REPLIES TO THE CURRENT QUESTION

Our question last week was:

Do you think the American people are being conditioned by the educational system and the mainstream media to give up their freedoms to a "benevolent" central government?  Why do you think that?

Here are your answers.  The name of a writer is included only if he or she actually placed a name at the end of the message.  Otherwise, we assume the writer wished anonymity and "name withheld" is inserted.

We received only two replies to our question, reprinted here:

Books have been  written about this, so putting an answer into a few paragraphs is by necessity  going to be a set of assertions more than reasoned argument.  Suffice to  it say, the educational system is failing our students and, ultimately, our  country.  With the advent of the progressive movement at the turn of last  century and, particularly, the prominance of John Dewey, the intelligensia of  the West, and America has been systematically corrupted.  The tried and  true methods whereby the received wisdom of the past was transmitted to the  next generation was tossed out the window.  It was replaced by fads and  fashions whose only claim to fame was their newness, not efficaciousness.   

By definition, the Progressive Movement rejected the founding  principles of America and the Enlightenment.  This attitude, for a  variety of reasons, has been embraced by our intellectuals.   It has  sired a culture of nihilism and self-loathing.  The slide towards  cultural decadence, harbingered by the rise of anti-Semitism in our  universities, bodes ill for recovery.  What starts out in the ivory  towers as just silly notions eventually filters down to our high schools,  middle schools, and primary schools.  It eventually infects our culture  in totalilty.  The nilhilsm of power politics, long the driving idea in  the humanities, is now the dominant philosophy of the Democratic Party.   

The idea that there are no ideas, just power relationships, creates a  culture of cynicism spread by "journalists" that eventually sets up  individuals to believe in nothing.  Believing in nothing sets up the  belief in anything. Today, that anything is that there is no God, individual responsibility is a quaint idea, and the government is the answer  to creating the comfortable life.  The idea that the good life comes from  hard work, sobriety, the deferral of pleasure, and the embrace of  responsibility has been replaced by nihilistic pleasure and the escape from responsibility.  Look at Europe. This is America in another  generation.

Tragically, it is the educational system that is transmitting these  ideas to the next generation.  Think not?  Would the power grab of Obamaism been acceptable a generation ago?

Alan  Weick  

 

It is true that the media does not help. But people are free,
right? They know their interest, right? So, it cannot be that
media can move people in a way that is opposite to what they
would. Media can only slightly alter things.

In Europe, we know that one generation build, the next manage,
and the next squander the wealth. That is the way of the world.
So, in summary, the WWII generation built, the 60s generation managed things and the current generation squanders. It is apparent that Americans are all too ready to give their freedom for a few things. TARP did not surprised me.

There is an awfullly small quantity of self-criticism that we
can hear from Americans. They blame others, the media being one
of them.  So, they have already accepted that they are not free.

  From Zagreb,
  Mathieu