Is giving grades in school or giving salary immoral or dangerous to the stability of society?
My English is so awfully broken sometimes so feel free to correct my mistakes.
What is the goal of giving grades in school? To divide people. To make them the enemies of each other. To measure how one can obey the system. Because education is fucked up for you have to learn so much bullshit.
The same with salary. It generates hate by letting some people get things they do not even need except that getting them means high status in society.
We have to be aware of that the profit-oriented mega corporations and the monetary sector generate that and this is catastrophic for humanity.
The system is broken and society will collapse when enough people realize that we live in a postmodern slavery system.
edit: The title is misleading and I used the wrong expression. So the question is not "giving salary" is immoral but how they are doing it in our times making enormous differences between the classes of society.
What is the goal of giving grades in school? To divide people. To make them the enemies of each other. To measure how one can obey the system. Because education is fucked up for you have to learn so much bullshit.
The same with salary. It generates hate by letting some people get things they do not even need except that getting them means high status in society.
We have to be aware of that the profit-oriented mega corporations and the monetary sector generate that and this is catastrophic for humanity.
The system is broken and society will collapse when enough people realize that we live in a postmodern slavery system.
edit: The title is misleading and I used the wrong expression. So the question is not "giving salary" is immoral but how they are doing it in our times making enormous differences between the classes of society.
Comments (34)
While I do appreciate the attempt to overcome the many injustices and 'false consciousness' of human beings so characteristic in a capitalist consumer economy, is completely doing away with all forms of competition and equitable compensation a realistic alternative? Not trying to strawman here but that seems to be the implication of your criticisms.
Perhaps there's a mean between the two extremes: one which would temper the inhumanity and 'defects' of a market-oriented society--one in which every aspect of life seems subordinated to economic considerations--without completely negating the admirable attempt to gain recognition from others through the development of certain skills and much strenuous effort. That latter characteristic seems a very human desire, and one that some (e.g. Francis Fukuyama) posit as the primary reason for communism's ultimate failure. That hypothesis sounds plausible to me, at least as a partial explanation among other contributing factors.
IMO capitalism is certainly debased in many ways, but it does allow for a relatively benign outlet of sorts for human beings to channel their ambition and energy. Maybe a shift in communal values could redirect those energies in ways that would ultimately be more aligned with some sense of the 'common good' than we currently experience. For example, one not strictly beholden to material things but more appreciative of artistic and ethical endeavors. But we'd have to first formulate where we'd like to go and then how to go about getting there. I doubt there'd be much agreement on the matter, even amongst staunch anti-capitalists.
I'm sure there are free market advocates who would argue that the above is precisely what happens when people are left to pursue their goals free from government intervention; the self-interest of individuals eventually leads to admittedly unintended consequences which do benefit most, if not all (even Marx credits capitalism for its many achievements), at least in a material sense. Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' sort of thing.
But what alternative to the current system did you have in mind, Meta? I find the question both interesting and pressing. Hard to reconcile freedom and equality but I'd definitely like to live in system which would be more equal than it is at present, and could achieve this while allowing freedom to flourish. I love stories about people who freely choose to compensate their employees more than is required by law, or who freely choose a life in which they make less money but find more satisfaction in making a difference in other peoples' lives, and other such things.
P.S. Your English is fine.
Some alternatives?
1. Objective quantitative and logical methods in every aspect politics and economics (maybe using A.I.?) So there aren't idiots in leading roles.
2. A better family model (from which people get human values without having to be competitive)
3. A "restart" of the capital. We have to redistribute capital so these inequalities will disappear for a while. I think nature will "restart" the capital when derivative markets collapse. I am 100% sure that will happen in my lifetime.
The goal is to get everyone thinking in the same way. It suppresses creativity to achieve conformity.
One answer is: 'we' are the state and we take everyone's capital off them through taxation or confiscation and we redistribute to everyone according to their need. It's an experiment that may happen in your lifetime but it is also one that has already been tried in the lifetime of previous generations.
(1) The honest answer is I don't know. However it is widely accepted that a very small % of people own the majority of goods. I would say corporations, banks and high net worth individuals own much more than optimal or even sustainable for society. And I think there is much more that we don't know about.
(2) I think nature will solve it. One day a big bank will say: "Okay guys I can't pay" and then the dominoes will do the job of crashing the economy.
(3) I did not mean that there is x amount of money in the world and we will give some for everybody. We need other forms of "trust". Maybe there will be a new currency maybe there won't but this mechanism of keeping everybody in debt is evil. We don't trust banks. Why should we trust money?
(4) As "we" I mean we, the people on Earth. Maybe other institutions aswell. That was just a heuristic idea of mine I don't kno the details.
Getting grades is on a per assignment point-based system so it resembles working for a wage more than it does a salary.
I did not say I wasn't brainwashed. In fact the things I wrote and being brainwashed by the educational system are consistent in my opinion. A lot of other people may be well aware of the flaws of the system so they aren't necessarily brainwashed in every aspect. I try to be objective so my point is not based on me being smarter than the others but observations about the system which anyybody can agree or disagree on. So being smarter or not is irrelevant when talking about observations and debating about the possible consequences of these observations.
