A Defense of Education

Learning?

Several things popped in my brain just before the Christmas holidays, and many readings and persona beliefs garnered through almost 25 years of over 30 years of coaching weaved into a single thread… 

What is learning?  On the field of athletics, if I just teach a player the facts [stance, the play, the Xs and Os] he will get slammed and our team will be soundly defeated.  If I teach him the basics, adjustments and some how tos, and then throw a bunch of curve balls, variables, and interesting twists and turns, then he starts applying that knowledge to new situations, new experiences, variables upon variables until he figures things out, feels comfortable in that knowledge, and can do pretty much anything [with utter confidence]. 

In coaching, this might explain a national championship, numerous league titles, several state sectional titles and more - the players were not drones, they were not automatons.  They were learners who learned from each experience, knew the basics and advanced techniques and figured out how to apply them under stress. 

If we teach the facts and only want facts back [like old Gradgrind in Hard Times], then we teach people NOT to think for themselves and teach them to be dependent on others for direction - we create drones. 

Then a few weeks ago I was watching a random TV show about the Fall and Rise of Germany [and aftermath of WWII docu-something].  It was all rather drab, but slightly informative until it came to a Germane exchange student asked about the US education system.  Allow me to paraphrase:

“Here the teacher gives you facts and things and then wants those facts back on a test.  In Germany, you are given a problem or situation, and have to discover ways to solve it or figure it out.” 

WOW!  For most it should not be a revelation, but for a lot of people in the US, those who love facts and factoids, those things that can be potentially true, arguably true, or potentially not true at all [as our understanding changes, as our world and society develops or as the winds of change dictate], and sometimes we hide facts to slant a vision [as ALL textbooks do]. 

I am reminded of a quote by Lincoln that history through several sources notes:

“The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present.  The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion.  As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.  We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”  – Abraham Lincoln, Dec. 1, 1862 [Annual Message to Congress]

So, let’s give our students what they need, the tools and basics, the higher level items, and then throw ideas, concepts, problems, situations, and more at them and let them stand on their own.  Let them find ways to solve them, work through them to resolution, and get them away from depending upon us.  In games I was not able to step onto the field to play for my players, and in life we cannot be there for live for our students.  We must teach them to stand on their own, to be confident in their abilities, and to be able to think through things, not follow the status quo, unless that is indeed what they have figured, through contemplation and consideration, is the way to go.  We must help them find their voice, not teach them to subordinate their voices in lieu of ours as professed leaders in the classroom and education.  We should, as educators, not be the center of attention but instead facilitators of the learning process and encouragers through failure and success. 

I mean really…

What did we expect when we started mass producing students and people using mass-produced standard tests and exams that do not help us develop as human beings but instead make us [in most cases] masters of trivia and mini-masters of other people’s ideas and dogmas without the critical ability, the real critical ability to think for ourselves?  Did we expect intelligent discourse?  Genius?  Logic?  Thoughtful respect for other perspectives, the ability to play devil’s advocate in order to probe?  Well, we got what we set into motion and absorbed.  We got a nation, from K-12 up to the professors working in colleges and the people throwing themselves willy-nilly into the political fray, of narrow-minded thoughtless morons.

You’re welcome [or in some places, Your welcome, UR welcum…]!

For love of ease, for love of numbers and stats, we sold our youth, we sold our nation to the lowest bidder [in education].  I’ve said it before, but Challenger didn’t explode because we put the best machinery and parts up there.  It exploded because we cut corners, and sooner or later it explodes and goes sour. Witness, my friends, the so-called United States of America in the year 2012…  Exploding all over and wondering why [blaming all sorts of people, parties, systems, races, creeds, regions…]. 

Every blog comment, every media blurb, every personal statement frothing forth from the mass-minds, well these bear witness to the lack of understanding and critical thought - few, if any, think in the terms of media and information, education and knowledge, as the causes of our present insanity.  Again love of ease [and the ability to promote self, promote image, and deflate others without a care or thought] causes us to ignore the deeper causes, not ask  these questions, the real questions or to deny the complexity of the problem…  In the meantime - BOOM! 

Things like this take time.  Here we are! 

