I also experienced that 1960s revolution you describe first-hand. The grammar school I attended attacked academic competitiveness while I was there. In 1963 we had streaming and concepts like "top of the class" which were thrown out in 1964. Even before Tony Crossland could initiate his malign agenda.
Thank you - that's very interesting. I was born in 1990, so I was very much raised in the wake of these changes; but I am fascinated by the transformation that occurred during that period. The new doctrine of "prizes for all" is deeply corrosive. It denies the fact that some people are more able than others, and so elevates the mediocre whilst constraining the genuinely excellent.
I first encountered "prizes for all" in 1990 when my 14-year old nephew won a short road race in Dartmouth and got the same accolade as the laggards at the back who pretty much walked round. I recall he wasn't best pleased.
Thank you for this text. Your comments on "12 Rules for Life" particularly resonated with me. I struggled to read this book but encountered an impenetrable wall of empty words. I may not have defined the problem as well as you, but it was enough to make me give up on with him. He is known but insignificant.
You are absolutely right - the book is ultimately vacuous and wastes the reader's time. I was actually stunned that professional academics today are writing *that* badly. Although I have not read Robin DiAngelo's book 'White Fragility' (a silly woke diatribe from the same period as '12 Rules'), I understand that it's written in a similarly abysmal way. These people are phoney academics, and they have no business teaching the next generation. Whether they are positioned on the Left or Right politically, I think it is important to draw attention to this and show how rapidly we are declining.
Excellent exposition. A farrago of commonplace observation, dilettante knowledge, superficial takes and modern gobbledyspeech, er, like. Had reservations about Peterson from first acquaintance, but filed under celebrity process and dismissed. Just can't be doing with him
Thank you. I think he is enormously overrated. He absolutely means well and has *some* important things to say. But the reality is that he would not even have made it as a professional academic in the bygone era. We have lost our whole understanding of what excellence looks and sounds like.
" it was previously not uncommon for people to leave state schooling partially or wholly fluent in both Latin and Greek, and fully acquainted with the grand chronology of Western history, from the Classical civilisations, through the great events and battles of the Medieval era, and into the modern day."
For the few in collegiate streams, and who finished. It was also common to leave high school early or not go at all.
In Britain, even people leaving school aged 15 would have been familiar with Latin. Algebra, grammar and so forth were also taught to everybody with a rigour that has now been lost. The point is not that everybody left as a university professor; but that the standards were far, far higher across the board in every single school. Those going to university could very easily read and understand Victorian novels, unlike many modern students. And, on the whole, so could everybody.
The adult literacy rate in 1940 was around 98%. People also read far more books, even many people from impoverished backgrounds.
I understand your point, but I do think we tend to enormously underestimate the sheer quality of the education system that was destroyed only a few decades ago.
If you’re doubting all of this, you can research it further. It’s very well-documented. It is a fact, for example, that Latin (let alone Greek) is barely taught in any schools in Britain by comparison with 1940, or even 1970. As I say, many university students nowadays struggle to read a single page of a Charles Dickens novel. That was never previously the case.
I will add that I am talking principally about Britain — although the same trend occurred across Europe and the USA. In the 1931 British census, virtually every child was enrolled in schooling. It has been illegal to not school a child to the age of 14 since 1893.
I can’t find anything on Google or AI that suggests anything other than the fact that a child not attending school in 1940 (or thereabouts) was _exceedingly_ rare. Truancy was actively monitored and the law was enforced.
No doubt you may find statistics of some anomalies in which children weren’t captured as rigorously in Western schooling systems. But those would be exceptions to the rule.
"virtually every child was enrolled in schooling. "
Until what age? I found this...
<<In 1930, the school leaving age in the UK was 14 years old. This was established by the Education Act of 1918, which raised the school leaving age from 12 to 14. Prior to this, the school leaving age had been progressively raised from 10 to 12, and then to 14>>
One reason I KNOW schools are having a harder time teaching well is because of the number of special needs they are required to accommodate.
In the 80s a genius Conservative decided that mental and care institutions could be closed, and kids with high needs could be put into the mainstream school population. The selling point was that the resources used for them would simply be transferred to the schools and there would be no net loss for anyone. Guess what? That money was then continually targeted for cuts, mostly so that the already-wealthy would get tax cuts.
Now schools are left with high needs students and few resources to manage them properly It was a classic example of enshittification, and is now being used to point fingers at the education system as a failure. Now they can use THAT as an excuse to privatize it, and make it even worse.
In that whole process tech programs for both boys and girls were also cut. instead of real tools and fasteners, kids use utility knives and hot glue. It's more like a craft class.
How do I know this? I was a teacher, and saw it with my own eyes, and was a member of a union that tracked the whole thing.
When Peterson first became popular, I wondered what all the accolades were about. I still do. But! Here is the thing.
First, hats off to Peterson for fighting the good fight with his overlords who did not like something he said. They suspended his license. Apparently he is going to re-education training soon.
Second, Peterson articulates relatively acceptable concepts in an accessible way. It needs to be borne in mind that many people have no exposure to those concepts whatsoever. So he makes it available. We live in Idiocracy. He is fighting the good fight here as well.
He is way out over his skis on theology. Best recommendation is that one could do worse than to just tune it out. He is no Joseph Campbell (some may be glad of that). Provided he does not descend into the ignorant arrogance of Candace Owens, I give him latitude on this score.
Thankyou for articulating the reasons for a concern I have had myself with Peterson's books.
