Libertarian Parenting – A Freedomain Radio Conversation with Stephan Kinsella http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zWLMTzHaJE Montessori = Minarchy (Response to Molyneux/Kinsella) (by Aaron0883) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNRX8qLQNVc
I am fan of both of them. Even though they have quite different views
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
My reply on youtube:
I don't know what video you watched, but I am an anarchist as is Molyneux. I never said the police are necessary. What are talking about? Neither Moly nor I believe in using violence against kids--we both oppose that. We both said that, and I mentioned the Kvols book on Redirecting Behavior and Positive Discipline.
Your analogy between Montessori and the state/minarchy is strained. Montessorians don't think there is something "wrong" with kids.
There is a whole systematic philosophy about the right approach to education. It might help you to read up on it before rejecting other approaches out of hand, esp. if you have in mind your own school some day. I'm not familiar with the "Unschooling" or free range kids idea but this seems to be an over-thickish blending of personal views on educaiton with libertarian principles.
Stephan Kinsella nskinsella@gmail.com www.StephanKinsella.com
I enjoyed the libertarian parenting video and find the Montessorian approach enlightening (though i still believe that an equal investment in home schooling would equate to better results). This video is Molyneux at his best (IMO) and Stephan does a great job endorsing the Montessorian approach while leaving room to criticise it.
Parenting is hard...my wife comes from the latina/spanking/rasing her voice background while i'm somewhat more patient. It can be hard
Read until you have something to write...Write until you have nothing to write...when you have nothing to write, read...read until you have something to write...Jeremiah
Thanks. I'm not dogmatic about it. I admit homeschooling may be better. Or not. mabye there is no "better". I don't know. But I found the guy's replies to be utterly bizarre.
nskinsella wrote: I don't know what video you watched, but I am an anarchist as is Molyneux. I never said the police are necessary. What are talking about? Neither Moly nor I believe in using violence against kids--we both oppose that. We both said that, and I mentioned the Kvols book on Redirecting Behavior and Positive Discipline. Your analogy between Montessori and the state/minarchy is strained. Montessorians don't think there is something "wrong" with kids. There is a whole systematic philosophy about the right approach to education. It might help you to read up on it before rejecting other approaches out of hand, esp. if you have in mind your own school some day. I'm not familiar with the "Unschooling" or free range kids idea but this seems to be an over-thickish blending of personal views on educaiton with libertarian principles.
Hi Stephan,
Aaron is aware that you guys are anarchists. That's his point for using minarchy as a comparison.
He's writing up a blog post for schoolsucksproject.com where he wants to elaborate more than in his video, that I'll probably be able to link in not too long. I'm also putting that text up as a video, and I'll post that here when that's done.
Niels.
For interest's sake, Stefan Molyneux was the featured guest on today's Keiser Report.
Here is the blog: http://www.schoolsucksproject.com/blog_posts/8. Kinsella has already commented and Aaron has just replied.
Government Explained 2: The Special Piece of Paper
Law without Government
I think it is useful to distinguish between three modes of child education: 1) state-directed education, 2) parent-directed education, and 3) child-directed education. We can all agree that the first is unethical and should be rejected.
The unschooling philosophy is that all learning should be child-directed. "Go to school / learn this now... or I'll spank you!" and "Go to school / learn this now... or you don't get any tea!" are clear examples of parent-directed education. Saying "Go to school / learn this now... or I'll be very disappointed" or "Go to school / learn this now... is my advice" would indicate child-directed education. There are continuum issues about what is true child-directed education and what is parent-directed education. The age of the child is probably important in determining where the boundary lies.
In my opinion, an analogy can be drawn between parent-directed vs child-directed, and minarchy vs anarchy. The parent who directs his own child's learning is assuming that a child cannot or will not learn the things they ought to learn. The mindset is one of 'taking control', setting goals, making measurements and determining what should be learned, like a minarchist, rather than a mindset of letting things play out naturally, trusting in liberty and markets, like an anarchist.
I disagree with the idea that a teacher (or parent) should have 'core objectives' that they direct their children to learn. Children learn things because they want to learn them. Who says that anything needs to taught as a 'core skill'? Take reading and writing. Obviously a person will struggle in life (to say the least) without these skills. But because they are so important children recognise for themselves that these are things they need to learn, and that's why they learn them. A child does not need to be given motivation; the motivation comes from within. Is it important for a person to know Pythagoras' Theorem? Maybe; it depends on what that person wants to do. I think we can leave it up to the child, whether they want to learn it. If they want to be an engineer, they will surely learn it themselves without being directed. If they want to be an actor, maybe it would be better if they spent more time in drama rather than in maths.
