Who Needs Learnin?
by digby
Howie Klein has a fascinating post up this morning that will get your mind racing and your blood boiling about conservatism, education and the destruction of the middle class.
My best bud, Roland, is a dedicated public school teacher in Compton. He called this morning to tell me all his colleagues were buzzing about Utah Republicans trying to eliminate the 12th grade. “They don’t know about the Mormons,” he said; “never gave it much thought except how they put up the money to defeat gay marriage.” I guess they never saw September Dawn and don’t watch Big Love, South Park or… this (which has been removed, under pressure, from both YouTube and Vimeo and is only available in freer countries, in this case, France).
The bill, temporarily withdrawn, is the brainchild of arch conservative Republican Sen. Chris Buttars, an implacable, hate-filled foe of public education, gays, minorities. What I explained to Roland today is that organized, hierarchal religious organizations are, by their nature, supporters of the status quo and extremely conservative. Obvious scams like Mormonism and Scientology may seem more ridiculous and absurd than most of these organizations but they aren’t inherently any more or less conservative. Each, though, requires followers with no capacity for critical thought. It is why education has always been a target of hatred for religious organizations and for conservatives. Buttars is hardly the first right-wing extremist to persuade ordinary voters that education isn’t the way out of poverty for their children, but some kind of dark, conspiratorial enemy. read on
I think this is one of the scariest elements of conservatism and certainly one of the most destructive. And with the new addition of right wing popular culture in the form of talk radio and Fox news, it’s possible for people to continue their education in ignorance their whole lives.
*I should note that to the credit of some religions, schools and universities have been a big part of their mission. But the new push for home schooling among the fundamentalists in particular is a step in the wrong direction.
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