Libertas

“Only the educated are free.” ~Epictetus

I was a teacher for more than ten years. I loved teaching and learning and for that reason I went back to school way too many time to mention. With all this “education” and teaching, I eventually realized that there was a disconnect between education and future success after graduation.

I also read Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad and more importantly his earlier book, If You Want To Be Rich And Happy Don’t Go To School. I agreed with his criticisms about the education establishment: that schools fail to teach financial education, that schools actually harm students when they reward actions that are detrimental to future success and punish actions and habits that are vital to success.

What do schools really want to accomplish?

Teachers don't do this anymore. There are more sophisticated ways to manipulate and humiliate students.

I could go on about how schools manipulate students, kill the wonder and the spirits of children, teach them to glorify the state, and to expect the government to provide for everything.

School failures are actually successes, because schools are rewarded with more power and money as scores fall and illiteracy increases. The state gains by having a more docile and ignorant population of workers. In no way does the education establishment encourage students to learn anything about freedom and liberty, instead they learn to idolize democracy, believing that to be the equivalent of freedom.

The Purpose of Liberal Education

The Classical Liberal Arts were once the education of the elite from modern times to the the free men of ancient Greece. The ancient Romans and Greeks had education for the Free and training for slaves and servants. Most of what goes for education is training to serve. It is not to make students free. It is to make them good workers and good followers. Liberal Education’s purpose is to make you free, certainly not to make you a good or even highly paid serf. Today, however, few receive this education and those who do are notoriously underpaid. They may have free minds. They may have more flexibility in what they can do, but they do not have the skills to do specialized jobs with the better pay.

The Purpose of Training

Specialized or technical education leads to better pay but also leads students to actual serfdom or slavery. The only question is on what level of serfdom would the student attain? Would they be well paid and respected serfs or underpaid and despised serfs.

It may be obvious that a worker on a manufacturing line could be a slave to a system, but many may be surprised to think of a doctor, lawyer or engineer as a serf, better paid, but a serf nevertheless.  Many are so in debt and can do nothing else but what they were trained for and have no choice but to remain in careers they hate.

A highly paid doctor could be just as trapped as a coal miner in Appalachia, or an office worker in a drab cubicle. Debt and training have brought them to dead ends where they feel there is no escape. Whatever the income, they are not free. Their education or training did not lead them to freedom but to slavery.

However, in most cases both forms of education do not lead to freedom. Graduates are trapped by debt and training that prevents them from later seeing new possibilities and options.

While I do believe that the a liberal education is important if not vital, because it stretches the mind, develops reason and imagination, and most importantly teaches students how to learn, I also believe that learning a skill to gain financial independence and the leisure for continued self development is the other key to reaching true freedom.

Socrates

We are going through major economic, political, and social changes. Relying on the government is not only foolish, it is dangerous to your freedom and future. It is imperative that you begin to find ways to take control of your financial life, learn to think for yourself, and to actually live a life worth living.

Recommended Books:

If You Want To Be Rich And Happy Don’t Go To School by Robert Kiyosaki

The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg