In response to Matt’s call for bloggers to come up with a first step toward world peace, a reader remarks that schools and families must work together for the benefit of children.

Matt responds:

Over the years, I visited many native cultures:  from tribespeople in the jungles who, two generations ago, were cutting people’s heads off; to very sophisticated and educated cultures.  In the cultures I observed, family is everything.  But that is slowly diminishing because of all of the noise that’s being sent around the world.  As we’re walking down the streets in small villages and towns and large cities, if we have a cellphone, it can ring.  Not only can we use our phone to talk to somebody, we can also look at emails and text messages; we can listen to conversations, even read books.  My wife is buying the Kindle, which has 150,000 books on it...  And if we have a television, we’re told what to do by advertising:  everything from what medicine to take to what toilet paper to use.

In the past, we went through a school situation where there were measuring sticks, rules, and regulations.  We then went home to what was known as the modular family—I’m going back a long way here, to my childhood, where the mother stayed home and did the cooking, and the father worked six days a week, and the kids kept their mouths shut.

Now, there are tsunamis of information pouring into every household.  No matter what you want to know, you press the magic button, and you have more information than you could ever read till you grow old.  But are you brainwashed?  Did the information really help you?  I’ve said many times that we look at children as children.  I look at children as adults that just haven’t been screwed up yet.  It’s amazing how educated the children are about everything, which is all because of the Internet.  They know more about everything than most adults do.

So as we look at the wider issue of the peace process, it becomes a question of:  How are we going to cope with the world as it is now, and still be sane, productive, nonviolent, happy folks living our lives and leaving other people alone?  Does it start with the husband and wife?  Possibly.  But in many cases the husband might be in jail, and the wife might be working, so where is the family?  Is the education system uniform?  I think it’s pretty obvious that it is not.  There are places that have incredibly good schools and places that are incredibly bad.  What is the reason for education?  To have a good job?  To shine above others because of what you know?  To help bring unity and peace to the world?  To have a lot of money?  There are all kinds of measurements.

If we as individuals could figure out how to get family peace, if we had some formula for that, then very probably the formula for the world would be solved, too.  If everyone was peaceful and content in their surroundings, we wouldn’t be looking outside to grab somebody else’s bone, house, car, or way of life; we would be content with who and what we are.  There is a place where that happens, and in our society we call it paradise.  I usually don’t find it, but we have to keep looking.  There’s got to be a pony somewhere in the pile of shit.  There has to be an answer out there somewhere.

Matt