|
10. Education
We
turn now to the formation of children and youth.
Self-managing
education, according to the Program, begins no later than two years of age,
when it is most desirable that the child be handed over to a preprimary or
nursery school. But complete preparations must be made to receive those
children whose mothers choose to deliver them to socialist education at any
age, even when newborn.
How
well all of this fits in with the planned sterility of the self-managing
family! 24
Some
schools may still remain in private hands for a period of "gradual"
transition. But even they will be tied to the State educational machinery,
which will encompass all levels, from preprimary through university and postgraduate
school. Principals, teachers and other staff members in public or private
schools will have roles very similar, though not identical, to those of managers
and technicians in self-managing companies. According to the principle of
"democratic planning," fathers and mothers and other interested
persons will likewise participate in the process of education. The "commoners"
of the school, that is, the students, will have -to all imaginable degrees, and
even to an unimaginable degree - rights analogous to those of the workers in
the self-managing company. 25
But
that is not all. In the school as well as in the family, child or adolescent
"plebeians" will be motivated and encouraged to wage a systematic
class struggle against educational and domestic authorities, and will hold
their own assemblies, tribunals, appellate courts and so on. 26
In
nationalized or self-managing schools, the curriculum, the whole teaching
staff, and the secularist and socialist formation of the intellect will be
subject to the State. 27
The
Program does not make entirely clear which schools will be allowed to go on
surviving - or dying - in private hands to the degree that the gradualist
strategy determines. Nevertheless, it is not hard to conjecture that they will
manage to evade the State's influence and power only to a small and uncertain
degree, if at all. 28
Isn't
this educational network totalitarian? The Program tries to evade this
embarrassing question by citing an education plan to be prepared democratically
so that each and every one may be able to express his opinion. Supposedly, this
plan would thus represent the will of all.
On
the basis of this sophistry, the socialists claim that the unified system of
education is not a monopoly. Even though this system is unified, they contend
that everyone is invited to participate in it. So how can anyone brand it a
monopoly?
One
sees very well that the Program achieves "Liberté, Egalité,
Fraternité" quite in its own way. At the moment of the collective
decision, everyone is equal because the power of decision belongs to the
majority, which decides all educational matters. It is for the minority to
obey. When, then, is individual liberty achieved? At the very moment of the
voting, because every one is free to argue and to vote as he likes. But only at
that moment ...
|