In Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, Albert Jay Nock explained that a monkey can be trained, but only a small percentage of human beings can be educated. He added that his students at the Ivy League schools were, in large part, monkeys. But is that fair given the bureaucratic nature of universities then and now? A bureaucracy cannot teach children or adults how to think. Bureaucracies can give standardized tests, and offer standardized curriculum. They can offer one-size-fits-all programs, and even “elite” programs; but everything is based on the law of averages, and groupthink, and a type of intellectual conformism. If Marshall McLuhan was right to say the “medium is the message” then if the medium is a bureaucratized school, the message signifies the bureaucratization of the human mind. The fact that billions of dollars have been poured into this kind of education, and that it produces increasingly dismal results year after year, testifies to a kind of mass stupidity – a readiness for intellectual shackles.
Actually, the article, which appears on the federalistpapers.com web site, says that students ranked George W. Bush as most evil, followed by Stalin, not the U.S.
Since all the current Presidential candidates went to college, I guess you would say that they are indoctrinated Marxists. We all know it's against the U.S. Constitution to lie on the internet, don't we?
I know...I know what you mean! Rather than getting something that looks like an 'Advanced Education' in say actual science and mathematics the idea that any education would do caught on and progressives by the throngs flooded colleges looking for degrees in liberal arts, gender study and political science and can’t find jobs to pay back the loans... It shouldn’t be so expensive that you can’t work your way through school but with easy government loans goosing the demand for seats kids have to go in debt ... having created such a burdensome problem some people just think the state should pay for it all....
George W. Bush is presumably evil for invading Iraq under false pretenses (“Weapons of Mass Destruction”), resulting in the deaths of thousands of U.S. soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens.
Evil, like beauty, is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. It is difficult to distinguish an evil act from an evil person. Few people, for example, would argue that Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, and Josef Stalin were not evil men. But if killing lots of people is the criteria, Abraham Lincoln was a pretty evil guy too; he just happened to be on the right side of history.
With respect to our presidents and what they learn: I have spent the last couple of weeks working my way through a 1989 book by Christopher Simpson called ’Blowback: The First Full Account of America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Disastrous Effect on The cold war, Our Domestic and Foreign Policy’.
Much of the information in this book came to light during the Watergate investigations and lead to what was obtainable through the Freedom of Information act flushes out the remainder of the book.
It is a pretty detailed account of the evolution of the intelligence apparatus since its beginnings in early World War II with the CIC (Army Counterintelligence Corps) from which the CIA evolved and the profound changes that occurred in our country as a result. Our entire world view of the USSR was presented to us by Nazis and east European anti communist Nazi collaborators who were themselves infiltrated with soviet intelligence agents. Our military posture, much of right wing McCarthyism and our geopolitical nuclear chess game were in large part fuelled by these people and funded with US tax dollars. Many thousands of Nazis who should have been tried for war crimes or at least positively prevented from entering the US were actually funnelled into the US and eventually became influential members of business, education and government... fervent fascists who hated communists and had little love for any kind of democratic nation.
I have little doubt that modern presidents only hear the ‘intelligence’ that he is allowed to hear just as I have little doubt that students receive a rather ‘structured’ education. Perhaps voters should open there eyes to the possibility that all is not what they are told, pay a bit more attention to the bill of rights, think about just how involved an outward looking agency (CIA) spends so much of its time involved in the lives of everyday Americans , what Khrushchev meant when he said “We will bury you from within” and what the oath of the US President really means. The act of protecting and defending the constitution would solve an awful lot of what ails America.
"40 million people across the United States who have monumental student debt, as reported by CNN. In fact, student loans have increased by 84% since the recession (from 2008 to 2014) and are the only type of consumer debt not decreasing, according to a study from Experian, which analyzed student loan trends from 2008 through 2014.
The analysis also finds that in total, a staggering $1.2 trillion is bleeding students dry."
In Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, Albert Jay Nock explained that a monkey can be trained, but only a small percentage of human beings can be educated. He added that his students at the Ivy League schools were, in large part, monkeys. But is that fair given the bureaucratic nature of universities then and now? A bureaucracy cannot teach children or adults how to think. Bureaucracies can give standardized tests, and offer standardized curriculum. They can offer one-size-fits-all programs, and even “elite” programs; but everything is based on the law of averages, and groupthink, and a type of intellectual conformism. If Marshall McLuhan was right to say the “medium is the message” then if the medium is a bureaucratized school, the message signifies the bureaucratization of the human mind. The fact that billions of dollars have been poured into this kind of education, and that it produces increasingly dismal results year after year, testifies to a kind of mass stupidity – a readiness for intellectual shackles.
ReplyDeleteActually, the article, which appears on the federalistpapers.com web site, says that students ranked George W. Bush as most evil, followed by Stalin, not the U.S.
ReplyDeleteSince all the current Presidential candidates went to college, I guess you would say that they are indoctrinated Marxists. We all know it's against the U.S. Constitution to lie on the internet, don't we?
Evidently more and more, it's against America to get an advanced education also. Especially if you have to borrow a penny to pay for it.
ReplyDeleteI know...I know what you mean! Rather than getting something that looks like an 'Advanced Education' in say actual science and mathematics the idea that any education would do caught on and progressives by the throngs flooded colleges looking for degrees in liberal arts, gender study and political science and can’t find jobs to pay back the loans... It shouldn’t be so expensive that you can’t work your way through school but with easy government loans goosing the demand for seats kids have to go in debt ... having created such a burdensome problem some people just think the state should pay for it all....
DeleteGeorge W. Bush is presumably evil for invading Iraq under false pretenses (“Weapons of Mass Destruction”), resulting in the deaths of thousands of U.S. soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens.
ReplyDeleteEvil, like beauty, is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. It is difficult to distinguish an evil act from an evil person. Few people, for example, would argue that Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, and Josef Stalin were not evil men. But if killing lots of people is the criteria, Abraham Lincoln was a pretty evil guy too; he just happened to be on the right side of history.
With respect to our presidents and what they learn:
I have spent the last couple of weeks working my way through a 1989 book by Christopher Simpson called ’Blowback: The First Full Account of America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Disastrous Effect on The cold war, Our Domestic and Foreign Policy’.
Much of the information in this book came to light during the Watergate investigations and lead to what was obtainable through the Freedom of Information act flushes out the remainder of the book.
It is a pretty detailed account of the evolution of the intelligence apparatus since its beginnings in early World War II with the CIC (Army Counterintelligence Corps) from which the CIA evolved and the profound changes that occurred in our country as a result. Our entire world view of the USSR was presented to us by Nazis and east European anti communist Nazi collaborators who were themselves infiltrated with soviet intelligence agents. Our military posture, much of right wing McCarthyism and our geopolitical nuclear chess game were in large part fuelled by these people and funded with US tax dollars. Many thousands of Nazis who should have been tried for war crimes or at least positively prevented from entering the US were actually funnelled into the US and eventually became influential members of business, education and government... fervent fascists who hated communists and had little love for any kind of democratic nation.
I have little doubt that modern presidents only hear the ‘intelligence’ that he is allowed to hear just as I have little doubt that students receive a rather ‘structured’ education. Perhaps voters should open there eyes to the possibility that all is not what they are told, pay a bit more attention to the bill of rights, think about just how involved an outward looking agency (CIA) spends so much of its time involved in the lives of everyday Americans , what Khrushchev meant when he said “We will bury you from within” and what the oath of the US President really means. The act of protecting and defending the constitution would solve an awful lot of what ails America.
"40 million people across the United States who have monumental student debt, as reported by CNN. In fact, student loans have increased by 84% since the recession (from 2008 to 2014) and are the only type of consumer debt not decreasing, according to a study from Experian, which analyzed student loan trends from 2008 through 2014.
ReplyDeleteThe analysis also finds that in total, a staggering $1.2 trillion is bleeding students dry."
http://college.usatoday.com/2015/04/08/national-student-loan-debt-reaches-a-bonkers-1-2-trillion/