Sarah Fitz-Claridge

Take ideas seriously, not thoughts.

The classroom is a distraction from technology. Brief preview of the next episode of ToKCast, with guest Liberty Fitz-Claridge where we discuss the value of voluntary ignorance.

“When we realize what it is for us to dare, for our own pleasure, even with solemnest purpose of the holiest of pleasures, parenthood, to bring into existence a soul, which must take for our sake its chance of joy or sorrow, how monstrous it seems to assume that the fact that we…

The video reminds me of how flabbergasted a visiting Russian teenager was when (in 1991?) I first took him to our local supermarket. He accused me of having brought him to a “rich person’s shop” and demanded to see a “poor person’s shop”. So I took him to a chain known for rock…

SaharTV: “What do you want to do with the atomic bomb?” IRGC soldier: “Put in Israel.” SaharTV: “That is exactly why Israel attacked Iran[’s] nuclear facilities.” IRGC soldier: “The biggest leader of Europe I love with all my heart was Adolf Hitler. [He was] The only good…

My hero, Alex Lifeson, arguing for taking children seriously in 1973! It is a dim view of humanity that parents know what’s best for their children, as if children do not possess an extraordinary range of possibilities and potentials, including the very normal.

In a chapter titled “Taking Coercion Seriously” in his book, Freedom in Chains, 1999, James Bovard says that the preface of any new political philosophy book should state whether the writer idealises government (and its coercion) or not. Similarly, in Kiss Me, 2020, Carlos…

“Reason depends for its clearness and strength upon the cultivation of knowledge. The extent of our progress in the cultivation of knowledge is unlimited. Hence it follows, 1. That human inventions, and the modes of social existence, are susceptible of perpetual improvement. 2.…

Note to self: TV and movies now deemed “good” just like books. Keep up! What parents now Haidt is anything children do themselves free of the micro-managing monitoring of their parents. Code word: “dopamine”.

Actually, you are mistaken: school has never been compulsory in Britain. But despite my absolute opposition to compulsory schooling, I can imagine that there may have been some societies in the past in which that institution could have amounted to an improvement over whatever…

When you want something for your children that is independent of and impervious to their own wishes for their own lives, you are likely to be propelling them into your vision for them, coercing them along your path for them. This is easy to see when the agenda the parents have…

“What are YOUR suggestions for dealing with her disobeying, back-talking, and outright refusal to cooperate with my requests?” Divorce. Unfortunately, she is not an adult, so she is at your mercy. But perhaps you might have a change of heart about what you are doing. You might…

Chaos—or unpredictability—is inevitable when welcoming a new person into the household, whether a partner or a child. Attempting to suppress this unpredictability amounts to trying to control others. Instead one can learn to live with it, for instance by sharing one’s boundaries.

Some parents treat children like an open notebook—always ready and passively waiting for the next lesson to be written in it.📖 But children are not like that. They have their own brightly shining ever-evolving problem-situation—their concerns, interests, wishes problems and…

“Phones are addictive! Children should not have unlimited phone use. In my family it’s a privilege they earn not a right.” No wonder so many adults suffer the misery of addiction, self-coercion, and the feeling that they need to soothe their pain with treats that must be…

If children should grow up in the real world, free them from school, don’t take away their phones. In the real world outside school everyone uses a phone every day.