Hope vs. Fear

This is the core issue in education.  Are we offering hope or using fear?  We need to consider this, all its subtleties, all its nuances, intrinsic and extrinsic…  Our entire education system has been manipulated and overtly and covertly [systematically] altered and shaped to create obedient drones following a business/manufacturing mode churning out a few makes and models within a narrow spectrum and frame.  The others, well, with a little fear, some threats, we get them to obey, but some of them continue to try to find ways to vent their frustrations, their issues, and slip into sexual problems, drug problems, alcohol problems, and crime problems. 

We, the people, are the cause.  We don’t like to hear it, but it’s true.  We have quietly accepted things we know in our being are wrong and false. We have acquiesced to standardized tests, standardized lessons, using power and fear as major motivators [of educators and of students], and if we offer hope it is that students will get good jobs [not careers, not explore and engender their talents, abilities, the things that God has gifted  them with, but the things that man wants]. In this we are as opposite from a Christian nation as it can be [and it has nothing to do with prayer in school, it has to do with our slow and aggressive destruction of the gifts we read and accept God gives to each person, and each person, we are told, is not gifted the same way, but we treat and test them all the same - label them as failures or troubled if they don’t mesh or fall into our schemas].  This is our failure!

Recently I was watching, for white noise, Beyond Scared Straight, and here fear is magnified and used to put young people into the mold.  Hope is offered in the form of not going to jail, not being arrested, and following what everyone else wants.  I am not saying we need rampant individualism and freedom, but we need to enhance our natural resources, our young people.  We are not doing it…  We are mining them for what we need and want as a consumer driven society that is slowly [maybe rapidly] using technology to replace people working in those positions we are supposedly preparing them for…  But that’s another issue. 

There are answers here, but none of them are easy.  None of the candidates for president of this formerly great land [it hasn’t been anywhere near great since shortly after WWII, so both parties can stick their ideologies in crapper] and nothing in this election will help our young people, our future, and the vision for our nation!  If you asked someone what makes America great, I wonder what they would say after military strength.  Again, I digress… 

Additionally, parents and adults, now enamored with technology, captivated by the toys and amusements thrown before them, playing almost 24/7, are spending less and less personal, real and life-experience time with their children, so there is less and less guidance and internal and external support.  Sorry, but that is what a lot of parents today struggle and feel guilt of a sort themselves [they know they are spending less time with their children than their parents spent with them with TVs and radios, CDs and record players] and their parents in turn spent less time with them than theirs before them [the radio era, the newspaper era…].  Our social fabric has been [and is daily] radically changed and our education system is geared towards and ancient manufacturing model, and we have purely budgetary concerns, fiscal points, not points about what we dream and hope for our future.

If we do not offer and promote HOPE, if we do not show viable careers, uses of natural talents, the ability to express the and explore their natural [God-given] curiosity [to name but a few], and continue with business as usual, running education like an industry or business, producing a product and attaching mechanisms and options along the way, we will FAIL as a nation and a people.  We will continue to fill our prisons, fight an endless and fruitless war [skirmish is more like it] on drugs, battle rampant alcohol abuse and use, and deal with ever-expanding sexual promiscuity and experimentation amongst our young people, and they will be the ones we will be looking to for leadership and the future growth and success of our nation.  Oops, we messed up! 

—- If we opened up the world, the limitless possibilities, the incredible potential, and the truly interesting collection of visions, ideas, and perceptions, we would truly allow our young people to explore their own potential and talents.  Instead, we tend to narrow their visions, fill them with facts, and “pot-fill,” instead of kindling the fire within, showing them ways to grow themselves and find their lives, their futures, their wondrous connections with all that is humanity and so much more. 

Chicago teachers’ strike

Okay, I do not live in Chicago, I do not teach in Chicago, and my limited knowledge of the strike there is garnered from those quasi-reliable media sources, so…

1. Have they taken cutbacks?  Yes.  Is a 2% raise over years ridiculous when they have already had a previously negotiated 4% pay increase removed?  Probably, yes. 

2. Is a push for a 19% pay increase idiotic?  Yes.  Even in solid financial times, it is not wise or popular.  In today’s climate of advanced American anti-intellectualism, vast retardation of the American electorate, and a hatred for education and in particular public school teachers it is positively suicidal. 

3. Is education, real education, not passing standardized tests, undervalued in the US?  Yes, obviously.

4. Should, as one commenter stated, teachers be required to be tested for competency every year?  No.  Who else is? 

5. Some folks are complaining about the quality of teachers, and this is a valid complaint, but low salaries, lowering the quality of benefits, and public vitriol does not exactly generate a climate where they best and brightest are lining up for these publicly despised jobs with medium to low pay and mediocre benefits at best given what they would be capable of earning in the private sector [regardless of what recent fallacious studies published by some obviously biases folks stated to the opposite] where there is at least chance for advancement or overtime. 

