There is a sentence that has long bothered me. It is treated as a piece of universal wisdom that humans gain with experience, and surely every member of a modern, industrial society has heard it in some form. Whether spoken by a close friend or complete stranger, its utterance usually comes with a sly grin that invites the listener to reconsider a fundamental belief. Here it is: That’s not how the real world works.
That dirty, little sentence slithers into conversations meant to turn a person’s perception of reality upside down. We hear it when we question why people who commit the same criminal offenses are often punished differently. We hear it when we question why less qualified people are admitted to schools or offered jobs to other applicants’ detriment. We hear it when we question why certain businesses always seem to get government contracts, even when they routinely overcharge and underperform. We learn that laws, merit, moral character, and hard work exist alongside nepotism, prejudice, favoritism, corruption, and other invisible factors that magnify or hinder individual opportunity.
What’s particularly strange about this lesson is that most of us do not learn it firsthand until we have neared the end of our teenaged years. For those who have been fortunate enough to grow up in good families with loving parents committed to moral principles, it can be jarring to step into the “real world” to discover a society awash with malign influences and untruths.
An eighteen-year-old who joins the military is inclined to believe that the government would never recklessly endanger servicemembers’ lives; military life, however, quickly teaches that reckless endangerment is a large part of the job. A twenty-two-year-old who joins a company is inclined to believe that the best employees will earn promotions; work life, however, quickly teaches that professional advancement is not always fair. A young person who has never held a job is inclined to believe that taxpayers should “pay their fair share”; a new hire who sees a third or more of his paycheck deducted for a litany of government programs has a much different perspective.
It takes most of us two decades to grasp that a great deal of what we have been told about life is different in the “real world.” That’s an awful waste of adolescence, isn’t it? Can you imagine an ancient tribe teaching its youngest members the wrong ways to track and hunt prey only to reveal much-needed survival skills after two decades of life? Of course not. Only in modern, industrial societies does it somehow make sense to disguise the “real world” from the youngest generation until its members stumble into adulthood. Then we shake our heads in dismay and wonder why so many young adults are stumbling.
However, there is something far more nefarious about these abrupt “real world” lessons: they reveal that much of society is based on deception. In the West, young people are taught that their societies embrace free markets, free speech, and democratic forms of government. In the “real world,” central banks distort currency values and manipulate markets, while regulatory burdens make it difficult for regular people to own and operate independent businesses. In the “real world,” governments censor speech that challenges official policy, and prominent public figures, such as Hillary Clinton, openly call for the imprisonment of citizens who express unapproved points of view. In the “real world,” unelected bureaucrats and espionage agencies manage most domestic and foreign policies with scant interest in the opinions of the national populations they purportedly represent. Young Westerners are taught that bigger and more oppressive forms of government will make them “free.” Only later in life do some discover that State-controlled economies and institutional policing of speech achieve the exact opposite.
What would be so bad about teaching children how the real world works? Shouldn’t they be told from an early age that governments are the greatest threats to their lives and liberties?
After all, government agents decide what they can and cannot do, what kinds of property they may and may not possess, and how much of their future earnings they must hand over to the State. Government agents decide whether they are “extremists” who should be kept under surveillance, whether their private communications will be intercepted, and whether their doors will be kicked down in the middle of the night. Government agents decide which religious practices, civil rights, and forms of speech will be safeguarded and which will be criminalized. Government agents decide which groups of people will be protected and which groups will be prosecuted. Government agents decide when borders will be kept secure. Government agents decide when to mandate experimental pharmaceutical injections. Government agents decide what levels of toxicity in food and water supplies are acceptable. Government agents decide when to send the youngest generations off to fight in foreign wars.
To prepare children for the “real world,” we should teach them that governments are not cuddly stuffed animals that hand out free hugs; they are the monsters in the dark that unleash real-life nightmares.
