I Don't Want To Die Of Some

I Intend To Discuss Some Perplexing Issues Which Are Raised Once We Embrace The Hypothesis That Society Can Be Deschooled; To Search For Criteria Which May Help Us Distinguish Institutions Which Merit Development Because They Support Learning In A Deschooled Milieu; And To Clarify Those Personal Goals Which Would Foster The Advent Of An Age Of Leisure (schole) As Opposed To An Economy Dominated By Service Industries.

Most Learning Is Not The Result Of Instruction. It Is Rather The Result Of Unhampered Participation In A Meaningful Setting. Most People Learn Best By Being "with It," Yet School Makes Them Identify Their Personal, Cognitive Growth With Elaborate Planning And Manipulation.

Observations Of The Sickening Effect Of Programmed Environments Show That People In Them Become Indolent, Impotent, Narcissistic And Apolitical. The Political Process Breaks Down, Because People Cease To Be Able To Govern Themselves; They Demand To Be Managed.

Even If Nonpolluting Power Were Feasible And Abundant, The Use Of Energy On A Massive Scale Acts On Society Like A Drug That Is Physically Harmless But Psychically Enslaving. A Community Can Choose Between Methadone And "cold Turkey"-between Maintaining Its Addiction To Alien Energy And Kicking It In Painful Cramps-but No Society Can Have A Population That Is Hooked On Progressively Larger Numbers Of Energy Slaves And Whose Members Are Also Autonomously Active.

The Myth Of Unending Consumption Has Taken The Place Of The Belief In Life Everlasting.