You have a point. But if we want any kind of debate to take place then we need some kind of "rating system"; namely we have to rate a sentence "true" or "false".
Instead of "immoral" I could have been using the expression "causes a lot of unnecessary pain". I think if something causes a lot of unnecessary pain that thing is immoral. But that is irrelevant anyways.
My original question can be reformulated to a question which does not involve "rating" directly. Maybe you accept that question.
Do the modern education and salary-system cause a lot of unnecessary pain?
(That is the basic thought behind my use of "immoral").
edit: So I use a rating system but we all have to rate things in order to get anything useful. My goal was to criticize the modern economical and educational rating-systems.
Well I don't have any problem with that, because a sentence's feelings are not hurt by being called false. And in the same way, I don't have any problem with rating your maths homework answers as right or wrong. It's the same thing.
So the unnecessary pain is produced not by the grading of work alone, but by the identification of the student and their work. So I say, " your ideas are a bit wrong" but you hear, "You are wrong".
If your ideas are wrong, then that discovery is identical with changing your ideas. But if you are wrong, then how can you ever be right?
So let us proclaim as loudly as possible, that getting things wrong, and finding out that they are wrong, is the whole process of education that leads to getting things right. If you have to get it right from the beginning, then you can never get started on anything new. Therefore rejoice when the sheep or maths problem that was lost is found more than the sheep that never strayed or the maths problem that is no problem. And then one will not be hurt.
You and your "pedigree" are basically the same in most aspects of life.
-i dont understand that sheep/maths problem and what it has to do with this.
That's interesting. I can easily avoid the pain of paying money to Tesco by shoplifting. Queuing up and paying causes me unnecessary pain. I'm a very good shoplifter and never get caught. So shopping and paying for stuff is immoral. Hmm. Something to think about there.
Wages (or salary) are payments for either services provided or production of goods. Workers receive less than the value of the goods and services they produce. If, during an hour, a worker produces $50 worth of goods, and gets paid $20, the remaining $30 is kept by the employer. The employer did not perform the work of production, but is keeping 60% of the proceeds. Work in a capitalist economy is a system of exploitation -- wage slavery.
Grades and wages are different things. Grades may be realistic or not, inflated or not, lower or higher than they should be, and all manner of inconsistencies -- but still, grades and wages are different.
What is immoral in school is institutional failure to perform in the task of providing good education. It might be very ill-advised, might be quite stupid, for a student to do little to learn, but it isn't immoral.
Your English seems to be good enough. You employed the slang term "sucks" properly, but "Jeah" is mis-spelled. Are you a native German or Scandinavian-language speaker, where 'J' sounds like the English 'Y'?
Unenlightened's comment about sheep and maths is a reference to the Gospel story about the lost sheep. The shepherd went looking for the lost sheep and was very happy when he found it. Maybe the lost sheep was happy too. Don't know -- Jesus didn't say. The sheep who stayed home and didn't get lost were annoyed by all the attention the stupid sheep without way-finding skills got.
In America, 'mathematics' is plural, math is singular -- no 's'. The English, damn them, put an 's' on the end of math to get 'maths'. This is an abomination. God hates abominations as much as he loves lost sheep that have the good sense to be found.
Buying unnecessary stuff only to be the king of the hill causes unnecessary pain.
Maybe we could define the concept of pain being (morally?) unnecessary.
An action (or state?) X yields necessary pain if there isn't a possible world in which for every 'a' capable of doing X: 'a' doesn't do X and everyone's utility function is not lower that in the actual world.
So if nobody would pay for stuff then the world wouldn't be a better place. That's why paying at TESCO is a necessary pain.
If nobody would buy unnecessary luxury goods that are unaffordable for a lot of people then the world would be a better place for everyone. So it causes unnecessary pain.
Your example shows that the definition of immorality is not characterized by my condition.
edit: The definition should be modified. Everyone's should be replaced by everyone whos not immorally wealthy or something like that. Now the definition of being immorally wealthy is another question.
There are the useful things about education you have mentioned but then there is the dark side of the whole system. I think there is grade-slavery similar to wage-slavery.
I think every science has its philosophy and epistemology but they don't teach it at schools. For if they did, the majority of people would hate the system. Like the morality of economics today is basically money <==> good and the only moral duty of people is consuming.
And that gospel metaphor... I still don't get it. If the goal at school were to find the truth or simply get better by learning from our mistakes that would be fine. I'm afraid that the system is much more evil under the surface.
We can agree in that American English is the only English!
What is unsatisfactory?
1. One of the unstated functions of education is to keep children, youth, and young adults off the streets. To many youth on the streets, especially the wrong kind of youth (varies from place to place) makes some adults, business people, and police nervous. As a function of keeping children off the streets, schools also help regulate the labor pool, keeping younger adults in consuming rules rather than producing roles. (Of course, educational programs -- even state operated and private universities and trade schools -- are a form of service production which needs students in class.)
