Stop Waiting For Superman

I just finished watching Waiting for Superman, an emotionally evocative documentary about students in American schools.  A large part of the film focuses on the dilemma of educational reform in an environment of ironclad tenures that are vigilantly defended by teachers’ unions.  The documentary briefly mentions that these teachers unions arose decades ago because of mistreatment of educators (as is the history of most unions).  Now, those unions have become very politically powerful and they work to protect teachers, even if that protection comes at the cost of student success.

But wait! What is meant by “protect teachers?” Are teachers who just sit in class waiting for the day to go by because they can’t stand their jobs actually “protected?” I had one of those teachers who said we didn’t even need to talk to him because our assignments were written on the chalkboard.  He would spend the class time reading his newspaper with the soles of his shoes staring at us.  Maybe he had his eyes down there because he was definitely sitting on his head. 

Are hating kids and feeling miserable about the classrooms and hallways teachers inhabit 5 days a week something to be preserved and protected?  No, the real meaning is that their salaries are protected.  Or more to the point, their access to a means of living protected.  No wonder.  In an economy where every person must sell themselves on the labor market as their ONLY means of earning a living (unfortunately, there’s no alternative economy in which people are provided free access to life’s resources in our wonderful FREE market), it only makes sense for them to defend their tenures/salaries/means of living.  So, teachers, who have a decent degree of social respect for their professions, and sufficient incomes to fight for their means of life, are able to “protect” their livelihoods.  Students, and particularly students of non-wealthy parents, are not able to access a meaningful education.  They suffer the consequences of this broken system throughout their lives.

The film tries to end on a high-note with a review of the KIPP school program, which has had undeniable success in producing students with better test scores.  I’m not sure how the schools function in terms of student well being, but let me leave that aside for the moment.  These KIPP schools are scarce, and because they receive public funding, they must use a lottery system to determine who gets admitted.  The film follows five kids and it shows them anxiously waiting to hear if their number gets called.  You can also see the other parents and children in the background nail-bitingly attending each utterance from the announcers hoping the next name or number called is theirs.  As the number of names called grows and the available seats reduce, the sense of desperation on their young faces makes you want to rush in and rescue them all.  You hold on to hope to the last number, because that’s how all movies resolve the climax—at the last minute, and in the favor of the protagonist.  Not in this case.  It’s real life and most of the featured kids don’t get called.  The shattering of hope for the kids makes it difficult to hold back the tears.  Then, the realization on the parents’ faces that not only have their children missed an important opportunity to improve their lives been lost, but that they, the parents, have let their kids down.  Mommy can’t make it better.  She can’t throw money at the problem and make it disappear.  Their daily fight with the cruel market world, against which they try to insulate their kids, is a losing battle.  The system is king, and they are the pawns.  Somehow, they must summon all remaining strength not to let their sense of defeat, worry, and despair spill over onto their kids.  They have to console their children because it is their pain that takes priority at that time.  Despite every Herculean effort to shield their kids from the continuous battle to provide a better life, their kids know.  The kids know that their parents can’t protect them from the harsh world.  They know that the impact of this lottery is not just about where to go to school, but a lottery about how their lives will turn out, and it’s looking less and less favorable. 

These are the unsparing sacrifices we make to perpetuate our outdated, insufficient, and barely-above-savage social system.  All those people who work so hard to critique a resource-based economic model to find any unpleasantry, any objection, any difficult challenge that would be faced in an RBE amaze me in that they seem to overlook all the heartache of our current system.  It’s like they measure an RBE against a fictional utopian standard, in which everyone gets everything they want and problems are extinct.  They use that to argue against an RBE, without noticing that their measurement should be against our current system.  Proponents of an RBE do not expect utopia, just a life and planet a lot better off than what we have now.   With all the road kill caused by our current system, it feels like there must be a thousand better options, which is all we need—better!  And it sure is time for better, unless we want to continue to watch lives hinge on the outcome of lotteries.  

Common Reactions: Utopia

It is very common for someone who has first seen Zeitgeist Addendum and/or Zeitgeist Moving Forward to  respond with the conclusion that the solution provided is utopian.  It is another one of those prima facie judgments that Peter Joseph has spoken about in regards to communism, marxism, socialism...etc.

What is the cause of this association?  Why does the resource-based economy seem utopian, when it certainly isn't stated to be that?  The crime rates are estimated to drop by about 90-95% because most crimes are related to money.  But that doesn't mean they will drop to zero.  It doesn't say that a person's codependent emotional state will disappear.  It doesn't say that illnesses will be completely vanquished.  And it doesn't say that resources are so abundant that we get to have and do everything our heart fancies.  It doesn't say that miscommunication will never happen and we will be in a perpetual state of bliss.

It does say that our hearts will likely change what they fancy, and that we will have to have an understanding of collective responsibility.  That will take education.  And that takes effort.  (The Danes seem to have a better understanding of this already). It does say that resources will be managed responsibly and efficiently, which will maximize our potential for survival and reduce social unrest (this has not been done because of competing economic interests and national divisions).  It does say that people will contribute what they are skilled and passionate about because they have the time, energy, and lack of worry about how to meet their basic needs (we can see this kind of volunteering in current times for those who can "afford" it).

It just sounds too good to be true?  Are you sure of that?  How can you be sure of that?  Have we ever given it a try?  Are we just afraid of losing what we are used to?  Are we battered spouses too fearful to leave the situation?

I think some time and reflection are warranted to uncover the reasons for resisting.  The very fact that a resource-based economy is called "utopian" demonstrates that the qualities of that society are appealing.  People don't say, "that is an ugly, brutal society." They call it "utopian."  It looks good, sounds good, feels good.

So, it is pretty clear that the society we have is essentially dangerous.  Your access to the basics is continually under threat, not by mother nature (although that may be more common the more the planet's ecosystem changes) but by our  human society.  We are now seeing famines created not by lack of food, but lack of affordability.  People are starving....TO DEATH!  People suffer in sweatshops.  People are unemployed and feeling hopeless; they are competing with each other for all kinds of jobs just to survive, no matter how pointless or demeaning.  The economic interests of different businesses are in direct conflict with eco-conscious technologies, so we pollute more and more.  The resource-based economy does not promise technologies with no ecological impact; instead it promotes the use of those that are the cleanest and safest based on contemporary research.

Why is it then that people refuse to even try to change it?  Let's just assume that the resource-based economy doesn't work out, for some pretend reason.  Are we really going to be worse off than we are now?  What does it take--for your own child to die from starvation to get motivated?  Given an option, why continue with the old when we know how detrimental it is to ourselves?

We can call the new economy anything you want, but can we not agree to work together to remove those things that get in the way of a healthier way of living?  Even the richest of the rich must one day die and pass along their wealth to a child or grandchild.  And that person will live and spend that wealth in this society.  If that society is full of disease, unrest, pollution, and ugliness, then that person with vast wealth has failed his/her family.  It is in their interests to work towards a clean, rich planet with healthy and sane people.  It's where we live.

The important distinction isn't between dystopia and utopia; that's a false dichotomy.  Societies, even today, could be placed on a scale of well-being, from least well to most well.  Societies in the future could have a longer scale, with more variety, or it could be reduced, with less variety. In any case, we must be reminded that just because society won't be perfect in a resource-based economy (RBE), it doesn't mean we should make no effort to improve society.  Not being perfect does not mean it is no better.  A RBE seems to be a lot better, which is why people call it a utopia, but they are wrong to conceive of it as "perfect."