Philosophy for teens

"The learning of a dead subject requires a technical act of carving the knowledge into teachable bites so that they can be fed to the students one at a time by a teacher, and this leads straight into the traditional paraphernalia of curriculum, hierarchy, and control." The standards movement also narrows the curriculum immensely and in its comprehensive inclusion of benchmarks that need to be taught eliminates an infinite number of types of learning to occur or subjects to be examined.

I simply cannot escape the question: Why that millionth in particular?" Seymour Papert (1993)

"The planning of new educational systems...must not start with the question, 'What should someone learn,' but the question, 'What kind of things and people might learners want to be in contact with in order to learn?'" Ivan Illich (1970)

Government is force. Libertarians believe in a win-win voluntary society where people cooperate through trade and charity. The moral issue here is that Libertarians believe that it is not right to take forcefully from one person in order to provide for another's needs. Libertarians believe in minimizing taxation and funding government by other means if possible. Welfare for those in need should be provided through voluntary means. Forcing others to "give" is not just or generous. Government should not be deciding who needs welfare, because welfare is damaging to some people because it encourages dependency, lack of initiative, and poor planning. A free economy will produce more wealth for everyone. Taxation is robbing people of their wealth and the ability to invest that wealth in new business, which would benefit the poor.

Think of the possibilities for giving in a society with extremely low taxation. People are concerned about providing for their own families and living responsibly and they need to be free to make their own decisions with their money. Most people in our daily lives are good most of the time - otherwise society wouldn't function - we trust people enough as equals. However, the more power we give to others, the more skewed things become. As Lord Acton said, Power corrupts.

Some people think that inheritance taxes are the right way to redistribute wealth. But does it really do that? In effect, they just provide governments with more money to squander. If they really should redistribute wealth, they should be excluded from the normal government income and allocated in a special fund earmarked for the purpose. Some people think that inheritance taxes are downright wrong; taking away already taxed and hard earned money from people who earned it.

What happens when you tax an inheritance? Applying British standards, 50 percent of the inheritance gets lost to the government coffers. If this money is sitting in a savings account or in a safe, the fact might be annoying to the heir, but hardly life threatening to anyone. If the money on the other hand is sitting in a company providing work to people, losing half the money could mean the end of the company. This second case in fact doesn’t redistribute wealth, it kills it

answers can be taught separate from question

Hence every declarative statement in the textbook is an answer to a question. Hence, every textbook could be rewritten in the interrogative mode by translating every statement into a question.

thinking is not driven by answers but by questions

In an age where opinion polls and market research invade almost every aspect of our "democratic/consumer" society (with the notable exception of art), Komar and Melamid's project poses relevant questions that an art-interested public, and society in general often fail to ask: What would art look like if it were to please the greatest number of people? Or conversely: What kind of culture is produced by a society that lives and governs itself by opinion polls?

discover what a true "people's art"