Monday, December 13, 2004
Lentil Loaf:
I agree with the sentiment and allegory to this post of wil wilkinson's at catallarchy.
Imagine you live in a town where you are required to pay several thousand dollars of taxes each year into a public fund that is used to buy food for the entire community. There is a publicly elected “Menu Board” that determines each year’s offerings. You wanted rye this year? Sorry! The Board voted for Wonder Bread. Again! You could, in principle, opt out of the public food system and buy rye, pumpernickel, or seven grain oat-nut crunch at a fancy private store. But you’ve already paid thousands in taxes, and can’t afford to pay twice for everything you eat. The Menu Board picks it. You eat it.
Imagine the controversy. Vegetarians (“You’ll get lentil loaf and like it!”) will lock horns with the Atkins lobby (“You can have my bacon when you pry it from my dead cold fingers!”) to wrest control of the Menu Board. The kosher set will fight against shrimp-lovers; Mormons will rail against the Starbucks crowd; Hindus will agitate against the forces of barbeque. …
The question we should be asking is not whether we should be worried about stickers on textbooks, but, rather, why we do education this way in the first place. We live in an incredibly diverse society, and there’s no way we’re all going to agree, even if some of us really are right about the best way to do things. Suppose you knew with absolute certainty that there was one objectively best diet. Would that justify forcing shrimp down unwilling throats? Why treat schools differently? …
But, let me talk for a minute (type for awhile) about what my experience has been.
When I was 17, I went off to college. Tuition less scholarship came to $4000 in carter-era dollars; some of that went to room and board. I was a national merit scholar but no award since dad had money. The first night, the cafeteria had three choices of main dish and a bunch of sides. You could get what you wanted, as much or as little as you wanted. And there was lentil loaf, it was the vegetarian selection that night. I don't think I'd ever had lentils before. Finally, I had options. I had the lentil loaf, and it was good. I've been a vegetarian ever since. I'd been philosophically vegetarian since I was 13 but unable to practice while living in an authoritarian home. I gained twenty pounds, which was good. I could eat till I was full, but more importantly I didn't have to eat what I didn't want.
In this case, the primitive communism of the dining hall was a big improvement over what I had had at home. Now I live by myself and have lentils whenever I choose. Cheap, yummy, easy to fix. I've never made lentil loaf.
if there's a moral to this story, it's that the options aren't always a) socialism
b) libertopia.
Sometimes socialism is a step up from some other form of tyranny.
Now Micha (who posted will's essay) and I both score 160/160 on the lib purity test.
I'm not against individualized instruction, far from it.
Sometimes the choice is not between kerry or badnarik; that's easy. Sometimes the choice is between kerry or bush. (this is a metaphor - of course i voted for badnarik. and his mom.)
Sometimes the choice is between the shah and the ayatollah.
So the questions don't always sort themselves neatly into socialism versus liberty.
Sometimes the more difficult puzzle is how to structure things so that liberty is one of the options. I don't have all this sorted out. I had a personal experience about lentil loaf that I wanted to share.
I agree with the sentiment and allegory to this post of wil wilkinson's at catallarchy.
Imagine you live in a town where you are required to pay several thousand dollars of taxes each year into a public fund that is used to buy food for the entire community. There is a publicly elected “Menu Board” that determines each year’s offerings. You wanted rye this year? Sorry! The Board voted for Wonder Bread. Again! You could, in principle, opt out of the public food system and buy rye, pumpernickel, or seven grain oat-nut crunch at a fancy private store. But you’ve already paid thousands in taxes, and can’t afford to pay twice for everything you eat. The Menu Board picks it. You eat it.
Imagine the controversy. Vegetarians (“You’ll get lentil loaf and like it!”) will lock horns with the Atkins lobby (“You can have my bacon when you pry it from my dead cold fingers!”) to wrest control of the Menu Board. The kosher set will fight against shrimp-lovers; Mormons will rail against the Starbucks crowd; Hindus will agitate against the forces of barbeque. …
The question we should be asking is not whether we should be worried about stickers on textbooks, but, rather, why we do education this way in the first place. We live in an incredibly diverse society, and there’s no way we’re all going to agree, even if some of us really are right about the best way to do things. Suppose you knew with absolute certainty that there was one objectively best diet. Would that justify forcing shrimp down unwilling throats? Why treat schools differently? …
But, let me talk for a minute (type for awhile) about what my experience has been.
When I was 17, I went off to college. Tuition less scholarship came to $4000 in carter-era dollars; some of that went to room and board. I was a national merit scholar but no award since dad had money. The first night, the cafeteria had three choices of main dish and a bunch of sides. You could get what you wanted, as much or as little as you wanted. And there was lentil loaf, it was the vegetarian selection that night. I don't think I'd ever had lentils before. Finally, I had options. I had the lentil loaf, and it was good. I've been a vegetarian ever since. I'd been philosophically vegetarian since I was 13 but unable to practice while living in an authoritarian home. I gained twenty pounds, which was good. I could eat till I was full, but more importantly I didn't have to eat what I didn't want.
In this case, the primitive communism of the dining hall was a big improvement over what I had had at home. Now I live by myself and have lentils whenever I choose. Cheap, yummy, easy to fix. I've never made lentil loaf.
if there's a moral to this story, it's that the options aren't always a) socialism
b) libertopia.
Sometimes socialism is a step up from some other form of tyranny.
Now Micha (who posted will's essay) and I both score 160/160 on the lib purity test.
I'm not against individualized instruction, far from it.
Sometimes the choice is not between kerry or badnarik; that's easy. Sometimes the choice is between kerry or bush. (this is a metaphor - of course i voted for badnarik. and his mom.)
Sometimes the choice is between the shah and the ayatollah.
So the questions don't always sort themselves neatly into socialism versus liberty.
Sometimes the more difficult puzzle is how to structure things so that liberty is one of the options. I don't have all this sorted out. I had a personal experience about lentil loaf that I wanted to share.
Comments:
Post a Comment
