Value of <Post-Modern> Education

[Edge Yourself]

To say that Foucualt and his contemporaries are to blame for a
decline in a "humanist" education is nonsense. Admittedly the purpose of
schooling is widely regarded to be the production of as well-rounded an
individual as is possible - the study of literature, law, phisosophy
etc. are vital components of such schooling. Education and schooling are
different though - Gabb falls into the trap here of accepting an
essentially statist definition of the term "education", designed to
encompass the learning of those under a (state set) age of consent and
not the semantic definition of the word itself. The real purpose of
education should be to deepen one's own understanding of reality: to
experiment in what is and is not possible and to frame that knowledge in
a wider intellectual tradition. Foucault's post-structurationism (which
I conject is what is being referred to here) merely points out that
historically (geneologically) language and unspoken cultural conventions
have been used to restrict, control and label those who do not conform
to the overarching social, philosophical and political structures of
their day. It's not really that far away from Benjamin tucker's
defintion of government. Since Foucault's chosen intellectual framework
is Marxism his work is bound to attract the wrath of conservative
libertarians. Any rejection of post-modernism as an absurdity is
essentially an anti-individualist point of view - post-modernism
empowers the individual and destroys the kind of streamed elitism that
"socialist education" permits through selection. Some colleges study IT
rather than history, but whose history? A truly libertarian (as opposed
to "strong conservative") perspective would forward the idea of
education as a gateway to better understanding of the world - not as a
forced, eugenic proposition peddling a strong conservative curriculum.
Liberty is choice. If you have the choice to learn Ovid through Japanese
cartoons rather than at Eton then capitalism is triumphing as a
ideology. Plus ca change!