Definition of Insanity.......

Hello Readers!

It's often been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same things over again and expecting different results. Any dictionary containing this definition it seems should be followed by:
See US Foreign Policy.

Because I can think of no place where that better applies. Take for example US relations with Iran and Iraq.

1) In 1953, Britain created a coup (also backed by the US) where the elected leader Mohammed Mossadegh was replaced by the Shah. The Shah was predictably a tyrrant.
2) When the Shah was overthrown and the Islamic Republic was put in place Ronald Reagan decided to arm Saddam Hussein so he could start a war with Iran. The war lasted eight years.
3) Years later with the US unable to get out of a war with Iraq, many politicians still consider invading Iran a possibility.

One thing that many people aren't aware of, is the historical connections between Iran and parts of Central Asia. However, the same stupidity seems to apply to central Asia.

1. In the late 70's the CIA began aiding the Mujadeen in Afghanistan in an attempt to "encourage" the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan.
2. The rational given by Zbigniew Brzezinski was to "Give the Soviet Union its Vietnam". Which is to say that he recognized the historical similarities in the two countries. Both have a long history of resisting domination by foreign conquerers and an extremely difficult geography.
3. During this time the CIA funded individuals like Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban.
4. When Bin Laden launches a terrorist attack on the US, the solution becomes invading Afghanistan.

So if those in charge of US policy actually do expect different results then they fit at least one working definition of insanity.

But perhaps they don't want different results at all. Maybe they think the "results" we are currently getting are just fine.

Say Goodnight Readers!

The Case Against the "Chickenhawk" label

During the past decade a lot has been made of politicians who have not personally been in the military or at least not seen combat, but yet are deemed to have advocated a particular war too lightly. During the anti-war movement, I've heard much made of the fact that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove had not been in Vietnam and this was often blamed for their willingness to invade Iraq.

But is this a wise way angle from which to criticize a politician? I would argue that it is not. At first blush, it might seem like a very compelling point, but only because people aren't thinking ahead. Ultimately calling Bush, Cheney, or Rove "chickenhawks" is an emotional argument. And often emotional arguments don't look so good, once all their logical assumptions, and conclusions are made apparent.

In this world there are many arguments, which may sound compelling as long as people neglect to think ahead. When these arguments get taken to their logical conclusions, they become less attractive as Jonathan Swift so devilishly demonstrated in his book "A Modest Proposal".

So what what is being assumed when you label a certain politicians a "chickenhawk"? And where would it lead if those assumptions were taken to their logical conclusions?

One obvious assumption I see is the idea that it is "normal" for anyone who hasn't been in a war to take the idea thousands of people dying in one lightly. But is it normal? Couldn't such a reckless disregard for other people be considered a sign of sociopathy no matter what background or past the individual may or may not have?

Does this mean that we no longer expect adults to take major decisions that could affect thousands of people seriously, unless they've been in the military? And if one assumes that why not advocate a society like "Star Ship Troopers" where only military veterans are allowed to vote?

Of course, many people believe that anyone who has been in a war will "naturally" be "more careful" about starting one. But unfortunately history does not bear this out. Hitler experienced two years of brutal trench warfare during WWI. And in fact, many of the most brutal and warlike societies in history were those who expected the king, emperor, or members of the Senate (as in ancient Rome) to have some history as a soldier or general.

So when people say something which can so easily be revealed as untrue, what are they really saying? I doubt anyone seriously believes that John McCain is less of a hawk than Denis Kucinich, so then what can "more careful" mean?

Ultimately, what it comes out to is that most people believe that if John McCain, James Webb, or Chuck Hagel, supported a particular war then it *must* be right, because they according to this mythology "know what they're doing". Which absolves them of any responsibility to think seriously themselves before supporting the war.

They can just lie back and take the various psychological payoffs that some Americans seem to derive from foreign wars, while totally abdicating responsibility.

Ultimately our democracy rests on the idea that people are required to think seriously about the issues facing our society, and should be held accountable for their decisions regardless of their level of direct personal experience, or immediate self interest.

An expectation that is ultimately incompatible with labeling the cavalier decisions of Bush, Rove, or Cheney as some sort of "missed Vietnam syndrome".

