Growing up with restrictive rules: does it lead to advocates of authoritarianism or freedom?

I don’t completely agree with all that NY Times columnist David Leonhardt says in his column “A plea for a fact-based debate about charter schools” (July 23, 2018), but his comment about the restrictive rules that led to a protest at the G.W. Carver charter school in New Orleans resonated with me:

“But the students were right. The rules were extreme. Students walking between classes had to stay on the right side of the hallway, for example.”

I remember that rule, and many others, from my own education in the New York City public schools a long time ago. That particular rule didn’t kick in until junior high school (7^th-9^th grade, since replaced by “middle school”), because in elementary school we didn’t really walk the halls; all of our classes except gym were in the same room. Students walking to different rooms for different teachers for different subjects (called “departmental”) began in 7^th grade, but elementary school had its own set of restrictive rules that Leonhardt and most students today might find extreme. We didn’t have to wear uniforms, but the boys had to wear ties. In elementary school! This was ridiculous, not only on the “restrictive” level, but because little boys don’t always stay, um, neat, especially when eating or running around. Some of the most popular authorized types of ties were the pre-tied kind that just clipped under the collar, or the late unlamented but valuable-at-the-time “cross-continental”, kind of a bow that just snapped under the collar. And, yes, we had to wear shirts with collars! Luckily, at some point schools came to their senses and by the time I was a parent the totally appropriate attire for elementary school students was jeans and t-shirts. You want to guess who looks neater at the end of the day, a kid in jeans and a t-shirt or a kid with a stained askew tie over a dirty shirt with the tails hanging out?

Actually, the rules on ties got better as we aged; in junior high we were freed from that rule in the month of June. (And yes, we went to school in June, unlike a lot of the country our school year was Labor Day to June 30. Always June 30.) In high school, we didn’t have to wear ties at all. But the most interesting (??) rule in elementary school was that on Thursday, “Assembly Day” where the school got together to pledge allegiance to the flag and have some kid read a psalm (apparently Psalms were ok because they were Old Testament and thus kosher for Jews and Christians; no one even thought about other religions, or, God forbid, atheism!), and maybe other stuff happened but I don’t remember it, we had to wear a white shirt, blue pants, and a red tie! True. Literally true. Not in a Christian fundamentalist private school in the South run by the DAR, but in New York City public schools! I wonder if there were any clean white shirts by the end of the day?

So, maybe you can tell I thought those rules were not only “restrictive”, but on a graph of good-bad vs wise-stupid, definitely down at the bad and stupid end. However, I am absolutely certain that there are people who do not think so (now that they are no longer those students), who, reading the Leonhardt column think “Yeah! We had to walk down the hall on the right side! We had a lot of dress codes and behavior rules and other things, and look at me now! That kind of structure and discipline is what made me into the fine person I am today!” ((I was going to say “man” but don’t so as not to seem insensitive, and there are probably women who feel that way, but in my experience I almost always hear that rant from men.) Even if that fine person is an out-of-shape, bigoted, opioid-addicted and generally unpleasant specimen. (OK, I’m stereotyping again, maybe they are bank presidents or FBI men or even teachers.)

This suggests something to me about growing up, power, and possibly something about the political divide in our country (and, in some sense, the world) between those who relish authoritarianism and nationalism and those who believe in openness, freedom of expression, and plurality. Many of us grew up with such rules, structure, restriction, and impingement upon our freedom to act as we saw fit. Not coincidentally, these behavioral restrictions coexisted with restrictions – at least efforts to restrict -- our freedom to think. (True story: in high school, in the mid-60s, a group of us in the History Club planned a “teach-in” on the war in Vietnam. The chairman of the History Department heard about it and burst into a class many of us were taking, Economics I think, and railed at us, calling us “Munich appeasers”.) But not all of us reacted to it in the same way.

For some people, as I have noted, these “rules” seem to (in retrospect, at least) have been important in forming them into the “good people” they see themselves as. For others, it was resistance to such rules and thought-policing that led them (OK, us) to become the “good people” they see themselves as today. Put another way, while almost all of us looked forward to “growing up”, becoming adults and not being subject to these rules, and even be able to make the rules, we responded in different ways. One was to think “we will not have such stupid rules” governing children and the world; we will have greater freedom of ideas and expression and behavior. Another was to think “I can’t wait to be a grownup and make rules that benefit me and mine, and oppress others”. I don’t know if they think about it that way, but it is the way many behave. See, for example, the right-wing nationalist movements in Europe and Israel and other parts of the world, as well as in the US.

