House of Paine

the kunstler brief part III

THIS IS THE FINALE



     WHAT A WASTE OF TIME



===========================



     School, is another major system
 facing drastic reorganization.

 The failure of schooling in America
 is already manifest. 

Our inner-city schools 
are in nearly complete state of entropy 
due to the effects 
of our overall disinvestment in cities 
-
 the school buildings themselves 
are crumbling 
while books and supplies 
are beyond the point of critical shortage 
-
 and
 to an array of social conditions
 ranging from the disintegration of families 
to the absence of standards of normative behavior
.
 Whether these might all be lumped together 
as the consequences of poverty 
is debatable, in my opinion, 
but the effects are not debatable. 

These schools are not producing 
literate citizens with adequate social skills.

    Gigantic alienating schools
 are producing so much anxiety and depression
 that multiple slayings have occurred 
at regular intervals in recent years. 

      Our schools are too big.
 
The centralized suburban schools 
with their fleets of buses 
will become rapidly obsolete 
when the first oil market disruptions occur.


 The inner city schools 
will be too broken to fix.

 The suburban schools
 will be too large to heat economically
 (especially since the overwhelming majority of them
 all over the nation,
 regardless of climate, 
are sprawling one-story modernist boxes)
. 
School will have to be reorganized 
on a local basis,
 at a much smaller scale,
 in smaller buildings
 that do not look like medium security prisons

. School will be required 
for fewer years,

 and with more deliberate sorting 
of children into academic 
and vocational tracks. 

Children will have to live closer
 to the schools they attend -
 the yellow bus fleets will be history.

 Children and teachers 
will benefit from being 
in physically smaller institutions 
where all will at least
 have the chance to know one another.

 In a post-cheap-oil world,
 teens might be needed
 to work part of the day
 or part of the year.
 
     Leon Botstein, President of Bard College 
has argued

< first off 
here's poor Botstein on hiz on behalf:
," the life span of individuals and the rate of development
 will force us to reconsider the patterns of schooling.
 Schooling will begin earlier
 and, as a uniform experience, will end earlier.
 At the same time, 
individuals will pursue education and training 
for longer periods in their lives 
in ways specific to their own needs.
 In a life span of 100 years,
 individuals will return to formal schooling
 twice or three times in their lives " 
hardly controversial  >

< back to kunty>

 
that people need to finish regular school 
by age 16
< bravo>

 and assume a new set of responsibilities
 to increase their sense of adulthood.
  < oh you priss >

 He advocates abolishing high school 
as it is now known altogether.

  < great but surely thats no oil related issue>
   now watch out folks
       cause  comes some more
                pure kunty shit> 

 Years from now
 fewer will go on to college.


< get the elite fete here 
the whiff of down the nosery>

 Colleges, too,
 are likely to go through 
severe downsizing, 
especially the enormous state universities,
 as college ceases to be a mass consumer activity.
  < the crass pseudo higher mass-ed
will shrivel up and blow away
most ass cans need barber college
and a sense of deference
to their betters
not the humanities  as taught
 thru 'The  Ssimpson'  cartoons>

 Real life may not be so easily postponable.

< this phrase encompasses  his whole fantasy >

 Vocational trades 
requiring real skills
 may gain  in status 

< odd to talk of status
  perhaps lower orders coming 
to accept their place
is worth 
 whats basically
a  costless
value hype
" I couldn't a done it
 without all those little...">

and some professions 
such as law may lose status 
(and earning power).

< god a lawyer joke >

 Some occupations -
 public relations,
 travel agentry,
< now his shit list
only two specifics
indicates his attention span
like most sweeping thought producers
kunty can't stick to one thing for long>

 authoring books 

< charming self deprication
    belied by his entire adult life>

- may shrink or disappear altogether.

 Work for many may become 
a matter of making oneself
 useful to others
 with the added benefit
 of earning a living.
< this is pure pure servant baiting>

     One hazard to the enterprise of reforming education
 will be the psychology of previous investment. 
 < please
 the psychology of...
        why not tell us why we got here
 we know 
you hope and believe
its doomed by the energy crunch
but fuck
  instead of waving a fuck u finger at it
what was its pour soir baby >


We have poured our accumulated national wealth
 into building gigantic central schools
 and galactic-scale university campuses, 
with their semi-professional sports facilities
 and vast parking lots,

< drip drip drip
"choir are you ready to say aahhh?" >
 
and there will be a tendency
 to try to make them work 
no matter what conditions 
prevail in the real world. 

< these oversizers these supersizers 
they'll
 need a real thrashing
and boy they'll get it>

But circumstances will demand 
nonetheless that we change.



< here's the wind up guyz>  

    What is liable to happen 

to these three major activities,

 retail, agriculture, and school 
is also true of virtually all other things we do
 in the US. 

Everything you can imagine
 from banking to real estate development 
to church-going to professional sports 
will have to reduce its scale
iand scope of operation or fail. 

< scale scale scale scale
scope scope scope 
reduce reduce reduce>

  
The problems ahead 
will compel us to move 
from being a culture of quantity 
to a culture of quality.
  

 We will have to make do 
with fewer and less, 
< watch out pigs >

and we can compensate 
by demanding that it be finer.

< for those of us who undrestand
        finer
for the jaded hogs
its pure less
pure diet> >
 
We will have to live locally 
and we can benefit 
from the restoration of robust civic relations.

< the myth of community lost
but now restoed
simply because
we can't get in our cars
and drive  away from our neighbors>

     Many of the beliefs 
and accepted dogmas of the late 20th century
 will fall away 
as a new and very different reality asserts itself.

< what ever reality changes to
it will change beliefs
and accepted dogmas
but not always in the direction of realism
especially
unstated here
is the inevitable 
flock of
 new reality
 tail enders
the new brood of re-actionary
good ole dayz
 dogma clutchers
you know 
tommorows
equivalents
of yourself today kunty>

 Cultural relativism will be discredited 
in an era when it becomes necessary
, even for intellectuals, 
to make distinctions between good and bad,
 between excellence and worthlessness 

< the pathetic nit wit
once again i feel like a bully>
-
 because our lives may depend 
on the ability to make these distinctions.
 Hierarchies of value 
will become normative.
< amazing
he's pushing the same line again
good taste and discrimination
are the best  compensation for scarcity>

 Elitism will no longer be
 a pejorative 

< the groundlings
squoozen bellies 
will reteach them respect for
dignity>

but rather a recognition
 that some things 
really are better than other things. 

< and some people 
are better too>
---------------------------------
surely 
that ending  speaks for itself

kunty bye bye 

go forth dildo
and try
fucking
whatever clusters will listen
pass the plate

get what ya can now 

cause
remember
 this paradox

now we can aford 
to pay to hear 
your foolish message

if ever   oil 
does go  to
$ 35
 a gallon

 your dim bulb
will hardly be worth
 the juice 
it takes to turn it on   >

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