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DeBoer calls the book a “plea for the untalented,” and the gist of it is: Student abilities are substantially genetically inherited and therefore it is a fool’s errand to try to achieve equal educational outcomes. If that claim is not demonstrated to be true, we’re left without the centerpiece of his case against meritocracy, and therefore the case for our beautiful socialist utopia.
We Don’t Know Our Potential ❧ Current Affairs
currentaffairs.org
A Democratic Spirit is one that combines rigor and humility, i.e., passionate conviction plus a sedulous respect for the convictions of others. As any American knows, this is a difficult spirit to cultivate and maintain, particularly when it comes to issues you feel strongly about. Equally tough is a DS’s criterion of 100 percent intellectual integrity—you have to be willing to look honestly at yourself and at your motives for believing what you believe, and to do it more or less continually.
The fundamental problem is that this attitude toward time sets up a rigged game in which it’s impossible ever to feel as though you’re doing well enough. Instead of simply living our lives as they unfold in time—instead of just being time, you might say—it becomes difficult not to value each moment primarily according to its usefulness for some future goal, or for some future oasis of relaxation you hope to reach once your tasks are finally “out of the way.”
Four Thousand Weeks
Oliver Burkeman
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