Category Archives: Dewey

In John Dewey’s blog post “The Richest Starving Nation”, the article talks about how child hunger is a growing problem in the United States despite being one of the wealthiest nations in the world. Our country is able to produce so much food that about 30-40% is wasted. The article argues “the government must create programs that ensure children can receive nutritious meals three times a day, every day of the year.” However, the author does not realize the infeasibility of this proposal and the rights it infringes on for others.

Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world where equal access to food is possible. These children may live in our society, but it is their parents’ responsibility to ensure they have the right resources to take care of them. Every individual has the right to their own body, and it is their right and decision to have a child with it or not. However, it is their responsibility to plan accordingly and make sure they have the resources to properly raise their children. Dewey argues that, “Perpetually hungry children face a myriad of issues that their well-fed peers don’t, including anxiety, depression, behavioral problems and chronic health conditions.” This is an unfortunate reality, but it is not something that the public is responsible for. Furthermore, ensuring that they are properly fed does not guarantee that these children will not face an mental or physical issues.

The article argues that these hungry children are having their liberties taken away before they can exercise it because they have an increased likelihood to drop out or develop emotional or physical ailments. Even though the article recognizes that this federal plans would infringe on the rights of others, it asserts that the government must ensure their protection. However, this argument makes no sense. The government is not taking away these liberties from them by not providing programs to help. Although the government must consider the wellbeing of these children, they are not required to enact a law that will affect every single individual in this society. This is a growing problem, but as of right now, it is not a pressing issue that affects the masses. Individuals have their right to property, and it would be unfair and unjust if everyone was taxed for something they were unaffected by.

The whole argument is making something that should be considered a private matter into something public. Although it does affect millions of children across the country, the people are not required to take care of children that is not their own. Individuals who face these problems couldn’t be taxed because if they could afford the taxes, they could afford meals. Forcing unaffected parties to pay taxes for children they have no responsibility for infringes on their rights and liberties.If we are going to make people fund this project, shouldn’t everybody have this opportunity available to them?

I am not arguing that this is not a serious issue, because this is a problem that should be addressed. However, the manner in which Dewey argues and the solutions he proposes are all wrong. He hits with hard evidence that hungry children are crippled in their attempts to grow up to be contributing members of society. However, there is still no evidence that this is a societal, public problem. The parents of these children should be held responsible for taking care of them. It was their decision to have kids, and for that, they should be held accountable.

In “Slaves to the Unproductive,” Ayn Rand argues against taxing the rich to provide aid to the homeless. She states that taxes levied for any purpose which exceeds the rights of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness is an overreach by the government, and its discussion should be framed not as rich vs. poor, but as the industrious vs. the unproductive. Rand states that there is no society, but rather individuals pursuing individual interests. She says that taxes inhibit productivity and promote “false altruism,” which functions to enslave the people and provide a select few with power.

Ayn Rand is correct in her assertion that the government should ensure life, liberty, and property. Her assertion, however, is short-sighted as she assumes that the nation in which individuals live automatically provides these human rights to all of its citizens. Rand’s idealization of society’s opportunities fails to account for those who are not given opportunity to allow for success. In order to cultivate people, and allow them to achieve their highest capabilities, the government needs to provide homeless people with the resources to attain property, a job, etc., thus allowing them their rights. Taxing the wealthy would allow homeless people to attain the same basic right of property, as most other people in society, without putting an undue burden on those with less resources. Homeless people have the potential to contribute to Rand’s concept of productivity, but first, the socioeconomic playing field needs to be leveled.

Rand’s emphasis on productivity has its faults, however, as society’s insecurities about under-producing leads to greed and a false sense of want. Wealthy individuals would feel the negative effects of a tax less than a homeless person would feel its positive effects. Yet, Rand’s obsession with achievement encourages individuals to amass a disproportionate amount of resources for a single person, and give little back to individuals deprived of these resources. Rand believes there should not be a greater tax on the wealthy, as it would “enslave” those who wish to collect superfluous amounts of wealth. Conversely, in a society which does not account for the homeless, everyone besides those with wealth are enslaved to a system which fails to provide equal opportunity for success.

Rand’s belief in an individualist society as “a collection of individuals pursuing their own interests” is outdated and impractical in an industrial and urbanized society. In a rural and isolated setting, individuals could afford to account for only themselves, but now that society has integrated, it has no choice but to organize. Society has not given homeless people the right circumstances to pull themselves out of their lower socioeconomic class on their own. For example, orphaned individuals growing up in foster care that are kicked out at the age of 18 may not have opportunities or resources to acquire a job at this a young age. Many of these individuals become homeless. Whereas individuals born in the middle class, for example, would have more opportunity to obtain a job or afford college, because they are born with resources to allow them to do so.

