Progressivism is Antithetical to Education

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Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com

Education is the process by which the knowledge, culture, and way of life for a particular people is passed on from one generation to the next in a deliberate way. It’s what happens when a people are able to recognize the goods that they have, whether it be knowledge, technology, art, ritual, religion, literature, and wants to ensure, out of charity and concern for their descendants that they will be able to access those goods as well – that they won’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. It starts by identifying those goods, prioritizing them, and deliberately transmitting them and if that transaction is successfully completed such that a generation can identify what is good and should be transmitted, aims to do so, does so, and consecutive generations receive that knowledge and wisdom and honor it such that they would be willing to invest the same, if not more, effort, labour, and resources to perpetuate that transmission – then what you have is exactly what tradition is. Tradition means we identify the things that we have developed that are worth preserving and handing them on by transmitting them for the benefit of those who receive them. This is what tradition means which, therefore, should help us to appreciate that education, is intrinsically traditional. That is its purpose, its telos, its end – to transmit the knowledge and discoveries of your ancestors. This is the fundamental aim of tradition and education has no other purpose.Education cannot be divorced from tradition. Without tradition, there is no point to education. Without a tradition to transmit, education becomes something else entirely – like indoctrination or manipulation. Which is why when people who are supposed educators, prioritize progress, change, evolution, or even revolution and the overturning of tradition as their goals in education; they a) reveal that they don’t understand what education is and probably couldn’t provide a cohesive definition of the very thing they are supposedly practitioners of, and b) are undermining their own efforts as a result.