All organisms not only adapt to their environment, but also adapt their environment to their own needs. The spore of the humble lichen chemically alters the rock on which it falls in order to prosper, and so on up the chain. Primitive humans, with natural weapons inferior to most of their competitors, developed their intelligence, which permitted them to alter their environment radically, more than compensating for their physical inferiority.
Progressivism, which is simply "scientific socialism" by another name, is the philosophy of mediocre people who seek to alter humanity in order to create a society in which they, and others like them, shall not feel inadequate. Such a society must of necessity penalize the historically adaptive qualities that Progressives generally lack. Jesus said that the meek shall inherit the earth - Progressives are determined that it shall be so.
This is why there is no point in arguing with them: any other world-view is intolerable to them because only the filter of Progressivism permits them to look in the mirror of their souls and think well of themselves.
Kurt Vonnegut captured the ultimate expression of the Progressive ideal in "Harrison Bergeron", a short story in the 1968 collection Welcome to the Monkey House, in which social equality has been achieved by handicapping the intelligent, athletic and beautiful so that no one shall feel inferior to anyone else.
Does any of this sound familiar? Check out the British government Equalities Office website (here). Better still, check out the absence of teaching and learning from the list of social engineering desiderata set out in the Code of Conduct and Practice of the recently abolished General Teaching Council of England quango.
Abolishing quangos and repealing legislation is easy. Changing the mindset of teachers who are hostile to the historical ideal of an educated person because they are not themselves educated people, or of a bureaucracy wedded to promotion by seniority because promotion by merit is "unfair", may well be impossible.
Long before any such change can take root, the ant-like Progressives will be back in power, determined as always to make a world safe for mediocrity.
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As a longtime former teacher I cannot help but note that 'Respecting diversity and promoting equality'are not necessarily compatible aims and that when you are levelling down your standards to the performance of your slackest and dullest students, what you have in effect done is to fold 'diversity' into 'equality' and, in effect, equate the two.
ReplyDeleteThe Quaker private schools in Philadelphia, of which there were quite a number, found themselves rather trapped by this dilemma from the nineteen-sixties onward. How could they promote scholarship and still equalize'everyone?
They couldn't just abolish examinations or grades because their students were intent on being accepted at recognized colleges and universities. So they basically fudged the whole issue by giving good grades to everybody. This made the better students a little cynical but the easy riders soon came to expect it as their due. Grade inflation caught on well in the universities of America as well. All have won and all shall have prizes. Dream on, folks.