Alec, your question: “what has schooling (or our current social paradigm) contributed to humanity as a whole? I dislike using the term “the greater good,” but it is applicable here” is anthropocentric as it excludes the devastation of the biodiverse communities of life and focuses on the “greater good” for humans (even if you dislike the term). It would help you to explore deeper why is it that you feel uncomfortable with this term, as you might be agreeing with me more than you suspect. I explore this point and various possibilities and socio-economic paradigms in my dissertation “Order and the Literary Rendering of Chaos”, which is available in PDF on my homepage and that is getting published by Routledge.

As to your other concern regarding the necessity of presenting different and contradictory stances, I agree with you, but, please, keep in mind that this is only the second essay in a trilogy, and the three essays comprise a book that is coming out with Fernwood Publishing end of this year under the title: “Wild Children – Domesticated Dreams: Civilization and the Birth of Education”. For the time being, you can read “On Objects, Love, and Objectifications”, which is the first essay in this trilogy. In addition, my work entitled: “Genealogies of Wilderness and Domestication” also explore the different possibilities of forging meaningful relationships and providing happy childhoods, parenthoods, and other cultural practices and experiences that are enhancing of the “greater good” for life, which necessarily means encompassing other species in our epistemological construct of “personhood”.