1 Rough Equality, Rougher Inequalities, and the 'Jostlings of ...

truth. For me, Wollstonecraft's debt to the Symposium shines most clearly through herLetters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Thiscourageous autobiographical reflection on her struggle to move past her unrequited lovefor Imlay was a record of her psychological return to a "single life with dignity".Wollstonecraft thought we ought to strive to transcend the rougher inequalities in love.For her, we climb Diotima's philosophical ladder to rise to the level of the sea of beauty,not to reject love itself, but rather to comprehend the beauty of the knowledge gained bythe rougher struggles of loving.For Wollstonecraft, our modern Diotima, this ladder climb to self-knowledgebegins with the "jostlings of equality," the rough-and-tumble play which we experienceon the horizontal playing fields and equal starting lines of primary education. In herpractical philosophy of education, Wollstonecraft's moral perfectionism meets herpolitical egalitarianism. She envisioned universal primary education as operatingaccording to three core moral principles that would together undermine the rougherinequalities by instilling an egalitarian ethic of mutual respect among children. Theseprinciples are universalistic holism, dutiful individualism, and, most vitally,psychological optimism in the human capability for positive development. Applied inconcert in a "national system" of free, mandatory, public, coeducational, primary dayschools, these three principles would enable children to eschew the damaging genderstereotypes that their culture had afforded them.Her universalistic holism entailed an education that developed, rather than"stunted," the potential of the "body, heart, and understanding." By playing togetherduring hourly recess in the grounds surrounding the school, girls and boys would learn to9