Education, Personal responsibility, and the fall of modern society

As I see it; all the problems that we face in today’s world boil down to an overall lack of personal responsibility. Finance and education don’t get a free pass. Because of the sloth, distraction, abuse, or outright neglect... of everyday people… to do what’s right in any given situation, the government ends up doing what we should be doing for ourselves.

For example, recently the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) released a report showing that the average person does not have the financial literacy required to navigate the modern economy. The same study also shows that financial literacy has actually improved in the United States since the 1970’s!

While these results may be accurate on paper, they do little more than simply sidestep or whitewash the underlying issue, which is:


When it comes to banking and finance, American people are just plain IGNORANT.



Does anyone here remember learning about “fractional reserve banking” in high school Economics class?

Anyone?

How about the “Federal reserve system”?

Anyone?

…Credit default swaps, mortgage backed securities, derivatives, or predatory lending?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Fry?…

I didn’t think so.

Most of the youth I come in contact with have no understanding of finance whatsoever - and I feel that may be by design.

The public education system (or lack thereof) may be the single greatest issue facing the US today, that we can actually do something about. I’ll even take that a step further and say that the profound lack of responsibility exhibited by the general public, for the education of their children, has single-handedly brought about the complete and utter destruction of freedom in modern society.

If we as a society would simply stand up and accept that the “responsibility” to educate our children lies not with the government but with ourselves, we can begin to teach our children to how the world actually works instead of subjecting them to the phony, feel-good, politically correct “propaganda” that oozes out of public school textbooks.

As an informed society, we might just be able to win the war (that’s being fought daily) for the minds of our children. If more Americans can wake up to the fact that government has NO PLACE dictating how we raise and educate our children, and we cease putting blind faith in “big government” to teach our children the knowledge that they need to navigate in this world, the solution wouldn’t seem nearly as elusive. All public school does is indoctrinate our children to the status quo through a hard corps regime of propaganda from the first day they set foot in Kindergarten.

It does not educate. It does not encourage critical thought.

It installs a pre-determined doctrine of thought, through repetition, that induces students to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas.



---------And that, my friends is also the “Mirriam-Webster” definition of brainwashing.



While we are on the subject of dictionaries, we may as well cover a few relevant definitions so we can share an “unclouded” view of the terrain.

“Indoctrinate” means:

1. To instruct in a body of doctrine or principles.

2. To imbue with a partisan or ideological point of view

syn. [indoctrination - teaching someone to accept doctrines uncritically , brainwashing - forcible indoctrination into a new set of attitudes and beliefs inculcation, ingraining, instilling - teaching or impressing upon the mind by frequent instruction or repetition]

“Educate” means:

1. To develop the innate capacities of, especially by schooling or instruction.
2. To stimulate or develop the mental or moral growth of.

The words “indoctrinate” and “educate”, though similar, are not synonyms at all. They have very different meanings.

So, with that in mind, and discarding any euphemisms or doublespeak, what is commonly accepted as “public school education” is, in actuality, primary school indoctrination.

According to a web article at www.teach-kids-attitude-1st.com by Don Berg :

“The definition of education in common usage, that education is merely the delivery of knowledge, skills and information from teachers to students, is inadequate … Being an educated person means you have access to optimal states of mind regardless of the situation you are in…able to perceive accurately, think clearly and act effectively to achieve self-selected goals and aspirations.”

Mr. Berg goes on to say that education is “cognitive cartography… a process of mapping your experiences and finding a variety of reliable routes to optimal states when you find yourself in non-optimal states.”



I totally agree.

But, can anyone show me a curriculum focusing on good, logical decision making taught at public schools?

Again, I didn’t think so.

Due to public schools heavy reliance on federal funding, teachers are often forced to “teach the test” and cater to the lowest common denominator, rather than actually inspiring students to think on their own. Eligibility requirements for public schools to receive federal funding are so regimented and strict that more often than not, teachers only have the time to instruct students "what" to think, instead of "how" to think.

Through the study of quantum physics, we are clearly shown that there is no description of reality that is accurate unless it includes the observer (or in this case, the teacher) in its description. Any description is relative only to the instrument used, and the instruments location in space/time. There is no position from which "our" reality can be taught by anyone other than us, because all presented information is all abstracted by the individual instructing.

While basic classes such as language and introductory mathematics run little risk of being “tinted” by the federal governments standardized schedule of indoctrination, almost every other subject from elementary to high school is fundamentally capable of programming our kids with a belief system that may run contrary to our own.

And so, our little journey comes full circle, back to a point where the main question is:

Do you feel comfortable with strangers installing a foreign belief system, designed and regulated by the US government, to your children’s “Operating System”?

Anyone?


Once again, I didn’t think so.

