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Chapter II – Education

A Voice from the 21^st Century

By, Timothy Bowling

Chapter II – Education

- The Value of Education -

A good education has been historically a rare and precious commodity.  The history of education and how we got to the way things are today would be a volume in itself. Here instead, let’s consider some of its benefits – both practical, tangible aspects and the more obscure ones that lead to a richer life.

There was an expression on the basic subjects that should be learned - the three R’s. This, of course, was referring to Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. The fact that only one of them actually begins with R is not important, as it is merely a play on the pronunciation of a more provincial idiom. Literacy and basic math are the core of learning on which all others are built. With the ability to communicate with anyone, anywhere using the written word we can learn any other subject. Mathematics becomes important in daily economic pursuits, inventory of material, and is the basis for advanced skills from architecture to rocket science. If these two are not grasped, education becomes impossible.

In short, the advantage of these basic matters is a practical one. From it greater things are possible and daily tasks from counting your chickens to doing the marketing become feasible. There is a less tangible benefit to consider as well. An individual able to count their coins and read the signs is a person less likely to be taken advantage of. This aspect will become more important as we develop this idea.

In non-specialized education we add some subjects built on this core. There can be any mixture of history, social science, a variety of the other sciences, advanced mathematics (geometry, algebra, trigonometry), music, art, foreign languages, literature, psychology and – not to ignore the body - physical exercise. Each one has its worth and benefits. They help us in understanding the world around us, how things came to be the way they are, learn from the experiences of the past what works and what does not, how to effectively communicate in a variety of ways, to learn how others have communicated their thoughts or to understand the mechanisms of the physical world. An area of particular interest to an individual can be studied in more depth, allowing specialization in a chosen field.

The more an individual knows the less chance someone who presents themselves as an authority can take advantage of them. In our previous example of the simple shopper and his coin purse it is more obvious how this can be so. In these higher examples experimentation and familiarity with various subjects including the references to written knowledge available allow for an individual to recognize when someone is making an incorrect statement and question their motives for doing so.

In Europe’s Feudal period we had a whole stratum of society that was illiterate and uneducated. They had to trust what the priests told them for social order and the preservation in the life to come. Such people are unlikely to question when authority dictates, and would have been discouraged to do so anyway.

Even today we can see this in our own experience. In our legal system the laws have become so copious and convoluted that the unskilled are completely out of their element when confronted with it, either as an accused or as the constitutionally mandated juror. For this reason lawyers, judges and other legal aficionados are at an advantage when wielding our system of jurisprudence as a weapon. In our own time the juror has been relegated to a rubber stamp since judges can dictate what evidence they may and may not consider, and the basis of the law is the only consideration they can base their decision on. The fact that juries were conceived of to guard against royal caprice and judicial tyranny is not taught in government sponsored schools, as one might suspect, since government is largely overseen by judges and lawyers. It is the judges who must adhere and decide on the basis of established law, the jury is free to acquit and style='mso-bidi-font-style: normal'>has a duty to do so, if they find a law tyrannical or arbitrary.

A more descriptive goal of education, therefore, is to learn how to think. How individuals think, especially collectively, form what society is and gives us the point of view and context of a people that we discussed in chapter one. This ability to think is gained through learning how to reason and by introduction of the ideas of others to use as examples of how others thought.

This then becomes a very important matter. A great trust is being placed in an educator with this matter of such great repercussions. If an individual is taught to think for themselves and feel comfortable with a variety of new possibilities and ideas, they become much harder to control. In theory then, the perfect tonic against tyranny would be a good education. It is harder to take advantage of a population accustomed to thinking for themselves.

 

- Education as a Tool -

 

There is a nefarious side to this coin, however. Education can also be used as a tool to indoctrinate people, especially youth, into thinking along the lines that are advantageous to established or aspiring elements of political power. This sad state of affairs has been used to great effectiveness. In China, Maoist indoctrination of Chinese youth in the Cultural Revolution allowing Mao Zedong to get around his party with young Red Guards fiercely loyal to him. In Nazi Germany there was the Hitlerjungend which indoctrinated a generation of chosen candidates into Nazi philosophy and trained them for future military action. In Franco’s Spain there were the Pelayos, in fascist Italy the Balilla and the list can go on.

