A Genuine Pollyclot

The study of causes is a serious business, requiring not only a sober assessment of possibilities and facts, but also a veritable curiosity in the truth; and we might find that it is the prospect of this necessary sincerity that sends newspaper-columnists scurrying into the burrow of fancy where they might broach the subject in welcome escape and with wonted giddiness. Consider Polly Toynbee of The Guardian, for example:

“Britain’s gross inequality [is] the prime cause of [Britain’s] educational failure and social disorder.”

Polly Toynbee, “Breathless Charioteer”, The Guardian, 2nd September 2005.

In consideration of educational failure, could the possibility not for a moment be entertained that the pedagogical policies of egalitarians are at least partly to blame for the state of education in Britain? Thereupon, two things should not surprise us: first, that the proclivity of egalitarians to bring everything down to the lowest common denominator is harmful; and second, that inequality is the cause of little but the envy whipped up by those who would harness its power.

It may also be seen that Ms Toynbee works on that fantastic assumption underlying the ideal of universal education, that everyone can be and wants to be and therefore should be educated. But what room does this leave for natural stupidity and wilful ignorance? Can it be vertitably said that everyone is capable or desirous of being educated? Ms Toynbee and the like-minded have presumably never met the vast horde of persons in society who are irredeemably stupid and who couldn’t give two chuffs for education.

In consideration of social disorder, might it not be postulated merely as an exercise in the assessment of possibilities that the egalitarianism and individual irresponsibility that Ms Toynbee customarily prescribes are the two ingredients in the most perfect recipe for social disorder ever devised? Thereupon also, two things should not surprise us: first, that forced equality – as ever it must be – is the dissolvent of profitable social relations; and second, that individual responsibility is the glue that binds us together.

There is one more thing to be considered: the curious way in which the call for equality becomes shriller the more society approximates it. But then one of the greatest problems in dealing with extremists is that nothing is ever enough. Indeed, give them a mile and they’ll demand a league.