Look, these are just a few of the problems.  This could be the tipping point that finally sounds the death knell for public education in the US and turns it over to private interests and regionalized agendas with little concern for our national and state needs [focused more on profit]. 

Think about these points:

• How would you attract young and talented people into a job that is vital to the nation, its future and its survival?
• How would you attract these folks into a position our Founding Fathers states, in no uncertain terms, was a vital service to our nation, one that creates the fabric of the country and hopefully generates an informed and thoughtful electorate and strengthens the values inherent in the present democracy and builds it for the future?
• What sort of incentives would you offer to get people to enter into a sort of altruistic public service that is ensures the survival of our way of life and ensures at least the possibility of the future of our young people [all of them, regardless of socio-economic status, religion, race, creed, sex…]?
• How would you generate a system that keeps these people you’ve recruited IN the system and does not make them want to search for private or other  sector work in a few years, but seeks to maintain their presence IN the system to ensure consistency and retention?
• How would you keep these people you’ve recruited and retained up-to-date and involved in keeping the system they work in as close to prefect as possible and in alignment with the nation’s goals and the potentials of the future?

Look, the questions above inn bullets are the vital ones.  We give a lot of lip service to the education of our young, but when a teacher is in an English class who barely speaks English, when the Math teacher cannot communicate, we scream, “Look at these idiot teachers!” and do not consider that in the present environment, these might be the best teachers you can get in some regions.  Isn’t that sad?  Will screaming, cutting, threatening, and issuing forth more hatred entice new, intelligent, brave, dedicated, and wise citizens to join the fray?  Not on your life! 

We, the people, created this problem.  The Chicago teachers’ strike doesn’t help anything if their demands are true to form. 

* Oh, and by the way, teacher assessment is as faulty, if not more so, than the standardized tests we have misused for years in this nation, so I get why there are union/staff related issues there, and I’ve written a lot about the idiocy of merit pay, merit-based assessments, and the so-called “keep the good teachers, fire the bad teachers” mentality [defining good and bad, measuring those effectively, fairly, and consistently is virtually impossible, and trust me, I’ve seen a lot of methods, a lot of attempts]. 

Anti-Intellectual America…

Often, in the past, America was accused of being anti-intellectual.  This was arguable at some points in our history, but not so much since WWII, and less since the 1990s.  We have grown into a nation of dogmatic, misinformed, narrow-minded automatons.  This is who we are… 

Hear me out…  Please. 

There was a time when could read Karl Marx, Mao, Engels, Lenin or some similar character/persona without thinking we would be transformed into Marxists.  When we believed we could read opposing views without having to attack them or be absorbed into them.  We used to be able to read about atheism and agnosticism and not fear that we might fall into it and be forever atheists or agnostics.  We have become a people of little faith and little belief in our own concepts of reality, so much do we fear the shallowness or superficiality of our beliefs and personal understanding today that we cannot accept even a glance at an opposing view, even a sliver of questioning or thinking.  We have become a people, apparently, so weak we fall for whatever is shown to us, whatever we read, and whatever someone tells us.  If this is us, then I suppose we have a need to fear, to shun, and to retard our perspectives [we are simply too weak and stupid to venture outside our small little bubble of mass-minded and microscopic existence]. 

We are limiting our futures in this, narrowing our perspectives, and expanding our stupidity factor exponentially. 

One of my favorite thinkers, writers and theologians is Thomas Aquinas.  He was a gifted thinker, and one who permeates many aspects of modern Christian ideals and focal points, but one who was NEVER afraid to look closely at opposing views, to analyze others arguments, and to think for himself.  These other views strengthened and expanded his faith, helped him formulate more ideas and proofs, generated more ideas and arguments, but never ended or came to vitriol and idiocy, defensive rhetoric and lunacy [like today].

