LNAT Ethics & Education – Test 2

Surrender your freedom, avoid daylight, live to work, and you too could join a toxic, paranoid elite

Perhaps because the alternative is too hideous to contemplate, we persuade ourselves that those who wield power know what they are doing. The belief in a guiding intelligence is hard to shake.

We know that our conditions of life are deteriorating. Most young people have little prospect of owning a home, or even of renting a decent one. Interesting jobs are sliced up, through digital Taylorism, into portions of meaningless drudgery. The natural world, whose wonders enhance our lives, and upon which our survival depends, is being rubbed out with horrible speed. Those to whom we look for guardianship, in government and among the economic elite, do not arrest this decline, they accelerate it.

The political system that delivers these outcomes is sustained by aspiration: the faith that if we try hard enough we could join the elite, even as living standards decline and social immobility becomes set almost in stone. But to what are we aspiring? A life that is better than our own, or worse?

Last week a note from an analyst at Barclays’ Global Power and Utilities group in New York was leaked. It addressed students about to begin a summer internship, and offered a glimpse of the toxic culture into which they are inducted.

“I wanted to introduce you to the 10 Power Commandments … For nine weeks you will live and die by these … We expect you to be the last ones to leave every night, no matter what … I recommend bringing a pillow to the office. It makes sleeping under your desk a lot more comfortable … the internship really is a nine-week commitment at the desk … an intern asked our staffer for a weekend off for a family reunion – he was told he could go. He was also asked to hand in his BlackBerry and pack up his desk … Play time is over and it’s time to buckle up.”

Play time is over, but did it ever begin? If these students have the kind of parents featured in the Financial Times last month, perhaps not. The article marked a new form of employment: the nursery consultant. These people, who charge from £290 an hour, must find a nursery that will put their clients’ toddlers on the right track to an elite university.

Mental health beds for children increased by 50%, but still failed to meet demand

They spoke of parents who had already decided that their six-month-old son would go to Cambridge then Deutsche Bank, or whose two-year-old daughter “had a tutor for two afternoons a week (to keep on top of maths and literacy) as well as weekly phonics and reading classes, drama, piano, beginner French and swimming. They were considering adding Mandarin and Spanish. ‘The little girl was so exhausted and on edge she was terrified of opening her mouth.’”

In New York, playdate coaches charging $450 an hour train small children in the social skills that might help secure their admission to the most prestigious private schools. They are taught to hide traits that could suggest they’re on the autistic spectrum, which might reduce their chances of selection.

From infancy to employment, this is a life-denying, love-denying mindset, informed not by joy or contentment, but by an ambition that is both desperate and pointless, for it cannot compensate for what it displaces: childhood, family life, the joys of summer, meaningful and productive work, a sense of arrival, living in the moment. For the sake of this toxic culture, the economy is repurposed, the social contract is rewritten, the elite is released from tax, regulation and the other restraints imposed by democracy.

Where the elite goes, we are induced to follow. As if the assessment regimes were too lax in UK primary schools, last year the education secretary announced a new test for four-year-olds. A primary school in Cambridge has just taken the obvious next step: it is now streaming four-year-olds into classes according to perceived ability. The education and adoption bill, announced in the Queen’s speech, will turn the screw even tighter. Will this help children, or hurt them?

Who knows? Governments used to survey the prevalence of children’s mental health issues every five years, but this ended in 2004. Imagine publishing no figures since 2004 on, say, childhood cancer, and you begin to understand the extent to which successive governments have chosen to avoid this issue. If aspirational pressure is not enhancing our wellbeing but damaging it, those in power don’t want to know.

But there are hints. Mental health beds for children in England increased by 50% between 1999 and 2014, but still failed to meet demand. Children suffering mental health crises are being dumped in adult wards or even left in police cells because of the lack of provision (put yourself in their position and imagine the impact).

The number of children admitted to hospital because of self-harm has risen by 68% in 10 years, while the number of young patients with eating disorders has almost doubled in three years. Without good data, we don’t have a clear picture of what the causes might be, but it’s worth noting that in the past year, according to the charity YoungMinds, the number of children receiving counselling for exam stress has tripled.

An international survey of children’s wellbeing found that the UK, where such pressures are peculiarly intense, ranked 13th out of 15 countries for children’s life satisfaction, 13th for agreement with the statement “I like going to school”, 14th for children’s satisfaction with their bodies and 15th for self-confidence. So all that pressure and cramming and exhortation – that worked, didn’t it?

In the cause of self-advancement, we are urged to sacrifice our leisure, our pleasures and our time with partners and children, to climb over the bodies of our rivals and to set ourselves against the common interests of humankind. And then? We discover that we have achieved no greater satisfaction than that with which we began.

In 1653, Izaak Walton described in the Compleat Angler the fate of “poor-rich men”, who “spend all their time first in getting, and next in anxious care to keep it; men that are condemned to be rich, and then always busy or discontented”. Today this fate is confused with salvation.

Finish your homework, pass your exams, spend your 20s avoiding daylight, and you too could live like the elite. But who in their right mind would want to?

(Edited from an article in the guardian by George Monbiot)

Surrender your freedom, avoid daylight, live to work, and you too could join a toxic, paranoid elite

Perhaps because the alternative is too hideous to contemplate, we persuade ourselves that those who wield power know what they are doing. The belief in a guiding intelligence is hard to shake.

