One of the most important pillars of the
democratic experiment is the premise that learning and inquiry are pivotal for
a healthy electorate in a republic. The current actions of those who dominate
the political arena at this time in the United States intend to inhibit
learning. One cannot help but assume
therefore, that the intention of the majority represents a threat to the
authoritarian philosophy of governance.
In other words, those in power are wrong, know it and act to suppress
any effort to challenge their authority through intellectual restriction. This is not limited to our inadequate
ideological description of right vs. left.
It is the age-old corruptive influence of power and affluence as the
disease that has brought down every significant civilization throughout
history. It is not a Jeffersonian libertarian
philosophy that drives this wedge between a republic and their government, but
the ancient worldview that believes that dominance is justification for manifest
power. Political domination is the right
that supersedes individual rights. There
are two historical actions that authority takes to overwhelm political balance
to the detriment of self-governance: restricting
education and science.
In education, the United States has
struggled with a balance of compliance and academic freedom throughout most of
our history. We defined this balance
through judicial precedent that agreed that university professors have academic
freedom and K-12 educators must follow prescribed curricula. This was the precipitous governing balance
that became the accepted norm of our democracy for over a century. It allowed intellectuals to explore freely at
the college level while it required K-12 policy makers seek a civic and
contextual foundation for developing an engaged, compliant and productive
citizenry. This helped maintain a
precarious balance between those who found intellectual inquiry an excuse for
elitist dominance and those who saw it as a means toward enlightenment. Political forces have played on this tension
from all sides. The post World War Two
civil rights and anti-war movements provided an ironic opportunity for
governmental literalists to promote a fear of unfettered citizenry against the
need for necessary authority. The
strategy to restrict political intellectual thought through overtaking local
and state representation was justified through the unruly action of those
demanding a voice. Once such representation was in place the second step was to
deny resources that allowed for intellectual exploration that challenges
authority. This has resulted in the
radical judicial precedent brought about by Citizens United, encouraging a
disengaged electorate, which has tipped the balance toward those who see an
intellectual citizenry as anathema to manifest prescription for order. The
ante-bellum definition of states rights has resurfaced as a result of the
actions taken by those who want compliance, not engagement, from its citizenry. The forces for the destiny of caste have
overcome the democratic justification for reason.
The recent
developments in North Carolina, Kansas, Arizona, Wisconsin and other states are
evidence of this. Not only has the state
house dramatically reduced funding for K-12 education; but, it is acting to silence
decent by starving intellectual diversity through cutting resources that have
been a vital part of the public university mandate. Poverty, the environment, individual industry
and health care are denied through restricted intellectual resources that
lessen opportunities to challenge misguided order.
The current “debate” over climate
science and evolution are two examples of the strategy used to justify
defunding of education. The perspective
of manifest power is threatened when the narrative debunks the concept of
dominant human governance. This
authoritarian perspective promotes humanity at the top of the existential earthly
pyramid throughout time. Therefore, any intellectual theory that threatens this
perspective is false. The warming of the
earth cannot be due to human action because we hold dominion over the earth and
have acted in our interest for the betterment of our world, which is
irrefutable, since the beginning of recorded history. Evolution cannot be true because the God of
our Abrahamic Tradition has put us in this dominant position. Who are we to question God? The justification for empire, slavery and
genocide all derive from a warped interpretation of Darwinian principles. This, of course, is the ultimate irony. The concept of survival of the fittest only
applies to mankind’s justification to domesticate, not to the Earth’s cycle for
rejuvenation and growth. Recognition of
biological evolution and pollution deny our intentional separation from nature
as justified by a god of fear and conquest.
One of the
important legacies of the Enlightenment, and the justification for liberty, was
the concept that we cannot know enough.
The premise for Jefferson’s thinking, derived from his philosophical
predecessors and contemporaries, was that diverse intellectual perspective represents
a good and results in improvement of the human condition. The pursuant struggle that led to the demise
of monarchy over the next two centuries established that the citizenry has the
ability to act in its own interest while serving the needs of the greater
community and the earth. The current
restrictions placed on intellectual thought in the United States justified
through religious literalism and naked self-interest is acknowledgement that
intellectual diversity is a threat to a worldview for predestined authority; this
while denying the historical inevitably that all empires crumble.
The contemporary political
environment has nothing to do with intellectual or political principle. There are those, in both the Democratic and
Republican party, who pretend that this is simply a competition of ideals. The so-called center keeps their proverbial
head in the sand to ensure their material wellbeing while proponents of
unquestioned authority take advantage of this timidity to promote their
political dominance. Therefore, resource
depletion from the dispossessed seen with the potential to challenge such
authority goes unchecked.
The contemporary dramatic reduction
of resources in public education and science, along with the collective growth
in wealth, represent evidence that that current political action is actually an aggressive attempt to
suppress reason for power. Education and
science have to be free from the struggle for political advantage if liberty and
opportunity for all are to flourish. History tells us that all republics crumble
when thought and evidence are denied. Diverse educational and scientific
thought therefore, should not be seen as threats to our way of life requiring
control, but as God given requirements that require ongoing investment to
survive.
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