In my last article “Guterres and the Great Reset: How Capitalism Became a Time Bomb”, I made the case that the time bomb justifying a Great Reset of civilization was set into motion over 50 years ago. In that location, we were introduced to a cast of characters surrounding the World Economic Forum and Trilateral Commission who played instrumental roles in bringing about a controlled disintegration of western civilization.
G'Day Matthew, Many thanks for this. Much to chow down on, not just for me but for anyone seeking to make sense of what we're dealing with, and what we're truly up against. For me (Aldous) Huxley has long been a touchstone from a number of perspectives (philosophical, political, scientific, literary). I was vaguely aware of the eugenics background of the Huxley family, but this provides me a new perspective. Indeed his vision of the future is disturbing. (I'd always wondered which side of the fence he sat, reminding one of that old adage: Never 'press the flesh' with your "heroes"; they may not match your expectations.)
But your ruminations above go beyond Huxley and his ilk of course. As you've pointed out, he wasn't the only one of his era, or for that matter a 'pioneer of pessimism'. Their visions and projections may have seemed fantastic then (and yet still made for great 'entertainment' in dystopian literature, music and in film). But sadly, now that the reality of these visions is so near, they remain still for so many, so far. IOW, the closer we get to the danger, the less likely we are to see it for what it truly represents. As always, I hope I'm wrong! That said, I'm still not sure if AH was warning us, or whether he in fact was a true believer! Either way, mucho gracias🙏🏼for the insights! 👉👻💩👍GM
This goes back a long way before Huxley - "Shortly after I retired from teaching I picked up Conant's 1959 book-length essay, The Child the Parent and the State, and was more than a little intrigued to see him mention in passing that the modern schools we attend were the result of a "revolution" engineered between 1905 and 1930. A revolution? He declines to elaborate, but he does direct the curious and the uninformed to Alexander Inglis's 1918 book, Principles of Secondary Education, in which "one saw this revolution through the eyes of a revolutionary."
Inglis, for whom a lecture in education at Harvard is named, makes it perfectly clear that compulsory schooling on this continent was intended to be just what it had been for Prussia in the 1820s: a fifth column into the burgeoning democratic movement that threatened to give the peasants and the proletarians a voice at the bargaining table. Modern, industrialized, compulsory schooling was to make a sort of surgical incision into the prospective unity of these underclasses. Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood, would ever reintegrate into a dangerous whole.
Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modem schooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough to curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three traditional goals listed earlier:
1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.
2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.
3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.
4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.
5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.
6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor." and "Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, said the following to the New York City School Teachers Association in 1909: "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks." https://wesjones.com/gatto1.htm
Why do I have such a hard time distinguishing Huxley as a prophet (Let's say one who is privy to their plans) and one who is issuing warnings rather than one who is an advocate?
G'Day Matthew, Many thanks for this. Much to chow down on, not just for me but for anyone seeking to make sense of what we're dealing with, and what we're truly up against. For me (Aldous) Huxley has long been a touchstone from a number of perspectives (philosophical, political, scientific, literary). I was vaguely aware of the eugenics background of the Huxley family, but this provides me a new perspective. Indeed his vision of the future is disturbing. (I'd always wondered which side of the fence he sat, reminding one of that old adage: Never 'press the flesh' with your "heroes"; they may not match your expectations.)
But your ruminations above go beyond Huxley and his ilk of course. As you've pointed out, he wasn't the only one of his era, or for that matter a 'pioneer of pessimism'. Their visions and projections may have seemed fantastic then (and yet still made for great 'entertainment' in dystopian literature, music and in film). But sadly, now that the reality of these visions is so near, they remain still for so many, so far. IOW, the closer we get to the danger, the less likely we are to see it for what it truly represents. As always, I hope I'm wrong! That said, I'm still not sure if AH was warning us, or whether he in fact was a true believer! Either way, mucho gracias🙏🏼for the insights! 👉👻💩👍GM
This goes back a long way before Huxley - "Shortly after I retired from teaching I picked up Conant's 1959 book-length essay, The Child the Parent and the State, and was more than a little intrigued to see him mention in passing that the modern schools we attend were the result of a "revolution" engineered between 1905 and 1930. A revolution? He declines to elaborate, but he does direct the curious and the uninformed to Alexander Inglis's 1918 book, Principles of Secondary Education, in which "one saw this revolution through the eyes of a revolutionary."
Inglis, for whom a lecture in education at Harvard is named, makes it perfectly clear that compulsory schooling on this continent was intended to be just what it had been for Prussia in the 1820s: a fifth column into the burgeoning democratic movement that threatened to give the peasants and the proletarians a voice at the bargaining table. Modern, industrialized, compulsory schooling was to make a sort of surgical incision into the prospective unity of these underclasses. Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood, would ever reintegrate into a dangerous whole.
Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modem schooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough to curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three traditional goals listed earlier:
1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.
2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.
3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.
4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.
5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.
6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor." and "Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, said the following to the New York City School Teachers Association in 1909: "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks." https://wesjones.com/gatto1.htm
WOW! A very thoughtful analysis of how the eugenicists brought us to where we are today. Great article as usual, Matt!
Why do I have such a hard time distinguishing Huxley as a prophet (Let's say one who is privy to their plans) and one who is issuing warnings rather than one who is an advocate?