Also many people who use the epithet chickenhawk, seem to have little concept about how easily the same arguments could be turned against them. For example when James Webb took President Bush to task both for his decisions in Iraq, and for his avoiding Vietnam, many people in the anti-war movement applauded him. What many of them didn't seem to realize is that if they were not themselves veterans and in particular if they were baby boom aged males who had not been in Vietnam, that James Webb would have hurled the same insults at them back in the days when he was still an unapologetic hawk and a staunch Reaganite Republican.

But perhaps the most problematic thing about the "chickenhawk" label is the dismissal of moral standards and the lack of any real questioning about why some people, some veterans, some not, would act so horribly. Genes, upbringing, culture, media, family dynamics, and so on. It's an age old question that has never been answered fully. However the biggest mistake into to just stop asking, but to stop expecting all people to consider the consequences of their actions for other human beings.

Say Goodnight Readers

Improbable Water Futures

A while ago, I posted a blog about things that are likely to happen if/as water becomes a scarcer commodity. Now I'm going to write about certain things that are almost certainly NOT going to happen. Some of these things have been discussed in science fiction novels, others are talked about in environmentalist circles, and many have entered common parlance.

Unlikely scenario #1:Compost toilets will replace the water flush variety:

I don't think this is likely to happen for several reasons. One of which is that compost toilets require a good deal of biomass input such as wood chips or peat moss in order to function properly. Needless to say a lot of such biomass is going to be in demand for things such as cellulosic fuels, biomass gasification/pyrolysis, and similar areas as oil becomes short and as global warming becomes more and more of an issue. Also if they are not attended to properly and break down the results can be, well unpleasant.

Therefore options like full sewage recycling, are probably going to be the dominant solutions even if there is a place for compost style toilets.

Unlikely scenario #2: Personal cleanliness will become a "luxury" and people's bathing habits will "return to the Middle Ages":

First of all, it's a myth that people didn't bathe during the Middle Ages. Secondly, it's unlikely that people in most of the world will have to stop bathing. Generally speaking domestic water usage is quite small compared to agriculture and industry. And bath water can be reused to flush toilets (see above), using a fairly simply plumbing set up that could be added to most homes.

Unlikely scenario #3: Plain water will become the most expensive drink, with milk, soda, and even alcoholic beverages being much cheaper:

If this happens it will certainly be a case of either extreme price manipulation or a perception (accurate or more likely not) that these beverages are safer than water. Because the water drunk by cattle and used to produce their feed, to grow sugar for soda, and to both brew beer and grow the required barley and hops, all take several times as much water to produce as they provide to the drinker.

In reality a genuinely water poor world would likely be a world in which plain water (safe or not) ends up dominating various "beverages" due to the simple economics involved. It could even happen that most milk would be provided in forms such as yoghurt, cheese, butter, or powdered milk, that baby formula and fruit juices would be mostly powdered, that most non-water drinks would end up being sold in dry or concentrated forms such as tea leaves, coffee grounds, bulk sugar, freeze dried, canned or sometimes frozen concentrates, powdered protein drinks and such. If this sounds depressing homemade and/or restaurant made drinks could make a comeback (ie from the citrus tree in the year.) One the whole, fruit would likely become too highly valued to be squeezed into juice unless the only option was to let a surplus go bad. Therefore fruit would mostly be eaten whole or used in recipes where it would be fully savored and "juice" would largely be replaced by things like tea, coffee, cocoa or perhaps other confections that have yet to be invented or popularized.

Alcoholic drinks would likely become dramatically more expensive to the point of limiting their consumption by fiat of economics. Although this possibility would dismay some the upside could be a lowered incidence of alcoholism-which might get some of the benefits of prohibition without the consequences.

Unlikely scenario #4: Everyone will have the most water efficient, washing machines, and other appliances through high technology:

The truth is that currently much of humanity lives without these devices and isn't likely to acquire them soon. Another overlooked truth, is that domestic washing machines and dishwashers, including the much touted "energy star" models" have been rigged to be inefficient for decades. Anyone who has ever worked in a commercial kitchen or laundromat, can see that commercial models-including those which have been in operation since the early 60's-are much more efficient than their domestic cousins. And believe me, the issue is not about scaling down appliances for domestic use. The reasons for this include issues such as planned obsolescence, the desires of the soap and detergent companies (who are often owned by the same companies who make the machines, and the sexist beliefs in the 1950's (when such appliances became popular) that women "needed" to spend a lot of time tending to resource and time consuming appliances in order to be "fullfilled".