We know that our conditions of life are deteriorating. Most young people have little prospect of owning a home, or even of renting a decent one. Interesting jobs are sliced up, through digital Taylorism, into portions of meaningless drudgery. The natural world, whose wonders enhance our lives, and upon which our survival depends, is being rubbed out with horrible speed. Those to whom we look for guardianship, in government and among the economic elite, do not arrest this decline, they accelerate it.

The political system that delivers these outcomes is sustained by aspiration: the faith that if we try hard enough we could join the elite, even as living standards decline and social immobility becomes set almost in stone. But to what are we aspiring? A life that is better than our own, or worse?

Last week a note from an analyst at Barclays’ Global Power and Utilities group in New York was leaked. It addressed students about to begin a summer internship, and offered a glimpse of the toxic culture into which they are inducted.

“I wanted to introduce you to the 10 Power Commandments … For nine weeks you will live and die by these … We expect you to be the last ones to leave every night, no matter what … I recommend bringing a pillow to the office. It makes sleeping under your desk a lot more comfortable … the internship really is a nine-week commitment at the desk … an intern asked our staffer for a weekend off for a family reunion – he was told he could go. He was also asked to hand in his BlackBerry and pack up his desk … Play time is over and it’s time to buckle up.”

Play time is over, but did it ever begin? If these students have the kind of parents featured in the Financial Times last month, perhaps not. The article marked a new form of employment: the nursery consultant. These people, who charge from £290 an hour, must find a nursery that will put their clients’ toddlers on the right track to an elite university.

Mental health beds for children increased by 50%, but still failed to meet demand

They spoke of parents who had already decided that their six-month-old son would go to Cambridge then Deutsche Bank, or whose two-year-old daughter “had a tutor for two afternoons a week (to keep on top of maths and literacy) as well as weekly phonics and reading classes, drama, piano, beginner French and swimming. They were considering adding Mandarin and Spanish. ‘The little girl was so exhausted and on edge she was terrified of opening her mouth.’”

In New York, playdate coaches charging $450 an hour train small children in the social skills that might help secure their admission to the most prestigious private schools. They are taught to hide traits that could suggest they’re on the autistic spectrum, which might reduce their chances of selection.

From infancy to employment, this is a life-denying, love-denying mindset, informed not by joy or contentment, but by an ambition that is both desperate and pointless, for it cannot compensate for what it displaces: childhood, family life, the joys of summer, meaningful and productive work, a sense of arrival, living in the moment. For the sake of this toxic culture, the economy is repurposed, the social contract is rewritten, the elite is released from tax, regulation and the other restraints imposed by democracy.

Where the elite goes, we are induced to follow. As if the assessment regimes were too lax in UK primary schools, last year the education secretary announced a new test for four-year-olds. A primary school in Cambridge has just taken the obvious next step: it is now streaming four-year-olds into classes according to perceived ability. The education and adoption bill, announced in the Queen’s speech, will turn the screw even tighter. Will this help children, or hurt them?

Who knows? Governments used to survey the prevalence of children’s mental health issues every five years, but this ended in 2004. Imagine publishing no figures since 2004 on, say, childhood cancer, and you begin to understand the extent to which successive governments have chosen to avoid this issue. If aspirational pressure is not enhancing our wellbeing but damaging it, those in power don’t want to know.

But there are hints. Mental health beds for children in England increased by 50% between 1999 and 2014, but still failed to meet demand. Children suffering mental health crises are being dumped in adult wards or even left in police cells because of the lack of provision (put yourself in their position and imagine the impact).

The number of children admitted to hospital because of self-harm has risen by 68% in 10 years, while the number of young patients with eating disorders has almost doubled in three years. Without good data, we don’t have a clear picture of what the causes might be, but it’s worth noting that in the past year, according to the charity YoungMinds, the number of children receiving counselling for exam stress has tripled.

An international survey of children’s wellbeing found that the UK, where such pressures are peculiarly intense, ranked 13th out of 15 countries for children’s life satisfaction, 13th for agreement with the statement “I like going to school”, 14th for children’s satisfaction with their bodies and 15th for self-confidence. So all that pressure and cramming and exhortation – that worked, didn’t it?

In the cause of self-advancement, we are urged to sacrifice our leisure, our pleasures and our time with partners and children, to climb over the bodies of our rivals and to set ourselves against the common interests of humankind. And then? We discover that we have achieved no greater satisfaction than that with which we began.

In 1653, Izaak Walton described in the Compleat Angler the fate of “poor-rich men”, who “spend all their time first in getting, and next in anxious care to keep it; men that are condemned to be rich, and then always busy or discontented”. Today this fate is confused with salvation.

Finish your homework, pass your exams, spend your 20s avoiding daylight, and you too could live like the elite. But who in their right mind would want to?

(Edited from an article in the guardian by George Monbiot)

Surrender your freedom, avoid daylight, live to work, and you too could join a toxic, paranoid elite

Perhaps because the alternative is too hideous to contemplate, we persuade ourselves that those who wield power know what they are doing. The belief in a guiding intelligence is hard to shake.