2. Schools are instruments of ideology for the ruling class (whatever ruling class you have got). History, civics, literature, social studies, and sometimes other subjects as well, are tailored to fit the ruling ideology. So, for instance, you won't find labor lauded and honored in history books; you won't find Manifest Destiny (an American obsession) described as aboriginal genocide. You will find the super rich of the the 19th century described as robber barons, but you won't find the current superrich described that way.
Eastern Europe is going to have it's own ruling ideologies to deal with in school.
3. The standards to which American students are expected to perform are generally too low. About 10% of American students receive a very good education -- high standards, good teachers, good curricula. Another 10% to 20% get a reasonably good education. But maybe 70% get a sloppy, low-grade education. It isn't what students want, necessarily, it isn't what teachers want either, but at least in this country, many people are at a loss to specify what children really need to learn.
4. The capitalist class aggravates the whole problem of education by structuring the economy to render many kinds of workers irrelevant. Lower skilled workers are obviously less relevant to the American and Western European economies these days (because we exported all that work to Asia). But so are some skilled and professional fields becoming irrelevant. Just how necessary is an old fashioned literature major (like myself, though I graduated from college 50 years ago and am not looking for work anymore)? No very.
How necessary are the many people who used to, and still do, work in middle management? Companies are laying these people off all the time and replacing them with computerized functions.
5. What is life for? Education should prepare people to answer that question, and then conduct their lives in the most suitable way to achieve at least some satisfaction and happiness in life. I don't think a lot of leaders have a clue, at this point, how to educate people that way. (Because, for one thing, to frankly address the problem of what your life is for, we have to admit to students that maybe their lives are functionally irrelevant.)
I like American English better than any other kind, but that's the English I grew up with. BTW, a lot of Americans like the sound of "received pronunciation" that they frequently hear on BBC and other British productions. They tend to think news delivered with an upper class British accent is "more authoritative".
We have to shout out that the system is corrupt and is run by thieves and worse. They don't teach that at school.
They want us to feel worthless but this is not the case.
The system was created by people, it is run by people and people (or nature) will end it (I'm afraid I'm being too optimistic in that).
Created by some people, imposed on and acceded to by the rest. What it will take to end, or change this system is revolution. Oh, oh, alarms go off - warning flags go up!
Yes, revolution, but it need not, i hope will not be the French Revolution with heads piling up next to the guillotine. Nor the Russian Revolution of 1917, which ushered in the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin. More like a concerted take over by the rank and file of the people. Certainly that won't happen next week, and in no case will it be easy. It will take extensive and intensive organizing and a tremendous rise in class consciousness among the working class (the ruling class already has all the class consciousness they need).
Take off your wooden shoes and thoughtfully drop them into the works, if you can't think of anything else to do, but be selective.
And for everyone's sake, start thinking now about what it is that we want, and articulate it.
At least that is my opinion. It is also my opinion that a change of emphasis in this value-assigning apparatus is needed for a revolution to take place.
It is not enough that the working class realize they're being screwed by an elite. There must be a shift in the general perception of what the "good" is, else a revolution will only breed new systems of oppression and evil.
That is so very very true.
We don't put new wine in old wineskins (but we do put whiskey in barrels that had old wine in them, which yields good results. Jesus wasn't familiar with fine whiskey or bourbon. Maybe he would have been more a gin man.)
As for wages, I also do not think that they are all that dangerous. A similar effect may be obtain through this, at least to a point. A higher degree of work deserves a higher amount of pay. Someone who gave 110% should receive more than one who didn't even show up. Now, when the unions in the States stuck their noses into increasing payment for certain people , and that it is very hard to fire certain employees, then the field becomes less leveled. This, I believe to be unfair, as it reduces competition, and effort placed in the work.
And I think that is similar to Lock's opinion on the matter because in fact they limit the knowledge to certain categories based on how can we serve the institutions wich have heaps of money and 0 morality at all.
Edit: an example of shitty education is how they teach evolution. Since it is not based on science basically getting an A in evolution is the same as getting an A in creationism. Just learning some kind of pseudo-science. Now does getting an A in creationism mean anything? Now does getting an A in any kind of pseudo-science mean anything at all? A major part of education at any level is just pseudo-science or a practical knowledge to get a job at a profit-oriented institution. Therefore I think it is immoral to classify people based on grades in these subjects.
Does one know the names on the continents or countries or states and can place them on a map, etc.
Grades are not an indicator of ability, intelligence, worth, etc.
It is when we assign some value to grades other than what they really show that we get in trouble.
We grade so that we know a particular skill has been mastered and to assess readiness for additional education, that is all.
It is high differentials in salary leading to large income inequality which is a problem
It is taking grades to mean something other than ability or achievement in one area that is a problem
Salary is about supply and demand. If not many people are doctors and we need doctors, then they can command a higher salary. All they have to do is say find someone else if they are being low-balled. Salary is also negotiation and a mutual trade.