Today’s obvious lack of real religious faith, intolerant of questions, intolerant of other ideas, attacking in many cases, others who are different, is problematic.  Today’s attacks on thought, on critical thinking, on questioning and posing theories to be analyzed and explored is anti-intellectual and, I believe, anti-God [who gifted us with thought, with the ability to use our mind and spirit to discern things].  Oh, we of little faith who will not even peer slightly at something that might seem initially counter to our dogma but might in fact grow our understanding, strengthen our faith, and build our character…  yeah, us…  The US of A… 

We are bullies who attack intellectuals, attack critical thought, and fall back into shells of narrowed thought for protection from those evil ideas…  God Himself is offended by us when we do this, because we limit Him and the gifts He gave us.  If you don’t necessarily believe in God, that’s okay…  Then you know you are limiting yourself when you do not even explore possibilities of things outside our basic understanding, and we promote this thinking in our political idiocy, our negating education system, and our nationalism that borders on vacancy. 

One final thought…  “Oh ye of little faith…”

Simple enough - no one gets it!

Look, I’ve read hundreds of blogs, newspaper articles, and commentaries, add in dozens of books, reports, and ‘findings’ and you have a knowledge base about education and its status, goals, and history that is at least above average.  Here’s the main problem: NO ONE GETS IT! 

It’s not that they don’t get education, they tend to get the generalities about that, they just don’t GET what is affecting it, what is causing the problems and issues, throwing the turmoil and worse at the education system…  NO ONE GETS IT!

Everything I read is about the symptoms or some related and subtle nuance, or it’s about methods, criticisms, or some agenda.  IDIOCY! 

Politicians and their pundits have an agenda [that has little to do with education].  People in education do [generally] what they are told so they can survive in today’s topsy-turvy world.  Education authorities, even those at the bastions of supposed wisdom, the universities, are 3-5 years behind in even identifying the symptoms, so the solutions are equally antiquated and based upon premises and theories that match up in a generic sense, but include aspects of psychology and instructional strategies ground in an ancestral past and re-ground and sold in today’s market.  The students, some of them get it, but they have not the depth and breadth to fully grasp all the implications. 

Even the following quotes, by people of superior wisdom and foresight, do not grasp the depth or real causes of the disconnect and failure:

“We are now at a point where we must educate our children in what no one knew yesterday, and prepare our schools for what no one knows yet.”

– Margaret Mead

“We cannot wait passively upon the statistical play of events to decide for us which road the world is to take tomorrow.  We must positively and ardently take a hand in the game ourselves.”

– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

They both identify aspects of the problem…  Not the problem itself.  Mead understood we are grasping and stumbling along trying to figure this one out [and we still are, well, some places are; others have buried their heads in the sand, thrown technology and the idiocy of “back to basics” in there, and figure that solves everything - incredible STUPID rearview mirror thinking that goes at best nowhere, at worst, backwards and destroys minds, students, and our future].  Pere Teilhard at least saw that we cannot sit or stand idly by and watch the whole mess go to hell in a handbasket and say, “See, I told you so.” 

GOP stances with regards to education are beyond idiotic and reflect the “circle the wagons,” “bury your head in the sand” and “rearview mirror driving” mechanisms that lead to utter failure and disaster.  I’m not sorry if that pisses someone off.  It’s the truth.  However, the Dems are not much better because they have done nothing to deal with it in a substantial manner until this year, and even then it is an old solution, poured into a new schema and presentation, and utilizes research that is antiquated [1-2 years old at BEST, and today, with the core of the problem, this is beyond prehistoric], so their solutions are just weak.  Again, I like the Common Core, and the new things that will replace the incredible failure of NCLB [which any and all reasonably smart people in education and even outside knew would doom us, but it sounded good, like the Patriotic Act and a few others with catchy titles and cutesy phrasing], but it is not some panacea. 

Here’s the problem in a nutshell: the ever-increasing speed of information [and its transfer and acquisition, utilization, and availability…].  You might think this is stupid, but the speed of information has changed the economy, the political spectrum and methods, and of course the social fabric of our very time.  It has had a profound impact on education, and it continues to do so at an exponentially increasing rate. 

We do not write on stone tablets anymore.  When we started writing on papyrus, and later forms of paper, we changed EVERYTHING.  The role of religions, governments, social strata, economies, education…  All changed and continued to change.  In our electronic age, we have wireless connections, vast libraries of information [and disinformation], and we have speeds of information increasing every day… 

Even throwing a computer at a student doesn’t solve the problem, because we then use it like a whiteboard or chalkboard [powerpoints, prezis, questions and answers, do some research, answer some questions… design a project… all the things we do in the old formats simply transferred to the new one].  What we have not found a real function for is the teacher and the information overload itself.  What we are only picking up is the waste from the social impact of this as we try and deal with drop-outs, teen disconnect, the problem of universities, and so many other issues. 