We know that our conditions of life are deteriorating. Most young people have little prospect of owning a home, or even of renting a decent one. Interesting jobs are sliced up, through digital Taylorism, into portions of meaningless drudgery. The natural world, whose wonders enhance our lives, and upon which our survival depends, is being rubbed out with horrible speed. Those to whom we look for guardianship, in government and among the economic elite, do not arrest this decline, they accelerate it.

The political system that delivers these outcomes is sustained by aspiration: the faith that if we try hard enough we could join the elite, even as living standards decline and social immobility becomes set almost in stone. But to what are we aspiring? A life that is better than our own, or worse?

Last week a note from an analyst at Barclays’ Global Power and Utilities group in New York was leaked. It addressed students about to begin a summer internship, and offered a glimpse of the toxic culture into which they are inducted.

“I wanted to introduce you to the 10 Power Commandments … For nine weeks you will live and die by these … We expect you to be the last ones to leave every night, no matter what … I recommend bringing a pillow to the office. It makes sleeping under your desk a lot more comfortable … the internship really is a nine-week commitment at the desk … an intern asked our staffer for a weekend off for a family reunion – he was told he could go. He was also asked to hand in his BlackBerry and pack up his desk … Play time is over and it’s time to buckle up.”

Play time is over, but did it ever begin? If these students have the kind of parents featured in the Financial Times last month, perhaps not. The article marked a new form of employment: the nursery consultant. These people, who charge from £290 an hour, must find a nursery that will put their clients’ toddlers on the right track to an elite university.

Mental health beds for children increased by 50%, but still failed to meet demand

They spoke of parents who had already decided that their six-month-old son would go to Cambridge then Deutsche Bank, or whose two-year-old daughter “had a tutor for two afternoons a week (to keep on top of maths and literacy) as well as weekly phonics and reading classes, drama, piano, beginner French and swimming. They were considering adding Mandarin and Spanish. ‘The little girl was so exhausted and on edge she was terrified of opening her mouth.’”

In New York, playdate coaches charging $450 an hour train small children in the social skills that might help secure their admission to the most prestigious private schools. They are taught to hide traits that could suggest they’re on the autistic spectrum, which might reduce their chances of selection.

From infancy to employment, this is a life-denying, love-denying mindset, informed not by joy or contentment, but by an ambition that is both desperate and pointless, for it cannot compensate for what it displaces: childhood, family life, the joys of summer, meaningful and productive work, a sense of arrival, living in the moment. For the sake of this toxic culture, the economy is repurposed, the social contract is rewritten, the elite is released from tax, regulation and the other restraints imposed by democracy.

Where the elite goes, we are induced to follow. As if the assessment regimes were too lax in UK primary schools, last year the education secretary announced a new test for four-year-olds. A primary school in Cambridge has just taken the obvious next step: it is now streaming four-year-olds into classes according to perceived ability. The education and adoption bill, announced in the Queen’s speech, will turn the screw even tighter. Will this help children, or hurt them?

Who knows? Governments used to survey the prevalence of children’s mental health issues every five years, but this ended in 2004. Imagine publishing no figures since 2004 on, say, childhood cancer, and you begin to understand the extent to which successive governments have chosen to avoid this issue. If aspirational pressure is not enhancing our wellbeing but damaging it, those in power don’t want to know.

But there are hints. Mental health beds for children in England increased by 50% between 1999 and 2014, but still failed to meet demand. Children suffering mental health crises are being dumped in adult wards or even left in police cells because of the lack of provision (put yourself in their position and imagine the impact).

The number of children admitted to hospital because of self-harm has risen by 68% in 10 years, while the number of young patients with eating disorders has almost doubled in three years. Without good data, we don’t have a clear picture of what the causes might be, but it’s worth noting that in the past year, according to the charity YoungMinds, the number of children receiving counselling for exam stress has tripled.

An international survey of children’s wellbeing found that the UK, where such pressures are peculiarly intense, ranked 13th out of 15 countries for children’s life satisfaction, 13th for agreement with the statement “I like going to school”, 14th for children’s satisfaction with their bodies and 15th for self-confidence. So all that pressure and cramming and exhortation – that worked, didn’t it?

In the cause of self-advancement, we are urged to sacrifice our leisure, our pleasures and our time with partners and children, to climb over the bodies of our rivals and to set ourselves against the common interests of humankind. And then? We discover that we have achieved no greater satisfaction than that with which we began.

In 1653, Izaak Walton described in the Compleat Angler the fate of “poor-rich men”, who “spend all their time first in getting, and next in anxious care to keep it; men that are condemned to be rich, and then always busy or discontented”. Today this fate is confused with salvation.

Finish your homework, pass your exams, spend your 20s avoiding daylight, and you too could live like the elite. But who in their right mind would want to?

(Edited from an article in the guardian by George Monbiot)

Surrender your freedom, avoid daylight, live to work, and you too could join a toxic, paranoid elite

Perhaps because the alternative is too hideous to contemplate, we persuade ourselves that those who wield power know what they are doing. The belief in a guiding intelligence is hard to shake.

