An Appearance of Conformity

For all the gloom and doom about western liberties being decimated by a wave of totalitarian propaganda and law, we're in fact quite free to do whatever we please. The reason for this is the lack of conviction at the side of the totalitarians. Our top politicians may well be a bunch of psychopathic control freaks, but the average corporate drone is not. Most people operate instinctively according to the golden rule. They're also more influenced by appearance than substance. Hence, we can get away with a lot if we do things politely and with an appearance of conformity. We don't have to ask for permission. We can do what we like. If we're caught breaking a rule, we ask politely for forgiveness. It works like a charm just about always.

This insight has implications for all sorts of things, including home improvements and tax returns. It's also something to keep in mind when shopping for home schooling resources. We don't have to use resources as intended. We don't have to ask for permission to do things our own way. We can simply do what we please with what's available. If someone objects, we can always come up with some lame excuse wrapped in layers of politeness and humbleness.

My wife and I visited a small private school a week ago with the intention to find some official program with a good fit to what we would like for our son. We got a good first impression, but it's not an exact match, and it's a little expensive. After thinking about it for a week, we've come to the conclusion that we might as well let our son remain in his current school, and simply do whatever we like to do in that context. In fact, we could put him in a public school, and still do a lot of what we'd like to do. But public schools are more prone to fascism than private schools. They are also more saddled with bullying and a general bad atmosphere among students, so we'll stick with his current private school.

The idea is to keep our son at home a day or two every week to let him freely explore his interests. We know from experience that he doesn't need to be at school every day to keep track of the academic side of his education, and we also know that he has special talents in a wide range of disciplines not taught at schools. He's quite autonomous, and learns a lot from researching things on the web. The days spent at home will not be wasted, and our son will grow up with a sense of autonomy and mastery that will serve him well in life.

The trick is to do this without causing a stir among the teachers, and our strategy will be one of ambiguity. We'll let it shine through that we're purposely keeping our son at home to explore his own interest. But we'll never insist on the school accepting this. There will be no demand on our side, and their response will hopefully be one of tacit acceptance. If there's initial reluctance to what we're doing, we'll face it in slowly. If there's strong resistance, we'll scramble our son's schedule to make it look random and accidental.

As the resistance fades, we'll be more open about what we're doing. We may even bring it up at occasions if we come across practical hurdles that the school can help us overcome. Again, there will be no direct insistence on anything. Everything will be based on whatever tacit understanding that evolves over time.

To our advantage, we live in a country where this way of doing things has been the normal mode of operation ever since before the Romans. This is the Portuguese way, embedded in their collective psyche, and therefore likely to work just fine as we move forward into whatever dystopian horror show the political elite has in store for us.

An appearance of conformity