluralism may not in fact be a good thing, but rather it may be of bad consequence because of the self-regulating and radically private nature of a system that reserves not only the responsibility of civic virtue, but also the responsibility of education, to parents by virtue of their  not being a part of the public school system.

The public and private education systems may need improvements, but that is not an argument for me teaching my children math and science (or english grammar, for that matter). I think we take for granted that it is easy to actually educate students to be knowledgeable human beings and citizens, by our cheerleading for homeschooling and other radical responses to a system that, while broken, I don’t think should be abandoned.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the skills to teach science to children; and, as much as I would like to believe it, I don’t think that any children I have will be able to survive and thrive in this world armed primarily with their proper upbringing and moral education supervised and provided by their parents. Conservatism just doesn’t have as much purchasing power as calculus. Perhaps there are those out there who would disagree.

Yet, we are to believe in the inherent superiority of homeschooling to public schooling – and other forms of schooling – not by appeal to subject matter expertise, or even tradition; rather, the argument for homeschooling rests on the persuasive power of a conservative trope.

I remain unconvinced of the case for the superiority or necessity of homeschooling, though I am open to the existence of a right to homeschool.

First, there is the risk of creating an unstandardized system of knowledge; it is a risk for relativism or at least inequality as a goal, not simply as a possible side effect. So not only traditional school subjects may be at the risk of the the particular homeschooler, but even those ideas that make up the very core of our country may be at risk. The failure to disseminate those values that constitute “America” I think is high. That would seem in practice to be a system of relativism that is radically individualistic and stripped of the community orientation that is supposed to be a hallmark of conservatism.

Second, if you want to fix the school system, don’t leave the public school system in order to restore a local and decentralized control to education. That local and decentralized system already exists. It’s called a school district. Get involved. Your children will thank you someday.

Third, in spite of the existence of the Department of Education – and the conservative claim of centralization – the primary institutions responsible for funding and oversight of American children’s education reside at the state and lower levels. That is to say, the localism that conservatives desire already exists.

Fourth, though there are many problems with the education system, overall it’s not doing that bad. At least, I don’t think it is bad enough to justify a mass exodus toward homeschooling in response to our education woes.

To conclude, the answer to our public education crisis (to the extent that one exists) may not be a return to localism (we’re already there). Rather, a more robust response from the federal government may be an effective first step. Homeschooling doesn’t strike me as a “public policy” Americans should get behind. Yes, I recognize that the system needs to be improved, but am I in the minority of conservatives? I say, give the teachers a chance.

