Politics

pk is the deschooler. With Illich dead, pk inherits. pk earned what he inherits.

Deschooling is the social stance which opposes compulsory ritual. The public got out from under the Church's compulsions; now it's past time that Americans, and the rest of the world, get out from under the alpha morons who run things: tell the state and the school board, and the draft board, to take a hike: indeed, just to ignore the state and the school board. If absolutely no one (who didn't actually want to) paid taxes, if people boycotted the products and services of corporations who paid taxes, and who lean on the alpha morons to guide them what to do with the taxes, who to bomb, the state would be bankrupted by the effort of putting everyone in jail: the jail walls would decay: and the schools would be inhabited by squatters, by people not compelled to be there: students and their state-paid guards, the teachers, the administrators.

So. You see: I've taken a step beyond deschooling. Or rather, deschooling represents (the most outspoken) part of my general anarchism: the belief that the state has no legitimate function: it doesn't matter which state. There's an irony there: pk is the guy who says that

There are no political solutions to our problems.

So it sounds like my politics is no politics. But it ain't true. No politics is the condition the species was born into. Everything being supervised by politicians, who wield not understanding, but power, is recent, factitious, artificial: not natural!

Anyway, Knatz.com (and all my domains, with their thousands of essays and articles and stories) had a section on Politics (in Knatz.com / Teaching / Society / NoHier /). I need to recreate that material on line, in a blog, where it should be archived regardless of whether I can pay to again host Knatz.com. I'll begin putting the materials into a vacant chronological spot. I was put in jail October 2006. 2006 October 13 onward for fifteen months is open. November will do temporarily: perhaps I should should all Knatz.com / Teaching / Society / materials not already archived to blogs into that temporal space: / Society / Social Epistemology, / Society / Survival /, and the rest of / Society / NoHier /.

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A movie is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it.

Ben Hecht

Ben was a smart cookie, a great writer, a genuine wit. Could his statement be literally true? I don't see how; but it's delicious.

I'll say the same thing about lots of things:

A society is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it.
An institution is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it.
A church, a school, a university is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it.


Oh, Ben, for shame! For shame, pk, for repeating his solicism: where's the gender disclaimer?

An anything is never any better than the stupidest woman connected with it.