It is easy to see how totalitarian governments and philosophies would find it effective to indoctrinate an up and coming generation, and a democracy or republic with the best intentions would want a population with questioning and scrupulous minds. The education of youth is used to instill the values and beliefs, directly or indirectly, of the people or societies educating them. This is a good and proper use for it, but in the wrong hands can lead to a great deal of heartache.

In a parochial school or the madrassahs of the Islamic world, these values are spelled out by religious dogma. This can influence how all subjects are presented and how they are received by the students. Since the education of children has traditionally been the bailiwick of their parents, the desired effect of instilling the values of the parents is thus achieved in their progeny, since it is assumed the parents are the ones who worked to have that particular form of education provided.

In secular schools the theory goes that education will be provided in a neutral environment concerning religion. However the values of the parents are still handed down to the children in the form of cultural identity, history, citizenship and social taboo. This also assumes that the parents are involved in the choosing of the curriculum to ensure what subjects are taught and how they are presented.

From the previous examples it can be seen what a profound effect on society the education received can have – especially the education of children. The type of education, and more importantly who is doing the educating, becomes a matter of great consequence. It is a dangerous situation indeed to an open mind and a healthy republic to hand this awesome responsibility to the State. Power, by its very nature seeks to wax stronger, and the easiest way to do this is to teach the youth that it is legitimate and beneficial for it to do so. If state sponsored education becomes so firmly entrenched in a society that no one questions that it should be trusted with the educating and the parents become lulled into a state of apathy believing that the state is doing it well or is the only one who can effectively accomplish it, this sets the stage for a very perilous situation to any democracy.

Corruptive powers, agendas and influences can then work their way into this system and socially engineer a generation to accept conditions and beliefs that the parents would never approve of. Since the trusting parents, possibly state educated themselves, are no longer serving as the watchdog on educational content and method, these forces are thus able to work unimpeded except by opposing influences with similar intent. It is even possible that these forces can work in alliance in order to maintain this status quo of exceptional power which can’t help but be realized given enough time.

Consider for a moment the present situation. In order to teach in a public school, an educator must join a national union of teachers, even though government employees, that not only educate but maintain the subject matter to be taught and the methods used to teach them. Can we believe then as one example, that these teachers are capable of giving unbiased views on unions as a political entity in society or in history? Only the most naïve would think so. Add to this mix the billions in government dollars at stake for the union that controls this public educational system and we have an environment ripe for corruption.

Understanding the stage, we then can return to purveyors of social causes, agendas, political ideologies and opinions that can interpose themselves into a capacious national and bureaucratic public school system. From this position they can work what changes they will and continue as long as it is remembered it must be done at glacial speeds with a great deal of subtlety – taking the sage advise of the Emperor Augustus “ festina lente”. Change brought too quickly alerts those who do not want those changes, which needs to be avoided for more radical ideologies. People also instinctively avoid rapid changes and even resist them. Decisions and changes made in haste often lead to error as they are typically the result of emotional reaction and not tested by the great judge of time.

It is not here implied or to be wished that this engineering be presented as entirely a negative thing. Good social change can and has occurred in this author’s lifetime. A fine example was the highly demeaning practice of segregation between people of different skin colors. A vestige of an age where such differences constituted position in society, whether it was the abominable practice of slavery or the relegation of certain races to strictly defined strata of society and all the benefits or hindrances that can entail.

For every success story, unfortunately, there must inevitably be some that are unavailing to the public weal. Influences exist that are not as beneficial and are able to take advantage of the position of a system ready for corruption. With motivations of their own, they have heavily and successfully influenced a generation or two in their particular cause. It is human nature when flushed with successes to boldly move to greater accomplishment of goals with increasing speed and élan, forgetting the point that change must be introduced slowly as previously stated. This is especially true for a people who have become accustomed to the instant reward of needs and desires, from movies on demand to chicken pot pie in five minutes. With patience to see goals accomplished virtually non-existent, those who would influence, impetuously tip their hand.