In his response to my remarks about homeschooling, Ben has taken the debate into a direction and sophistication that is welcome. I hope my response can meet him at this new standard he has set.
I acknowledge that the original essay to which Ben is responding leaves much unstated and too many assumptions implicit rather than spelled out; it was early in the morning and I was on a tight schedule (I’ll take whatever excuse I can get). That said, in my response, I will try to rectify the deficiencies and sloppiness that he has correctly called me on. I guess I have a lot of work to do.
Ben begins his response by observing the haziness of many of my statements and that a central point in my essay hinges on some hazy language. He singles out my claim that homeschooling leads to a “fractured civic ontology.” It’s a string of words which would have made more sense had they been “fractured social order” or “social disunity”/”cohesion” or something less pretentious. Oh well. This is a blog. Pretentiousness is an essential ingredient. That’s my defense and I’m sticking to it.
And he’s absolutely right to state that Heidegerrians and Cartesians coexisting in some pluralist society is something about which I could give a rat’s behind. But I think that being on a philosophically inclined blog (with an audience that, I presume, shares our inclination), I needed to go with something a bit “deeper.” We’re philosophically-oriented folks who use terms such as “tradition” and “historicism” like it’s our job, yet it’s “ontology” at which point we draw the line and say “hold on here. Let’s avoid that silly jargon”? I find that hard to believe.
So, what do I mean? When I use a term like “social ontology” I suppose I mean the structure, including the content, that undergirds and forms the country. It is the unobservable (or unobserved) order that defines the country. I suppose that we can observe it and know it – (operationalize it and study it?) – indirectly through our references to physical and non-physical entities such as flags and statues; creeds, motos and ideas; and institutions of government. This list is, obviously, inexhaustive but hopefully it pushes forward this discussion and provides further sources of contrast and debate.
Ben is correct in his speculation that the definition of “civic culture” that I use corresponds to a “classical,” small-r repulican definition. I would disagree with Ben’s inference that my view of education prioritize civic awareness/inculcation over education as such. I view education as the primary purpose of the public education system; in addition to that, I think that the inculcation of these cultural particulars is within the appropriate scope of the system, too. So, at this part of the discussion, I view there being two roles of the education system, and not necessarily exclusive, either. The primary role is to actually educate (however we define that; a definition would be useful. Perhaps Ben or someone will be able to provide one with which we can work). The second role is to transmit this civic culture, with its implicit and explicit values.
I agree with him that the primary conservative concern is reducible to which civic virtues are being inculcated; I would like to know what “conservative” civic virtues would be; would they or would they not correspond to the civic virtues of the American polity as it existed historically or as it exists today? Rather than strictly theoretical speculation, we have to take a step down and wade into the swamp of the empirical observations that are “conservative” and “civic virtue.” Because, frankly, we don’t know what a set of conservative civic values would be, let alone the relationship between those values and the values of the public education system. That makes it difficult to discuss this with any eye toward the practical activity of critiquing the present culture and replacing it with a restored “traditional” culture that somehow is closer to the western, judeo-christian heritage that we are supposed to be fighting for.
Unfortunately, it is around this point that I think this is where Ben’s critical response goes off the rails, so to speak. The rest of his response presupposes that my view of the purpose of education prioritize the transmission of civic culture over the education of the children.
Ben is correct that I do not make explicit the assumption that the public education system is a better source of learing civic virtue than the parents/family unit. That’s because I don’t hold such a view (side note: reductionism is not apparently the unique purview of rational choice theorists). I think Ben needs to provide some type of evidence for his claim that instilling public and private virtue “is undeniably one of the major reasons parents choose to educate their children at home.” Here is one source that may provide some support for his speculative claim that instilling virtue is a reason, though it would seem to only indirectly support his claim.
When I discuss the potential for extremism, I am stating only one of the potential criticisms of homeschooling. There are others, listed in a the wikipedia entry referenced in my original post, which I will post in this blog entry

Inadequate standards of academic quality and comprehensiveness

Lack of socialization with peers of different ethnic and religious backgrounds

The potential for development of religious or social extremism
Children sheltered from mainstream society, or denied opportunities such as social development
Potential for development of parallel societies that do not fit into standards of citizenship and the community

Extremism is but one of the risks associated with homeschooling. There are other risks which touch upon academic well-being and the social cohesion and values that Ben and I discuss in our posts.

Contrary to Ben, I do not see the positive effect of homeschooling to be the introduction of pluralistic values into a society. In fact, I see the opposite effect, if the studies are to be believed. You don’t even have to reference emprical data to reach that conclusion; all you have to do is read what Ben writes in order to figure out what why his argument is internally inconsistent (in its logic). It boils down to how plurality is weighed or conceptualized. Ben emphasizes the centrality of the parents (as members of the family unit), while I am looking at it from a perspective that, I think, is pragmatically understood (in this discussion) as structural

I think a major problem with Ben’s argument is that his argument presupposes the existence of more mainstream education systems (public and parochial) which exist parallel to the home schoolers, which would provide the necessary foil to produce the outcome that Ben relies on in order to justify the pluralistic value of homeschooling. But, in his critique he seems to imply that pluralism is not the goal of home schoolers; rather, the goal of home schoolers is to instill in their children-students a view of the world that is explicitly contrary to the mainstream or majority view of American society. If we take this homeschooling to an extreme, then we risk a country/civilization of individuals on, for or with whom we cannot build a society. This is because these different home schoolers have sets of beliefs and related manifestations which are so diffuse, that anything resembling a common set of values which can be used to develop a social order would be unfeasible.

