tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28755195.post2479252924618520955..comments2023-09-25T04:26:51.568-06:00Comments on The Barefoot Bum: Covert authoritarianismLarry Hamelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08788697573946266404noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28755195.post-47110032009750615092007-08-10T10:20:00.000-06:002007-08-10T10:20:00.000-06:00I actually won't underwrite that the teachers in t...I actually won't underwrite that the teachers in this story have "fooled" anyone, as if this were a deliberate strategy. I don't hold to the kind of paranoid interpretation that underwrites the usual critiques by the Right of "indoctrination." Instead, what I see here is a version in practice of what Janet Halley calls "exercising power in bad faith." <BR/><BR/>Teachers see, rightly or wrongly, the embryonic Structure of Oppression in children's play, and they must Make Things Right. Situationally emergent "Power" (created by flawed beings who are always already corrupted by capitalism even as small children) is to be treated as embryonic of the Big Power Structures that corrupt the world, and the world will therefore never turn out right (become Utopia) unless we Intervene in a Deus ex Machina fashion, exercising power in order to prevent Power.<BR/><BR/>Ultimately this deprives children of the opportunity to learn to exercise freedom, since their free exploration of the world in play is treated as already corrupted and in some sense the children themselves are treated as flawed beings needing <I>fundamental</I> correction and alteration. However this is easily corrected if their experiences are properly structured so as to bring them to the spontaneous realization of the teachers' ideology, an ideology which is clearly visible in the way the experiences are organized such that the children will learn What's Right, the Injustice of their corrupted (original) spontaneity.<BR/><BR/>I'm not arguing that children are All Good and that their spontaneity "trails clouds of glory from God which is their home." No, it is quite possible that we are indeed all corrupted and not even just by capitalism, patriarchy, and the other usual suspects. But I <I>am</I> arguing that people need to learn to exercise their freedom in ways which are not ultimately manipulated by benevolent powers which provide them only with experiences which teach the right lessons. People have to have a robust sense of their abilities to exercise their freedom in the face of life challenges which will, indeed, often tempt them to learn wrong lessons, and they cannot learn to be free in an Ultimately Controlled Environment in which their very freedom is (with benevolent intentions) structured out of existence, by power that does not admit that that is what it is.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com