Abstract
Following earlier controversies concerning the administration of the police force, the electoral act, and the right to demonstrate, the Queensland Government has recently thrown the education establishment into turmoil by its decision to ban the much-discussed SEMP and MACOS programs. Core features of the anti-SEMP/MACOS arguments are shown to be the presumed supremacy of faith and instinct over reason, and a doctrine of inequality.
It is contended that the arguments of both the anti-SEMP/MACOS forces (Section III) and the pro-SEMP/MACOS forces (Section IV) are gravely deficient, the former because of their inclination to unreasoned dogmatism, and the latter because they typically remain on a superficial level at the expense of clear appreciation of underlying metaphysical issues. The context for a consideration of the general relationship between society and the school system is set by offering some comparative points regarding Dewey and Plato.