We know that our conditions of life are deteriorating. Most young people have little prospect of owning a home, or even of renting a decent one. Interesting jobs are sliced up, through digital Taylorism, into portions of meaningless drudgery. The natural world, whose wonders enhance our lives, and upon which our survival depends, is being rubbed out with horrible speed. Those to whom we look for guardianship, in government and among the economic elite, do not arrest this decline, they accelerate it.

The political system that delivers these outcomes is sustained by aspiration: the faith that if we try hard enough we could join the elite, even as living standards decline and social immobility becomes set almost in stone. But to what are we aspiring? A life that is better than our own, or worse?

Last week a note from an analyst at Barclays’ Global Power and Utilities group in New York was leaked. It addressed students about to begin a summer internship, and offered a glimpse of the toxic culture into which they are inducted.

“I wanted to introduce you to the 10 Power Commandments … For nine weeks you will live and die by these … We expect you to be the last ones to leave every night, no matter what … I recommend bringing a pillow to the office. It makes sleeping under your desk a lot more comfortable … the internship really is a nine-week commitment at the desk … an intern asked our staffer for a weekend off for a family reunion – he was told he could go. He was also asked to hand in his BlackBerry and pack up his desk … Play time is over and it’s time to buckle up.”

Play time is over, but did it ever begin? If these students have the kind of parents featured in the Financial Times last month, perhaps not. The article marked a new form of employment: the nursery consultant. These people, who charge from £290 an hour, must find a nursery that will put their clients’ toddlers on the right track to an elite university.

Mental health beds for children increased by 50%, but still failed to meet demand

They spoke of parents who had already decided that their six-month-old son would go to Cambridge then Deutsche Bank, or whose two-year-old daughter “had a tutor for two afternoons a week (to keep on top of maths and literacy) as well as weekly phonics and reading classes, drama, piano, beginner French and swimming. They were considering adding Mandarin and Spanish. ‘The little girl was so exhausted and on edge she was terrified of opening her mouth.’”

In New York, playdate coaches charging $450 an hour train small children in the social skills that might help secure their admission to the most prestigious private schools. They are taught to hide traits that could suggest they’re on the autistic spectrum, which might reduce their chances of selection.

From infancy to employment, this is a life-denying, love-denying mindset, informed not by joy or contentment, but by an ambition that is both desperate and pointless, for it cannot compensate for what it displaces: childhood, family life, the joys of summer, meaningful and productive work, a sense of arrival, living in the moment. For the sake of this toxic culture, the economy is repurposed, the social contract is rewritten, the elite is released from tax, regulation and the other restraints imposed by democracy.

Where the elite goes, we are induced to follow. As if the assessment regimes were too lax in UK primary schools, last year the education secretary announced a new test for four-year-olds. A primary school in Cambridge has just taken the obvious next step: it is now streaming four-year-olds into classes according to perceived ability. The education and adoption bill, announced in the Queen’s speech, will turn the screw even tighter. Will this help children, or hurt them?

Who knows? Governments used to survey the prevalence of children’s mental health issues every five years, but this ended in 2004. Imagine publishing no figures since 2004 on, say, childhood cancer, and you begin to understand the extent to which successive governments have chosen to avoid this issue. If aspirational pressure is not enhancing our wellbeing but damaging it, those in power don’t want to know.

But there are hints. Mental health beds for children in England increased by 50% between 1999 and 2014, but still failed to meet demand. Children suffering mental health crises are being dumped in adult wards or even left in police cells because of the lack of provision (put yourself in their position and imagine the impact).

The number of children admitted to hospital because of self-harm has risen by 68% in 10 years, while the number of young patients with eating disorders has almost doubled in three years. Without good data, we don’t have a clear picture of what the causes might be, but it’s worth noting that in the past year, according to the charity YoungMinds, the number of children receiving counselling for exam stress has tripled.

An international survey of children’s wellbeing found that the UK, where such pressures are peculiarly intense, ranked 13th out of 15 countries for children’s life satisfaction, 13th for agreement with the statement “I like going to school”, 14th for children’s satisfaction with their bodies and 15th for self-confidence. So all that pressure and cramming and exhortation – that worked, didn’t it?

In the cause of self-advancement, we are urged to sacrifice our leisure, our pleasures and our time with partners and children, to climb over the bodies of our rivals and to set ourselves against the common interests of humankind. And then? We discover that we have achieved no greater satisfaction than that with which we began.

In 1653, Izaak Walton described in the Compleat Angler the fate of “poor-rich men”, who “spend all their time first in getting, and next in anxious care to keep it; men that are condemned to be rich, and then always busy or discontented”. Today this fate is confused with salvation.

Finish your homework, pass your exams, spend your 20s avoiding daylight, and you too could live like the elite. But who in their right mind would want to?

(Edited from an article in the guardian by George Monbiot)

How Did a Young, Unknown Lawyer Change the World?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg took on the obstacles to women’s equality incrementally, but she was powered by a larger vision.

I’ve been asked repeatedly in recent days to explain Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s accomplishment: How did she, a young unknown lawyer, starting basically from scratch, persuade the nine men of the Supreme Court to join her in constructing a new jurisprudence of sex equality?

I replied that she had a project, a goal from which she never deviated during her long career. It was to have not only the Constitution but also society itself understand men and women as equal.

