There’s an old axiom that what children learn in school today will be the philosophy of government tomorrow. As surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, lock downs, drug sniffing dogs and strip searches become the norm in elementary, middle and high schools across the nation, America is on a fast track to raising up an Orwellian generation — one populated by compliant citizens accustomed to living in a police state and who march in lockstep to the dictates of the government. In other words, the schools are teaching our young people how to be obedient subjects in a totalitarian society.

I couldn’t have said it better myself…but Maria Montessori came darn close.

Discipline must come through liberty… We do not consider an individual disciplined when he has been rendered as artificially silent as a mute and as immovable as a paralytic. He is an individual annihilated, not disciplined.      ~Maria Montessori

(You can find the full Huffington Post article here.)

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“We are probably only at the threshold of an age in which the technological possibilities of mind control are likely to grow rapidly and what may appear at first as innocuous or beneficial powers over the personality of the individual will be at the disposal of government. The greatest threats to human freedom probably still lie in the future.”

Friedrich A. Hayek

As much as I love technology I also see the terrible potential for misuse.

Yesterday’s  story from the University of Chicago (Hayek’s former employer) is just one example:

“A student at the University of Chicago says an innocent status update on Facebook led to an investigation by university police.

Joseph Dozier, a third-year political-science and classics student, posted a comment on his Facebook page on December 6 saying “Dreamt that I assassinated John Mearsheimer for a secret Israeli organization—there was a hidden closet with Nazi paraphanelia [sic]. Haha! ” Mr. Mearsheimer, who has been one of Mr. Dozier’s instructors, is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago…”

“Mr. Dozier says a police officer called to question him about the post the next day and said he would need to remove the post or it would be reported to Mr. Mearsheimer. The student contacted the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a nonprofit group that focuses on free-speech issues, which told the news media about the case on Wednesday and has posted documents online, including a screenshot of Mr. Dozier’s status update and a rough transcript of the officer’s call based on Mr. Dozier’s notes about the case.” <more>

It is a scary huxley-orwellian future if we cannot cultivate a society that values liberty over safety. (HT: Ben Franklin)

If you would like to read more on whether technology will foster or suppress a free society I highly recommend looking to the Mont Pelerin Society 2008 Hayek Essay Contest:

In The Constitution of Liberty Hayek says that “we are probably only at the threshold of an age in which the technological possibilities of mind control are likely to grow rapidly and what may appear at first as innocuous or beneficial powers over the personality of the individual will be at the disposal of government. The greatest threats to human freedom probably still lie in the future.”

Has Hayek’s gloomy warning been borne out by events, or has technology become more a force for liberating people from government?

You can find copies of the winning essays here.