The Dumbing Down of America -- The Great Experiment

"I've always believed that the mind is the best weapon. "  -- John Rambo

Recently, an article appeared called "America Dumbs Down," discussing the attack on intellectuals, intelligentsia and the tradition of the "Brain Trust" in America.

In every aspect of American popular culture and society, hyper religion and extremist fundamentalism have taken the place of rational thought, expertise and the hegemony of reason.  Superstition and snake oil have supplanted cognition and science.  The ultimate degradation of the Middle and Lower Classes has taken place.  America undergoes an overhaul.

One of the reasons why the U.S.'s entry into World War II was so critical was its educated work force.  The Middle Class in the U.S. enjoyed the benefits of a free public education.  This allowed the U.S. to mobilize faster than any other nation on Earth.  It also meant that U.S. troops would be outfitted with the greatest weapon of all.  The Golden Age of American History may be attributed, in large part, to this particular utopian dream realized from sea to shining sea.

And ever since that time, it has been under attack.  Because the uber-wealthy never needed an over-educated working class.  They are better served by the hyper-religious, jingoistic and hyper-nationalist ideologues that sublimate their economic distress into  more war or a hatred of foreigners and minorities.  And so very few of them will be able to discern this trap.

It is the reason for the Liberal Arts education.  And this is also now under great attack, especially from the Republican Party and its uber-wealthy agents, Rick Perry, and his attack on higher education in Texas and other parts of the U.S.  A Liberal Arts education allows its recipient to see society with an understanding of its power structure and with its class underpinnings.  Without it, and without the critical and theoretical mindset it engenders, one really is lost in the shadows on the wall. 

The ability to distinguish and differentiate between things that a preacher says about fiery places and what actually happened on a specific date and time are lost.  Even perhaps more importantly, the ability to draw lessons and knowledge from those two things is unattainable.  The non-Liberal Arts educated individual is, in some sense, a buffoon, and imbecile, left to be led around by the nose without any sense as to what is really going on around him or her.

And so that is the goal of Rick Perry and the other imbeciles -- to create and more easily manage a large populace that will do what it is told when it is told, and will not question why or what it receives in exchange.  It is a better labor class, but not the anachronism of dirty factory workers. 

No, these are armies of people wearing slacks and oxford shirts, speeding to their cubicles in the morning, listening to Christian Contemporary as they work, and then rushing back home in their SUV's to listen to the 21st Century version of the Old Time Gospel hour, the latest "bible-based" church on any of dozen media to choose from.  This is your Labor for the 21st century, here to manage your assets and operate the machinery that operates the machinery.  Karl Marx had it right, but he was just off by a century or two. 

So education has to change.  Lobotomize the Middle Class.  Remove its voice and its ability to question and to see what you are doing to it, then have your way with them.  But this is critical -- you must not let them find out.  Change higher education to fanciful and glittering trade and vocational education.  Begin the lowering of the Ivory Tower into the depths of Hell, and invert it. 

No more inquiry.  Take away their greatest weapon.  We learned that lesson watching the campuses in the 1960's go up.  Sure, you can call it a university, but it is really no more than an idiot garden. 

And the game plays on.