Fair enough, as far as that explanation goes. But I think it misses something deeper about Justice Ginsburg, who died last Friday at 87. What she had, in addition to passion, skill and a field marshal’s sense of strategy, was imagination.

She envisioned a world different from the one she had grown up in, a better world in which gender was no obstacle to women’s achievement, to their ability to dream big and to realize their aspirations. Then she set out to use the law to usher that world into existence.

What fired her imagination? Yes, there was her eye-opening time spent in the startlingly egalitarian Sweden of the 1950s. Yes, there was her inability to get a top-ranked job, or clerkship, or teaching position despite graduating from law school at the top of her class. Yes, her mother, Celia Bader, transferred her own thwarted ambitions to her brilliant daughter. All this is true, yet somehow reductive.

The best answer may be simply that Ruth Ginsburg saw things that others didn’t. She understood that the law could be harnessed in service to fundamental transformation. That’s the difference between imagination and goals. We all have goals, big or small, and we all encounter obstacles to accomplishing some of them. But only a few have the turn of mind to confront head-on the structural obstacles that stand in their way.

Some do it with the gift of an outsize personality that can inspire others and galvanize them to action. Think of Representative John Lewis, his bravery in the face of physical violence and his ability to move a crowd to tears and bring people to their feet.

That wasn’t Ruth Ginsburg. As a lawyer appearing before the Supreme Court, she presented herself as a modest incrementalist. She had to. If she had come before the court as a social revolutionary, the justices — never having viewed the Constitution as having anything to say about women — would have recoiled. Instead, they swallowed the bite-size portions she served to them, and assumptions about the respective roles of men and women — primary wage earner, primary caretaker — that had been baked into the law for eons disappeared, one case at a time.

(Edited from a piece in the New York Times by Linda Greenhouse)

How Did a Young, Unknown Lawyer Change the World?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg took on the obstacles to women’s equality incrementally, but she was powered by a larger vision.

I’ve been asked repeatedly in recent days to explain Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s accomplishment: How did she, a young unknown lawyer, starting basically from scratch, persuade the nine men of the Supreme Court to join her in constructing a new jurisprudence of sex equality?

I replied that she had a project, a goal from which she never deviated during her long career. It was to have not only the Constitution but also society itself understand men and women as equal.

Fair enough, as far as that explanation goes. But I think it misses something deeper about Justice Ginsburg, who died last Friday at 87. What she had, in addition to passion, skill and a field marshal’s sense of strategy, was imagination.

She envisioned a world different from the one she had grown up in, a better world in which gender was no obstacle to women’s achievement, to their ability to dream big and to realize their aspirations. Then she set out to use the law to usher that world into existence.

What fired her imagination? Yes, there was her eye-opening time spent in the startlingly egalitarian Sweden of the 1950s. Yes, there was her inability to get a top-ranked job, or clerkship, or teaching position despite graduating from law school at the top of her class. Yes, her mother, Celia Bader, transferred her own thwarted ambitions to her brilliant daughter. All this is true, yet somehow reductive.

The best answer may be simply that Ruth Ginsburg saw things that others didn’t. She understood that the law could be harnessed in service to fundamental transformation. That’s the difference between imagination and goals. We all have goals, big or small, and we all encounter obstacles to accomplishing some of them. But only a few have the turn of mind to confront head-on the structural obstacles that stand in their way.

Some do it with the gift of an outsize personality that can inspire others and galvanize them to action. Think of Representative John Lewis, his bravery in the face of physical violence and his ability to move a crowd to tears and bring people to their feet.

That wasn’t Ruth Ginsburg. As a lawyer appearing before the Supreme Court, she presented herself as a modest incrementalist. She had to. If she had come before the court as a social revolutionary, the justices — never having viewed the Constitution as having anything to say about women — would have recoiled. Instead, they swallowed the bite-size portions she served to them, and assumptions about the respective roles of men and women — primary wage earner, primary caretaker — that had been baked into the law for eons disappeared, one case at a time.

(Edited from a piece in the New York Times by Linda Greenhouse)

How Did a Young, Unknown Lawyer Change the World?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg took on the obstacles to women’s equality incrementally, but she was powered by a larger vision.

I’ve been asked repeatedly in recent days to explain Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s accomplishment: How did she, a young unknown lawyer, starting basically from scratch, persuade the nine men of the Supreme Court to join her in constructing a new jurisprudence of sex equality?

I replied that she had a project, a goal from which she never deviated during her long career. It was to have not only the Constitution but also society itself understand men and women as equal.

Fair enough, as far as that explanation goes. But I think it misses something deeper about Justice Ginsburg, who died last Friday at 87. What she had, in addition to passion, skill and a field marshal’s sense of strategy, was imagination.

She envisioned a world different from the one she had grown up in, a better world in which gender was no obstacle to women’s achievement, to their ability to dream big and to realize their aspirations. Then she set out to use the law to usher that world into existence.

What fired her imagination? Yes, there was her eye-opening time spent in the startlingly egalitarian Sweden of the 1950s. Yes, there was her inability to get a top-ranked job, or clerkship, or teaching position despite graduating from law school at the top of her class. Yes, her mother, Celia Bader, transferred her own thwarted ambitions to her brilliant daughter. All this is true, yet somehow reductive.

