I wrote earlier this week in The Federalist that schools seem to deal more in cult like methods of indoctrination than they do in truly educating students so that they can successfully navigate the world. The article I wrote, entitled Today's Riot-Prone Mobs are a product of America's Cult Like Education System," generated about 800 comments. I generally don't get caught up in reading comments, but I happened to scroll through some of them on that article, and one of them caught my eye.
The commenter, "Peter" shared his insights about his experiences in the public schools. I am excerpting some of his comments below. He harbored a feeling much like my own when I realized that I was academically mind-hacked: I felt anger and a sense of betrayal. The generational difference between the commenter and me means that he no doubt experienced far more oppressive political correctness than did I. Nevertheless, the curriculum changes at my high school -- especially in history and English -- paved the way for what Peter would experience. My high school's history and English curricula destroyed the wholeness of survey courses and replaced them with out-of-context fragments of knowledge. In short, it was a form of intellectual theft, marketed as "relevance." I hope to write more about that later. Political correctness also serves to drive very damaging divisions between students.
Here are excerpts of what Peter wrote (emphases mine):
I am a Millennial and I went through public education. I suffered racial hatred, sexism and all that jazz. I was treated horribly in those schools where they like to set up a black sheep and blame him for everything. If you can't fight back, they choose you. A corrupt system finds these little relief valves, of sorts. The kind of people who lie, need to lie, and need to lie about those lies. When you see this kind of dysfunction, you’ve got blatant corruption. What they never expected from me is that I'm a fighter and I don't give up. It wasn't easy, but I got through. . . .
I was indoctrinated into suffering this totalitarian belief system. They never told me about conservativism. I never learned about the Constitution in depth, or history such as Baron Montesque and Polybius, and of course the Bible was never mentioned. That was just for those racists in the south, those deplorables, I presume. What they didn't expect was their abuse put a sour taste in my mouth, and my natural male rebellion and my natural gifts and curiosity led me to educate myself. Years after high school and college, I stumbled on a YouTube video that lectured on the Constitution and how the founding fathers designed it to perpetuate freedom. I don't know if this was it, but it was much like this:
I think it was really a British professor, originally...Anyways, when I stumbled on this certain video I was angry. I should have been taught this while in high school. I'm supposed to be an informed voter and a good citizen, right? Well, why was I taught only one side of history where the liberals prevail using quasi-Machiavellian tactics for the sake of the vulnerable and the oppressed (or really propaganda, excusing the tactics which actually create fascism from a democratic system, abusing it), when I should also have been taught all this other stuff? Why was this unfit for my expanding mind? How dare they humiliate me like this.This wasn't the first time I discovered another way of looking at things. I educated myself in business years ago and what I learned about free enterprise was stunning. It was a whole new look at economics outside of government control and regulation. It argued effectively against socialism and communism. Hint: socialism and communism suck. The main idea here is that I was assured that there's just no other way to look at things outside of, gee, Capitalism simply failed because during the Great Depression, the stock market failed due to capitalism, and inevitable result, and we should be liberal socialists to control it, because the richer got richer and the poor got poorer. How can you look at history and not see this?Well, that was only some of the information, and it's good information, but it's only a fraction. I don't hold them in contempt that they shilled liberalism, they have a right to a bias and their own opinions and if they feel they're right, they may try to sell their ideas to me, but I draw the line at intellectual dishonesty. For this reason their totalitarian philosophy towards education is absolutely antithetical to education, more or less, it's blatant indoctrination into their liberal cult. . .
Hear, hear.
I am very familiar with Peter's sense of betrayal, of being sold a bill of goods. And whatever your political inclinations, as a person of goodwill you should be able to sympathize. I would add that this is not so much about liberalism versus conservatism as it is about freedom versus censorship. He was deprived of the wholeness of the knowledge base that every student needs in order to make sense of the world. And he was stuck basically in a prison that shuts down natural curiosity. He was fed a diet of political correctness that propagandized him and was hostile to questions. Worse, he was never educated about the real story about the founding of the American Republic, which at its very essence stood for freedom to express one's conscience, freedom to learn. I think a public list of grievances is in order. Millennials -- as well as those of other generations -- who understand the damage done to them by the lies of the education establishment should band together and make those grievances known. Perhaps that could begin a process of de-programming for others who have been trapped in the cult of K12 and Higher Ed. I want also to stress that wonderful teachers suffer at least as much as the students who are stifled and stuck in this system. So a campaign airing these grievances would serve to support those good teachers, and could help to free them to fully pursue the joy of teaching.
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