Even here, sadly, I have stated the problem poorly.  It is deeper than this, and the speed of its altering mechanisms expands hourly and daily.  The financial crisis has gone on longer because of the speed of information and the failure of anyone in the economic areas to truly look at that issue [too busy applying outdated and likely never really true equations and formulae - ones designed to fit what they already saw, not new ones].  We live in an illusion… a dreamworld.  We need to wake up and start forethinking, being proactive, and flipping the system and all its surrounding mechanisms. 

* Sad note: even the present electoral process, the whole thing, shows how antiquated and stupid we are - how we know we have all this stuff, all this speed, but have no real  clue what we are doing with it or what it is doing with us.  The evidence abounds… 

Dark Ages Part 2

The GOP is the prime example, but not the only  example, or rearview mirror thinking and looking backwards for the good old days that never were or trying to bring back a day in the past to the present and for the future.  These are idiotic in the extreme.  The recent Texas Republican Party committee findings and report is a microcosm of this national “circle the wagons” mentality than beckons the past come forth to the future and save us from ourselves.  Not going to happen [it will simply lay waste to what’s left of our culture and continue our national suicide]. 

 Consider education with a return to the ideas of reading, writing, and arithmetic.  These sound great and hearken upon the days gone by when they never really worked back when.  Here’s the problem facing modern educators and education: the amount of information [views, perspectives, challenges or supports for personal or regional world visions, whatever you might call knowledge…] available OUTSIDE the classroom far outweighs the information available INSIDE the classroom.  With this simple fact, and it’s been a fact for over 30 years but more so in the last 15, the old testing, the old methods, the old ways of approaching education [like the standardized tests, the short reading passages, and the old styles] simply cannot reach the population.  Students may pass tests, but not out of interest or enthusiasm, but because it is a hoop to jump through on the way to some ethereal target out on the distant and fuzzy horizon.  The failure of our schools is a failure of understanding at the highest level all the way down to the parents in the home and the teachers in the classroom. 

 Politicians do not want to rock the boat and do not know the slightest thing about education unless it comes from their personal experience [which, given the progress of technology and the shifts in culture is prehistoric] or because of some study conducted a year or two ago which does not deal with this vital issue or does so in a cursory fashion [and the study, as soon as it is printed and studied becomes obsolete in today’s lightspeed media and pseudo-culture]. 

 If this is the quandary, what are we to do?  Do we regionalize?  Turn education over to the parents and regional chieftains?  Do we turn it over to political parties to throw in their rearview mirror thoughts, their prehistoric thinking and backwards looking methods and styles?  Do we replace questioning and informed knowledge with patriotism and simplicity because we lack the vision and are afraid of what is happening? 

 Modern education has to be dynamic, consider a world vision, look closely at the questions of who and what we are so we can figure out how we will be and what we can do to be here and build the country we want [actually so the children can build the country they want, not one we force upon them – our codes].  We need to show them the past, but allow them to question, to probe, to solidify their understanding and be as close to 100% certain of their vision as they can.  We need to open minds and perspectives and show children how to discern information, how to separate fact from fiction, to explore the imagination, the see through the gloss and glitter of the modern advertising and political spectrum and see a deeper meaning and truth, one that God himself teaches us He wants from us through his own book of questions, the Bible [a great book of questions and ideas, but not a rulebook or series of laws and steadfast principles]. 

 We are, in my estimation, in the New Dark Age in America.  We are heading backwards in our thinking [or at the very least floundering desperately to maintain a form of status quo while we plod around trying to find our bearings in an ever-changing world], preventing and restricting thought and questioning, picking sides in a battle of idiots [fact-knowers and pushers vs. critical thinkers] one of which screams louder than the other and both of whom tend to claim the other is not patriotic [when neither really is because waving a flag and supporting troops, valuable though those might be, are not deepened and powerful signs of any ism other than politicism]. 

Francine Prose

Tonight I read my first piece by Francince Prose.  Interesting…  Does she have a point on several levels?  Sure.  She sees much of what is taught in so-called English classes in US schools as mundane, not brought forth with any real depth of knowledge, and lacking a few English language and literature perspectives.  She sees some of the pieces I personally believe as extremely valuable examples of language, writing, style, technique, as boring or mediocre, so she riled me a tad, but I was able to extract myself from disdain and continue through with as open a mind as possible.

