Lynn Chu observes:

Book learning is all about categorization and generalization which is why the young are susceptible to groupthink that fails to see that scepticism about all these generalized platitudes that they have "learned" is warranted in actual day to day practice. The exceptions to rules that outline other previously little noted rules.

Tim adds:

Some time ago education got seriously out of wack. Early education is to teach basic skills and give a base of knowledge to the student. So the student is taught to accept everything they are told by the teacher and by the school books and are taught to watch the news on t.v. or read the paper. They are told repeatedly to TRUST.

Then, as they get older, they used to be taught to think. Learning to think is fundamentally different than learning to read or do math or whatnot. It is where one learns critical faculties, to question, test, and form hypotheses which then must be rigorously examined. That is what higher education used to be about.

But we dumbed down the schools so college kids have no base of knowledge and are still struggling to master the basic skills. They are not being taught to test what they are told, but rather are still in the juvenile stage where they believe what the authority figures tell them.

I believe that was intentional, to create a drone class who voted as they were told, did what they were told, and could be used as foot soldiers in the remaking of human civilization.

The emphasis on STEM was at fault to no minor degree. We taught h science and math to kids who didn't know anything else. The humanities - which teach core principles - were dismissed as irrelevant. But the humanities are where the base of knowledge comes from in no small measure.

We also had the movements to democratize education, saying we should allow students to express themselves in their own language aka improperly. The ignorant cannot express themselves any more than can animals. They have to be taught proper language, proper history, how to organize their thoughts.

Much of this started with Dewey and it has metastasized over the decades. Dewey was a radical leftist who understood that control of education means control of the minds of the future generation.

The end result is we have a world of sophomores (meaning "wise fools"). They are good at things like computers or technical issues, but suck at actually thinking or understanding the intricacies of things. They are also taught a strict morality that broaches no competitors - especially the old Judeo-Christian moral code. Groupthink is absolutely essential; it is the sole determinant of what is true or false to the uneducated. They cannot form their own opinions without the group's blessing.

So we have a bunch of eternal children on high horses, judgmental and arrogant, believing they are well educated when in fact they barely have mastered the basic skills that primary school children used to possess. They are easy fodder for the radicals who have taken over the schools and the media and other sources that disseminate information.

They are much like the prisoners in Plato's Cave.

Plato does a thought experiment where he postulates some people chained in a cave together and watching a shadow screen. Things move and dance across the screen, and the sad little prisoners think that is reality as they have never known anything else. One day a couple of them escape and leave the cave, finding the real world is bright and beautiful and exciting. Being good people they return to rescue their fellows from the cave, only to be scorned and mocked and eventually killed by the prisoners there.

Why? The prisoners are so comfortable with their illusions and accept the shadows as reality and do not want to be discomfitted to have to adopt to a higher reality. They prefer their McDonalds Quarter Pounder reality to the prime rib the outside world affords because the Quarter Pounder is safe, familiar, and they do not need to risk anything but ordering it.

This is the type of person the Left has always wanted to make. Read Brave New World; they had a strict cast system, one created by medical modification. There were worker classes and they were brainwashed into believing they were happy being ignorant.

Is that much different from what we are doing to our kids these days? They dwell in darkness and do not want someone coming in and telling them there is light just outside the cave entrance.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:35 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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