American Education and Law Responsible for the Chaos
US education has failed to build character in its people and only brew them to follow the rules, which they can decide when to break.
You look around, surprised, at what’s been happening in the US in the past week. You can’t believe something as savage — something you only see in the world’s news — can actually go down in metropolitan America. Well, my friend, let me tell you about two very important opposite pillars that had brought us to this. These pillars are foundational and complementary to the framework of the modern, depressed and consumerist America, and they are education and law.
Education
We have all heard about how American education need fixing, but mostly from the economical and financial perspective. What most have ignored is the American school system has failed for generations to incubate characters like grit, resilience, and patience in its future adults. Instead, our education, from the very early age, teaches youngsters to fit in by putting them in circle times and scheduled activities. Nobody cares if you’re good at A, but you’ll have to do B, C, and D like everyone else at the same time. A person isn’t taught to acquire characters and recognized for her individual moral compass, but awarded for her ability to fit into a certain frame and punished for her inability to do so via seemingly harmless mediums like colored stickers, lists, board of shame, and a simple “good job” from the teacher (“good job” does not imply that you’re good inside. It means what it does literally — that you did well in an assigned job). The education is focused on training the youngsters to grow into the grander frame — the law.
Law
When I was young, I stumbled upon a nice short story named Kintu and the Law of Love, an African folklore telling the story of a King named Kintu who ruled his small kingdom in a valley with one law — the Law of Love.
As more people lived in the valley, lands became scarce. They no longer able to farm and feed themselves, and they began to feel jealous. They began to steal and lie. Then, they started to kill for food. People began demanding for laws. But Kintu responded,
“If the people want to behave this way, they will do so whether or not we have laws. The way to stop the killing and lies and stealing is to make people stop wanting to kill and lie and steal.”
However romanticized it is, I remembered this tale to today because the principle is true. Law in its essence shouldn’t be practiced unless it’s a last resort. It is a social contract to make sure a large group of people can live together in harmony without harming others in disrespectful way.
Apparently, American have failed to captured this essence. Lawsuits happen everyday over anything. People cut into lines, stealing things, and engage in reckless drivings, kill, and of course, now escalate to running their car on people. The law could only do so much if a person is hollow of character and the only way of life he has ever learned was to obey or break. The law itself, or the law officers, are then forced to use excessive brutality to enforce the Law, and themselves become engaged in the very thing the Law is there to prevent — violence and killing. This will go on and on and nothing — even fixing the police — will help. It is just a part of the problem, which is the corrupted education and the law.
First published on BETA School. Sign up for writings in your inbox.