The best answer may be simply that Ruth Ginsburg saw things that others didn’t. She understood that the law could be harnessed in service to fundamental transformation. That’s the difference between imagination and goals. We all have goals, big or small, and we all encounter obstacles to accomplishing some of them. But only a few have the turn of mind to confront head-on the structural obstacles that stand in their way.

Some do it with the gift of an outsize personality that can inspire others and galvanize them to action. Think of Representative John Lewis, his bravery in the face of physical violence and his ability to move a crowd to tears and bring people to their feet.

That wasn’t Ruth Ginsburg. As a lawyer appearing before the Supreme Court, she presented herself as a modest incrementalist. She had to. If she had come before the court as a social revolutionary, the justices — never having viewed the Constitution as having anything to say about women — would have recoiled. Instead, they swallowed the bite-size portions she served to them, and assumptions about the respective roles of men and women — primary wage earner, primary caretaker — that had been baked into the law for eons disappeared, one case at a time.

(Edited from a piece in the New York Times by Linda Greenhouse)

How Did a Young, Unknown Lawyer Change the World?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg took on the obstacles to women’s equality incrementally, but she was powered by a larger vision.

I’ve been asked repeatedly in recent days to explain Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s accomplishment: How did she, a young unknown lawyer, starting basically from scratch, persuade the nine men of the Supreme Court to join her in constructing a new jurisprudence of sex equality?

I replied that she had a project, a goal from which she never deviated during her long career. It was to have not only the Constitution but also society itself understand men and women as equal.

Fair enough, as far as that explanation goes. But I think it misses something deeper about Justice Ginsburg, who died last Friday at 87. What she had, in addition to passion, skill and a field marshal’s sense of strategy, was imagination.

She envisioned a world different from the one she had grown up in, a better world in which gender was no obstacle to women’s achievement, to their ability to dream big and to realize their aspirations. Then she set out to use the law to usher that world into existence.

What fired her imagination? Yes, there was her eye-opening time spent in the startlingly egalitarian Sweden of the 1950s. Yes, there was her inability to get a top-ranked job, or clerkship, or teaching position despite graduating from law school at the top of her class. Yes, her mother, Celia Bader, transferred her own thwarted ambitions to her brilliant daughter. All this is true, yet somehow reductive.

The best answer may be simply that Ruth Ginsburg saw things that others didn’t. She understood that the law could be harnessed in service to fundamental transformation. That’s the difference between imagination and goals. We all have goals, big or small, and we all encounter obstacles to accomplishing some of them. But only a few have the turn of mind to confront head-on the structural obstacles that stand in their way.

Some do it with the gift of an outsize personality that can inspire others and galvanize them to action. Think of Representative John Lewis, his bravery in the face of physical violence and his ability to move a crowd to tears and bring people to their feet.

That wasn’t Ruth Ginsburg. As a lawyer appearing before the Supreme Court, she presented herself as a modest incrementalist. She had to. If she had come before the court as a social revolutionary, the justices — never having viewed the Constitution as having anything to say about women — would have recoiled. Instead, they swallowed the bite-size portions she served to them, and assumptions about the respective roles of men and women — primary wage earner, primary caretaker — that had been baked into the law for eons disappeared, one case at a time.

(Edited from a piece in the New York Times by Linda Greenhouse)

How Did a Young, Unknown Lawyer Change the World?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg took on the obstacles to women’s equality incrementally, but she was powered by a larger vision.

I’ve been asked repeatedly in recent days to explain Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s accomplishment: How did she, a young unknown lawyer, starting basically from scratch, persuade the nine men of the Supreme Court to join her in constructing a new jurisprudence of sex equality?

I replied that she had a project, a goal from which she never deviated during her long career. It was to have not only the Constitution but also society itself understand men and women as equal.

Fair enough, as far as that explanation goes. But I think it misses something deeper about Justice Ginsburg, who died last Friday at 87. What she had, in addition to passion, skill and a field marshal’s sense of strategy, was imagination.

She envisioned a world different from the one she had grown up in, a better world in which gender was no obstacle to women’s achievement, to their ability to dream big and to realize their aspirations. Then she set out to use the law to usher that world into existence.

What fired her imagination? Yes, there was her eye-opening time spent in the startlingly egalitarian Sweden of the 1950s. Yes, there was her inability to get a top-ranked job, or clerkship, or teaching position despite graduating from law school at the top of her class. Yes, her mother, Celia Bader, transferred her own thwarted ambitions to her brilliant daughter. All this is true, yet somehow reductive.

The best answer may be simply that Ruth Ginsburg saw things that others didn’t. She understood that the law could be harnessed in service to fundamental transformation. That’s the difference between imagination and goals. We all have goals, big or small, and we all encounter obstacles to accomplishing some of them. But only a few have the turn of mind to confront head-on the structural obstacles that stand in their way.

Some do it with the gift of an outsize personality that can inspire others and galvanize them to action. Think of Representative John Lewis, his bravery in the face of physical violence and his ability to move a crowd to tears and bring people to their feet.