Having children, the protection/providing for/of those children, and the education of those children is just one more aspect of our lives that the government has no business interfering in.



How often do you hear:

“Oh that is horrible, someone should DO something”?

How often do you see the person making that statement actually step up and take the responsibility to do what needs to be done?

Rarely, but it does happen. We call those who step up and do the right thing “heroes”. Heroes are a good thing.

Afterwards, there is always someone crawling out of the shadows to take credit for the actions of another. We call those people politicians. We mostly consider them a bad thing.


One last question: When is the last time you remember a politician (other than Ron Paul) taking personal responsibility for ANYTHING?

Anyone?

Again, I think you get my point.

Politicians are generally the people that exploit the heroic actions of others for personal gain and public power. Once they have it, they then use that power to legislate “their” brand of morality and kindness. Not ours, but theirs.

Trouble is, if you have to make a law to force someone into helping others or showing kindness, it isn’t kindness anymore. The requirement cancels the honor. Freedom is the only scenario in which heroes can be born.

Freedom allows those that take personal responsibility to step up when they are needed. The free do not create situations that force the government to step in and regulate our freedoms.

We do not require legislation and regulation to dictate morality. Or education. Why do we feel compelled to impose "laws" that allow our government to take over responsibility, and force others to behave like we want? Why have the middle man?



To quote Brian Tracy-

“If you don’t like the way something is, change it. If you aren’t willing to change it yourself, don’t complain.”

Of course our kids are financially illiterate. Of course they are historically illiterate. Of course they are easy to manipulate. They are manipulated by the system from kindergarten through High School. Even Universities have their own specific political tilt, which in most cases has nothing to do whatsoever with the parent’s values, unless the parent guides and directs the children as good parents do.



Remember, so much of the issue is in the language. Drop the "Orwellian doublespeak", drop the euphemisms, get rid of the political correctness... and just use words for what they actually mean. Then we would be in a far better place to dictate anything.

And that's the truth-, as I see it.

reply to post by Lono1


Nice thread. Some spacing issues, but that's just me.
I can't think of a single thing that I'd disagree with. Personal responsibility has been something I've been preaching for quite some time. That it should extend beyond just education to every aspect of our lives (especially the aspects government is trying to intrude upon) is a given.

S+F

reply to post by beezzer


I tried three times to fix the spacing...maybe i'm just "lost in spacing" tonight...anyway, agreed, and attempted...

But to no avail.

Have you read anything from Ruby Payne?

Regards and Nameste,

-Chung

reply to post by ChungTsuU


NO, I don't believe so...
2d

Please do.

I feel that education in America has never (colonial-present) been equal, lately the gap has grown...

It will focus on the socio-economic issues in the ongoing political battle of "education". This extends back to the founding of our country.

Life long educator and hold a M.A. Ed. Leadership.

Regards and Nameste,

-Chung

One important aspect of the womb-to-grave indoctrination campaign is the ubiquitous propaganda reinforcing the belief of most people that the state is benevolent--that the system is designed to produce the best results for the benefit of the people. This lie is often veiled under the auspices of "patriotism" and "national exceptionalism", insinuating that you must hate America if you question its motives, thus marginalizing dissent.

The state's underlying motive in "educating" the public, after even the most superficial examination, is plainly apparent. To serve private financial interests, for which states are created and by whom they are controlled, the state is motivated to churn out people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, but not too smart, lest they wise up and present a threat to current economic and social paradigms.

If the people begin to realize, bluntly, how bad they're being screwed by corrupt power structures, they won't keep spinning the hamster wheel anymore. Of course, the state (not to mention the media, another arm of corporate discourse manipulation) will not allow this to happen, which is what makes personal responsibility so crucially important.

You cannot depend on the state to tell you the truth (or for anything else, for that matter) and let you draw your own informed and reasoned conclusions, much less take any reformative public action as a result. Educating yourself and your children, free from the motives of powerful special interests, is of paramount importance and the only chance we have of waking up enough people to acheive a critical mass of social & economic reform.

reply to post by Lono1


While I agree with you that academic institutions have become a confidence game, the belief that these institutions are failing people because they have not done enough to indoctrinate them on the presumed value of "fractional reserve banking", or the foolishly presumed value of a "Federal Reserve System", or "credit default swaps", or ""mortgage backed securities", or "derivatives" or "predatory lending" is disheartening.

Of course, the very fact you used phrases such as "predatory lending" or even mortgage backed securities" or "credit default swaps" suggests that you are certainly no advocate of these con games, but to think teaching these con games in academia will some how help people navigate the turbulent waters of a closed economic system misses the point.