Here are the problems I see with her evaluations of education [only having read two that are somewhat dated, so bear with that]:

1. She does not evaluate or identify her own biases and prejudices in an open and self-critical fashion.  Why is this important?  She teaches Literature in college, comes from or at least now lives in a certain academic and financial circle, and has other related issues that bear strongly on her work.

2. She does not look at the state and district curricula and frameworks used to design the course syllabi she uses for analysis, and she does not consider these other factors and federal legislation, state high stakes testing, national ‘standards’ and the climate revolving around those.  they do not require the kind of depth and perspective she lauds [and I would tend to agree with].

3. She does not look at social class and regional distinctions, problems in mainstreaming, class structure, environments and more.  Strictly speaking, she tends to make sweeping assessments based upon syllabi [I wonder how university professors would bear under similar somewhat generalized approaches].

4. She works from her children’s experiences, but does not identify the biases and prejudices they may have encountered and she may have [consciously or unconsciously] imprinted upon them.

5. She completely fails to take into account any aspect in the shifts of media and power.  Information is now available without ‘books’ and more information has been available outside the classroom than inside it for over 30 years now.  There is a book waiting in the wings of my life, one I started last summer, detailing this very issue and addressing the deeper reasons little Johnny cannot read, schools are troubled [to say the least] and the US is floundering in a sea of mediocrity [at best] and lack of thought [forethought particularly].  We’ve killed curiosity, innovation, imagination…  You bet!  The issue bears at what level was this started and at what level can and must it be addressed.

I would love to chat with her.  I suspect several long, intense, coffee and Diet Coke rendered sessions of sharing and frank discussion would yield more than her occasional tidbits of generalized micro-knowledge and pseudo-information and put today’s hypermedia in a closer relationship to the issues at heart.  Ahh, but likely not to happen.  It involves too much time, too much thought, and too much cooperation and disinterested probing.

The New Dark Age

Since around 2005 or so, the United States has slowly lead the way for most of the rest of the world [perhaps with the exception of Russia and China, maybe Japan as well].  This prominent role is not one of boundless and brave leadership, but is instead one of rearview mirror vision, violence and mean-spiritedness, backwards and divisional thinking, anti-intellectualism, anti-scientific, and vainglorious religiosity, all in the name of preserving our nationalism, patriotism, party politics and generic education [based upon drone-like standards, obedience, and self-righteousness that says we all need to be the same - this mandate coming from the national leadership, and working its way, slowly sifting deeper and deeper into the fabric of all that is education].  The good ol’ US of A has now created the New Dark Age.  Way to go!

We do not promote scientific exploration, imagination, innovation, education, and the higher levels of searching and adventuring [unless it can turn a tidy and quick profit or leads to some obvious narcissistic personal gain].  The puppet public believes things like space exploration and advanced and imaginative scientific experiments and research and purely personal toys of scientists and universities [those rat bastards in elitist schools stealing research dollars for what… - those sorts of idiotic comments].  Imagination and innovation has been systematically bled out of the education system by standardized tests and regionalisms controlling aspects of education [the idea of parents and local communities running education is a nice vote-getting ploy, but lacks forethought, vision, and a true understanding of the potential in each wondrous natural resource, those young people entering the “system”]. 

Between hypermedia morons spouting vitriol instead of creativity and innovation, spewing forth idiocy and hatred, divisive stuff that leads to more viewers for them, more books sales, higher ratings, and more, and their campaigns against science, space exploration, education, and higher level thinking, we are doomed.  Politicians, who never look beyond the next two years for fear of not getting elected, and who feed on mass-mindedness, the wave of herd plowing through the fields of fecal matter, and who need to placate and learn to love the hypermedia moguls and retain their support, they are never going to speak up and take a risk like this, forethought. 

