THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

EXAMPLES | 2002-05-11

What if every child were required to spend eight years in military school? What if those same kids ended up being militarists and fascists? The connection would seem a bit obvious, right?

So our teachers, who call themselves "Intellectuals," tell us how a Truly Just Society is to be run. Here are some predictable things they say

Businessmen are Evil. What we need to do is to turn economics over to the Planners and the professors. This never works, but kids keep marching for it, especially at European universities. Has it ever occurred to anybody that for a university student to be a socialist is as inevitable as it would be for an entire generation sent to military school to be militarists?

So we have younger generations that have the terminal sillies. They insist that criminals are really nice people who have been perverted by Society. What we need, they say, is huge Rehabilitation programs planned by Criminologists. And the Europeans are still on the street demanding this as their crime rate climbs out of sight.

Once you start thinking in these terms, it is as revealing as suddenly finding out about supply and demand. Everything we call "leftist" is simply what college professors would professionally prefer.

And notice that every school child knows all about the biases of military men, businessmen, doctors, and every other profession. But never once does anybody point out that teachers -- and your teachers' professors -- have just as many biases that are just as natural.

Have you ever heard anybody even MENTION this possibility?