Rabbit Creative

Heh… I’m uncertain how to begin to describe how I feel about what I’ve just read. I suppose it would make sense to show it to you first:

People don’t need to know anything about economics to participate in the economy, just like they don’t need to know anything about the physics of light in order to use a television. The idea that you can educate people to become more than they are is an old leftist myth that has failed over and over and over.

Emphasis my own.

First, let’s start with, “…to become more than they are…” bit. What does that mean? What is a person? Personally, and probably to some degree in light of this argument, I see people as vessels of potential. We are born, we are nurtured in some way (or not) and we eventually grow into some kind of human being. Of course, this growing process occurs many times over the life of a human, and, often I would argue, in parallel.

Now that I’ve clarified to some extent what, in my mind, “people are”, let’s look at about two-thirds of the statement: “The idea that you can educate people to become more than they are…”.

Let’s substitute: “The idea that you can educate beings of potential to be more than they are…”.

Isn’t that kind of the definition of potential? To be more than you “are” at a given moment? I believe this person has a dim view on people as a whole. While I understand and even sometimes agree with that stance, it’s a destructive one and only serves to further our present condition (one in which ignorance is somehow respectable).

Finally, let’s look at the whole of the statement: The idea that you can educate people to become more than they are is an old leftist myth that has failed over and over and over.

“… an old leftist mth”. Oh really? That simply reeks of “politics as usual”. By that I mean our false dichotomy of left-versus-right.

The above quote is from the Community portion of the von Mises Institute’s website.

I am sincerely disappointed with the seemingly uneducated views spouted from that site’s community. I thought, perhaps incorrectly, that I would encounter slightly more intelligent conversation regarding what is probably the single-most important issue facing our world today: monetary reform.

On a positive note, that was the first-and-only thread I viewed. Hopefully I just picked a bad apple…