"post-leftism"

John Mage jmage at panix.com
Fri Aug 16 10:49:35 PDT 2002


Doug wrote:

>>> Well, you might need bookstores or libraries or databases - all

>>> of which would require - ewwww - institutions. And to read

>>> them, you'd need schools - ewwwww again. But we'd all be so

>>> unalienated we'd forget to miss them!

>>

>> So now we need coercion even to read?

>

> To a point, yes. Would kids go to school on their own, if neither

> the law nor their parents required it?

This was a (and in a practical sense perhaps "the") central question for classical anarchists in their most flourishing times (the pre-WWI decades). The life work of the martyred Ferrer was devoted to this question. To a great degree also the life work of the glorious Louise Michel. The anarchists who founded "free" or "modern" schools in the US had a major effect on elementary education - at least in the "progressive" community. It's an interesting story. A good book is Paul Avrich's _The modern school movement: anarchism and education in the United States_ (Princeton University Press) 1980.

john mage



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