There is even a manifestation of something like the calculation problem. How can a parent know what is best for her child, and the best way her child learns? Without letting the child decide, she cannot know whether any given skill or knowledge is desired or useful, or how much of the child's "learning time" and resources should be spent on each subject. She can only really guess at these things. But by letting a child direct his own learning, he will demonstrate through his actions his desires, and try to attain his ends as efficiently as possible. The role of the parent is to facilitate and advise, not to direct.
How far the minarchy analogy goes is unclear to me at present. It all depends, as usual, on the definition of force. It raises deep questions about childs rights. Is parent-directed learning, by definition, a violation of a child's rights? Or is this all just "over-thickism"?
nskinsella:Thanks. I'm not dogmatic about it. I admit homeschooling may be better. Or not. mabye there is no "better". I don't know. But I found the guy's replies to be utterly bizarre.
I think this is a good outlook. I think libertarianism's main strength on education is to promote there is no such thing as a "better" or "correct" education, particularly the way the state defines it. Showing credible alternate methods and approaches is a wonderful, active, useful way to go about this.
Yes, discussions about the best way to teach seem to leave out an important element...
trulib wrote: I think it is useful to distinguish between three modes of child education: 1) state-directed education, 2) parent-directed education, and 3) child-directed education. We can all agree that the first is unethical and should be rejected. The unschooling philosophy is that all learning should be child-directed. "Go to school / learn this now... or I'll spank you!" and "Go to school / learn this now... or you don't get any tea!" are clear examples of parent-directed education. Saying "Go to school / learn this now... or I'll be very disappointed" or "Go to school / learn this now... is my advice" would indicate child-directed education. There are continuum issues about what is true child-directed education and what is parent-directed education. The age of the child is probably important in determining where the boundary lies. In my opinion, an analogy can be drawn between parent-directed vs child-directed, and minarchy vs anarchy. The parent who directs his own child's learning is assuming that a child cannot or will not learn the things they ought to learn. The mindset is one of 'taking control', setting goals, making measurements and determining what should be learned, like a minarchist, rather than a mindset of letting things play out naturally, trusting in liberty and markets, like an anarchist. I disagree with the idea that a teacher (or parent) should have 'core objectives' that they direct their children to learn. Children learn things because they want to learn them. Who says that anything needs to taught as a 'core skill'? Take reading and writing. Obviously a person will struggle in life (to say the least) without these skills. But because they are so important children recognise for themselves that these are things they need to learn, and that's why they learn them. A child does not need to be given motivation; the motivation comes from within. Is it important for a person to know Pythagoras' Theorem? Maybe; it depends on what that person wants to do. I think we can leave it up to the child, whether they want to learn it. If they want to be an engineer, they will surely learn it themselves without being directed. If they want to be an actor, maybe it would be better if they spent more time in drama rather than in maths. There is even a manifestation of something like the calculation problem. How can a parent know what is best for her child, and the best way her child learns? Without letting the child decide, she cannot know whether any given skill or knowledge is desired or useful, or how much of the child's "learning time" and resources should be spent on each subject. She can only really guess at these things. But by letting a child direct his own learning, he will demonstrate through his actions his desires, and try to attain his ends as efficiently as possible. The role of the parent is to facilitate and advise, not to direct. How far the minarchy analogy goes is unclear to me at present. It all depends, as usual, on the definition of force. It raises deep questions about childs rights. Is parent-directed learning, by definition, a violation of a child's rights? Or is this all just "over-thickism"?
Very good post.
I think that whenever a child (or anyone for that matter) displays the ability to self-direct an aspect of their lives, that they gain that right and others lose that right over them. With self-direction comes self-respect and self-responsibility.