Rand’s concerns of “false altruism” in a collectivist society rest with the individuals who threaten to take advantage of the government power and resources, rather than the government itself. If a certain system encourages this, however, we must change the way of doing things to find a system that works for its intended purpose of ensuring resources and opportunity to the homeless. In an ideal society, like the one Rand describes, we would not have the socioeconomic disparity to equalize, and everyone could pursue their own interests. However, Rand fails to account for the inequality within the society upon which her assumptions rest.

President Donald Trump’s most recent administrative budget was largely focused on the reallocation of public school funding towards private education. Betsy DeVos, the Trump administration’s’ Secretary of Education promotes the reallocation of funding for core curriculum like science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) towards private education. This decision to cut down on public school funding to boost private education factions will result in a dismantlement of democratic educational standards.

Public education is the driving force guiding individuals of the state to fulfill their personal potentials. The state is to set non-biased standards that allow for the equal education of individuals regardless of religion, race and economic standing. Specialization in the form of privatized education will, for the elite who exempt themselves from public education using DeVos’ proposition, result in deviation from a democratic way of thinking. Private education standards are set differently and specialized with certain goals and ways of thinking in mind. DeVos’ encouragement of parents who choose to put their children in religious schools violates the student’s opportunity to be submerged in various perspectives, cultures, and religions. The use of government funding for religious private schools is also a violation of the separation of church and state. Students are denied an inherently democratic education system in private schools. The state set education system, while separate from other parts of the country, is a broader reflection of the cultural and physical aspects of the given society that each individual who graduates from public schools must assimilate into. The state set education is also based on a standard set by the region, making it more democratic than a private education.

To privatize education for certain individuals in specialized sectors would result in elitist thinking practices that may instill individualistic mindsets in students which will hinder their contribution to society as a whole beyond this education. For example, if they graduate and decide to join the public workforce.

In contemporary society the financial strains that public schools face are great. Many public schools are already subject to state cutbacks and lack of funding. According to DeVos’ privatization proposal, $1.4 billion of money allocated for education will be spent towards funding in the form of “private school vouchers” for “school choice”/privatization, aside from the $9 billion budget cuts already being made.

Those who choose to participate in private education might do so with the intent to separate themselves from public education however, they are still impacting the public education system by taking a large portion of this funding. The decrease in funding towards public education will take a toll on those who participate in public education.Therefore, those who choose to take part in private education systems are not isolated and are in fact impacting a larger segment of their community by choosing private education.

The removal of much-needed funding towards public education to further establish private institutions is a clear example of elite individualization negatively impacting a community or larger society.

The Trump administration should shift their focus towards reforming the education to a democratic and collective environment rather than shifting towards individualistic privatized institutions. Thus allowing the majority of the population reach their individual freedom through social interaction.

The institution of education’s method of grade school standardized testing stifles the freedom of the individual by focusing students’ learning on a narrow curriculum.

Confining society to a certain set of standardized testing subjects does not foster an environment which encourages free intellectual inquiry. Rather, teachers emphasize subjects that may not fit each students’ field of specialization. Standardized testing materials often take priority over subjects not valued in standardized testing. These programs assume that genius is already present in the student. However, students who specialize in subjects such as art are not deemed geniuses if they do not excel in subjects such as math or science. We need a method of inquiry similar to the process used by scientists to judge the greater needs of students’ education. Students who learn in environments that nurture their individual abilities will succeed and our education system will foster intelligence at a greater level.

Furthermore, standardized testing does not account for lower-income students in environments that do not encourage intelligence. Government programs encouraging standardized testing do not benefit society as they create environments which harm underfunded schools in underprivileged communities. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act sanctioned schools who did not show adequate improvement. Obama’s Race to the Top Program promised incentives to schools who did improve. These programs assume that genius is universally inherent in children, no matter their socioeconomic situation. However, genius results from environments which facilitate intelligence, and not every child affected by these programs have facilitative environments.

Programs which compare schools across all socioeconomic backgrounds additionally create competition which stifles creativity. It is unrealistic to think that schools in underprivileged communities can match the test scores of those in privileged communities with only the help of these programs. However, schools of all socioeconomic levels nevertheless remain in competition. Underprivileged schools often focus the majority of their time on “teaching the test” rather than teaching valuable information—beyond standardized subjects. As a result, geniuses in lower-income communities (that could benefit society) often fail to thrive because their time is spent in competition for higher test scores. Education works better not when schools and students are in environments of competition, but when individual strengths are encouraged for the betterment of the community.

An educational system without standardized testing, but a new system with an emphasis on inquiry, would encourage the freedom of the individual and allow people to fulfill their highest potential through the pursuit of knowledge.

The opioid crisis in America is one of the biggest challenges that we as a country face, President Trump acknowledged this issue many times during his campaign but so far has not taken any significant action aimed at fixing it. While he recently took a step in the right direction it is not enough, Trump recently declared a 90-day public health emergency with regard to the epidemic, but would not commit to anything more permanent, such as an expansion in treatment of insurance coverage for Americans who struggle with opioids. Trump and Congress must do more than call for a temporary health emergency to resolve this issue.

For the individualistic liberal a decision first must be made on whether or not this is a public or private issue, and while Dewey is quoted as saying “the great enemy of individual liberty was thought to be government because of its tendency to encroach upon the innate liberties of individuals” (5). After looking over the national geographic article below, it can be seen that the opioid epidemic is clearly a public issue. “In 2012 nearly 22,000 babies were born drug dependent, one every 25 minutes”, “In 2012 the neonatal intensive care unit became so overwhelmed by drug-dependent babies that it had to turn away newborns with other medical needs” when an issue, such as the opioid problem is causing sick infants to have to be turned down by the institutions created to save them, we must acknowledge that it has become a public issue and people’s opioid issues are harming other families. Now that we have determined the crisis to be a public issue, the next step is to find the right balance in legislation between protecting individual liberty while also taking into account the new world of industrialism and the social planning that is now necessary in our society.

Governor Charlie Baker is on the right track, without overstepping and proposing something like the removal of these painkillers from the market, he has found a balance in a proposal that would increase the requirements necessary for the sale of opioids. He also suggests a switch to more secure electronic prescriptions to combat fraudulent slips and higher penalties for prescribers who break the law. Finally, he argues in favor of the creation of educational and intervention programs that help help identify students who may be at risk, these programs “builds on the state’s existing framework by identifying populations at-risk of developing a substance use disorder, particularly children and young adults, and empowers schools with the tools they need to integrate education about these harmful drugs into their everyday curriculum.”

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-opioids-20171026-story.html

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/09/science-of-addiction-babies-opioids/

http://www.wcvb.com/article/baker-administration-proposes-new-legislation-to-fight-opioid-epidemic/13619407

Child hunger persists in a country that wastes an estimated 30-40% of the food supply. America produces so much, yet fails to adequately utilize the new forces of productivity in the interest of the individuals who constitute the society. For children to grow, both literally and figuratively, the government must create programs that ensure children can receive nutritious meals three times a day, every day of the year. By instituting this measure, no child would be shamed for their parents’ inability to pay for lunch, nor would they receive a cheese sandwich to merely quell their hunger. A child who is fed little to nothing while at school has little chance to succeed.

The dated belief that people are born with innate capabilities is inherently false -inequality of fortune and economic status is not a “natural law.” Children who are perpetually hungry face a serious impediment to achieving their full potential and developing into productive, intelligent members of society. Perpetually hungry children face a myriad of issues that their well-fed peers don’t, including anxiety, depression, behavioral problems and chronic health conditions. Allowing children to suffer from these issues when it is within our government’s ability to end child hunger is shameful. Some may believe that one is born with the natural ability to create something as complex as the microchip, those people would be wrong, for a person to discover and create they must be nurtured. Not nurturing a child infringes on their liberty.

The 13 million children that went to school hungry this morning are affectively having their liberty taken away before they even have a true opportunity to exercise it. They have an increased likelihood of dropping out of school and developing emotional and physical ailments, which will hinder their ability to exercise liberty as adults. If the government exists to protect our rights it cannot ignore the fact that what happens to a child today shapes the adult they become. Of course, the individualist liberal will contend that forcing them to pay taxes for children that they have no responsibility for infringes on their liberty, but in our connected society child hunger impacts all of us.

The numerous impacts childhood hunger has on society make it a clear public issue. The behavioral problems stemming from childhood hunger may cause them to be a danger to the other members of society or the lack of quality education will make them either unemployable or in such great poverty that they become dependent on the state. In a connected society what seems to only affect one of us may actually impact all of us.

The government needs to develop a social plan to adequately distribute the benefits of modern production. Charities have developed several programs to help children in need, such as providing them weekend meals when they leave school on Friday or summer meals when school is not in session, but they don’t have the resources of the United States government. If the government learned from the charities and instituted these types of programs nationwide and allocated funding to ensure its success childhood hunger could be eradicated. We cannot tell a child to pull themselves up by their Velcro straps, in some instances the government must intervene to ensure their protection, even if that is perceived as infringing on someone else’s property rights.