So, where do we sit?  Is their well-funded scientific research into space and the distant future of our species?  No.  Is their well-funded K-12 education to build and/or shape creative, innovative, brave, and critical minds for our next generations?  Nope.  Is there support for advanced research into things other than simply diseases and money-making aspects of science and understanding the world and universe around us?  Nope again.  We rely on private corporations for anything here, and government cutbacks in these areas further retard the intellectual and spiritual growth in America [and other places that for God knows what reasons, look to us as leaders].  Religion too has gone this route, closing minds, not permitting questions, and simply laying down dogma to be followed like obedient drones, but only in some areas [vested interests - look at the Ellul quote I posted earlier], because we live in the Dark Ages where to question means something like the hypermedia or new Christian church’s version of the Spanish Inquisition or Salem Witch Trials.  Modern churches seem afraid for anyone to ask questions or look at science or aspects of research and thinking that might not follow their doctrine and dogma, and that is purely anti-Christian and does nothing to build or support faith [it simply isolates it, quarantines it if you will, but that means stagnation].  I have learned more about science, philosophy, evolution, space, the microscopic and beyond in all elements, and these things, these questions with something deeper inside, things that many Christians fear because they make you think, make you question, make you look more deeply at faith and belief, yet these things for me have so strengthened and deepened my faith, so helped me to see the amazing depth and breadth of all that is God, that I pity those who do not allow these things into their lives [they limit God to the last 4500 years or so, and purely to a one-time miracle and potential failure in Adam and Eve, and so much more, that they miss the truly phenomenal miracles, the incredible depth of our past and the awe-inspiring questions posed].  I am stronger in faith because I question and search, and I am 100% ready for the next stage, heaven or whatever name you want to call it. 

Slight digression, but to the point.  We have limited our searching, researching, explorations, and more.  We have kept up our military spending, and advanced it, retarded education, and opened more doors in the military to the point where the military and all its supporting mechanisms and industries is by far the number one employer in the nation.  We are creating a nation of idiot drones, spiritually empty or vague [maybe completely vacant] who follow without question, actually fear questions, and want their supposed freedom and individuality without any real awareness of what those things are and what was intended when those things were mentioned and stated a few hundred years ago [but we claim them like a birthright, forgetting all else]. 

Those who do not learn from history [or place vague notions about it and only study certain vanilla versions of it] are doomed to repeat it.  Those who give up the right or squash the right to question are authoritarian, dogmatic, self-righteous, and leaning towards a form of stagnant life in which humans cannot live happily and intelligently.  We have set up the military as a key employer, have our young people going to universities with the idea that is how they will get a job, we sell the false notion that everyone is equal [utter nonsense], and we have no role models out there in science, research or the areas we say we lack in comparison to other countries…  Honestly, if you were a student today, say in grade 4, and someone asked you what you wanted to do, you would probably say, “I want to go to college and then get a job.”  What job?  What dream?  Scientist?  Doctor?  Religious leader?  How about architect?  Person to change the world?  Another Gandhi?  Nope.  I’ve heard it… 

Welcome my friends to the New Dark Age where we do not value intelligence, questioning, research, scientific inquiry, depth of knowledge, and differences of opinions [to be worked through, debated, shared, searched, and settled].  We scream, war, divide, scream more, prey upon fear and hate, play with our leisure devices to kill the time and pain, and don’t notice everything disintegrating around us [and if we notice a shadow of it, we scream it was this person’s or that party’s or this group’s fault, and not us, then we go back on Facebook, Twitter, texting…  whatever pleases and distracts for the moment].

We are not looking to the distant future [we are more worried about the here and now, and there is some need and value there, but without distant forethought, the gloom of the sunset and no light, no moon or stars, is upon us]. It is dark… 

Roger Kimball and Julien Benda…

So here I sit reading Julien Benda’s now obscure piece, The Treason of the Intellectuals [which could easily be translated The Treason of the Influential or Seemingly Intellectual - those with degrees on the walls, positions of power and authority, and positions wherein they might instruct or teach others], and the introduction to the most recent translation and publication is by this fellow named Roger Kimball.  Okay, maybe I am stuck in the 1920s thru 1980s in my present reading binge, but I did not know Mr. Kimball from a hole in the wall. 

My first impression was that he wrote a fairly instructive introduction, highlighting aspects I hoped to read and a few that seemed a tad puzzling, given what I had experienced of Benda from three other contemporaries of his.  However, I did not give it much thought, but I did note a distinct and somewhat lengthy blurb in Kimball’s intro about multiculturalism and its deadening divisiveness and form of nihilism.  Okay, I don’t disagree with a lot of that idea, and I have some views on the separate issues created by it, but in Benda, at least for the first two-thirds of the book, I have seen little of this and little to support what Kimball thrusts as almost one-fifth of the Introduction. 

