Returning to my post the other month about Albert Jay Nock’s lamentation about the loss of the Great Tradition, I want to get into the notion of education as a mark of distinction, which elevates some men above others, and is available to an elite rather than extended to everyone throughout society at public expense.
This view contrasts with the viewpoint espoused by Rousseau and his intellectual heirs, in America most notably John Dewey, who believed that education could, by itself, shape the entire character of an individual student and a mass population into whatever the planner hoped for.
If we instead take the other position, that people are given substantially differing characters based on nature, and that education can only develop what is already present (the belief held throughout most of the rest of history), the role education can play becomes more limited. It can direct a person, it can shape moral character, it can bestow knowledge, but it can’t change the fundamental essence of the individual, nor can it change that person’s social character as created by family and social position.
Assuming that the printing press, the internet, and other forms of mass-information provision are here with us to stay, much of what justifies the mass-education apparatus becomes more difficult to maintain. The pretenses were already difficult to maintain by the early 20th century, when public libraries became ubiquitous, and even poor laborers could pay for small libraries and periodicals besides.
Education must be a mark of distinction for it to be a useful construct. It should provide a cultural context for political, commercial, technological, and religious administration of distinct countries. It should provide the context not only for cooperation within nations, but between nations also. It isn’t possible for it to perform adequate sorting functions if it is continually debased to become accessible to more and more people over time.
Information can be mostly free (as in speech, not as in air) and accessible to everyone. Education ought to be a mark of competitive distinction. Restricting access to education of distinction, in the same way that we restrict access to Olympic sports teams, can preserve its utility over time, rather than degrading it over time.
The march of the levelers through the institutions has made it impossible for schools to maintain high standards for their students and professors. It prevents schools, also, from separating themselves adequately into hierarchical forms, denying entry to those who either can’t afford to attend or can’t perform at an adequate level.
No, we aren’t all equal. Our institutions should make peace with that inequality, and restructure themselves to match human reality.
Franklin and Farragut would be two prime examples of this point of view. It is hard to find more recent examples since mandatory schooling is now so widespread (and state enforced). Although, I suppose, that the anti-Asian discrimination in upper-tier US universities could be construed as modern-day evidence.
During my honors college exit interview (in the early Oughts), I told the old priest in charge of the program that I had expected my university experience to be as you are describing in this post, but that instead I thought it was a waste of my time and that I wanted my money back. He commiserated with me saying that college degrees were little more than union cards these days and then apologized that things weren’t different – weren’t as they should be.
I imagine that the NRx aristocracy will someday have some kind of Institute that trains an “Officer Corps” of some kind (hierarchy for the win, right?). I imagine that its curriculum might start with some kind of blend of Harvard’s 1869 entrance exam (http://columbiaspectator.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/harvardexam.pdf), the training of the permanent deaconate (http://dioceseoftheholycross.org/training/manual316.pdf), and the physical fitness of the Navy SEALS (http://navyseals.com/buds/seal-officer-requirements/). (Note, I would currently flunk out of this program.) Maybe it would move on to topics like cryptography, rocketry, or business management. Who knows. But, an aristocracy ought to actually be elite.
It seems to me that the trap with an aristocracy is that if it is hereditary, the family could weaken and degenerate over time. Such an Institute could certify prospective aristocracy members to inject meritorious persons into the aristocracy in order to maintain its capabilities over time, but that too is subject to corruption – as evidenced by the problems in the Chinese Imperial examination system that lead to the Taiping Rebellion. A safeguard against wide-spread bribery of proctors would be a requirement for actual displays of valor and capability (as was common prerequisites of English grants of nobility). But, the grantors themselves could be bribed (see Nathan Rothschild’s story). I’m not sure how to get around the dangers of that other than having a process wherein the aristocratic authority grantor (CEO, King, whomever) could be removed for being a corrupt douche. Maybe that would be the prime function of the Board or a College of Nobles, or something similar.
>with an aristocracy is that if it is hereditary, the family could weaken and degenerate over time.
That’s why God made war.
My disappointment in college was similar to yours.
I’m going to continue looking into this, because there’s been a big discontinuity since the late 60s, when there was still a remnant of a remnant still present. Now we are getting pretty close to a full severance of continuity with the understanding of history, even at the top levels of society.
Nature and heredity are not necessarily synonymous.
And looky there… undergraduate enrollment at HYP stays about where it ever was.