[mschuster91]

For those who ask us Germans why we're so adamantly opposed to homeschooling and why we have mandatory medical checkups for children/infants ("Vorsorgeuntersuchungen"): this is why.

Having kids end up immersed in cults and brainwashed is a real risk, and the costs that society has to bear once these kids "wake up" is immense. Not to mention kids ending up totally uneducated and unfit for adult life due to plainly incompetent parents and the follow-up costs of that.

[geowwy]

Compulsary education in Germany goes back to the days of Prussia. It was mostly about nation-building and replacing regional identities with a common national identity.

[kian]

Having kids brainwashed and immersed in state-level cults is also a real risk, and the costs that society, and other societies, have to bear (even before these kids "wake up") is something I believe every civilization is familiar with after the twentieth century (particularly Germany...), and far outstrips practically every cost ever borne by modern societies up until that point due to cults and homeschooling.

[philwelch]

Assuming that the government itself doesn’t get taken over by a cult, as has happened in some countries.

[mschuster91]

Yeah but not even Scientology managed to do this in the US...

[philwelch]

If you interpret “cult” slightly less literally, I’m sure you can think of some fairly vivid examples of cults that have seized control of the governments of even developed countries, and used that power to indoctrinate children via the official school system. In a situation like that, some homeschooling might have even been beneficial, compared to the alternative.

[hycaria]

What's on the back of your mind exactly ? Why the shroud of mystery ?

[philwelch]

For instance, it isn’t hard to think of the Khmer Rouge or the fascist movements as political cults.

[mschuster91]

I would not make it so easy for the fascists to excuse them as cults. Fascists all know what they want (exterminating everybody not deemed worthy for their race), and they all owed their success to "conservatives" who would rather support them in their mission than to give up privileges.

[mschuster91]

Possibly Islam with the shit that goes on in Saudi-Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries, but heh these countries are majority Muslim anyway so homeschooling would not fix the issue either.