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I’ve had this loose sense for some years, now, that America (perhaps more than nearly any other society) is becoming a victim of its own success. In more ways than one in fact, probably, but in this case I refer to the long decades of enjoying the fruits of market capitalism. I’ve arrived at this notion that the free-enterprise system has proven both so effective and so relatively easy a means of making so many things better that we’ve now gone generations without really confronting any major problem through any other way.

The last exceptions were probably the civil rights movement and the feminist revolution, and both of those were pretty much complete by the time I was born. And I’m 33.

Outside of those upheavals, the solutions to which I think required effort outside of capitalist free-enterprise but not particularly any direct conflict with it, the vast majority of America has been able to take for granted a pretty comfortable living through a combination of shopping, and a sort of “maintenance” approach to collective society. Basically, vote, at least once in a while, and beyond that just trust that the resultant government may act out amateur drama but will keep the streets paved, the water drinkable, etc., and not screw anything up too disastrously.

Which is understandably a very tempting situation to settle into, I believe, not least from my perspective; I find politics interesting but I don’t want to march or knock on doors or get pepper-sprayed or engage directly with people who disagree with me or, for that matter, people who share my views either, really. I like vote-by-mail! By contrast it’s difficult and unpleasant, hashing out situations where we can’t all simply have our own individual preference without our decision significantly affecting anyone else. Shopping is much more fun.

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Okay, this one is going to be even more sketchy than usual, more of me just formalizing a conversation with myself than usual. But these ideas have been haunting me all day, and I think it’s to the point where they simply demand some kind of post for the record, if only my own personal record.

Remarkably, the comments in question appeared at cnn.com; these aren’t entirely new ideas of course and, indeed, I’ve puzzled over some of them for years now which is part of the reason they struck a chord with me. Still, I think Douglas Rushkoff’s comments about work, technology and our entire economic system are pretty thought-provoking.

As noted, I’ve asked questions myself, at times, about the idea that what we need are “jobs” given how most people seem to dislike their jobs and how we don’t seem to be suffering any kind of acute shortage of the goods and services which jobs produce. But I think Rushkoff really got me thinking with this bit:

We’re living in an economy where productivity is no longer the goal, employment is. That’s because, on a very fundamental level, we have pretty much everything we need. America is productive enough that it could probably shelter, feed, educate, and even provide health care for its entire population with just a fraction of us actually working. […] Our problem is not that we don’t have enough stuff — it’s that we don’t have enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserve this stuff.

I added the emphasis to the last bit, because that’s what has really been obsessing me. Everything else seems fairly sound and self-evident; it’s been a very very long time since western, industrialized society has known a famine or other “real” shortage of anything. Even our energy-supply crunches have been relatively mild, and as much a product of cultural choices as real unavailability of sufficient energy. One of the various “crises” we anguish over is, even now, an obesity crisis, and while I don’t want to oversimplify things that’s still pretty much a crisis of abundance rather than of scarcity.

But Rushkoff really crystalizes the situation and its implications by pointing out that, in this context, high unemployment is decreasingly a problem of shortages in goods or services produced by working people, and increasingly a problem of shortages of opportunities for people to signal themselves as deserving recipients of a share of the economy’s overall production, per our prevailing system for doing so. Which is paid work, i.e., jobs.

This, too, seems fairly obvious when one thinks about it, but I’ve never had these concepts brought into such sharp focus. (more…)

Well, contrary to intentions, I ended up writing an independent essay as my first “education post,” instead of writing the easier post I had seen as a nice “warm-up” to the subject. But I still want to note a few responses to this Atlantic interview with Cathy N. Davidson. I realize that “Fisking” seems to be looked down on as a bit of a cheap tactic, these days, and fairly so. I acknowledge that, but I still want to pull out a few of Davidson’s remarks; on the whole she has a lot of thoughtful and nuanced comments, and indeed my responses are not even entirely critical ones. So:

All the methods of assessment we use for “quality” are actually metrics for standardization analogous to the punch clock, not about interactive, synthetic, and analytical thinking and problem solving. You cannot reform the content or the method of teaching without radically changing the terms of assessment. That means ending the end-of-grade tests required by No Child Left Behind. It means going beyond so many of the quite simplistic quantitative measures that ostensibly test learning but really test the ability to take tests.

I’ll get this one out of the way first because it’s my most visceral reaction. Kill standardized tests? No no no no no no no no no no, noooooooooo, that’s what I excelled at most in school, nooooooooooooooooooooooooo unfair unfair unfair aaaaaaah!! Okay, had to get that off my chest. Thank you. Having done so, I admit that 1) I’ve graduated, 2) I was good at more than just standardized tests, and 3) fact is, per my own experience the systems of measurement and assessment used throughout the education system are all in all more than a bit misleading when it comes to learning skills which will be actually useful outside of school, so in a way I have as much reason as anyone to cheer her argument, here.

Games are integral in human society, from ancient times to the present. Games are based on strategy and on challenge. If you do well at a game, your reward isn’t “recess” or a “time out”; it’s a greater challenge. When you beat a tough opponent, you seek out a tougher one. That is learning.

Standardized testing seems to fit this description perfectly, though; the big problem I see with std. testing is that it was a game. In fairness, she does qualify her objections to testing methods (again, nuance, how refreshing): (more…)