Sunday 20 November 2016

Education or Indoctrination?



As the world’s demography changes and the Millennials become the majority, and the Baby Boomers become the minority, the world is about to face a new reality. Today our education institutions, instead of the family unit, have grown into the main provider of cultural values in the develop world. Is this a desired trend?

To educate: “Give intellectual, moral, and social instruction as a formal and prolonged process”. In the not too distant past, this process used to start within the family unit. Parents were involved in the moral and social developments of their children. Offspring were taught respect, and social manners among other things. The education system continued the process of development by providing the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Universities were the centres of further education where students were encouraged to have intellectual discourse, explore and research new ideas. But today, with the rise of feminism and progressivism, the philosophy of education has changed drastically.

The Feminism movement, created many opportunities. More women entered the workplace and contributed to the enormous economic growth of the post WWII era. By the same token, the family unit was also transformed. With both parents working, children’s basic education was left to kinder gardens and elementary schools. Technology also plays a major role in the education process. Children are now left on their own more often and increasingly spending more time on social media.

Progressivism, which has nothing to do with progress, is code word to describe the rise of socialism or communism in disguise. The education system at all levels is now dominated by unionized teachers, lecturers and tenured professors. Governments who want to stay in power pay lip service to the heavily unionized educators, and create policies which alter and re-create curricula. In many cases, history is being re-written; books and literature are being altered to reflect a more diverse point of view. It seems that today’s politically correct education system is being used to indoctrinate rather than educate, and the result can been seen in the behavior of today’s millennials.

Universities have become more intolerant of different views. Any disagreement with any liberal point of view, is more often than not, immediately labelled as being of a racist, xenophobic, homophobic or sexist nature. Campuses have established a culture of political correctness which has now polluted the main stream media. Of course this proliferation affects political and social discourse. Freedom of speech is seemingly the sole domain of the left. Intolerance on the other hand is now the preferred characterization of the right. The promotion of social justice and secularism, to the detriment of Christianity, but not of radical Islamists on certain campuses is increasing. Ivy League institutions are now condoning student protest against electoral results. Students are being coddled with the creation of ‘safe places’ and other politically correct policies. Professors, like Jordan Peterson of the University of Toronto, who argues “against the existence of non- binary gender identities, or those that are not exclusively masculine or feminine‍”, is being vilified and ostracized. Those who are against climate change policies are branded as ‘deniers’ or flat-earth believers. The continued failure of the education system supported by a liberal media has contributed to the indoctrination of the post baby boomer generations.

The election of Obama opened the flood gates for progressivism. The main stream media seized on this opportunity to promote many policies which have destroyed the economy and the world order. Social media and late night shows, with the likes of Kimmel, Colbert, Fallon etc. have become the source of news for many people. Hollywood with shows promoting so-called diversity has entered the political arena with a vengeance. Blinded by their own rhetoric, the left around the world ignored the real effects of their failed policies.

The backlash was clearly expressed by the electorate in the last U.S presidential election as well as the Brexit referendum. Although labelled as the rise of the right-wing, the real factors are being ignored. Progressivism went too far, and the candidates promoting it were failures in their own rights. Accusing everyone who disagreed with their policies of being racist, misogynist, and xenophobic back fired. Hillary Clinton ignored the plight of the middle class and working Americans who have suffered eight years of progressive policies like Obamacare and lax immigration policies. The left has ignored that their view of globalization is not the concept that Ricardo envisaged. Trade has now become a movement for multilateralism and socialist expansion. They have used refugee and immigration policies for gerrymandering purposes. Trump’s opposition to NAFTA an TPP is not based in protectionism but rather in the lack of ‘fair trade’, in the same way that Brexit was not based on xenophobia but rather that the U.K no longer could stand the bureaucracy of Brussels dictating their sovereign right to accept whomever they choose.

Demonstrators, who have yet to be condemned by President Obama, who protest against a Trump election are not only misguided but also blind to the real facts. Millennials in their vast majority did not even vote, yet they protest the result of the elections. The left believes that compromise should exists only when they are out of power, but never when they are in power as illustrated by Obama’s eight years of imperious executive orders. America and the free world are under siege from a progressivism mentality vastly created by the indoctrination of a generation by an increasingly leftist education system.

Parents, do you know what your kids are being taught? Do you know who are teaching your kids?  Parents who really care about the future of their children should involve themselves in the debate about curricula and education programs. Political correctness must not be taken for granted but rather as the source of many divisions in today’s society. We can no longer leave our children in the hands of educators who promote a closed agenda which will lead us to socialism and greater government control.

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