When academia becomes more interested in honestly teaching the demonstrable value of open economic systems where free and unregulated markets are established so that everyone can play, then understanding the tools of suppression will not do much. When academia becomes less concerned with teaching students how to apply for licensing schemes, or how to incorporate so that they can obtain permission to do what would otherwise be a right to do, or how to obey the multitude of intrusive regulatory schemes, and more interested in teaching students the value of freedom then, and only then, will academia regain some of its worth.

As far as public academic institutions go, it is beyond folly to believe that government can be trusted to have a monopoly on education and avoid using that monopoly to indoctrinate. Let's not fix what cannot be broken. Let us instead let the free and unregulated market handle academia, and let government go back to the business of protecting individual rights.

Can you name a time that the public education system ever went that deep into economics? I can't.

Those are things you learn about in college not in high school.

Capitalism failed when ownership got tied to an egocentric perception of personal worth rather than responsibility. The legal system has aided this separation supporting non disclosure and not assigning responsibility to many corporate misdeeds.

reply to post by kro32

Can you name a time that the public education system ever went that deep into economics? I can't. Those are things you learn about in college not in high school.

The above statement is a rather elegant example of my point, so thank you...whether you wrote it in support of me or not.

The responsibility to teach our children a good foundation, and HOW to think lies not with institutions, but with ourselves. It is not colleges responsibility to teach our kids fundamental economics, but our own. That lesson is taught by participation and by footing the bill for university training.

Don't ever lose sight of how important responsibility can be. It isn't suprising in the least that a teen raised on "Jersey Shore" has different goals and values than you do.



How long do you expect it will take, for the complete loss and utter destruction of your values and common sense in society, when you expect someone else to be "responsible" for teaching your kids?

Voltaire said:

Common sense, isn't common.

Are you starting to see why?

reply to post by Lono1


That is just it, Lono1, society does not teach people about personal responsibility.

Society as a whole does not teach people to lead themselves but to look to others.

Only responsible people will take personal responsibility for their own actions.

Those people are few and far between because of their own morals, ethics, or beliefs.

Far too many people will even do the right thing as well when it comes to personal responsibility.

School does not teach the youth to think, but to recite via rote, Government biased information.

The victor may write history, but the vanquished have just as much an important story, if not more so.

History is nothing more than biased re-telling of information from one perspective.

Why would people take on personal responsibility if they can ride the coat-tails of others?

I take personal responsibility for my actions, but as well, I would never act illegally or ignorantly.

Those who perpetuate the ignorance of rising up with weapons are too stupid to be called responsible.

Government, take your pick of which one, is generally ready for this action at all times.

Act legally, non-violently, and through personal responsibility, and consider many alternatives.

If not you might choose one course of action when another was much better and greater.

I don't think it's "orwellian doublespeak." I think it's "who we pick as heroes."

In the Asian societies, a good education was the ONLY way out of grinding poverty. Scholars and people of learning were valued. They were heroes -- treasures. In Britain, there were military heroes but there were also heroes of science and learning (you would, by the way, probably find them "in the box thinkers" ... and I have no doubt others would call them "sheeple".)

Stories (media and song) tell us who to value. Superstars are the outrageous, the wealthy, the "fashionable" -- gone are the days when Carl Sagan and Issac Asimov and rocket scientists held the same kind of status as rappers and athletes and arrogant self-made personas have today.

If you want education to be better, start teaching people to value things -- like what we learned in college. I see a lot of people who haven't gone down that hard road dismissing what others learned and how others learned to think and evaluate. Start valuing the problem-solvers, researchers, REAL mathematicians (not the ones who look at Einstein and say "I can't understand that so he must be wrong"), real educators, playwrights, poets, historians (dear heavens, PLEASE honor the real historians who tell us well-researched history!)

Then you'll see a people reborn.

But the heroes promoted on tv and the vapid viral stuff on youtube and the inept text messaging? Nope. That segment of society is going to end up victimized by people in other countries who value education and science and research.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
reply to post by Lono1

 

While I agree with you that academic institutions have become a confidence game, the belief that these institutions are failing people because they have not done enough to indoctrinate them on the presumed value of "fractional reserve banking", or the foolishly presumed value of a "Federal Reserve System", or "credit default swaps", or ""mortgage backed securities", or "derivatives" or "predatory lending" is disheartening.

Of course, the very fact you used phrases such as "predatory lending" or even mortgage backed securities" or "credit default swaps" suggests that you are certainly no advocate of these con games, but to think teaching these con games in academia will some how help people navigate the turbulent waters of a closed economic system misses the point.

When academia becomes more interested in honestly teaching the demonstrable value of open economic systems where free and unregulated markets are established so that everyone can play, then understanding the tools of suppression will not do much. When academia becomes less concerned with teaching students how to apply for licensing schemes, or how to incorporate so that they can obtain permission to do what would otherwise be a right to do, or how to obey the multitude of intrusive regulatory schemes, and more interested in teaching students the value of freedom then, and only then, will academia regain some of its worth.