So it is true that appliances need to be more efficient. But nobody should assume that they are the key solution in a world filled with inequities, that high technology is always the way to do it, or that ecological pressures will bring these appliances to the table via the "free market".

Unlikely scenario #5: That public drinking fountains will disappear or that restaurants will stop serving pitchers of water with a meal. Instead you will have to buy bottled water with your meal.

If this happens it is a political thing. See "Unlikely scenario #3".

Unlikely scenario #6: People will have to wear stillsuits that recycle the water emitted from their body, so they can drink it again.

Not likely. Although this idea has been around since Frank Herbert's "Dune" was first written in 1964, and was eluded to in the movie "The Man Who Fell To Earth", in real life such devices not only probably wouldn't work, but would cause the wearer to overheat and make breathing and moving as laborious as it would be near the top of Mt. Everest. This is one piece of science fiction that not even nanotechnology will make possible.

Unlikely scenario #7: Water wars will become business as usual.

Of course, the idea of water wars are a major concern. But before jumping the conclusion that peace movements will be seen as a high horse luxury for a water fat world, and that in the future we will all accept the Machiavellian realities without question, one must ask who exactly benefits from this belief.
The first thing to note is that most of the immediate concern about water wars involves situations such as nations that share a river or have experienced disputes over various treaties and water rights. Even with growing technology to import water, doing so will likely remain an expensive venture, and the geopolitical divides will never resemble that of oil. Indeed, while some small and/or poor countries have an abundance of oil, fewer small or nations have a massive abundance of water to be exported, in massive quantities.
So while it is likely that potential wars over water will become a major concern, this is NOT a reason for anti-war movements around the world to either give up or assume that they must invent a stillsuit like the ones worn by the Fremen in "Dune" in order to foster world peace. Nor should citizens in any of the more aggressive countries use fear of thirst as an excuse to not speak out about a certain war, or tolerate affairs such as the international arms trade.

Unlikely scenario #8: Desalinization will solve everything.

It is true that desalinization is an extremely import technology and that work into low energy desalinization is absolutely critical. But before writing off the fresh water that is already being squandered, wasted and mismanaged, it will always be the case that desalinization is going to be more expensive and probably more energy intensive than full sewage recycling or groundwater recharge projects.

Feel free to send me some of the water scenarios you might have heard about and I will try to address them in future posts:

Say Goodnight Readers!

Born in the USA!!!

Hi Readers!

I've been thinking recently about what short memories some people have. It wasn't that long ago, that the many people-most of them on the right-were flirting with a constitutional amendment to make it so naturalized citizens as well as native born US citizens could, run for President. Nor was it any secret that the push for this amendment was primarily inspired by those who wanted to see a certain Austrian born naturalized US citizen run for President. Never mind that Arnold Schwarzenegger is a serial misogynist and the son of a Nazi party member, had admitted to much more drug use than that which brought much scrutiny on Clinton and Gore, or simply that the career trajectory of going from actor to Governor of California to President has an ill-omened ring to it-I can't think why!!

But now it seems that the right has become very concerned about whether or not Barack Obama was born in the USA, despite ample evidence that he is. Not only has his birth certificate been checked, and there was an announcement of his birth in a newspaper in Hawaii. Nor did it seem to matter to them that John McCain was despite having American parents (while Obama had an American mother) was born in Panama and not on US soil. Now how much of this is attributable to racism and who much is simply shameless partisanship, I'm sure I don't know.

What not everyone seems aware of is that the first ten Presidents of the United States were either born as British Subjects (such as George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson), or were born after the Revolution but before the Constitution of The United States was adopted (Martin Van Buren). Indeed John Tyler was the first President to be born when it was possible to be US citizen.

Yes that is a technicality. Because there is a grandfather provision that allowed for anyone who was a citizen when the Constitution was adopted to run for President. But you can be sure that the birthers don't know that. Having probably never read the US Constitution, except perhaps for the Second Amendment, I'm confident that they would have no answer to the fact that George Washington was by birth British and Martin Van Buren was born a Continental citizen, as they used to say. More importantly, I doubt that most of them actually care.

