Comparing #1042 (version 52) and #1043 (version 53)

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First, picking crops is extremely unfun for almost everyone. Only a handful of slaves really enjoyenjoys it. I’m a strong guy, and I’ve picked acres of crops, yet I’ve never really liked it.
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I hope my articlethe above shows that Caplan is a tyrant who has no idea what freedom means. He presents himself as someone who cares about freedom, as this reasonable guy who wants to strike a balance between the approach of “staunch” advocates of freedom and that of its critics. As a result, his primary concern isn’t freedom at all. Instead, he wants to *grant* freedom on *his* terms: as his child, do math for 2 hours and he will grant you freedom for the rest of the day. He wants to prescribe predefined goals and assuage *parents’ guilt* for using coercion. His concern for their guilt (presumably especially his own)own as a parent) rather than *children’s freedom* betrays him. Whenever someone from the 1860s showed concern for the guilt some slaveholders may have felt for whipping their slaves, rather than showing concern *for the slaves who were being whipped,* one immediately knew whose side that person was on, no matter how much he pretended to care about freedom. SameThe same goes for anyone’s accidental confession in not immediately recognizing the pretense: you could tell they were on the perpetrator’s side.

The opening quote of this article, from *Mad Men*, illustrates this dynamic.my point. The show is set in the 1960s, in the middle of the civil-rights movement. The partner of an advertising firm, Bertram Cooper, is on his way out of the office when he notices that a black employee now sits at the front desk. So he approaches his office manager, Joan Harris. The full scene goes:
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> Cooper: Well, I’m all for the national advancement of colored people, but I do not believe they should advance all the way to the front of this office. *Under[*Under his breath:*breath:*] People can see her from the elevator.
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> Cooper: Requesting. *Leaves.*↵
>[*Leaves.*]↵
> Harris: *Covers[*Covers her face in disgust.*↵
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Becausedisgust.*]↵
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Because he wants to make exceptions, you can tell immediately that Cooper does not actually support the “national advancement of colored people”. He’s lying, whether he realizes it or not. It’s just like Caplan pretending when he says “We should have a strong presumption against paternalism […]. The value of math, however, is great enough to overcome this presumption.” (Link removed.) Caplan might as well be saying: ‘I’m all for the liberation of children, but I do not believe they should be liberated to the point they don’t have to do math!’↵
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Yet *Madmath!’↵
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What if Cooper felt guilt over his error? Not remorse, and without correcting it or recognizing it as an error, but guilt: the kind of guilt that demands others repeat the error so it can hide in a sea of evil and say: ‘I’m not the worst of them.’ For whom would you feel sympathy – for him or for the black employee whose career he hindered? And depending on your answer, whom would you encourage and whom would you betray?↵
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*Mad Men* highlights even more than that. While virtually all of the show’s viewers recognize the horror in how black people were treated back then, viewers fail to see that same horror in how our treatment of children has *not* meaningfully changed since. I suspect it’s noteven something the creators of the show intended to convey – but they did, to some. In several ways, black people were better off even in the 60s1960s than children are today: Harris strongly implies that what Cooper requests is illegal,illegal – title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids discrimination based on race at the workplace – but there is no law against forced education of children to this day. On the contrary, in many jurisdictions, the law *demands* such force. [Even the UN demands it.](/posts/the-right-to-education-is-bad) In addition, I understand that psychological and scientific ‘findings’ justifying segregation were receding by the 60s,1960s, yet Caplan references both psychology and medical science to justify – and pawn off responsibility for – his desire to deny children freedom. Also, Cooper doesn’t pretend that his ‘request’ is for the black employee’s own good, whereas Caplan does just that when it comes to children.
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Freedom is indivisible and absolute. It allows no compromises whatsoever. You cannot balance freedom: it’s all or nothing. There are better and worse forms of slavery, but only one type of freedom. Caplan is a good example ofmakes the Randian insighterror of compromising on basic principles. Rand identified that [eveneven the smallest compromise on basic principles or in moral matters is a complete surrender](http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/compromise.html):
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An honest man who steals once in a while is not an honest man. A free man who has to pick crops 1-2 hours a day is not a free man. A free child who has to learn math 1-2 hours a day is not a free child. Such are the ‘compromising’ effects of mixed premises and mixed principles. The whole point of unschooling is (or should be!) freedom – not productivity, career choice, or “merits”, or that freedom “works” or whatever. After all, the reasoning behind abolition was *not* that free men are more productive than slaves (although usually they are). Mix freedom and forced math lessons and you end up with no freedom at all. Like abolition + picking crops, Caplan’s rotten concept “Unschooling + Math” is a textbook example of mixed premises, and so his vices destroy his virtues. Caplan makes the same old mistake of striking a ‘balance’ between good and badevil and making himself look reasonable in the process. He dresses up this alleged balance using, again, the term “keyhole solution” and derides the principled, uncompromising stance toward freedom as “staunch”. What is a “staunch” opponent of slavery but *right?*

In moral matters,matters of morals and truth, one has to aim for nothing less thanshort of absolute purity. Those of us who have fully understood and integrated the moral truth that the universality of freedom applies to children just as much as it does to adults, recognize Caplan’s error with lightning speed – and judge accordingly.

If society progresses in the way I hope, Caplan’s article will age exceptionally poorly. As it deserves. Do not mistake him for an advocate of freedom.