There are many examples of people, as individuals or groups, responding to their own oppression by oppressing others. We know that people abused, physically or sexually, as children often become abusers of their own or others’ children. The Puritans, unable to freely practice their religion in England went to Holland and then left because it had religious freedom not only for them but for everyone, and came to the America to establish theocracy in Massachusetts. We have seen the descendants of the victims of the Holocaust create both de facto and now de jure restrictions on Palestinians in Israel (Max Fisher in the Times quotes “Ben-Gurion [who] insisted that Israel give up the territories it had conquered. If it did not, he said, occupation would distort the young state, which had been founded to protect not just the Jewish people but their ideals of democracy and pluralism.’

Of course, there are extremes. I am not saying that there should be no rules for children or even discipline. But I am also saying, very strongly, that having been oppressed, as an individual or as a people, is a good reason to empathize, fight for the rights of others, and not to look for ways to oppress someone else.

The world could do with a lot few authoritarian strongmen, and a lot fewer of their fans.

Three Rules we should have learned even before kindergarten

Twenty-some years ago, or longer, I received, as a present, Robert Fulghum’s book “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”. I admit to not reading it past the first few pages, but I have recently been thinking about the simple rules which I think, if followed, would make life a lot better for all of us. I am not sure that I – or we – were even as old as kindergarten when we learned them; on the other hand, my mother was a kindergarten teacher so maybe I learned them early.

For the record, here are Fulghum’s lessons:

1. Share everything.

2. Play fair.

3. Don't hit people.

4. Put things back where you found them.

5. CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS.

6. Don't take things that aren't yours.

7. Say you're SORRY when you HURT somebody.

8. Wash your hands before you eat.

9. Flush.

10. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

11. Live a balanced life - learn some and drink some and draw some and paint some and sing and dance and play and work everyday some.

12. Take a nap every afternoon.

13. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.

14. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Stryrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

15. Goldfish and hamster and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.

16. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

These are good. Some, perhaps are a little hard, and maybe even a little specific. Some work better in some contexts than others (#9 -- do this less often when you live in a desert; #10 – not if you’re gluten or lactose intolerant). I was thinking of 3 rules which, regularly violated in the world in which I live (and, I’m certain, often by me), would, if followed, make life much smoother and more pleasant.

So – “Josh’s rules”:

1.      Don’t try to do two things at once.  Despite its popularity, “multi-tasking” is impossible; the best we can do is move quickly between activities. This can work in the office setting, and makes one more flexible. It is really courting disaster when driving a car. It can also be pretty irritating to people you are with and are supposed to be talking to when you are also trying to do something else (and if that something else is playing games on your phone, don’t expect them to care a whit about you, either).

2.      Look where you are going. This, a shorter version of Fulghum’s lesson #16, is really only a special case of my rule #1. Bumping into people because you are staring at your phone, or just looking back or to the side while continuing to move forward (or stepping back in a crowd) can cause a collision. Of course, when you are driving a car (or a boat or train!) it is even more important!

3.      The Golden Rule. Usually phrased as “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you”. While this version is considered Christian, in that it is in the New Testament, Matthew 7:12 (from the Sermon on the Mount), it has parallels in most other cultures and religions. I’d say that while the positive form is good, it is less critical. Yes, it would be nice if others would give you a bunch of money, but you can’t be expected to do that to everyone. Mostly it is about context; if you were a poor beggar you’d hope people would give you a little money, so maybe you should consider giving some if you can afford it. But the negative form is more important: DON’T do things to others that you wouldn’t want them to do to you. This includes Fulghum’s lesson #3 (“Don’t hit people”) and its congeners: Don’t make war. Don’t spit in people’s faces. Don’t be mean to people. Don’t be cruel. If we didn’t do these things, the world would be a much happier place.

Sometimes we use the profound logic of these rules as fodder for jokes. For example, how fun it is to do things that are ridiculously dangerous. I remember this concept crystallized by the character Ziva David in an episode of NCIS: “What’s so hard about driving? You go as fast as you can, and if something is in the way, turn!” Of course, this is incredibly stupid even as said; what if there is something in the way when you turn? But it sounds cool, especially to adolescents (and more especially adolescent boys) and causes accidents, big and small, fender benders and fatalities. Plus other folks driving this way is actually what is responsible for slowing traffic on freeways! Variations on this concept abound, and are uniformly bad ideas.

There are people who understand these rules but don’t believe that they apply to them in the same way they do to others. Such people are called narcissists. There are other people who don’t believe that these rules should apply to anyone. They are sometimes called libertarians, but most often morons. Then there are the most of us, who believe that these rules should apply to everyone, including ourselves, but more or less often violate them. We are not perfect. But we can strive to do better.

And I really like Fulghum’s lesson #12!