Who Wrote These Words?

Erasmo Calzadilla

Reading the “masterpiece” of someone very much talked about these days, I found some evocative passages on education and sports that I liked and wanted to share.

I wish to propose that our readers try to discover who the author is.  Only I’ll speed things up by revealing that this person was born in the month of June, is still living and isn’t Cuban.  In three days I’ll put the answer in a comment if no one guesses correctly.

Here are some of his/her comments on teaching:

“Mandatory education…  is one of the methods of oppression and the deprivation of freedom…  (it) impedes free choice, response and self-improvement.  To force human beings to learn an educational program is nothing other than a dictatorial action.

All governments that conduct teaching programs through an official method that forces their learning on people and determines what subjects to teach… are exercising coercion against their citizens.”

All the dominant teaching methods in the world should be destroyed through a cultural and universal revolution that liberates the mind from fanaticism…

That doesn’t mean closing the doors to schools, as it might seem to some superficial individuals who read this.  Nor does it imply that people should distance themselves from learning.  It’s just the opposite since it implies providing society with all types of teaching, leaving to one the free choice of spontaneous orientation towards certain knowledge.

… those societies that prohibit the knowledge of religion are reactionary, fanatics of ignorance and enemies of freedom.  Societies that monopolize religious teaching are no less reactionary…”

And on sports this person wrote:

“It would not be reasonable for society to allow an individual or team to monopolize sports without the participation of society itself while that same society supports the expenses of such a monopoly to the benefit of an individual or a team.  This is exactly the same as — democratically — a people cannot allow an individual or group (be it a party, class, community, tribe or council) to decide its own destiny…

… the stands of the sport fields will be empty and they’ll have to disappear the day the masses march onto the sports fields and participate in sports collectively, the day they become conscious that sports is a public activity, that it’s necessary to exercise, not contemplate.”

So who is this author?  Put your response in a comment to this post, if you want.