[Buddha-l] sam harris at the aspen institute

[jkirk]

Joanna wrote:

>The reason experiments like Summerhill were abandoned because they 
>didn't work is because they were not based on a structure of power and 
>authority that exists to maintain itself at the expense of everybody else,
regardless.

Yes, that is also one of the main messages of Regis Debray's book I
mentioned in another message: a structure of power and authority is
necessary for the survival of a group. It is difficult to row against the
stream, especially if one doesn't have a boat. But ideas can hibernate and
be revived without a heavy structure. Perhaps we ought to separate the
notions of "working" and "lasting". Something that works doesn't necessarily
last and the other way round. How can we teach and learn freedom in the
largest possible sense in systems that lack freedom? That seems to be
somehow contradictory to me. I am abhorred by what the (French) school
system does with my children and can only look at it helplessly since
schools go with the society they prepare the children for. The republic eats
its children.

Joy
====================
 One of the problems seems to me is that freedom isn't an essence --the
freedom we still worry about comes from 18th c. political-economy, and now
we are living in and being trashed by a hyper-industrial multinational
monolithic polit.-economy, where corporations--like gun manufacturers--with
big lobbying bucks can override the most minimum attempts to ensure public
saftety and well being.

What is the meaning of that old freedom concept today? Who is killing whom
in the ghettos of urban slums? Young people--children, if you will. The idea
of civic freedom has been utterly warped by the idea of corporations as
individuals, having the same "rights" as individual citizens. Hence: no way
to control guns or keep them out of the hands of children, much less adults.

Since we just found out that Summerhill is alive and well, maybe someone
(who has kids) would find out how it managed to survive all these years.
There were times back in the seventies when, as I recall, they were down to
maybe less than 10 students. 
Joanna
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