This World is Not For You
Knowing this is POWER
I have a personal crackpot theory about why the French are so good at protest: strikes both local and general, street movements, work and transit stoppages, manifestations!
I mean, French people, they love a good protest. You mention there’s a protest going on, and they might show up just for the vibes.
Protest is the Point, the way the Medium is the Message. Exercising the people-power of the masses matters more than what the signs say. French people don’t “think” this — they get this, they feel it in their bones.
There are many differences between French and American culture, and this one is huge. Because offer an American an opportunity to go to a protest, and you’ll be hit with a lot of questions, and even after all the questions are answered, the American will only show if it’s something they really believe in, and also maybe if they’re afraid they’ll be shamed if they don’t go.
But not the French!
A bunch of my cousins grew up in France, and over the years, when we were kids/teens, they described what school was like for them there — the classrooms, the teachers, the material, the exams — and from an American perspective it was what we would call “old fashioned.” As in, strict: authoritarian. It involved a lot of memorization and the students were often “sorted” by ability, with harsh cutoffs. The teachers acted as gatekeepers, not as mentors. I never went to a French school, but hearing my cousins’ stories, and comparing them to my school experience in the US, that’s how it seemed to me.
And now I ask myself, is that “old-fashioned” authoritarian mode of schooling better for a democratic society? Not because a rare few freaks will conform to that educational strait-jacket and rise thru it to become (brrr) President of France, but because so many other, normal people will attain a full experiencial understanding that This World is Not For Them, and that they must live in Opposition to Systems if they are to live at all.
When I hear about elaborate attempts to “support” learners here in the US, I wonder if instead what people really need is not something to “lift them up,” but something to push against? I mean, do we really all want to score gold stars and stand in line on a participation-podium to thank all those helping hands? Or do we want to show those fuckers that they were wrong?1
Setting any individual’s psychological tendencies aside, as a matter of “mass psychology,” isn’t authoritarian schooling a kind of exposure-therapy-education against tyrannical government? Does it not cultivate a rebellious spirit, and a quickness to protest?
Authoritarian schooling would not provide a forum for self-education in particpatory democracy if the tyranny of the schools were backed up by the violent force of the state; that is clear. In that situation, schools would just be a tendril of totalitarianism, another venue for state violence to find its nonconformists and destroy them.
But if the authority of the schools is harsh but also petty, unyielding but also clearly bullshit; if the closed-minded absolutist school marms cast absolute judgements that all can see are utterly divorced from an individual’s value as a human being and a member of society; does not our experience with such schooling train us to be more effectively defiant? Does it not train us in collaboration against a common enemy?
Schools in the US, especially high schools, are too often staffed by teachers who want to be friends with the kids. They want to be accepted by the cool kids and looked up to by the lost kids. Especially in wealthier school districts, there is a mesh of support so thick it’s a miracle anyone can walk thru it to get to class. In these ideal spaces, we’re lifting everyone up and we’re not teaching anyone how to deal with adversity. And that INCLUDES not allowing them to discover how to find success outside of the system.
At best some students learn to complain to their parents and their parents face off with the school, but that situation is [Klingon Voice] utterly without honor for all involved: for the kid who can’t fight his own battles, for the parents who don’t believe in letting their kid fight their own battles, for the school authorities who see themselves as “beleaguered professional authorities facing off against out-of-line parental authorities,” rather than petty squares facing the mildly anarchistic menace of righteous adolescents.
No one does righteous indignation like a teenager. NO ONE.
But we structure their indignation into system-approved paths. Classroom activism, holidays and marches. Script-approved school plays on Serious Topics. Administrator approval. Safety first! And don’t let your grades suffer. Above all, the grades!
Like pigeons in a Skinner box, we’ve given kids a specific sequence of actions that lead to a specific definition of success. Do the things or do not do the things. Get the treats or do not get the treats. Breaking out of the cage and flying free would be a far superior life experience, it would be its own reward. And so the experiment’s designer wants to keep such “defiant” thoughts out of these little birds’ brains.
This World is Not a Safe Space, and This World is Not For Us. This World is Riddled with Systems Designed to Exploit Us. Why would we teach our children to trust and believe in the systems and authorities that surround them — unless we want them to be guileless rubes?
I have heard, too many times to count, from too many quarters: I did everything I was supposed to do! I got good grades! I joined good clubs! I did the internships! I networked! But it didn’t work out like they promised it would! What did I do wrong? The only thing you did wrong, my friend, was believe them when they said, “jump thru these hoops, now these, now these, yes, trust me, eventually you’ll get your reward.”
Because that’s how school works, but that’s NOT how the world works. And maybe schools should be preparing us for The World — by giving us something to push against. Because This World is Not for Us. This World is Not for You.
Anyway, that’s my crazy crackpot theory: unlovable authoritarian school system might lead to greater activism and partcipation in democratic and labor action.
Is this right?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
“Showing them” is maybe less accurate than just “proving” to oneself that one’s naysayers were wrong. I’ve often been told I am “contrarian.” I am also often referred to as “good natured.” I make no apologies for how my brain works, and I stand by these truths: for me, prizes ruin everything, joy is intrinsic to any activity worth taking on, and when people have dismissed me, it has traditionally inspired me to greater heights, altho I have never checked in to see if the dismissers even know about it. It’s more like having been slighted, my ego rises to a general challenge offered by the universe, and takes satisfaction in meeting it, whether anyone notices or not.
As a former pupil of a very strict Girls Convent Grammar School, I fully agree with you that it makes some of us into defiant warriors! Form teacher used to ask me to remove last night's make up and I replied that it was this mornings actually! I rose above all put downs at school, like for example, the Chemistry teacher telling me I was useless and would never be successful. OK I became a Biology and Chemistry teacher haha! That'll show them!
I've rebelled and protested against most things in the world that I see unfair, untrue or downright bullshit!
During the convid show, the headteacher at my last school was exasperated to see me wearing a face not a muzzle like every single person who turned up to the first day of term after school was closed the earlier part of the year. I told him to stick his job after he asked me to bring and wear a muzzle the next day and get myself nose poked and arm poisoned!
Nah, this world is not for me!
I don’t know if school authorities have to be authoritarian to be an obstacle though. I think most public school educators are blandly mediocre and I told my kids this was the case and urged them to do whatever they wished to get beyond this mediocrity. I think this is my way of saying, you can develop critical aspiration against non-authoritarian bureaucrats.