After reading about 120 pages, I got to wondering about Kimball, so I searched him out, and then it hit me…  This guy is cherry-picking tidbits and morsels from Benda and throwing them out there as it they were the gospel according to Benda and his wondrous critique of the intellectuals.  The more I absorb of Benda, the more I look at what Kimball has mass-produced in various media, the more I realize that if Benda were alive today, he would probably attack Kimball as exactly the type of person he was talking about in The Treason of the Intellectuals.  At best, Kimball has simply misread or read with a serious bias Julien Benda’s work and life, but I suspect it is much deeper because Kimball attacks modern education and the university system, but promotes aspects of somewhat questionable media conglomerates, so at worst I think he is bending Benda to fit his own ideals and forms of nationalism and patriotism [things Benda would find offensive in this method and spectrum]. Perhaps Kimball is just oversimplifying Benda for his own designs or maybe he just takes what he wants.  I’d like to give the man the benefit of the doubt, but there are some problems with what I see on the surface [I guess I’d have to read actual books by Kimball and not the briefs and tidbits available here and there, but there’s a drift to them that says I am not spending my hard-earned money to support him, so me reading his work anytime soon is unlikely].

For years and years now, dating back to the first television shows and the most interesting and benign offender, Sesame Street, people have been learning from television.  TV shows, news or things passed off as news, so-called investigative shows, and simple talk shows have been “teaching” the general public, the masses, for over 60 years.  Recently, this has taken some interesting and twisted turns, with the likes of Glen Becks [he appears in many forms, all of them passing themselves off as authorities helping America by teaching citizens things they need to know, things from their “educated” perspective, yet in the end it is politics, and nothing but politics, an agenda that is Germanic in its origins] dragging out a chalkboard and going crazy in front of it trying to teach Americans the evils of various things.  Nightly, various television folks, in the guises of benign news folks, working for the good of the people, commit the very treasons Benda spoke of in his work [and he’s 100% correct by the way, and his work is from 1928].  Walter Lippmann, writing in almost the same time, would look upon these so-called purveyors of news and information as the farthest thing from journalism, true journalism, as is possible.  He would be aghast, as would Benda.  They would see a propaganda machine based upon the late 19th century Germanic or pangermanic model, and they would see national particularisms all over the place, news people [hard to call some of these people news folks -  they are entertainers really, circus clowns and diviners of sorts, snake oil salesmen and saleswomen] and see they were trying to shape the world, for what they deem the better, through their efforts. 

Maybe I am missing something, and if someone has read Kimball’s works and can tell me he sees this, he assaults modern media moguls and the modern press, all sides of the political spectrum, with probing non-partisanship and reasoned disinterest, then I would admit my error and move along in my studies.  However, if Kimball does not, then I suspect Benda is rolling in his grave that this man wrote the Introduction to the latest version of his wonderful critique. 

Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes…

We say we want the government out of our lives, out of our bedrooms, not dictating how we live our lives, and then giving us our freedom, and all that marvelous stuff we spout forth without so much as a molecule of actual thought, and then with the same vacuousness of mind, the same empty grain of brain we vote against gay marriage, promote outdated dogma in the form of legislation that invades our everyday lives, and gleefully jump on the bandwagon of national security and internet controls.  These are just a few of the recent examples of the continued idiocy and “circling the wagons” mentality permeating primarily the hick, backwards, rearview-mirror steering psuedo-culture in the US.  Without recognizing the true nature of their angst, the true nature of their disassociation, and the true nature of their disconnect, the citizens of the US wallow in stupidity and simplicity.  Religion fails them because none of the Christian churches really promote what Christ actually said and the obvious messages about love [real love, the true call of love of each other, peace and spiritual growth] sacrifice, blood, universality, truth, judgment, and more, and many focus on Old Testament and ancient rabbinical thinking [intrusions not cast off from the year 200 and before] in the guise of New Testament preaching and teaching.  So, with misguided leaders everywhere, failures in all corners, no attention span to speak of, the molecules of citizens bounce off each other and rapidly search for a safety zone and net, all the while telling the other molecules exactly what to do, when to do it, and how to do it [in the voters box, on the blogs, in the comment sections, and in the other vitriolic formats of the modern era].

There are answers, but they take thought and an open mind, so they will not be ciphered through by anyone now speaking in the US.  We are a nation of idiots, promoting our stupidity daily, hourly, and even instantaneously, all over the world, and we think everyone agrees with us [and we, like the bully in school, belittle, ridicule and put-down anyone who doesn’t agree].  This is who we are.