And so we come to today. A public educational system, funded by everyone at rates of taxation never seen before, but abysmally failing by any standard of testing of educational progress on even the core subjects of literacy and mathematics, all because of special interests that prefer to dwell on their own subjects of concern. Added to this is apathy developed amongst parents to see what their children are learning and how they are learning it. We will return to this apathy in a later chapter on family, because there is more going on here then just the naïve trusting of parents in the public school system. Often the parents, style='mso-bidi-font-style: normal'>or parent, of the children are too busy with issues of their own which will be elaborated on later.

Finally we have a public becoming aware that something is wrong and looking for alternatives. As with most problems, the solutions being considered are for more money and resources, but a total unwillingness to even consider the possibility that the problem is systemic.

 

- Education by Non-Traditional Influences -

 

We have reviewed what traditional education can do and how it can be used both benignly and detrimentally. However, more than any age that precedes us, we have more tools to educate (or proselytize, if viewed cynically) populations both in their childhood years and beyond them. There are traditional forms that allow for educational development, like libraries, books and museums, whose numbers have certainly increased from earlier times. However it would be remiss not to mention tools unique to the previous century, now so ubiquitous and universally available, that have had profound influences on how and what people think.

Probably the greatest of these tools has been the television. Originally a clever device of the elite that pumped in vaudeville type comedy and quiz shows, it quickly became the center of most living rooms. Television evolved from a few channels of banal offerings to the major source of news, entertainment and social commentary on hundreds of channels made available by cable or satellite. This powerful tool allowed people to speak to millions simultaneously, or for events of historical import to be viewed live from every house in the nation. From minor curiosity to standard appliance, the television has changed the social landscape more swiftly and radically than anything that came before. Even radio, which came earlier and was widely listened to, could not compete with the hypnotic fascination of moving images that entire generations embraced.

Who can forget the images permanently etched into our collective consciousness of the horse drawn carriage carrying the flag draped coffin of President Kennedy or of Neil Armstrong as he first stepped onto the moon? Who can truly fathom the impact of watching live in the comfort of home the race riots, wars, bombings and assassinations in slow motion replays that have plagued the world since the television was there to serve as both witness and reporter?

No tyrant could ask for a more effective tool to control what their people see, and a clever manipulator could play the emotions of a population like a virtuoso. Television has certainly been used to this purpose, where channels of television in many parts of the world are routinely owned by government agencies. Even in nations where the stations are owned by corporate entities, publicly funded stations can still be found and the frequencies from which the corporate stations broadcast are licensed by their governments.

There are practical reasons for having things as they are. It keeps two competing companies from broadcasting on the same frequency in the same location. It is also used to keep things that would be patently offensive to society, or segments of it, or from being presented with obscenity. And therein lays the rub.

Censorship has become a word that we all fear, however it is something that we all do every day. Our minds routinely filter what input it views as irrelevant or unpleasant, making a self protecting mechanism or we would be quickly overwhelmed. It also allows us to censor ourselves so that we do not act or say in public what would quickly give us the status of pariah or be in conflict with the image of ourselves we wish to project. We get the word from the title of an ancient Roman official whose responsibility, among other things, was public morals and behavior.  

Institutional censorship becomes a bit precarious, however. What is deemed offensive in one area of the country with localized traditions and religions may not be so in other locales equally divergent. What is obscene for one generation can be totally acceptable to another. Giving censorial power to any entity or government is a sharp sword that must be used with a great deal of care. Any power is open to corruption and must be safeguarded to ensure that it remains steadfast to the public good. It can also be easily hijacked by vocal, loud and opinionated minorities who can hold ideas hostage by simply pronouncing them unfit and offensive.

