"Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel."
-Socrates
I believe that democracy should not be larger than the ability of those who are effected by the decisions, to meaningfully participate in those decisions. From a legally, or technically defined limit according to this description, democracy could be as large as the population of the entire world, as long as each person in the world had the opportunity to "participate" by some arbitrary, defined meaning of the concept of "meaningfully". In fact the limit of "meaning" could be such that decisions could be made in France, and someone in Madagascar could be given a "ballot" with several choices on various choices on such topics as birth control, education, justice, academics, water policy.... you get the point.
This is not what I'm talking about when I say, democracy should not be larger than the ability of those who are effected by the decision to meaningfully participate in those decisions.
My limit would be much more narrowly defined. To give you an idea of what I'm speaking of, for example, no one should be able to make a decision which would effect any student in the local elementary school, than those individuals who work at, go to, or take care take those who go to that school.
That could be seen as "scary", well, no more scary than humanity itself. this is not to say that there shouldn't be some generally agreed upon constructs or limits on what can or should occur, but for a model of "how much" should be defined, I would say, we should turn our eyes to the primary organizing document for the entire united states, the constitution and it's amendments, most importantly, the first ten, which are known as the bill of rights.
The legal definition of a Constitution defines it as some which which:
1. Prescribes the extent and manner of the exercise of sovereign powers
2. Is the absolute rule of action such that any official act in breach of it is illegal
3. Lists the rights of the individual and guarantees their protection
4. Derives its authority from the governed and is agreed upon by the people
5. Is the fundamental law of a Nation or State.
Recently, the European Union crafted a "constitution" they ended up with a document that was 855 pages long.
The United States Constitution by contrast is 9 pages long including the bill of rights. 3 pages of the 9 pages, are signatures.
There should be a "constitution" for education. either that, or the U.S. government should not have the right to govern or participate in community educational policy seeing as it has no constitutional authority to do so. Yes, the constitution gives representatives the rights to make laws which govern the nation, yet, as i see it, education is protected by the bill of rights, for what is the bill of rights, if that right does not include the right to educate oneself in the manner in which one sees fit?
There are some obvious possible shortfalls to this idea of such locally controlled educational policy. but besides some general provisions, such as a requirement for individuals to understand a certain level of reading comprehension, math, history, and understanding of the abilities and needs of the "human body", and most importantly, be exposed to the great ideas of all the worlds cultures, and of course, the preciousness of all life, of course animal life, and the importance of responsible life creation (family planning), sexuality, and the importance of preserving the future possibility of life, at the expense (if necessary) of the individuals who are currently alive.
individual communities, at the size of the county at the largest, should be determining educational policy.
The government can play a role in the development of ideas, and philosophy and disseminating the best of the different models of education. So I don't say the government beyond the level of county should play a role.
But local control, will employ a much larger factor of the most precious of human potentialities, creativity, uniqueness, and diversity.
Universities would need to work much harder to be inclusive of this diversity, and become much less dictatorial in their curriculum. universities would have to work, and work diligently and with reasoned compassion and passionate interest, to construct educational populations, which can challenge, sustain and expand, the parameters of the universities "teaching".
Universities then, in this way, would become alive and invariably would partake in this vital form of democratic, locally dictated education. The different forms of education would be as diverse as the number of universities and colleges themselves.
I believe, in the basic libertarian idea of a diminished of government and an enhancement of individual rights, yet, i do not truly believe that individuals have ultimate rights. I believe that the ultimate level of social organization and decision, is in the form of defined communities which share local resources, local area, and issues, and the ability to gather easily to describe and disseminate their information. yes, there is a lot of room for definition in this. the "community" can be described more fully elsewhere, yet, the community will also be different according to the issue described and decided upon and the qualities and properties (intellectual and otherwise) of those issues.
I believe that the future of the world rests in altruism, small communities and a vital battle for the future of life. Those who are yet to be born, are much more important and should be given a much larger consideration in decision making than the 0% influence they currently enjoy.
once government is tamed, and communities are formed, i anticipate a war for the future of the planet. and this war will take place as the small communities realize that their future, and their survival will be impeded upon and impinged and threatened, by the decisions made by other communities.
and so, another property of local democracy is that local democracies, can not make decision which impact other communities in any negative sense, or in any way which impacts the future ability of other communities to survive.
there are many other ideas within this philosophy which are interesting, yet the conditions have been largely defined.
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