Schoolroom Earth

A teacher sees she is slowly losing control of her class. A small percentage are troublemakers who do little more than disrupt. All appeals to reason have fallen on deaf ears. She enforces stricter rules.

She half expected the move to fail. Prior to cracking down on the class as a whole, even her solid relationship with the good students – who often helped controlling the know-it-alls, the troublemakers – had been showing signs of strain. Perhaps they were losing faith in her. And despite herself, she could not help but notice a certain dangerous charisma about the wilful group, a robust yet unearned self-confidence. So their reaction to the crackdown saddens, but does not surprise her.

Loud, unruly, yet eloquent, the small group make rabble-rousing speeches to the undecided, encouraging them to rise up and overthrow the teacher. She has become, they argue, “draconian”, a “drag on their freedom of expression”. “We don’t need her!”, they bellow in conclusion, pointing at her in open defiance. She watches the small minority flip to a majority with a loud cheer. 

Her loyal students are suddenly off balance, their equilibrium thrown into an indecisive mix of anger and fear. In a burst of uncharacteristically disciplined action, the loyalists are cordoned off as a large group ejects her from the building, and locks her out. 

She finds herself surrounded by the rest of her colleagues, each as dazed as she.

*

So, what happens next?

Out with the old boss, in with the new? Who rules now and in the name of what vision?

Before answering, note that allegorical micro-stories like the above tend to encode assumptions it is always wise to tease out and contemplate. 

How profoundly do context and structure influence behaviour, imagination and worldview? Are separate classrooms a natural law, which must therefore be set in stone as an educational foundation for all time? Should teachers run separated classrooms as if their authority is final? Should any human have final authority? If so, under what conditions? Can a curriculum be perfect, beyond criticism? Should anyone or anything – aside from nature itself – carefully guard the keys to knowledge and wisdom?

What is loyalty? How should it best be effected and expressed? Blindly? Or wisely? Which behaviours constitute “wise loyalty”?

Zooming out: Does socioeconomic specialisation – a property of modern complex society – require hierarchical structures and institutionalised authority? Does constant change work its magic on everything, or do some things remain resolutely constant? Nuclear families? The dichotomy between civilised and wild? Between anarchy and hierarchy? Are these axes axiomatic, or simply cultural artefacts?

More broadly still: Wouldn’t a more nuanced, organic and patient human world be healthier than the frenzied rigidity of modernity? Isn’t consumerism simply the socioeconomics of narcissism, of decadence? Won’t perpetual economic growth and consumerism inevitably collapse around their systemic flaws? If yes, what should follow, and how might we prepare for a next system? Contemplating this, what might authority look like in a post-consumerism world?

Should we attempt to halt technological advance and/or perpetuate consumerism just to keep as many humans as possible economically ‘valuable’? Can value be measured? Must its definition belong solely to economics? Shouldn’t we culturally reassess how we value each other? Or should we leave such decisions to current authorities, yield ever more of our thinking and decision making to The Experts (of the old system), accepting (for the sake of argument) that increasing specialisation is an immutable corollary of civilisational advance?

Is such questioning more harmful than beneficial? If yes, what would that imply for humanity in terms of health, creativity, joy, spirit?

*

Just as it is impossible to be ready for parenthood, it is impossible to be ready for a healthier way of governing ourselves when history comes knocking; a steep and turbulent learning curve always follows the advent of both. But can we learn to want to do what it takes to build something more organic, less mechanical? Or will we choose the ‘security’ of tyranny, even though history shows tyrants devour their children, their adherents, their acolytes?

We stand at an historical juncture, perhaps the most profound humanity has faced. For me, the most problematic aspect of this moment is how few of us are willing to look it, and ourselves, squarely in the eye, and take responsibility for our contribution to the modern situation humanity has earned. If truly we lack that vital courage, we will by default ‘choose’ the ‘security’ of tyranny, of lifelessness; a mechanically rigid world order conceived by the very few, for the very few. Discovering that this is so requires a mix of historical knowledge, dispassionate distance from groupthink, and compassion for the human condition.

The good news is that we needn’t overthrow any teachers in a revolutionary sense. It’s more that we are tasked with learning how to talk to each other across the many gulfs that seem to divide us. Real progress will proceed from sincerely open conversation. That’s precisely what Schoolroom Earth has been slowly bringing to our attention these last millennia. (And no, I do not have answers to the above questions, only the strong sense they are the right ones.)

From my point of view, the core challenge is creatively and peacefully globalising through directly democratic local/regional polities that see the skill of intimate interpersonal and broader intercultural communication as paramount. We will need to figure out how the power to decide global issues can be shared across many thousands of regional polities. An incorruptible science must surely be the cornerstone of such an attempt. To establish that, humanity must first evolve a very different value system, one that is not beholden to the crudity of the price-money-market triad.

But alongside that incorruptible science, we will need to be clear that science only informs. We cannot “follow the science”, an odd phrase that implies powerlessness, blindness, passivity. Decisions come from wisdom – from the heart – no matter how evolved. Data, no matter how scrupulously gathered, is never sufficient on its own. It always exists in context, and can never capture everything that needs to be considered. As such, mistakes that sometimes lead to tragedy will be made, forever; to err is human. But healthy communities weather bad times best; atomised individuals rarely cope as well… We are a social animal. Currently, the system is forcing ever finer atomisation via a mendacious “we’re all in it together” mantra that will produce as dysfunctional and sickly a society – globally – as it is possible to imagine, however short lived. 

The clearest evidence this is so is the vitriol now aimed at those who question ‘authority’. Whom do such divisive tactics serve? The expendable obedient? Or the tiny minority pushing the process forward using the obedient as canon fodder?