2.1 Education: Introduction & Understanding the Problem

Towards Voluntaryism (Part 4)

As discussed extensively in my series treating the social justice movement, I contend that the educational establishment is actively undermining critical thinking skills, promoting societal disintegration and infantilizing the individual. For arguments supporting this position, please see my posts (18-27) treating social justice in education.

The rigorously rationalist and ideally objectivist approach to education, science and a factual world has been almost entirely abandoned in favor of overt social engineering via the education/indoctrination system, particularly at left-leaning institutions of higher education and is in full swing in primary and secondary education as well.

For a brief and succinct summary of this issue, please view this brief interview with Jordan Peterson:

This is not to say that certain socially integrative and harmonious ideas should not be taught to children or students, indeed, it is most certainly desirable for children and young adults to learn certain moral or ethical values along with facts and critical thinking skills that are conducive to future success in the culture or society within which they live.

Using the educational establishment and its captive audience as yet incapable of critical thinking to promote the political, social and cultural view that human subjugation is a necessary good, as is currently the case, is however deeply troubling.

Education as Linchpin and Cornerstone of Transformation

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Any attempt to counter the increasing long-term trend towards emotional decision-making as grounds for public policy must by necessity begin in the education system. The vast majority of the population sends their children to public schools whose express intent is to create viable units of economic production and not people who will question the world around them.

By doing so, most parents have essentially relinquished any personal responsibility for the content of their children's education. They have also, largely unknowingly, committed their children to participate in an institution that wants to and will significantly influence their social, cultural and political values. Parents' trust in the system has unquestioningly been abused.

Today, with many institutions having over 90% of faculty self-identifying on the "left" side of the left-right political system of mutual and self-induced subjugation and exploitation, this is a concerning trend. The most recent survey here shows that "elite" universities are among those most prone to "leftist" bias, which is hardly believable considering the insanity taking place on state college campuses.

The reasons for this are myriad and best detailed elsewhere, suffice it to say that this trend must be reversed. It is not in the interests of any population for its children to be "educated" by a system that relies on their unquestioning servitude to maintain itself.

Here an excellent abridged interview with Charlotte Iserbyt, qeued to relevant passage. It is however worth watching in its entirety:

This is not to say that educators are consciously working to maintain the compliance of the citizenry. They are however trained to perform within a system whose ultimate goal is not to enable critical thought but to manufacture compliant economically productive units that can be tasked by industry and taxed by government.

Unfortunately, very few educators have ever reflected on the reality of the educational system versus its idealized abstract they believe they are serving. Those that have either resign themselves to doing the best they can despite the system (I am here), become apathetic and collect their salary while going through the motions, or they quit entirely.

As John Gatto remarks:

"The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions. Although teachers do care and do work very hard, the institution is psychopathic – it has no conscience."

This overriding goal currently dictates the structure of the educational system as a whole and, as a result, places its emphasis not on education, but on the provision of just enough learning to train (or perhaps entrain ) the organism to comply with the system and serve an economic function. This channeling via institutional structure, or 'channeling structure' is both the linchpin and the cornerstone of contemporary education designed to "educate" and entrain obedience in as many people as possible at the same time and to provide economically viable forms of labor that support the current system.

I believe any impartial evaluation of the educational establishment will confirm it is NOT interested in creating thinking, reasoning adults capable of improving - i.e. challenging - the status quo and, particularly since the advent of mandatory public education, it never has been.

Consider for example Noam Chomsky's short elucidation of how Education Is a System of Indoctrination of the Young.

Also enjoy George Carlin's Why Education Sucks - pay attention at 1:50...and yes, I have posted this previously in another context, but its relevance cannot be overstated.

Remarkably, even those that fail to contribute economically are instrumentalized by the system to support the current paradigm. Their existence is repurposed and they are relegated to the status of permanent dependence. This in turn provides the (emotional) leverage and voting block necessary to to maintain and expand the current system of indoctrination and indentured servitude until the next generation can enter the schools...

Next: Towards Voluntaryism 5 - Education: Subversion of the Educational Establishment
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Further reading: Structurally speaking, the education system is still based on the Prussian model of the early industrial revolution. Watch this video for an excellent discussion of the challenges faced by the current education system and its historical genesis:

RSA Animate's: Changing Education Paradigms

In the United States specifically, John Gatto has contributed substantially to this conversation and his works as a whole are much to be recommended. Recently (and subsequent to the formulation of much of this series) Michael Krieger at Liberty Blitzkrieg addressed this very issue in his three part series It's Time to Rethink Education.

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