 

- Entertainment as Education -

 

If education is learning how to think, then entertainment has been a powerful teacher. The same influence held by public censors can be accomplished by the companies that produce the content. Issues important to them can be subtly, and not so subtly, interjected into entertainment and watched by people who would normally reject the principle or issue if presented outright. Issues and sources need only be implied, since the entertainment can quickly be defended as merely fiction, and that any resemblance to persons living or dead is not implied.

In a free market, many stations exerting this influence over many companies and people would generally balance out the most extreme messages, but as these companies have merged into larger conglomerates, we have a position of a few power brokers having a great deal of influence over what a society sees and hears. Without knowing who these people are or what they think, it is imperative for a free society to question what they see and practice discernment.

Such power is not to be underestimated. The names of people who routinely perform for the entertainment of millions can become household words. Their opinions and endorsements are given weight in fields having nothing to do with their profession as entertainer. They are rewarded handsomely with millions of dollars and given the status of celebrity previously known only to royalty.

News agencies can present history and current events as they happen with whatever political or opinionated bent they please. Because it is received so universally it can be universally accepted as fact with few questions when accompanied with a proper air of authority, credential or repetition. News anchors whose faces become as familiar, and therefore trusted, as any member of one’s own family or circle of friends can’t help but increase this influence.

There is even an industry whose sole purpose it is to influence in the form of advertising. Images and sounds must be combined to sell products and ideas in ways that will capture attention, impact the soul, etch the brand name on the conscience and cause the consumer to act with their credit cards. En masse such advertising can form assumed norms of human behavior and physical appearance. For one example, before advertising deodorants, natural odors were considered merely human. Now it is totally unacceptable.

Batteries of psychologists work with advertisers to capture and imprint on the subconscious the message that the consumer must remember to buy or vote for whatever is advertised. Seemingly random images and music may be speaking to someone watching on levels of which they are not even consciously aware.

Repeatedly presenting the ideal form of the desired human as thin, athletic and young has cause the elderly to be marginalized and psychological disorders in those that cannot meet the standard. We now have previously unheard of disorders like anorexia, and in extreme cases of poor self image this can even lead to suicide.

. There is one additional trend of importance to note. The images have power, and a repeated message can establish a mind set. In the beginning, the television was the center of the living room, and the entire family would gather around to watch it. This allowed for feedback from those one feels are nearest and dearest. The modern tendency too often with so much choice and several televisions in a household is for people to now watch it alone without that benefit of feedback. This can only increase the power of the television’s influence.

 

- The Negative Side of Learning -

 

In addition to all else that is going on, our century is seeing a play of extremes. If something sold well, it will sell more if we provide more of it and louder. If a subject or setting was popular, then more in that setting or on that subject will do better. This is good market economics, but it can be easily abused with serious repercussions.

Take for example violence. As the years have gone by the violence in our entertainment through technology and practice has become very realistic and graphic. Since we are generally a violent species anyway, playing to this base part of the human psyche can give satisfaction to some. However, consider what the effect of this can be as it becomes more ubiquitous and violent. Eventually the mind begins to become accustomed to something once viewed as abhorrent and shocking. Perhaps even scenes once censored for being offensive or obscene become common place and not viewed with any alarm. When this is introduced into young and forming minds, we have a catalyst for a major change in social attitudes.

Lust, despite the modern pre-occupation of associating it to something sexual, is the using of someone for one’s entertainment or pleasure without any regard for that person’s well-being. Sex can certainly have that as a characteristic, but enjoying the suffering of others is an especially vile form of lust. Whether enjoying it through their physical suffering, humiliation or tearing away their accomplishments through innuendo.

In ancient Rome we know of the elaborate games they put on for the population that sated their blood-lust. Thousands of men, women, children and wild animals were horribly tortured and killed for the entertainment of a people mad with success, lack of purpose and boredom. While we may take some satisfaction that our desire to have this blood-lust satisfied with elaborately staged illusion, the fact that the desire to still be entertained by it is especially troubling.

