In many real life and fictionalized totalitarian societies, children live apart from their families. Why would dictatorial leaders enforce this living arrangement? In the book Anthem, the children are living in a totalitarian society. This society is usually run by a dictator and there is very little or no freedom. In totalitarianism, the government or in this case the councils control almost every aspect of life. There is no free speech or freedom of the press; certain religions or ideas may be banned. “We are one in all and all in one. There are no men but only the great WE, One, indivisible and forever.” This plays a great part in the book because” we” is what the people refer to as themselves. Everyone is equal to each other and there is no “I”. The councils in Anthem believe that no brother should ever rise above one another. No brother should outsmart the other.
Knowledge is a powerful thing. In totalitarian societies children are taken away from their parents at very young ages, so they learn all the same things. All of the student’s knowledge is kept at the same level. All the children know is only what the government teaches them. “It was not that the learning was too hard for us. It was that the learning was too easy. It is not good to be different from our brothers, but is evil to be superior to them.” This evidence from the book Anthem shows us that it is not a good thing to be smarter than the other student’s. It is a sin. Dictators who want to restrain
Additionally, modern testing rooms were arranged to separate the threatening underclass so that they can be an evenly manageable force within society. Through his discoveries, Gatto would reveal the intent of required schooling was to, “Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood, would ever reintegrate into a dangerous whole” (152). Consequently, if we as a population can be detached for one another at an early age. Then we have less of a chance at uniting against our dictator’s selective process of establishing a contributing demographic. Nonetheless, as long we can exist within the sustainable idea that our education is not defined through our schooling. We then can achieve a future that was dictated by our own hands and not by a controlled environment. As Gatto would state, “And plenty of people throughout the world
This quotation refers to the philosophy of their society. It is socially criticized because it gave everybody access to the same information and therefore not allowing anyone to think freely. In their society, intelligence means nothing. Referring to the first quotation, if they are told to know something, then they will not ask questions, and therefore everyone will be equal in their knowledge. In this civilization, one is not allowed to be intellect because someone who is stronger in that area has more to offer, like the 'bright boy ', who is hated by others who are not as strong. The society wants children to attend school earlier, "we 've lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we 're almost snatching them from the cradle." (Ray Bradbury, 1953, p.60) This is an example of social criticism because the younger the children are attending
Lareau, in Unequal Childhoods, focuses on socioeconomic status and how that affects outcomes in the education system and the workplace. While examining middle-class, working-class and poor families, Lareau witnessed differing logics of parenting, which could greatly determine a child’s future success. Working-class and poor families allow their children an accomplishment of natural growth, whereas middle-class parents prepare their children through concerted cultivation. The latter provides children with a sense of entitlement, as parents encourage them to negotiate and challenge those in authority. Parents almost overwhelm their children with organized activities, as we witnessed in the life of Garrett Tallinger. Due to his parents and their economic and cultural capital, Garrett was not only able to learn in an educational setting, but through differing activities, equipping him with several skills to be successful in the world. Lareau suggests these extra skills allow children to “think of themselves as special and as entitled to receive certain kinds of services from adults” (39). Adults in the school system are in favor of these skills through concerted cultivation, and Bourdieu seems to suggest that schools can often misrecognize these skills as natural talent/abilities when it’s merely cultivated through capital. This then leads to inequalities in the education system and academic attainments.
In most if not all cases, the class you are born into will determine how you will be raised, and who you will grow up to become. Whether you can speak up for yourself, if you are humble with what you have or you have a more hectic schedule or not, it all plays into what class you are from. No two childhoods are equal and Annette Lareau in her book, Unequal Childhoods explains why this is the case. I will be examining chapters four, five, and seven. These chapters examine poor and working children and teenagers and how their childhoods differ and relate to each other based on the class they were born in whether that be lower class to the poor. What can be learned from examining these three kids, Harold McAllister, Katie Brindle, and Tyrec Taylor is the advantages and disadvantages of having a childhood in the class of the poor or working class.
There are a lot of things to think about when you ponder why dictatorial leaders would force children to live apart from their families. Some of the biggest questions that form in my head are, “Do the parents agree to this?” and, “Why would children not be allowed to grow up with their families?” I know that I would not want to live like that. I do have theories, though, for why leaders would enforce this type of law.
The dystopian novella, Anthem, is set in an age in which every aspect of life is controlled by oppressive leaders. In this society, everyone was deemed equal to each other, meaning no new ideas were allowed and the past could not be discussed. Individuals are told they exist only for the sake of serving society and have no other purpose. Strict rules were put in place involving everyone’s daily lives, their partners, and even when they were allowed to smile. The goal of this controlling environment is to be completely free from conflict and maintain peace and order by giving citizens little freedom.