Surely, the problem is not reducible to the phenomena that the children will not encounter views that contradict their parents’ own, right? I think it is safe to assume that no two families hold the same views, so even when home schooled, the children-students will encounter views that are contrary to their parents. What Ben seems to be suggesting is that plurality down to the level of individual families is preferred and provides the necessary foundation for a healthy, vibrant and developing political order. I don’t think that it does. This is because if this homeschooling inspired pluralism is fully embraced and logically developed, then the result is a society of individuated families, each with their own views and not being open to the other, which would preclude the development of the type of social order that conservatives would want. We can speculate that the home schooler is a conservative and would share and participate in a value system that the individual conservatives would collectively share, but we would be risking a lot for a theory that, unlike other
theories, we have usable data to determine the propriety of the theory. To simplify it: we’re still left with conservatives battling the status quo. We still have to determine whether or not conservatives are in the right to home school. Or that we’re right about why conservatives choose to home school.

That said, I’m not buying the whole mind reading thing. The result of this kind of behavior, contrary to Ben’s implication, would not be a more open society in which pluralism would be a benefit; rather, the result would be a more closed society, of which pluralism would be a hazard. The children-students would be exposed and inculcated at very young ages against the variety of views that fit outside of the parents (or homeschoolers’) worldviews. The world is not limited to particular christian or conservative sects; yet, I suspect that is what would be te result. A society full different and sometimes contradictory sects. How do you build a society on that?

I don’t think there is an “obvious double standard” with my argument. I would like Ben to make more explicit his reasons for suggesting that there is a double standard in my argument. As for my view that my problem is not with pluralism, but rather with the permissiveness of what I think to be the “wrong” view: I disagree with that as well. I would like it if Ben would expand upon that speculation. Until then, it has no support.
How is it morally confusing for conservative children to be “thrust” into environments that differ from the ones from which the come? Presumably, the conservative parent will have prepared – or will be prepared – to protect their child from the negative effects of the public school environment. But, the question that arises is, what are those negative influences/effects from which the conservative child must be protected? Is the culture that bad – that progressive and contrary to conservative values – that the conservative must resort to homeschooling – to separating his or her child from the larger environment – in order to properly educate and guide the child? It would seem that the spotlight should be shone upon the conservative, and not the public (or parochial) school system. What is it that the conservative has – except for conservatism – to support the home school movement?

I disagree with the assertion that Ben makes, which is that the fractured civic ontology “totally precludes us from teaching moral values to our children, but it is wholly unclear why this should be the case.” It does not completely shut out parents. Parents are free and obligated, I think, to teach the moral values that they believe their children should learn.

So we are left with why the broad, institutional forms of education (public and parochial) developed in the first place.

I think logically that there has to be a limit to the home school movement; there has to a logical limit to the conservative embrace of this movement. I think there are two ways to interpret the argument Ben posits. Neither of these ways is positive for the homeschooling movement. One is to reduce it to its rationalistic, individualistic core – which is fine, if we recognize that it sits on a number of assumptions that may or may not be real (and we conservatives seem to pride ourselves on our realism); the other is to assert that what we are talking about is real. But then we have to contend with the fact that the “facts” may not comport to our narrative. So then who is right? The conservatives, or the facts that conflict with their realism? If we are to be historically sensitive and speaking of something that is “real,” then we have to be more philosophically and empirically aware than we are. I do not think our criticisms of the culture can survive otherwise. (and please for the love of God, do not anyone bring up Thomas Kuhn unless you want to include his post structure stuff. the same goes for anyone else).

__________________________________________________________________________________

To me, at least, much of Ben’s response is in the realm of speculative theorizing. It is out the desire to be victorious, which is a lost cause. I think that a better response would be one that would make use of the data from various sources which detail the positive and negative effects of homeschooling. I think we conservatives have a duty to step away from the “conservative” theory – and the language – and enter into an engagement with the available evidence that exists on the topics about which we are concerned, and which are discussed here on the blog. Too often we have conversations with ourselves. And that only marginalizes us.

