04-23-2009, 10:20 PM
I suppose there are a handful of historical examples of spreading literacy (as the most basic form of education) when it wasn't necessarily of direct practical use. Many societies developed literacy of reading religious text, which is I suspect the largest source of literacy amongst the masses in pre-1800s Britain. The Chinese also (perhaps uninentionally) spread literacy by allowing peasants to sit the Confucian bureaucratic exams; skills that were developed to try and get a family member into a high-status group could then be adapted to peasant life.
However, both of those things would be tough to implement in Somalia. I'm not sure we really want to encourage religious literacy, considering how tightly that's tied to the warlord problem, and there is no secular equivalent like in China. Trying for more sophisticated forms of education is probably impossible where almost 2/3 of the population cannot even read.
Not that it wouldn't be nice, and maybe there is progress that can be made. The education of women seems to have well-established correlation (and probably causation, but that's tougher to prove) with all sorts of social benefits, especially smaller family sizes and improved child health. That would certainly help solve the problems in Somalia, at least as step one. (Of course, the same issues apply: if you can't enforce security, you can't keep up a controversial education program, and if you aren't popular, you can't enforce security without overwhelming force, and so on.)
Tellingly, literacy rates in Somalia are terrible, and women's rates are half that of men's, about 50% and 25% respectively. Their median age is also below the age required to vote in the States. That means a lot of young people out looking to make their way in the world, and not a lot of established community to help them do it.
There may come a day in Somalia where even the State is more important than the Tribe, let alone all of humanity. But for the moment, there is simply no incentive or space for that kind of awareness. Life is lived from hand to mouth. The local powers control their lives, and the rest of humanity has precious little to offer them, no matter how idealistic they may be.
Maybe they'll have their own Bismark to bang heads until they all come together. But Germany in the 19th century had every possible advantage when compared with Somalia now, so it's going to take more than just a big warlord.
I don't know. I'm pessimistic about these things. I'm Burkean enough to believe in the power of inherited patterns of life, and I despair at what do once a country drops to a point where those patterns have largely been destroyed. Has such a country ever recovered? Centuries is almost certainly the time frame, and it might well take something like a World Army pointing lots of guns at people for centuries to manage a recovery.
-Jester
However, both of those things would be tough to implement in Somalia. I'm not sure we really want to encourage religious literacy, considering how tightly that's tied to the warlord problem, and there is no secular equivalent like in China. Trying for more sophisticated forms of education is probably impossible where almost 2/3 of the population cannot even read.
Not that it wouldn't be nice, and maybe there is progress that can be made. The education of women seems to have well-established correlation (and probably causation, but that's tougher to prove) with all sorts of social benefits, especially smaller family sizes and improved child health. That would certainly help solve the problems in Somalia, at least as step one. (Of course, the same issues apply: if you can't enforce security, you can't keep up a controversial education program, and if you aren't popular, you can't enforce security without overwhelming force, and so on.)
Tellingly, literacy rates in Somalia are terrible, and women's rates are half that of men's, about 50% and 25% respectively. Their median age is also below the age required to vote in the States. That means a lot of young people out looking to make their way in the world, and not a lot of established community to help them do it.
There may come a day in Somalia where even the State is more important than the Tribe, let alone all of humanity. But for the moment, there is simply no incentive or space for that kind of awareness. Life is lived from hand to mouth. The local powers control their lives, and the rest of humanity has precious little to offer them, no matter how idealistic they may be.
Maybe they'll have their own Bismark to bang heads until they all come together. But Germany in the 19th century had every possible advantage when compared with Somalia now, so it's going to take more than just a big warlord.
I don't know. I'm pessimistic about these things. I'm Burkean enough to believe in the power of inherited patterns of life, and I despair at what do once a country drops to a point where those patterns have largely been destroyed. Has such a country ever recovered? Centuries is almost certainly the time frame, and it might well take something like a World Army pointing lots of guns at people for centuries to manage a recovery.
-Jester