When
things are turned on their heads
Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 4/11/20
Yes,
it’s grown children now saying to their parents, “Get back in that house!” It’s graduating seniors in high schools and
colleges who could well have already seen many friends for the last time. For
others it’s the lost job and the endangered mortgage. In degree, it’s all of us.
Already,
however, we are learning things about ourselves. Some of those things are bad,
some good. Not for a long time have
Americans used the word “we” as much as we are using it now. “We the people”
are now we the locked in and locked out, locked in our homes and locked out of
our work places. But in it all we are being educated and somewhat united. Anyone
who has lived life for, say, 20 years should understand how America works. In
America you can chase your dream, but sometimes that dream is stymied and one
has to wait, re-coup, and try again.
Another
positive is that we have seen once more the neighborliness of Americans, and
not just from next door neighbors. Individuals, families, service clubs, and
even corporations are all extending themselves to help meet the needs of others.
We
are also learning a great deal about learning. Just when, why, and by whose
counsel did we begin lining students up in rows of desks with the teacher
standing authoritatively before them? It wasn’t done that way in the beginning
(Socrates held a disdain for it) and it’s not done that way now in homeschooling.
When Jefferson in 1779 proposed a public “two track education for the laboring
and the learned,” and when in the 1830s Horace Mann promoted “age grading,”
surely neither visionary wished for a school with hundreds of children or
youths together in one place. Today, though, we crowd them together in
“comprehensive” schools and then wonder where our child’s bad influences come
from.
If
we didn’t know already, we’re learning that high tech is also low touch. Parents
are reporting that their children and teens are yearning to see their teachers,
not just their friends. Technology, a blessing and a curse, cannot give love or
encouragement as well as a human being can. Could our current isolation be
pointing us toward consideration of, say, three days at school and two days at
home with distinct assignments for the home days? With so many parents doing
online work at home anyhow, schools don’t really have to be the babysitters
they used to be. Are we about to experience “back to the future” and to
understand there is nothing new under the sun, particularly when it comes to
our emotional needs?
The
bad thing, maybe the worst, about our isolation is its political and sociological
implications, particularly our docile acceptance of the government’s actions.
Why aren’t governors seeking the wisdom of the electorate, the will of the
people, before they declare their closures? Why are we relying on arguably
overeducated experts and their significantly overstated “models” instead of on
simple arithmetic, namely the comparison of cases, recoveries, and deaths to
population? Why haven’t governors sought more counsel from state legislators
who represent the people, particularly since freedom of assembly and freedom of
worship are now being affected?
Regarding
arithmetic, as of this writing Georgia has 10,189 cases of coronavirus, 369
deaths, and 10 million people. The United States has 434,861 cases, 14,814
deaths, and 330 million people. Sorrow and gravity? Yes. A need for the panic
pushed on us? No. Given China mischief on one side and Trump-hate on the other,
it’s no longer conspiratorial, crazy, or premature to feel like something is
fishy.
There
is simply too little concern for the economy. The economy is not an abstraction.
It’s people working, buying and selling, providing jobs, and paying for
mortgages and food. Yet, instead of hearing from the practitioner/producers of
our economy, we are obeying professors and social scientists who tell us to
close our stores. Social science is not a science and neither is political
science. Both are studies of socio-political ideas and practices, not of hard
facts. But if you have a doctor’s degree we’ll take your word for just about
anything.
Our
economy – that means livelihood – is crumbling. If we’re all about saving
lives, we had better save people’s livelihoods and homes. Let’s not let social
scientists determine what gives us meaning or what risks we should or should
not take. We’ve behaved mighty well. Let’s unlock our stores. Europe is already
doing so.
Small Business needs a
ventilator that costs nothing: an open front door. It’s needed while there’s
still something to ventilate.
Roger Hines
4/9/2020
No comments:
Post a Comment