Dear Friends,
It seems to me, a nation, culture and society go off the rails by the politicization of it’s education system. Education is a means to bring children into adulthood, in learning, understanding, instills civilization and gives a stake in society. If any one of these elements are left out, the education system is in fact a system for economic, social, cultural, national and indeed civilizational destruction. We are all born with a blank slate. We have only the ability to clutch and suckle, everything else we have learned. So, if someone isn’t taught something, they do not know it. If our education system leaves out critical elements of education, graduates will not know what they have not been taught, and therefore will be at a disadvantage to past generations, the home and the privately schooled.
A civilization rises and falls with it’s “Societal Myth,” as Georges Sorel put it. As long as a people maintain a close association with the societal myth that created that civilization… it will prosper. When that people have grown too cynical to believe in such nonsense, their fortunes will fail as does the civilization they inherited… and destroyed. Sorel used ancient Rome… As long as Rome adhered to it’s societal myth, it flourished, expanded without starting wars, grew in prestige, and went from a backwater city state to an empire the like of which the world had never known. Once it’s people abandoned their societal myth, their fortunes sank, until the last vestige of that once great empire, Constantinople, was destroyed by Mehmed’s army… the survivors raped and enslaved, even the nuns.
The US education system has been an indoctrination mechanism since John Dewey’s innovations. He stressed, molding children to fit society, instead of teaching them how to think, and therefore mold society. This is because he, as do most progressives, do not trust people to come to the “right” conclusions. So they use the power of government, to force parents to send their children to a government monopoly school system, indoctrinating them into the State’s subjective morality, whatever flavor that is this year. Then they are turned out, unable to think for themselves, and captured by several pernicious and self destructive ideas, into an unforgiving world where they most likely will be chewed up and spit out. Leaving them angry and nihilistic… the perfect recipe for mass shooters.
That is what Western education systems do today. What they should do is focus on teaching students to think for themselves, be strong in the face of absurdity, rather than parrot a lie that the elite find comforting, be able to continue learning after they graduate, and apply that learning. Parents must be involved in children’s education. The progressive will argue that some parents are too lazy, stupid or ignorant to have any positive impact on their children’s education, and because of that, all children must be forcefully indoctrinated into the State’s amorality. Which is saying… everyone should be treated like the bad apple. This is the way a toddler thinks, because they haven’t learned the subtleties of life yet. Education must foster understanding… not be political indoctrination.
Our education system leaves out our universal stake in society. All students must be taught they have a stake in society. That they are not is a condemnation of our entire education system. In 1900 when asked why Americans don’t want to harm the rich, The progressive economist Veblen replied, “Because every American thinks he can get rich.” That mindset was based on obvious class mobility, understanding the nature of life, individualism, a fundamental self reliance that comes of true learning and everyone having a stake in society. Dewy fixed all that. Today, graduates are sheep who don’t think they have a stake in the outcome, nihilistic, atheistic, without hope and panicked about a hoax crisis… while ignorant of real danger. Education is indeed where civilizations go off the rails.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