That said, I am not opposed to homeschooling. Neither am I opposed to private or public schooling. As a product of private schooling, I am grateful for the type of education I received. As a citizen of this country, I try to be sensitive to the public good that education is and the implicit conservatism that the idea of local public education can be, even if in practice it is far from it. I appreciate what Ben has done in his response; I know that my response is not up to the level I want it to be, because it does not adequately answer the criticisms that Ben provides. That, to me anyway, indicates a strength of the conservative case. Or it may just be indicative of Ben’s brilliance and my intellectual sub-parity. Anyway, I hope that contributors and readers alike will recognize the value in this type of exchange. It forces us to refine our theoretical and empirical points and places matters such as causality; at the foreground of the debates we have with each other; it sharpens conservatives and conservatism. It gets to the meat of the matters and forces us conservatives to take a long and hard look at ourselves as we attempt to respond to a society that is always escaping our grasps.

Conservatives need to do better than just to theorize. But we don’t seem to do better than that. At the end of this long-winded and irrelevantly linked blog post, that’s all I’ve got.

Chuck O’Shea has written a provocative post in support of the ascendance of homeschooling in the United States. While I don’t take issue with the article he quotes, I disagree a bit with the reasons he gives as to its importance. His reasons are positive. I will, briefly, provide contrasting (negative) reasons that highlight the importance of homeschooling (these can be found through <wikipedia, so have no fear).

Most serious for those on this blog, homeschooling potentially threatens our civic culture. If the civic culture is eroded, then how are we to instill the moral values and demonstrate the superfluousness of the state education system? We won’t. We will create a fractured civic ontology, which will lead to a plurality of cultures, which will manifest itself in a relativistic society. So, homeschooling leads to relativism (in a few steps).

There is nothing “essential” to the health of the society which would necessitate that families control education in the form of homeschooling; if a family feels it necessary to pull out of the public school system, then there are parochial schools which can do that job, and come with less of a risk of the anarchic relativism that is inherent to homeschooling. Homeschooling, then, is essentially repeating the same function that private schools already perform, but with far more politicization and far greater risk of insulation and insidious civic destruction.

As for the “variety of viewpoints that emerge” in a homeschooling system: only if they talk to each other. Otherwise, it would seem to be a recipe for extremism.

David Frum writes in the Daily Beast that the election results demonstrate that the Republican Party is ridiculously estranged out of touch with the American electorate:

At a time when the need to broaden the party’s appeal seemed overwhelmingly compelling, Republicans narrowed their appeal to the most ideological fragment of the conservative base.

Should conservatives be worried? In the build-up to the election. the strategy of the Romney campaign was to appeal to us; yet, here it is written in an article by the writer responsible for the axis of evil phrase spoken by President George W. Bush that his party – and by association conservatives and conservatism – is out of touch with the American mainstream.

So, should conservatives be worried?

Here is a recent post by Nate Silver on the implication that the 2012 elections have for the Republican Party. I think that his commentary and analysis can be extrapolated in order to be applied to a group within the party which constitutes a disproportionately powerful influence on the direction of said party: the conservatives. What does Nate Silver’s analysis mean for conservatism as a viable, realistic, and reasonable alternative to the President and party that was elected to the presidency on november 6, 2012?

I don’t think that conservatives can coninue to claim the mantle of conservatism if they are not willing to acknowledge that what they call conservatism is not conservatism at all. What is being demonstrated is that conservatives are precisely what they claim to abhor: ahistorical, abstract, and fairly distant from reality.

Here’s a fun article over at Slate.com

Cheer Up, Republicans

any thoughts?

Last night, the US elected the Democrat’s Reagan as Andrew Sullivan has recently written. We have a President who may not fit the mold of traditionalism or historicitism (or it may not be admitted) ; but I suspect that we have one who may fit the mold of a Viereck or an Oakeshott. And that’s conservative enough to count.

On this hurricane day, I want to be to be a little productive with my time and post something that I hope will get some responses. Here is an article for conservatives, traditionalists and libertarians of all stripes: Charles Murray on the decline of the white working class

I encourage people to read the article. His analysis fits with views expressed on this blog, I think. Here is his book