This theme will be elaborated on in a subsequent chapter on entertainment, but the trend to note here is that behaviors learned from an early age from television and movies has allowed the passing generations to find acceptable levels of violence in their entertainment to be higher than they were before. As this need for more violence takes place, the special effects involved in this illusion must become more inventive and slick to keep the mayhem convincing.

And violence is but one example. Changes in acceptable language, life-style, and attitudes are changed all through the non-traditional education received from media and how we as a people are influenced to think.

 

- The Positive and the Increasing Pace of Change -

 

While being cautious of potential abuse, some change brought about in this manner can only be viewed as good for society. Racism and sexism, once wide-spread and prevalent, was largely changed through messages in public media. Things once viewed as profoundly scandalous and even illegal, such as inter-racial marriage, were introduced to many through situations presented in public entertainment.

This is a large cause of the rapid social changes which we have been witness to in our time. As agendas and plights all have their say and influence, and are able to repeat that message over and over in a clever and entertaining way to millions, the changing norms are bound to strain centuries held traditions and beliefs and cries of social manipulation by a media elite are made by those threatened by having all they have known and believed pulled out from under them. This has formed a divide between those who maintain time proven standards and traditions, and those who embrace new ideas and mores.

Nor is this matter clear cut - a person is often faced with having to pick and choose their way through a plethora of issues. Not only is there rapid change, but each individual is faced with having to deal with a myriad of moral dilemmas they may never even have thought about had the messages not been so pervasive through the tool of mass media. The psychological strains this uncertainty and questioning can bring on an individual are the stuff of which entire volumes could be written.

 

- The Solution of De-Centralization -

 

What then can guard us against potential abuse of those seeking power through education? How do we maintain the ideal of a place where people can civilly think for themselves without hurting those who think differently?

The solution probably can be derived by the answer the framers of the American Constitution concocted against tyranny, or the barons of England who forced on King John the Magna Carta. Authority is best when it is de-centralized, and adding a system of checks and balances between competing authorities certainly helps. The more centralized a power becomes, the more risk we run of tyranny. The incentives to take control of something so powerful are too great for those with a lust for it.

With centralized authority we also risk more damage from mistakes or abuses from that authority. If a thousand governors had to decide if their people should be inoculated against a disease, and the inoculation turned out to be poison, then we would have some areas where the governor decided yes and some where they decided no. If one king decided that all the people of a thousand localities should receive the shot, the disaster becomes more widespread.

A natural question to ask would be, can’t more be accomplished with more cooperation. This question has merit, and has certainly been the common denominator of many noteworthy human endeavors. From the pyramids to the roads of ancient Rome to the Great Wall of China, all had to be accomplished with a strong centralized authority. In the Hebrew story of the Tower of Babel, men were drawn together to build a tower to God and to stop them God confused their speech so that the level of cooperation they had known would be impossible.

Obviously then, cooperation does bring power to do incredible things – but at what cost? How many bodies are interred in that Great Wall, or slaves of conquered nations buried beside the roads of that great ancient network? How many have been exploited even unto death by kings and powerful potentates who get all the credit for their hard labor?

Certainly though humanity must not be stopped from accomplishing great things. It is easily done without any exploitation if the cooperation of those involved are voluntary. That each individual is working for the goal for the goal’s sake or from good old fashioned self-interest. A good example of this would be probably the greatest wonder of our time – the internet. The jury is still out on how this will effect social changes over a generation or two since its widespread use has only been with us for scarcely a decade. It will be an interesting one to watch.

This, then, must inevitably be the solution. Let people educate their children in a way they want. If a society feels that certain basics must be maintained, such as literacy and mathematics, a compromise of standards can be universally decided. We have no problem ensuring our airplane pilots can really fly a plane. However even in this, extreme caution is warranted.

Any check on rising power is only temporary in any case. This theme will be developed further in the chapter on government. There will always be those who think their way is the way all should live. As long as it is so common a human characteristic to feel the right to tell others what to do or to live off their labors, vigilance must remain the order of the day.