Quote:
Originally posted by iccky
In the words of George Washington "If men were all angels, government would not be necessary. But Men are not angels."
|
Yeah, idealists of all types are very fond of constructing "perfect" societies that require angels to make them go. Marx's idea of communism was definitely an angel-run society; we saw what happened when mere men had a run at it. On the other end, I would suggest that some advocates of extremely pure capitalism are also engaged in angelic thinking.
I'm currently student-teaching and am learning classroom management skills. When you tell a kid to do something, the first thing that flashes through his brain is, "Do I _have_ to? What happens if I don't?" The calculations are immediate, and if he thinks it's safe he'll test the limits you set to see what he can get away with. In any situation in our society, grown men and women make the same calculation a thousand times a day -- about obeying the traffic laws, doing the taxes properly, taking a shortcut through private property, "borrowing" a pen from somebody else's desk, and so on. It's just human nature, and so far I see no angels in the building.