Dictators often will enforce families living apart from each other. In some cases, this happens mainly because dictators don't want parents to feed their children information about individualism or even spread the idea; or just orating negative words against the government. So, they keep parent and child separated. If they did keep families together when negative words were being spoken, a revolt can break out insidiously, ruining whatever system the dictator had. Also, this living arrangement may be enforced
Leaders in totalitarian societies find it easier to prevent children from developing certain characteristics that they could find potentially dangerous. In the novel, two adults go to the Palace of Mating and nine months later, a child arrives and is directly sent to the House of Infants. This living arrangement limits the opportunity of the children to develop characteristics that differentiate them between their brothers. In every house that Equality has lived in, each house has had the same interior. At the end of the day, Equality and his brothers go to bed and sleep until the bell rings in the house where “the sleeping walls are white and clean and bare of all things” (Rand 28). The leaders keep the houses plain to prevent their people
In a child’s upbringing, the concept of social class and race plays a pivotal role in a child’s growth and development. In the ethnographic study, “ Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life”, the author, Annette Lareau argue that the influences of children with distinct socioeconomic backgrounds can determine how a child will be raised. The author primarily focuses on two distinctive practices of child-rearing: concerted cultivation and the accomplishments of natural growth. Lareau explains that both of these distinctive patterns of childrearing have their own benefits and drawbacks, but emphasizes on how concerted cultivation and parent involvement allows children to gain a deeper understanding of the world and the ability to fluently interact with social institutions. Also, the practice of concerted cultivation allows children to develop skills that are shown to be beneficial for the future. In contrast, the practice of natural growth limits the child’s language and communication skills, in which they are not adequately prepared for the challenges of adulthood. In my opinion, I believe that the way a child is raised has a significant impact on a child’s future.
In all of man’s histories, there are legends of tyrannical kings and merciless emperors, corrupted with the thirst for ultimate power. Education also played an important role in the subjugation of mankind; the intelligent and educated use their knowledge to undermine and control the naïve uneducated proletariats. The naïveté of an ignorant working class is detrimental to any society; neither communist nor democratic societies are unaffected.
Socrates once said, “The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance.” While knowledge can be justifiably good through the use of learning how to help others, it can also be horribly dangerous. Society nowadays uses knowledge to classify the people who are worthy of greatness and those who are not. It is in these classifications that the state of human relationships is greatly tested because of inequality. In Margaret Atwood’s novel, Oryx and Crake, two of the main themes are academic importance and the state of human relationships. In the culture that Atwood creates, if an individual does not possess the proper intellect that measures up to societies standards, that individual will be ostracized and deemed worthless, and their social life will
Humanity often takes for granted the education we receive and don’t realize its effects on us. We fail to see that proper education reduces one’s gullibility, as those who receive training in critical thinking are less easily manipulated. In the novella Animal Farm by George Orwell, fascist rulers take advantage of the illiterate animals on the Manor Farm because they were oblivious to what was happening to them. Meanwhile, in the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, citizens of a dystopian society have their access to education withheld from them, leaving them unable to think for themselves or properly assess their lives. In both works of literature, the author sees the importance of education being that illiteracy will leave one vulnerable to being manipulated due to their inability to thoroughly interpret and analyze situations with proper insight. In other words, being apathetic towards one’s education will only set them up for doom.
Jerome Bixby’s ‘It’s a Good Life’ is a short story following an unusually gifted, three-year-old boy named Anthony Fremont. In spite of his age, Anthony has the capacity to transform other people or objects into anything he wishes, think new things into being, teleport himself and others where he wishes, read the minds of people and animals and even revive the dead. If either citizens or animals of the area do not comply with Anthony’s capricious whim, grim consequences occur, often Anthony placing his victims into cornfields to their grave or ‘vaporized’ into largely soulless bodies, as the case of Amy Fremont. Bixby’s allows Anthony to gain a heightened power and authority over the small Ohio town because the townspeople regard him in
Make taught for some people is a tele of revenge duty and devolution ultimately win to his death it misery in order to remain the master of his own choices.
On the contrary, the educated person only has the knowledge of what the teachers chose to tell them instead of coexisting with their teachers. In this case, the modern education system treats students only as containers, which leaves them dehumanized for the reality of the world. The whole idea of the banking concept of education transforms students into objects while attempting “to control (their) thinking and action, leading women and men to adjust to the world, and inhibits their creative power” (Freire 5). The idea is that men and women cannot think for themselves, but are rather told what to