As far as public academic institutions go, it is beyond folly to believe that government can be trusted to have a monopoly on education and avoid using that monopoly to indoctrinate. Let's not fix what cannot be broken. Let us instead let the free and unregulated market handle academia, and let government go back to the business of protecting individual rights.

I feel quite strongly that the Public Education System is too often and easily blamed for the problems in this country.
There are local school boards. That is where the power check is. If local school boards abdicate their responsibility to ensure that the values and needs of their community are being met via the schools under their stewardship than that is their fault.
Additionally, I find that most schools reflect the prevailing views of the communities in which they are located. To do otherwise would lead to far too many heated runs in for administrators and school board members with the local community.
People who feel that their school doesn't support the values that they teach at home likely have different views from the majority in their community. If that wasn't the case the school board would be dismissed, new members elected, and the changes desired by the community put into place.
It is a red herring to continually blame the public education system for the ills of this country. I am not saying that the system is perfect: but neither is the the devil that it is often portrayed as being.

Originally posted by Lono1
reply to post by kro32

 

Can you name a time that the public education system ever went that deep into economics? I can't. Those are things you learn about in college not in high school.

The above statement is a rather elegant example of my point, so thank you...whether you wrote it in support of me or not.

The responsibility to teach our children a good foundation, and HOW to think lies not with institutions, but with ourselves. It is not colleges responsibility to teach our kids fundamental economics, but our own. That lesson is taught by participation and by footing the bill for university training.

Don't ever lose sight of how important responsibility can be. It isn't suprising in the least that a teen raised on "Jersey Shore" has different goals and values than you do.



How long do you expect it will take, for the complete loss and utter destruction of your values and common sense in society, when you expect someone else to be "responsible" for teaching your kids?

Voltaire said:

Common sense, isn't common.

Are you starting to see why?

edit on 1/7/2011 by Lono1 because: (no reason given)

The state teaching standards for many states are availabe online. Economics is included as it ought to be.
Personally I was taught about the Federal Reserve and compartive economics and the links between various types of economic and social/governmental systems. I was not taught derivative schemes because they didn't exist in that way while I was still in school.

reply to post by watcher3339


You quoted my post entirely and then did not speak to a single point I made. Further, you misrepresented my argument from the get go, by beginning with your lamentation that public education is blamed for the ills of the country. Public education is a part of the problem, but far from the blame. Besides, blame is irrelevant, and does nothing to fixing the problem.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


I didn't respond to your apparent desire to privatize schools because I don't believe that point even deserves a response. Do we want to become more elitist and third world? Our kids get out of college saddled with debt as it is. Now we will charge them for grade school as well?

As to the rest. my response DID respond to your points. You say you can't trust the government to run the schools. I point out that a tremendous amount of power rests with local school boards (as it should) and that schools are too often lumped together as all being the same when that is simply not the case.

I frequently quote entire posts so people don't get upset about being taken out of context.

reply to post by watcher3339

I didn't respond to your apparent desire to privatize schools because I don't believe that point even deserves a response. Do we want to become more elitist and third world? Our kids get out of college saddled with debt as it is. Now we will charge them for grade school as well?

Your use of the word "privatize" is the height of disingenuousness. Long before the existence of public schools, there were private schools, and these private schools still exist today. Contrary to what you claim, it was the politicization of education that has created much of the problems in education today. Not the problems of the country, but of education to be sure.

As to the rest. my response DID respond to your points. You say you can't trust the government to run the schools. I point out that a tremendous amount of power rests with local school boards (as it should) and that schools are too often lumped together as all being the same when that is simply not the case.

Do you actually need it explained to you that local school boards are government? You only make my point, while pretending to refute it.

They are government but they are local: not federal.
Do you really mean to imply that you think the people can't be trusted to govern themselves? Because school boards is pretty much the most basic example of people governing themselves in their area as they see fit.

But corporations cut it for you?

reply to post by watcher3339

They are government but they are local: not federal.

What is your point? Public education is a state and local matter, and there is no where in any of my posts where I have indicated it was a federal matter.

Do you really mean to imply that you think the people can't be trusted to govern themselves?

I have not made such an implication, your inference is just more disingenuousness. I am long on record in this site for being a tireless advocate of self government. Try again.

Because school boards is pretty much the most basic example of people governing themselves in their area as they see fit.

Ending compulsory education legislation and giving back to parents the autonomy they rightfully own to begin with is THE basic example of people governing themselves as they see fit.

But corporations cut it for you?

Corporations are public entities chartered into existence, and are not private. Try again.