Nor would they care that such rumors of Presidents and candidates are nothing new. Chester Arthur the 21st President was widely rumored to have been born in Canada and Republican nominee Barry Goldwater was rumored to have been born in Arizona before it became a state.

However, there is no big mystery about why that rule was written into the Constitution in the first place. Basically the new nation had recently broken away from the mighty British Empire, and become a highly radical social experiment (far more than the Soviet Union at the time of its inception), and since many of the wealthier colonials were highly loyal to Britain and had left to other parts of Empire, leaving it a nation of farmers with little money.
When the Constitution was written, there was much concern that some Aristocrat from Britain or any European country could move to the U.S with their money, become a citizen, and swamp the election system with their wealth. And possibly that such a person could open to the door to recolonization by Britain or some other country. And strangely the right tends to reject any such worry about multinational corporations.
Also the fear that either Britain would want her colonies back or that some other European country would get ambitious, was a major reason why the right to own guns, and local militias are so heavily written into the Constitution. The poor new country had limited money to raise a formal army, and many of the Founders were suspicious of large standing armies because at the time memory of the military dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell in Britain was still fairly sharp.

But that's another example of the disconnects when people back a concept out of either tradition or blind partisanship, with no sense of the reasons why it was put in place. Nor would most right-winged self-identified "Constitutionalists" own up to the fact that corporate personhood is a relatively recent construct in the history of our Republic.

I'll be honest and say that I don't know what exactly motivates the birthers. But one thing is clear:That they are NOT simply the Constitutional purists that they bill themselves as. And above all they don't want to believe that Obama was born in the USA, because they don't want him to be President.

Holding the Troops Hostage, Holding America Captive

Hello Everyone!

Everyone who has lived in the United States since Desert Storm, Iraq, and Afghanistan and who has even considered opposing any of the above has been asked the following question, "But you do support the troops, don't you? Don't you?"

In short it's a very manipulative way of dodging the issue. In a post-Vietnam America the question has the implied connotation of supporting the war, or at least not going out of one's way to make anti-war views known.

The common response to this is "Well can't one support the troops and be against the war?", and in fact this has been the anti-war movement's main response.

But the truth is that support is always to some extent in the eyes of the receiver. You can control your own intentions to someone else. But you can't control whether another will see your actions as supportive.

And the reality with a war like Iraq, is that if you oppose the war many of the troops will agree with you and even join you when they get home. Others might see you as an unfortunate side effect of the Bill of Rights, and others might view you as traitors. You may not have the benefit of knowing how many of the troops support the war and how many oppose it. But it is pretty certain that silence will not always put you in the good with the troops either. Some Vietnam veterans-even some who favored the war-had more of a problem with people who were sort of indifferent and going on with their lives as though nothing was happening than they had with the protesters.

If you decide to openly support the war anti-war vets may dislike that. Even pro-war vets may take a dim view of those who support the war but don't sign up to go if they are able to.

There's no way around it. You have to make a decision with no guarantee of what anyone will think about you.

In the end the only real choice most of us have about these things is to do what is right. To make the best decision one can about what is right and make the best of it from there on out.

But while you cannot control who will or won't see your actions as supportive. You can support what you think will save lives. And not just American lives.

Of course, many people would say that it is support the troops to promote things like healthcare for injured veterans and help for those with PTSD. But there are more old fashioned terms for that. Where I come from we called that "humane" or simply "morally right". Even those of us who grew up when the Dolchstosslegende had fully penetrated American culture probably heard those concepts somewhere.

And doing those things doesn't guarantee that an anti-war protester will be seen as supporting the troops by all who witness it. Anyone who knows how the right can spin things these days should know better. And although nowadays Senator James Webb is making a name for himself as a veteran's advocate, it should not be forgotten that once upon a time he considered the early movement to acknowledge the harm done by Agent Orange, as a way to "steal the valor" of Vietnam Vets by portraying them as victims. (See books "Long Time Passing" by Myra MacPherson and "Home to War" by Gerard Nicosia.)

In fact, nothing anyone does can guarantee some sort of boy scout badge, or clean record where one will be seen as "supporting the troops". After all, blaming the citizenry at large if the war went badly was a part of the right's game-plan from the very beginning of the war.