That wasn’t Ruth Ginsburg. As a lawyer appearing before the Supreme Court, she presented herself as a modest incrementalist. She had to. If she had come before the court as a social revolutionary, the justices — never having viewed the Constitution as having anything to say about women — would have recoiled. Instead, they swallowed the bite-size portions she served to them, and assumptions about the respective roles of men and women — primary wage earner, primary caretaker — that had been baked into the law for eons disappeared, one case at a time.

(Edited from a piece in the New York Times by Linda Greenhouse)

The Guardian view on adult education: Bring Back Evening Classes

Something important has been lost in Britain: between 2009 and 2017, the number of part-time students in higher education fell by 53%. Where once there was a thriving culture of colleges, courses and evening classes, now the number of adults who study in later life is far lower than in other countries, including Germany. In the lowest socioeconomic groups, 49% have had no training since leaving school. Of the £20bn that the government spends annually on post-19 education, 93% goes on those who already have qualifications up to level 3 (A-levels).

The decline predates austerity policies, although these made it worse. One of the contributors to a new report by the Centenary Commission on Adult Education launched earlier this month describes a “complete change” that took place under New Labour. Starting in the 19th century, a whole system grew up around working men’s colleges, workers’ educational associations and universities. By the early 21st century, the intrinsic value of such institutions, and the myriad opportunities they represented, had largely been discarded in favour of a much more instrumental view of “skills” as an asset to be traded.

That is not to say that the labour market is not a crucial reference point in any discussion about what ought to be taught and how. The failure to invest in a skilled workforce is part of a much bigger deficit in long-term, strategic thinking – which the modern Conservative party appears to have abandoned in favour of a blind and dangerous faith in laissez-faire economics. With as many as nine in 10 jobs expected to be automated within the next decade, and businesses being laid waste by the pandemic, the CBI has thrown its weight behind what it calls a “national reskilling effort”.

But new resources for vocational training for teenagers, and adults seeking to retrain in later life, are not the only issue. At the launch of the commission’s report, Alison Wolf, the economist and non-affiliated peer who advises the government on further education, recalled flicking through a “great thick book of evening classes” as a young woman. The report rightly highlights the climate emergency as one reason why it is essential to deepen people’s understanding of the world around them; because lifestyles need to adapt, but also because we have to find new outlets for our imagination and curiosity. Around 9 million adults in Britain have low levels of numeracy and literacy, which is a waste of talent. Investing in community-led adult learning in towns such as Rochdale has led to wider savings in health and policing

(The Guardian Newspapers – editorial)

The Guardian view on adult education: Bring Back Evening Classes

Something important has been lost in Britain: between 2009 and 2017, the number of part-time students in higher education fell by 53%. Where once there was a thriving culture of colleges, courses and evening classes, now the number of adults who study in later life is far lower than in other countries, including Germany. In the lowest socioeconomic groups, 49% have had no training since leaving school. Of the £20bn that the government spends annually on post-19 education, 93% goes on those who already have qualifications up to level 3 (A-levels).

The decline predates austerity policies, although these made it worse. One of the contributors to a new report by the Centenary Commission on Adult Education launched earlier this month describes a “complete change” that took place under New Labour. Starting in the 19th century, a whole system grew up around working men’s colleges, workers’ educational associations and universities. By the early 21st century, the intrinsic value of such institutions, and the myriad opportunities they represented, had largely been discarded in favour of a much more instrumental view of “skills” as an asset to be traded.

That is not to say that the labour market is not a crucial reference point in any discussion about what ought to be taught and how. The failure to invest in a skilled workforce is part of a much bigger deficit in long-term, strategic thinking – which the modern Conservative party appears to have abandoned in favour of a blind and dangerous faith in laissez-faire economics. With as many as nine in 10 jobs expected to be automated within the next decade, and businesses being laid waste by the pandemic, the CBI has thrown its weight behind what it calls a “national reskilling effort”.

But new resources for vocational training for teenagers, and adults seeking to retrain in later life, are not the only issue. At the launch of the commission’s report, Alison Wolf, the economist and non-affiliated peer who advises the government on further education, recalled flicking through a “great thick book of evening classes” as a young woman. The report rightly highlights the climate emergency as one reason why it is essential to deepen people’s understanding of the world around them; because lifestyles need to adapt, but also because we have to find new outlets for our imagination and curiosity. Around 9 million adults in Britain have low levels of numeracy and literacy, which is a waste of talent. Investing in community-led adult learning in towns such as Rochdale has led to wider savings in health and policing

(The Guardian Newspapers – editorial)

The Guardian view on adult education: Bring Back Evening Classes

Something important has been lost in Britain: between 2009 and 2017, the number of part-time students in higher education fell by 53%. Where once there was a thriving culture of colleges, courses and evening classes, now the number of adults who study in later life is far lower than in other countries, including Germany. In the lowest socioeconomic groups, 49% have had no training since leaving school. Of the £20bn that the government spends annually on post-19 education, 93% goes on those who already have qualifications up to level 3 (A-levels).

The decline predates austerity policies, although these made it worse. One of the contributors to a new report by the Centenary Commission on Adult Education launched earlier this month describes a “complete change” that took place under New Labour. Starting in the 19th century, a whole system grew up around working men’s colleges, workers’ educational associations and universities. By the early 21st century, the intrinsic value of such institutions, and the myriad opportunities they represented, had largely been discarded in favour of a much more instrumental view of “skills” as an asset to be traded.