I also experienced that 1960s revolution you describe first-hand. The grammar school I attended attacked academic competitiveness while I was there. In 1963 we had streaming and concepts like "top of the class" which were thrown out in 1964. Even before Tony Crossland could initiate his malign agenda.
Thank you - that's very interesting. I was born in 1990, so I was very much raised in the wake of these changes; but I am fascinated by the transformation that occurred during that period. The new doctrine of "prizes for all" is deeply corrosive. It denies the fact that some people are more able than others, and so elevates the mediocre whilst constraining the genuinely excellent.
I first encountered "prizes for all" in 1990 when my 14-year old nephew won a short road race in Dartmouth and got the same accolade as the laggards at the back who pretty much walked round. I recall he wasn't best pleased.
Thank you for this text. Your comments on "12 Rules for Life" particularly resonated with me. I struggled to read this book but encountered an impenetrable wall of empty words. I may not have defined the problem as well as you, but it was enough to make me give up on with him. He is known but insignificant.
You are absolutely right - the book is ultimately vacuous and wastes the reader's time. I was actually stunned that professional academics today are writing *that* badly. Although I have not read Robin DiAngelo's book 'White Fragility' (a silly woke diatribe from the same period as '12 Rules'), I understand that it's written in a similarly abysmal way. These people are phoney academics, and they have no business teaching the next generation. Whether they are positioned on the Left or Right politically, I think it is important to draw attention to this and show how rapidly we are declining.
Excellent exposition. A farrago of commonplace observation, dilettante knowledge, superficial takes and modern gobbledyspeech, er, like. Had reservations about Peterson from first acquaintance, but filed under celebrity process and dismissed. Just can't be doing with him
Thank you. I think he is enormously overrated. He absolutely means well and has *some* important things to say. But the reality is that he would not even have made it as a professional academic in the bygone era. We have lost our whole understanding of what excellence looks and sounds like.
" it was previously not uncommon for people to leave state schooling partially or wholly fluent in both Latin and Greek, and fully acquainted with the grand chronology of Western history, from the Classical civilisations, through the great events and battles of the Medieval era, and into the modern day."
For the few in collegiate streams, and who finished. It was also common to leave high school early or not go at all.
In Britain, even people leaving school aged 15 would have been familiar with Latin. Algebra, grammar and so forth were also taught to everybody with a rigour that has now been lost. The point is not that everybody left as a university professor; but that the standards were far, far higher across the board in every single school. Those going to university could very easily read and understand Victorian novels, unlike many modern students. And, on the whole, so could everybody.
The adult literacy rate in 1940 was around 98%. People also read far more books, even many people from impoverished backgrounds.
I understand your point, but I do think we tend to enormously underestimate the sheer quality of the education system that was destroyed only a few decades ago.
I would like to see hard, comparative numbers. The devil is in the details, and how many kids actually enrolled in the 1940s.
If you’re doubting all of this, you can research it further. It’s very well-documented. It is a fact, for example, that Latin (let alone Greek) is barely taught in any schools in Britain by comparison with 1940, or even 1970. As I say, many university students nowadays struggle to read a single page of a Charles Dickens novel. That was never previously the case.
I will add that I am talking principally about Britain — although the same trend occurred across Europe and the USA. In the 1931 British census, virtually every child was enrolled in schooling. It has been illegal to not school a child to the age of 14 since 1893.
I can’t find anything on Google or AI that suggests anything other than the fact that a child not attending school in 1940 (or thereabouts) was _exceedingly_ rare. Truancy was actively monitored and the law was enforced.
No doubt you may find statistics of some anomalies in which children weren’t captured as rigorously in Western schooling systems. But those would be exceptions to the rule.
"virtually every child was enrolled in schooling. "
Until what age? I found this...
<<In 1930, the school leaving age in the UK was 14 years old. This was established by the Education Act of 1918, which raised the school leaving age from 12 to 14. Prior to this, the school leaving age had been progressively raised from 10 to 12, and then to 14>>
One reason I KNOW schools are having a harder time teaching well is because of the number of special needs they are required to accommodate.
In the 80s a genius Conservative decided that mental and care institutions could be closed, and kids with high needs could be put into the mainstream school population. The selling point was that the resources used for them would simply be transferred to the schools and there would be no net loss for anyone. Guess what? That money was then continually targeted for cuts, mostly so that the already-wealthy would get tax cuts.
Now schools are left with high needs students and few resources to manage them properly It was a classic example of enshittification, and is now being used to point fingers at the education system as a failure. Now they can use THAT as an excuse to privatize it, and make it even worse.
In that whole process tech programs for both boys and girls were also cut. instead of real tools and fasteners, kids use utility knives and hot glue. It's more like a craft class.
How do I know this? I was a teacher, and saw it with my own eyes, and was a member of a union that tracked the whole thing.
He started to make a lot of sense.. but he has lost the plot recently...
Iain McGilchrist is doing yeoman’s work.
When Peterson first became popular, I wondered what all the accolades were about. I still do. But! Here is the thing.
First, hats off to Peterson for fighting the good fight with his overlords who did not like something he said. They suspended his license. Apparently he is going to re-education training soon.
Second, Peterson articulates relatively acceptable concepts in an accessible way. It needs to be borne in mind that many people have no exposure to those concepts whatsoever. So he makes it available. We live in Idiocracy. He is fighting the good fight here as well.
He is way out over his skis on theology. Best recommendation is that one could do worse than to just tune it out. He is no Joseph Campbell (some may be glad of that). Provided he does not descend into the ignorant arrogance of Candace Owens, I give him latitude on this score.