A Modest Proposal for the Abolition of High School

It has become fashionable to insist that young people remain in school until graduation, acquiring literacy, mathematics, scientific reasoning, historical perspective, and other burdens that interfere with the efficient pursuit of ignorance.

This obsession with education has gone on long enough.

I therefore propose that students withdraw immediately upon discovering long division, thereby avoiding years of unnecessary exposure to chemistry, literature, civics, and other dangerous subjects that encourage independent thought.

The benefits are obvious.

First, one saves four years of homework, permitting vastly greater investments in scrolling through short videos and arguing confidently about subjects one has never studied.

Second, employers are relieved of the inconvenience of interviewing applicants burdened with diplomas and technical skills. Nothing simplifies hiring like a résumé containing only the phrase, “Left to pursue my own truth.”

Third, governments may finally retire all standardized tests, as every citizen will already possess the same qualification: profound certainty accompanied by limited evidence.

Universities, of course, will become museums dedicated to obsolete practices such as reading books longer than two pages and changing one’s mind after encountering new information.

The economy will flourish.

Who needs engineers when bridges possess tremendous self-esteem?

Who needs electricians when electricity has managed itself for millions of years?

Who needs nurses when illnesses ought to respect personal freedom?

Who needs accountants when numbers are clearly elitist?

Our national debates will improve beyond measure. Citizens, no longer distracted by facts, will speak with magnificent confidence about medicine, economics, astronomy, constitutional law, and particle physics after watching approximately forty-seven seconds of commentary online.

Experts will become unnecessary.

Evidence will become optional.

Opinions will become renewable energy.

Parents, too, shall rejoice.

Gone are the exhausting questions concerning homework, college applications, and career planning.

Instead, family discussions may focus entirely upon whose algorithm has revealed the greater truth.

Some critics argue that education increases lifetime earnings, improves health outcomes, expands employment opportunities, and strengthens civic participation.

Such objections miss the point entirely.

The purpose of this proposal is not prosperity.

It is convenience.

For what could be more convenient than never discovering the limits of one’s own knowledge?

Indeed, I foresee a glorious society in which every citizen is simultaneously an economist, physician, historian, engineer, philosopher, and geopolitical strategist, all without the inconvenience of formal study.

Only one unfortunate consequence remains.

Should an occasional bridge collapse, medical error occur, aircraft malfunction, or financial system fail, we shall naturally blame the schools — for having once suggested that education mattered in the first place.

I therefore commend this proposal to all who believe that the quickest route to wisdom is avoiding the difficult work of acquiring it.

For if ignorance is truly bliss, then dropping out before graduation must surely be the highest form of happiness.