When the right asks you to "support the troops" what they are really doing is holding the troops hostage to their cynical plans.

What they want from you is silence. And by being silent, you are playing right into their their plan to blame you if the war goes badly. If you openly oppose the war, the accusations of being "unpatriotic" or "not supporting the troops" are inevitable. But you will never be in a position of saying, "No I didn't get involved with the anti-war movement. I didn't say anything. I was afraid it would demoralize the troops. But I did have my doubts about the Iraq War.......Honest!! I'm not lying about that part!"

However if you decide to remain silent as a way of supporting the troops, those who ardently supported that war will also blame the mess that Iraq has become on you for not doing enough to support the troops on the homefront. As the rightwing blamed the German people as a whole for losing WWI, thanks to inadequate homefront support. Even if the Bush administration only asked you to go shopping at the time. Or maybe you couldn't afford to do much shopping. Whatever. If you didn't speak out during the war, people will tell you for the rest of your life, fairly or not, that by silence you supported the war. And that by inadequate, support for the troops you helped lose it.

It may sound like a no-win situation, but I assure you it isn't. We can beat that fatal logic, or illogic as it were, by not letting such narratives prevail.

If you remained silent, apolitical, and passive throughout the Bush years, it is NOT to late to speak out about the war now. Even if you voted for President Obama you can still criticize him on Iraq and Afghanistan. It is never too late to speak out. But it would be much better if you start before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are over. Because if you wait until the war is over, you will never be able to change the fact that you were silent during the war.
If you are already involved with the anti-war movement, or have been involved with the anti-war movement, it's time to stop letting the right control the conversation. Instead of "Support the Troops, Bring them Home" as the only *politically correct* slogan, let's talk about saving human lives. Because you can scarcely go wrong with that.

And when the wars are finally over sooner or later, (And I hope for sooner, but fear later) don't retreat from politics like so many people did after Vietnam. Of course, we all have times in our lives where we have more or less to give to political causes. But the political lull of the 70's and 80's was dangerous. It was what allowed the right to take control of the conversation in the first place.

We can't let it happen again. And the only way not to let it, is to speak against it.

Say Goodnight Readers!

The Tiger and The Rabbit

Happy Lunar New Year!

The Year of the Tiger has begun! My year.

And you know, I've always said that of the Chinese years one could be born in the Tiger was always the cool one. Besides being able to claim some ambiguity as to whether I'm part of Gen-X or a Millenial having been born in 1974, I've always thought claiming to be a Tiger was a bit cool. Even though I don't believe in astrology-nor the "generation game" for that matter. My brother who arrived a year later was born in the Year of The Rabbit. (One contest I could always win during 30 plus years of sibling rivalry was who got the cooler Chinese sign!)

But it got me thinking. We consider tigers to be cooler than rabbits because tigers are carnivores and because they are graceful. Rabbits are seen as tricksters in part because they are prey animals.

Of course, humans seem to aspire to be like the "cooler" animals, who we usually see as carnivores. Prey animals are less admired. Farm animals are of course, at the bottom of the barrel.

It's been suggested that this is because we evolved as carnivores and mighty hunters. But I have my doubts. And so do many physical anthropologists. Although humans may lament the idea that our ancestors were hunters because that supposedly led to a number of bad things such war and murder, the alternatives may be a little bit too unsettling. Indeed aren't so many of our horror movies, legends, fairy tales, sea monsters, thrillers about real animals and even certain science fiction epics are filled with various creatures who would love to eat us. Even movies about nuclear war such as terminator, are more often filled with the idea that robots would go after humans like predators after the kill, than with grim realities like radiation poisoning or starvation.

Echos from our evolutionary past? It's a speculation to be sure. But it's much less fantastic than speculations indulged in by Evolutionary Psychologists, on a weekly basis.

And if we can no longer attribute war to any idea that our ancestors were viscous carnivores, than we might have to start with the idea that our ancestors were prey animals as Barbara Ehrenreich did in her overlooked work "Blood Rites".

Perhaps that is why one of the most affecting social metaphors of the war ridden and violent 20th century involved not tigers, or wolves, or bears, but rabbits. The book "Watership Down", is much closer to the truth about how rabbits, the ultimate prey animals, behave than our ideas about cute cuddly little bunnies. Rabbits not only are potentially very aggressive animals, but are known for being very status conscience and sensitive to insults.