That is not to say that the labour market is not a crucial reference point in any discussion about what ought to be taught and how. The failure to invest in a skilled workforce is part of a much bigger deficit in long-term, strategic thinking – which the modern Conservative party appears to have abandoned in favour of a blind and dangerous faith in laissez-faire economics. With as many as nine in 10 jobs expected to be automated within the next decade, and businesses being laid waste by the pandemic, the CBI has thrown its weight behind what it calls a “national reskilling effort”.

But new resources for vocational training for teenagers, and adults seeking to retrain in later life, are not the only issue. At the launch of the commission’s report, Alison Wolf, the economist and non-affiliated peer who advises the government on further education, recalled flicking through a “great thick book of evening classes” as a young woman. The report rightly highlights the climate emergency as one reason why it is essential to deepen people’s understanding of the world around them; because lifestyles need to adapt, but also because we have to find new outlets for our imagination and curiosity. Around 9 million adults in Britain have low levels of numeracy and literacy, which is a waste of talent. Investing in community-led adult learning in towns such as Rochdale has led to wider savings in health and policing

(The Guardian Newspapers – editorial)

The Guardian view on adult education: Bring Back Evening Classes

Something important has been lost in Britain: between 2009 and 2017, the number of part-time students in higher education fell by 53%. Where once there was a thriving culture of colleges, courses and evening classes, now the number of adults who study in later life is far lower than in other countries, including Germany. In the lowest socioeconomic groups, 49% have had no training since leaving school. Of the £20bn that the government spends annually on post-19 education, 93% goes on those who already have qualifications up to level 3 (A-levels).

The decline predates austerity policies, although these made it worse. One of the contributors to a new report by the Centenary Commission on Adult Education launched earlier this month describes a “complete change” that took place under New Labour. Starting in the 19th century, a whole system grew up around working men’s colleges, workers’ educational associations and universities. By the early 21st century, the intrinsic value of such institutions, and the myriad opportunities they represented, had largely been discarded in favour of a much more instrumental view of “skills” as an asset to be traded.

That is not to say that the labour market is not a crucial reference point in any discussion about what ought to be taught and how. The failure to invest in a skilled workforce is part of a much bigger deficit in long-term, strategic thinking – which the modern Conservative party appears to have abandoned in favour of a blind and dangerous faith in laissez-faire economics. With as many as nine in 10 jobs expected to be automated within the next decade, and businesses being laid waste by the pandemic, the CBI has thrown its weight behind what it calls a “national reskilling effort”.

But new resources for vocational training for teenagers, and adults seeking to retrain in later life, are not the only issue. At the launch of the commission’s report, Alison Wolf, the economist and non-affiliated peer who advises the government on further education, recalled flicking through a “great thick book of evening classes” as a young woman. The report rightly highlights the climate emergency as one reason why it is essential to deepen people’s understanding of the world around them; because lifestyles need to adapt, but also because we have to find new outlets for our imagination and curiosity. Around 9 million adults in Britain have low levels of numeracy and literacy, which is a waste of talent. Investing in community-led adult learning in towns such as Rochdale has led to wider savings in health and policing

(The Guardian Newspapers – editorial)

The Guardian view on adult education: Bring Back Evening Classes

Something important has been lost in Britain: between 2009 and 2017, the number of part-time students in higher education fell by 53%. Where once there was a thriving culture of colleges, courses and evening classes, now the number of adults who study in later life is far lower than in other countries, including Germany. In the lowest socioeconomic groups, 49% have had no training since leaving school. Of the £20bn that the government spends annually on post-19 education, 93% goes on those who already have qualifications up to level 3 (A-levels).

The decline predates austerity policies, although these made it worse. One of the contributors to a new report by the Centenary Commission on Adult Education launched earlier this month describes a “complete change” that took place under New Labour. Starting in the 19th century, a whole system grew up around working men’s colleges, workers’ educational associations and universities. By the early 21st century, the intrinsic value of such institutions, and the myriad opportunities they represented, had largely been discarded in favour of a much more instrumental view of “skills” as an asset to be traded.

That is not to say that the labour market is not a crucial reference point in any discussion about what ought to be taught and how. The failure to invest in a skilled workforce is part of a much bigger deficit in long-term, strategic thinking – which the modern Conservative party appears to have abandoned in favour of a blind and dangerous faith in laissez-faire economics. With as many as nine in 10 jobs expected to be automated within the next decade, and businesses being laid waste by the pandemic, the CBI has thrown its weight behind what it calls a “national reskilling effort”.

But new resources for vocational training for teenagers, and adults seeking to retrain in later life, are not the only issue. At the launch of the commission’s report, Alison Wolf, the economist and non-affiliated peer who advises the government on further education, recalled flicking through a “great thick book of evening classes” as a young woman. The report rightly highlights the climate emergency as one reason why it is essential to deepen people’s understanding of the world around them; because lifestyles need to adapt, but also because we have to find new outlets for our imagination and curiosity. Around 9 million adults in Britain have low levels of numeracy and literacy, which is a waste of talent. Investing in community-led adult learning in towns such as Rochdale has led to wider savings in health and policing

(The Guardian Newspapers – editorial)