trulib: I think it is useful to distinguish between three modes of child education: 1) state-directed education, 2) parent-directed education, and 3) child-directed education. We can all agree that the first is unethical and should be rejected. The unschooling philosophy is that all learning should be child-directed. "Go to school / learn this now... or I'll spank you!" and "Go to school / learn this now... or you don't get any tea!" are clear examples of parent-directed education. Saying "Go to school / learn this now... or I'll be very disappointed" or "Go to school / learn this now... is my advice" would indicate child-directed education. There are continuum issues about what is true child-directed education and what is parent-directed education. The age of the child is probably important in determining where the boundary lies. In my opinion, an analogy can be drawn between parent-directed vs child-directed, and minarchy vs anarchy. The parent who directs his own child's learning is assuming that a child cannot or will not learn the things they ought to learn. The mindset is one of 'taking control', setting goals, making measurements and determining what should be learned, like a minarchist, rather than a mindset of letting things play out naturally, trusting in liberty and markets, like an anarchist. I disagree with the idea that a teacher (or parent) should have 'core objectives' that they direct their children to learn. Children learn things because they want to learn them. Who says that anything needs to taught as a 'core skill'? Take reading and writing. Obviously a person will struggle in life (to say the least) without these skills. But because they are so important children recognise for themselves that these are things they need to learn, and that's why they learn them. A child does not need to be given motivation; the motivation comes from within. Is it important for a person to know Pythagoras' Theorem? Maybe; it depends on what that person wants to do. I think we can leave it up to the child, whether they want to learn it. If they want to be an engineer, they will surely learn it themselves without being directed. If they want to be an actor, maybe it would be better if they spent more time in drama rather than in maths. There is even a manifestation of something like the calculation problem. How can a parent know what is best for her child, and the best way her child learns? Without letting the child decide, she cannot know whether any given skill or knowledge is desired or useful, or how much of the child's "learning time" and resources should be spent on each subject. She can only really guess at these things. But by letting a child direct his own learning, he will demonstrate through his actions his desires, and try to attain his ends as efficiently as possible. The role of the parent is to facilitate and advise, not to direct. How far the minarchy analogy goes is unclear to me at present. It all depends, as usual, on the definition of force. It raises deep questions about childs rights. Is parent-directed learning, by definition, a violation of a child's rights? Or is this all just "over-thickism"?
Awesome post.
If I wrote it more than a few weeks ago, I probably hate it by now.
Update to this topic.
A discussion took place on the freedomain boards, involving Stefan Molyneux, Stephan Kinsella and David Friedman.
Friedman brings up his children according to the unschooling philosophy: read what he has to say about the theory and the practice of unschooling.
Friedman subsequently appeared on Molyneux's show to discuss the subject.
The key question raised on that thread at FDR is this:
I saw a breaking of the NAP in a story Stef told on a recent call-in show where he took Izzy home from the playground seeing she was quite tired despite her desire to keep playing on the swings and her crying all the while saying he was so sorry he had to do this. She napped 3 hours after they got home and he will most likely get retroactive consent for what he did, but it appears to me a violation of the NAP occured here. Do you not see a violation of the NAP in this situation? If not, why not?
Do you not see a violation of the NAP in this situation? If not, why not?
The response from Molyneux was:
If there is retroactive consent, there is no NAP violation.
I would like to know what people here think about the concept of retroactive consent...
Kinsella does not make this argument or comment on it. Here is his response:
No, that's not aggression. I frankly think it's silly and ridiculous to characterize it this way.
He later elaborates:
How is taking a kid to a school they don't want to go to aggression? If you don't physically lift the child, manhandle him, or threaten him with physical violence, it's simply not aggression. This ends the inquiry from a libertarian perspective. You can have your own philosophy of education and why it's wrong, or unwise, or immoral, to send a kid to school, but so long as you do not commit violence it is simply not unlibertarian or aggression. And as a practical matter, it's never violence. It's persuasion and explanation and guiding. Children take their parents' lead, guidance, and direction, of course. This is natural and normal.
And as a practical matter, it's never violence. It's persuasion and explanation and guiding. Children take their parents' lead, guidance, and direction, of course. This is natural and normal.
To me, this response misses Aaron's original point, which was that if the kid really, really doesn't want to go to school, the parents must either accept this, or they must use aggression. If persuasion, explanation and guidance don't work, what else are you going to do?
If persuasion, explanation and guidance don't work, what else are you going to do?
That is what I thought. I know more than anyone because I did this when I was a kid and had the government throw everything and the kitchen sink at me and my parents to completely destroy my life in every imaginable way.
It sounds awfully easy for a Statist perspective. Perhaps I'm committing argumentum ad absurdum, but what Molyneux said seems awfully easy to take to its logical conclusion.
An example of what I mean: Was Winston Smith not brutally attacked and tortured in Room 101 in Nineteen Eighty-Four, simply because he eventually broke down and gave his "retroactive consent"? To what extent does retroactive consent apply? Can you conceivably twist it into any form of will-shattering torture?
Why? By his own description, she was apparently visibly upset when he took her home. That fits the bill of aggression to me. A "Necessary" violation? Perhaps for some. I'm not one of them. But does that change the fact that it was?
Maybe he can clear this up for me and I'll feel incredibly silly for saying this.
I agree with Marked. And not just aggression is unlibertarian but the threat of violence too.
I would like to know what people here think about the concept of retroactive consent
A form of ad hoc apologetics.
Yes, retroactive consent is certainly a slippery concept. I can't see any use for it all. In fact to me it is a contradiction in terms. One user gave as an example of retroactive consent: pushing somebody out of the way of a car, hence saving their life. But this is aggression-followed-by-forgiveness; the "retroactive consent" (aka forgiveness) does not change the nature of the action. As another example, if I borrow a little bit of money from my wife when she is out ("she won't mind..."), I am in fact aggressing against her, but am confident that she will "forgive" me later, as I would "forgive" her if she did the same to me.
