As my senior year of high school looms in the near future of the next few weeks, (New York begins the school year considerably later than do other states) I have begun to consider what I would like my final year (and entire career) in secondary school to amount to.
One of the classes I will be taking next year is Advanced Placement United States Government and Politics—essentially a Gov 101 class at the high school level. This class purports to be a great reward for its senior students as a considerably easier course load than its predecessor many juniors take, AP United States History (the subject of a textbook I ridiculed only months ago). Even so, I dedicated my summer to vigorously preparing for it. From publishing a website, to embarking on a trip to our nation’s grand capital, immersing myself in American Political philosophy, and making my debut on national television, I can humbly yet honestly declare that I am probably the most prepared student my school, and possibly the internationally offered course has ever seen. Yet during it all, one question still played in my mind whenever the topic of collectivism reared its Medusa-like heads, as it commonly does today. Heads yearning to be free while all tied down by the body of one host.
“Are we obligated to help other people?”
It was not the first time I had seen this question posed to us in a school assignment, but my eleventh-grade English assignment was, I decided, the last time it would send a disquieting shiver down my spine. I did not know my answer to this question.
The anticipatory activity we were made to do before reading an excerpt from Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth, the prompt, I hoped, would be met with a lively discussion the teacher claimed would take place before moving onto the next assignment. Yet, being the mere proteges of the public school system my classmates (and I, in that moment) were, no one said anything when she asked our opinions on it.
Although the hopeless intellectual in me excused the lack of a response as a sign of my classmates’ deep contemplation, the veteran public-schooler knew the real reason why no one concerned themselves with this seminal question.
They had never been taught to care.
I already knew this fact based on my experience in adolescent-filled classrooms, but, only then did it become so abundantly clear that our education system not only leads today’s youth to intellectual failure, but spiritual disaster. My peers, who will become legal adults within the next year, have been taught that the deepest questions one could ask about our nature, tendencies, and history is no more than a question on a paper that, if ignored for long enough, would be casually passed over as if it held no more importance than the preceding question about situational irony or foreshadowing.
My classmates do not care about the society they are living in, and the same society that they will imminently inherit and (attempt to) advance.
My friends were the snakes on Medusa’s communal head, willing to be free, but not knowing how to arrive at that state and, worse, not even knowing what “being free” means.
This is how we descend into a society of lazy degenerates. By fooling them into thinking the questions are merely words on paper, we convince our youth that because deepest questions concerning mankind’s relationship with God and each other do not yield concrete answers, they are not important to factor into our lives.
Useless utilitarianism.
Taking this question into the summer months with me, I pledged to treat it, as well as all other musings about God and Man, with magnanimity and honor, treasuring the fact that I had pursued freedom because I had an obligation to God, and because I had an obligation to my peers.
I can already hear the dismissive mutters of my opposition at this point denouncing my professed freedom, making me out to be a fool who had only avoided the unbridled liberation of what I call one “cult” for the illusion of freedom that the other offers.
However, I can assure you wholeheartedly that I am a member of neither cult. At times I sincerely, and vocally question any allegiance I have to one figure. Who in a cult would (or could) venture to commit such a crime?
The word “obligation” stems from the Latin stem obligare- to bind, suggesting a state of being held down by laws, promises or duties. In the public school system, we are obligated to remain attached to Medusa’s hivemind, often losing social credibility if we break away from it.
The obligation I feel is different from the obligation we are compelled to either embrace or reject in our public school classrooms. God is gutted from every aspect of our learning. Obligations are discussed as being fully related to the state’s legalistic dogma.
Living and learning in this environment myself, I found it harder in my former years to reject the idea of obligatory measures, and I believe classmates may feel the same way. They will, by default, eventually find themselves convinced that voluntary acts of charity—done out of the respect only a cohesive culture can foster and reinforce—is unreliable. After all, we grew up in a culture where love for each other is already hard to come by. This leaves only the hand of government left to regulate our temperaments towards others, declaring we are obligated to serve others in the name of their newly defined “natural rights.”
No, it is not a coincidence that among my generation, it is common to hail healthcare and education as natural human rights (yes, my fellow Americans), although they both require the labor, time, and skill of another.
If by obligation, the idea of lawful compulsion is denoted, I am against obligations of all forms. However, bringing back a cohesive culture, with a consistent religious persuasion would invite a different kind of obligation to the table.
When I return to school in weeks, the hopeless intellectual in me yearns to find myself among the creative minds of my counterparts, who venture to discuss their unique pursuits and colorful endeavors. Yet I, as a veteran public-schooler will once again be sobered by the silence in my classroom when discussing the nature of obligation in a collectivist society.
I still have one more year of my secondary school career, and while I am acutely aware that I will not be able to sever every peer from the education system’s hold, I believe there is honor in attempting it at a local level, speaking to people one to one, and refusing to lapse in our mission from God.
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