And if I may indulge in just a fraction of the wild speculations that Sociobiologists get away with as long as they are dead set on proving women to be evolutionarily unfit for politics, jobs, or even the vote, I look back to the early days after 9/11 and the behavior of those who were so quick to demand war. And not necessarily war against those who actually attacked the WTC and Pentagon, but any good target would do. Bush may have lied and the media may not have presented the facts fairly. But many Americans wanted revenge. They ultimately believed what they wanted to believe.

When I looked at the people who were so intent on revenge, and so willing to believe anything they needed to believe so they could justify it. When I look back on those who would put yellow stickers on their SUVs, I did not see the behavior of calm, calculating, cool carnivores like tigers. I saw a lot of people who were acting like a bunch of scared bunny rabbits.

Say Goodnight Readers!

Case Against Single Sex Schools

Hello Everyone!

In recent years there has been a real movement to promote single sex schools. Unlike other single sex items (i.e. single sex marriages) this debate has not become as heated, but does seem to tap into some deeply felt beliefs. When you look at most of the arguments for single sex schools, most of them come down to the following reasons:

1. Separating the boys and girls at least during the teen years is a way to minimize classroom distractions such as flirting, or trying to impress the other sex, and may even prevent teenage pregnancy.
2. Boys and girls have inherently different learning styles and should be taught in separate schools.
3. Many highly successful men and women, are products of single sex private schools so there must be something in it.
4. One sex (which one depends on who you talk to) is in a state of crisis, and needs separate schools to properly address their needs.

And of course, many people combine more than one of the following arguments.

