I worked in schools, and think we criminally downplay their formative role in our entire culture. (See my…

I worked in schools, and think we criminally downplay their formative role in our entire culture. (See my pinned Tweet.) This image shows us nearly everything important about societies today. Kids in the playground, with the classrooms off to one side. A secret window. /1 https://t.co/5KyCr2yzbl

That playground/classroom binary is repeated right throughout adult life. The playground represents how we interact socially. The classroom represents humans’ knowledge, multi-generational. The latter is what drives civilisation forward. There’s a productive tension here. /2 https://t.co/6yrZnMZFG5

Too much of either breaks societies. A society run entirely with knowledge without regard to the social arrangements of its people breaks social bonds. And a society run entirely using the social laws of the playground has no history, no before or after. Bullies rule. /3 https://t.co/CT6NUPeh1r

Today in our populist age, the playground is dominating. Populism is just the law of the playground, applied to the adult world. Popularity-driven politics and life. Institutions representing ur knowledge and history (the classroom) are being dismantled and destroyed. /4 https://t.co/SR36sQuLqm

We’re living eternal ‘lifestyle’ lives, focused entirely upon the present and the individuals living in it. There’s no collective movement forward towards great social goals, just the continuous focus on individual self-fulfilment. The classroom is not there to shape social…/5 https://t.co/oz3EojJKws

…behaviour differently using knowledge accumulated over generations. We’re all stuck in eternal recess and lunchtime. Expertise is sidelined, in favour of popularity-based politics. The playground. These aren’t analogies, again our societies now take their social and…/6 https://t.co/8EILRld4iT

…cultural models FROM schooling. It’s all we know, because populism decoupled adult institutions from adult life. Look around your entire life and watch the law of the playground shaping everything. You can’t unsee it, once that frame kicks in. /end https://t.co/RCglqdvTsC