Moving on, I can see a few possible defenses for the kind of actions we are talking about (i.e. physically taking a toddler home against her will and despite her protests).
1. You could argue its not aggression. This would mean having a different standard for what consitutes aggression when children are concerned. Presumably this would be due to the lack of information that children have.
2. Or you could admit that it is aggression (and unethical), but argue that it is justified by the beneficial consequences of the action.
3. Or you could argue a certain level of aggression against children is ethically defensible. Perhaps this could be done by arguing that some aggressive actions are necessary for responsible parenting. The Block/Kinsella position is that being a responsible parent is a requirement of keeping the rights to raise the child (irresponsibility constitutes abandonment of the child). So perhaps it could be argued that NOT taking the action would have been unethical. So whatever one does it is unethical, and therefore the parent must try to do the least unethical of the two possibilities (i.e. mild aggression against the child, or mild neglect of one's parental responsibilities).
I have problems with all these arguments though.
Just so I am not misunderstood, my gut tells me Stef did absolutely the right thing with Izzy (I probably would have done the same), and from what I have heard, he sounds like a great parent (as does Kinsella). I am not saying otherwise. But I am curious about how we, as libertarians, defend this action.
Sorry to bump this up, was reading Molyneux opinions.
In regards to NAP, the statement that retro-active consent means NAP has not been violated is false.
retro-active consent is forgiveness of a crime. Simple as that.
I came across this presentation. It's a very comprehensive and deep analysis of unschooling, and basically the best all-around presentation of it I have seen so far:
The point she gets across well: you have to learn to discover your own values and set your own goals.
The problem with those ideas of schooling is that unguided learning will get random results.
The problem with a free economy is that you will get random results.
I guess what you are saying is that it is somehow immoral to teach kids specifically. I guess that is cool if you don't mind your kids failing at life.
Caley McKibbin: I guess what you are saying is that it is somehow immoral to teach kids specifically. I guess that is cool if you don't mind your kids failing at life.
I think you both misunderstand each other. The point of unschooling is not simply let kids to educate themselves (I did not watch the video above btw) on their own (aka random), but to not force them choose one specific field if they don't want to. Maybe they will want to learn about it after 5 or 10 years. Maybe they do not need it at all etc. The key poijnt is to gently guide them, help them, but not use "arguments from authority", like "you need MATH or you will become a LOSER".
From my personal experience, I hated ethics. It was boring and I would rather drink beer (literally I did it) with my classmates than sit and listen to boring lectures. But after about 5 years (and after finished school) I become very interested in this field and actually learned more (in 1 year) than in 3 or 5 years in school.
But you must learn the basics, reading, writing, math, physics, history, geography, a language maybe. Plus whatever you want.
There are no "musts". Yes, you have to be able to read in order to read. So semantically it can be said it is "must", but there is no need to learn history or physics. Only if person is interested in that field. Or only if the person who guides the children succeeds in "making him interested" so to speak.
So I would agree, that only musts there are is reading and calculus abilities. From then kids can go on their own or (I would suggest) use the guidance of a person, who is a professional.
Children don't usually know what is best for them in the long run. And those things are necessary to live a virtuous life.
how do you calculate what is necessary for other person? I believe one can only guide children in education process.
They use the word "unguided". It's no misunderstanding. Talk like that comes off as crackpot.
We also shouldn't overlook the fact that, thanks to our participation in and exposure to government schooling, we are used to kids being bored with subjects in which they might otherwise show interest if not forced into the awful public school format.
Sure, parents might also turn off their kids to certain subjects, but that's just saying they're bad parents. There will always bad parents. Under the system we have know, fewer parents have the incentive to actually parent and educate their children, being themselves products of the system. From k-12, the real parent of the child is an institutional bureaucracy controlled through the state.
They use the word "unguided".
The point is that the child chooses their own guide. Neither the State nor parents should force their guidance onto children.
scineram wrote: Children don't usually know what is best for them in the long run. And those things are necessary to live a virtuous life.
Neither the State nor parents should force their guidance onto children.
Give an example of a parent using "force" to teach.
"Complete this maths workbook or you don't get any dinner." It is whenever there an implicit or explicit threat of violence or deprivation. Learning happens best when such threats are absent.
I guess I'm the only one here who has never been impressed with any of these guys (Arron, Molyneux, Xomniverse, etc.).
"Look at me, I'm quoting another user to show how wrong I think they are, out of arrogance of my own position. Wait, this is my own quote, oh shi-" ~ Nitroadict
Work for this low wage or you don't get a job to buy dinner. Where have I heard this before? Sounds familiar...
What's your point?
I guess we are establishing your position.