To give the devil his due, I will acknowledge some truth in the idea that single sex schools often are much less distracting to many students because there will be much less flirting and much less pressure to impress the other sex. One could argue that this would be poor preparation for the real world, but then again since when has junior high school ever been GOOD preparation for adult life? (And of course, with more and more acknowledgment of gay and bisexual students, there will be many youth to which this argument does not apply.) Whether or not these schools would prevent teen pregnancy is another question entirely. Since most of the sex had been teenagers does not occur on campus, I'm skeptical.
The argument that boys and girls have such radically (and inherently) different learning styles that they need to be taught in entirely different classrooms, is a much more troubling agenda in my mind. After all, if the girls and boys are separating simply to prevent puppy crushes, and schoolyard gossip about who is "going out" with whom, that in and of itself does not necessarily compromise anyone's chance of getting a decent education. However, the idea of sex specific pedagogy could have profound effects on what students learn. It might even be worse than old fashioned gender discrimination. Why is that?
First of all, this concept of gender specific education ignores any concept of individuality. Proponents of gender specific education will often make statements to the effect of: "Well there are exceptions of course, but most boys are x,y, and z, and most girls are a,b, and c. We need a school system that is tailored to the majority."
What percent of students fit into this "majority"? Actually the evidence that over 55% of either boys or girls fit into a particular profile and have a common learning style is pretty thin. Studies on gender differences if they show anything, will sometimes show small differences of average that show up among large samples of boys and girls. As some feminists have commented on studies of gender and math: "Anyone who thinks this study shows you can predict the math ability of individual boys and girls based on sex, either has a massive axe to grind or is pretty bad a math himself." From my own conversations on the matter with a very experienced teacher, not only do learning styles come in a much greater variety than "pink and blue", but dealing with multiple learning styles in the same classroom in not exactly the exotic and impossible concept that Michael Gurian seems to think it is.
Furthermore, advocates like Michael Gurian and Leonard Sax are noticeably vague about what they think should be done about the "exceptions", which is to say girls with more "male" learning styles (according to his theories, I have probably have a more "male" learning style than at least 90% of all persons with a Y chromosomes) and boys with more "female" learning styles in their ideal world of single sex schools. While they constantly, respond that the system should be designed for the majority. But if for argument sake 75% of all boys and and girls fit into his schema of "male" vs. "female" learning styles (a very high figure when compared to most actual research), what would they propose be done with the other 25%?
Are there going to be a series of "Group W Schools for the Gender Atypical"? Or more likely is this vanishingly rare minority of one in four, is going to be forced into an educational programs that don't work out for them?
Perhaps even more troubling is the fact that according to the new science neuroplasticity, gender roles actual do have the capacity to rewire the brain as neuroscientists like Lise Eliot have described in depth. And psychoanalyst and researcher Norman Doidge has repeatedly pointed out that while neuroplasticity on the whole is more optimistic than the idea that everything is either innately hardwired or ossified by age 5, there is a dark side as well. Namely, that neuroplasticity can under certain conditions lead people to become rigid, inflexible, and trapped in certain patterns. In that sense the "old fashioned" idea that all students should work on their weaknesses as well as their strengths is vindicated over the idea that education must always tailor itself so that the students learn most efficiently with their immutable brain structures. Because in fact, always playing to certain strengths (or at least assumed strengths on the basis of gender) can encourage students to rigidly trap themselves in certain patterns of thinking, behaving, learning, and doing.
In that sense, Gurian's vision may be much more troubling than the old fashioned ways of putting boys into shop and calculus and girls into home-ec and English literature. Because if the system operates at the level of arbitrary exclusion from certain classes, many women and men can learn to do calculus, work with tools, or cook later on when they are in college or out in the world. But if students are tracked into schools that are said to play to-and thus reinforce-a certain "learning style", the effects of that may be much harder to undo. Indeed, would the world have heard of Amelia Earhart or Rachael Carson if they had be placed into Gurian's vision of "neurologically correct girl-style" schools rather than simply being forced to wear Mary Janes and dresses, while sitting on the other side of the classroom from the boys during their early school years?
But to move away from this most troubling of all rationales for single sex schools, I will move on the one that is perhaps the most unspoken as lasting. The idea that it must be a good thing because the rich often do it, and because many successful men and women are products of single sex schools. One recent example of this was the 90's fad in favor of promoting women's colleges, which made much of a study by The Economist regarding the percentage of women's college graduate in Congress or on the boards of Fortune 500 companies. What this push on the part of some parents to put their daughters in all girl's private schools and some communities to have all girls private schools blatantly ignored is that correlation is not causation. In other words the number of powerful women in society that went to all girls colleges may reflect the fact, that many powerful women came from rich families who were more likely to send their daughters to all girls private schools.
Contrary to popular belief the practices of the rich and upper class are not automatically "cutting edge" or progressive let alone feminist. (Debutante parties, primogeniture, foot binding etc). Indeed it could be argued that the rich due to their social advantages can get away with ignoring effectiveness or pragmatism in favor of "tradition", and may be less progressive than the middle or in some social contexts even the working classes. Examples of this could include the way that the 41st President of the United States and his wife Barbara were unconcerned when their first son Dubya used to blow up frogs for fun, and refused to even say much to the boy when at age seven his three year old sister died.
Finally, comes the idea that one sex is having a massive crisis, which needs to be addressed by single sex schools. Without getting too much into the statistics, I'd have to ask anyone why they think single sex schools will address problems such as eating disorders which are associated with girls (although it's been suggested that male eating disorders are undiagnosed), behavior problems which are more common in boys (although many think girls' behavior problems more often go unrecognized), or low self-esteem which if not an equal opportunity problem has at least attracted considerable debate about which sex suffers more from it. How exactly is putting a youth in a single sex school going to be a panacea, especially if there is no help for the specific problem nor any willingness to regard them as individuals rather than specimens of a particular gender?

So on balance, I have talked aboul the arguments for single sex schools and have dismissed three while acknowledging some truth in one.

The question now would be whether the benefits of less flirting in the schools would outweigh the potential downsides. And to me the answer is no. The most obvious downside is that historically separate is very often not equal. And in a cultural context where you see considerable backlash against feminism, as well as a growing popularity of ideas about gender specific education, that the potential for discrimination against girls, and the reinforcement very narrow roles and expectations for boys. Historically support for single sex schools has come mostly from conservative factions of society, and I have to question whether more ostensibly liberal proponents have really discovered anything new. Interestingly, Gurian has written off "the feminist model" as only appropriate for girls who "have been traumatized in some way". Telling mentality? I think so.

Although some have argued that single sex schools could improve education and even be a pro-feminist move both NOW and the ACLU disagree. I think they are right.

Say Goodnight Readers!