Random Thoughts

To expand individual freedoms necessitates the limitation of central authority. To enable the limitation of central authority suggests the need to disrupt cooperative engagements between and amongst districts under the central authority. This is not necessarily hostile disruption, but could employ disruption through suspicion, confusion or competition.

Social Norms and Schools

Formal norms are such that some governing body has recorded parameters of conduct and established some sense of negative reward related to their violation. Informal norms are “understood” to be in effect, yet no parameters of conduct have been “formally” established and accepted, nor is an institutional mechanism in place to reward non-compliance. While formal norms are fairly straight-forward, such as prohibitions against killing a teacher resulting in criminal charges, informal norms are less clear-cut and increasingly relegated to obsolescence. In post-modern educational theory and application, informal sanction has become for the student a perceived “badge of honor,” while the governing body of a school has actively discouraged the practice of informal sanction. As indicated in my daughter’s policy manual from her school and as experienced in reported lessons and activities in the classroom, disparaging fellow students for any reason is not in the “best” interest of the students or the school; the suggestion provided by the teacher was for all name-calling to be reported at once. Name-calling and teasing no longer serves as a regulatory mechanism, instead eliciting a trip to the principal’s office and the agent of the attempted informal sanction being disciplined for violation of formal norms.

Similarly to the discrediting of the power of informal sanction in regulating conduct is the “brainless” policy of “zero-tolerance” which denies situational determination of conduct relevance. In this I mean that a “zero tolerance” policy in some schools extends to the artistic expression of children in formal art class as well as informal “doodling” in notebooks what may be perceived as “violent” imagery, resulting in formal disciplinary action against the student, regardless of age, intent, etc. A thirteen-year-old in a school in Arizona being suspended for drawing a picture that a teacher perceived as a gun rewarded the child suspension from school (KPHO, August 21, 2007) is just one example of this misguided policy decision. The media reports are numerous of similar situations in which “zero policy” has taken the place of situational discretion.

Denial of informal sanction and a “zero tolerance” policy imposed on select conduct results in a situation conductive to “formalizing” all conduct based on standards developed and applied by the governing authority. In such an atmosphere, creative expression, creative thinking and situational justice becomes obsolete as imposed conformity stunts the growth of those for whom expansion of experience, knowledge, skill and creativity is necessary. Formal sanction and informal sanction are equally necessary to maintain control of the institution while socializing and teaching the student. Discretion must be employed graciously to allow creativity and exploration to develop while not endangering the safety and opportunity of all parties involved. Formal prohibition of conduct employed to do physical harm to persons and property has traditionally been the dividing line between formal and informal norms. It is the position of the adult to determine when sanction constitutes excess; it is the position of the student to expand their application and acceptance of sanctions to the point of correction (from adults) in order to define these boundaries. As I see it, the educational system is misguided in their approach to a stated goal of socializing their charges by denying the educational properties inherent in “pushing the limits” of what is acceptable conduct based on disciplinary focus resulting from conventional wisdom and/or reactionary public policy.

By the age of college, the socialization of the child should be such that informal sanction maintains adequate order for all but the most determined of delinquents. Traditionally, these “delinquents” do not go one to advance their educational opportunities in these institutions, which have had the effect of reinforcing this assumption. With a continued approach toward socialization employed by primary educators, and an increased tolerance for admission to colleges those who may be classified as the “most determined of delinquents,” I suggest that we are going to experience similar denial of informal sanction and zero-tolerance employed by high schools and grade schools in the institutions of higher learning.

As a principle in a high school I would insist the school board seriously rethink their assumption that their managerial staff is so incompetent as to allow chaos within their halls, establish a formal code of conduct and allow for the discretion of those entrusted to the position.

Economic Bubbles and Global Banking Regulation

An economic bubble is a “trade in high volume at prices that are considered at variance with intrinsic values; trade in products or assets possessing inflated values.” Bubbles cannot be identified in advance of formation, cannot be prevented, in any attempt to correct the result would be a “crisis; the suggested tactics involved for mitigation takes a spectator approach, allowing the bubble to play-out and dealing with any ensuing aftermath through modifying monetary and fiscal policy.

Economic Bubbles are not phantasmagoric phenomenon out to destroy the national system; they are a natural part of any “managed” capitalized monetary system where speculative investment drives production. Allowed to run their course, bubbles create as healthy an atmosphere for growth and prosperity allowed in a market system.

Allowing populist politic to “contain, manage, direct, alleviate” the ‘growing pains’ associated with the bubble is where the natural system breaks apart. With Mr. Soros, here I agree. The bubble needs to run its course and allow the “failures” of the institutions which found themselves caught up in the burst.

Regulating the financial institutions may not be the smartest move, and this I need to investigate.

As for the conditions which allow a bubble to occur, since it is assumed there in no current method to detect and prevent them, causation factors must be discovered independent of populist witch-hunts driven by opinion polls, and policies put in place designed to monitor and prevent those conditions from occurring in the future (if, in fact, causation factors can be determined).

One final point before I leave off for the night: Global financial regulation is NOT the proper course of action in this or any other instance. The world is not yet ready for (or to be) one big, happy empire. As long as those who would assume the power of decision over others maintain their attitude of arrogant condensation and demand that all decisions, guarantees, favors and thoughts emanate from them in exchange for our worship at the trough of the pork-barrel, there can be no global empire. Those who would aspire to empire have usurped the language, claiming their cause as a global “community of nations.” A so-called community of nations is akin to any other community (city) consisting of different neighborhoods with different histories, governing structure, education, goals, dreams and ambitions. The “community of nations” concepts being forwarded by its proponents are actively engaged in “unifying” its neighborhoods under one solid “global” set of regulations. When we all live under the same rules (and rulers), where do we go when we have a difference of opinion about how best the citizens should live their lives?