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The reason this moment is so maddening and so chaotic is because education has been under attack for generations. The information necessary to understand it and move past it is out there, it's just been intentionally hidden and vilified. 1/
Schools are intentionally underfunded, teachers degraded, and the pursuit of education deluded into glorified job training. This was never by accident. It was a deliberate destruction of the educational body of the United States. 2/
It starts with history, which is the deciding force in how we view the world. Curriculum has pushed a propagandized version of history that glosses over looming problems while pushing American triumphs, as a result, we don't understand what's happening or why it's happening. 3/
But what's really maddening is that academia is all over this moment, it's just a synthesis of psychology, sociology, history, philosophy, economics, and the like, but the academy has been turned against itself and effectively barricaded from the rest of the world. 4/
To understand this moment, it's necessary to look at the university before the 1960's. Higher education was a tool of the military in the Cold War, a public think-tank of weapons, strategy, and understanding. It was essentially a body of the government. 5/
But when college students and faculty rebelled in the 1960's, there was a direct attack on the institution of higher learning. It was seen as dangerous, within the Right Wing it was seen as possibly the beginning of the dissolution of organized society. 6/
If you have free time, go check out Francis Schaeffer's How Then Should We Live?, a documentary that frames for the religious right how academics are ruining the world and causing chaos. It's the basic foundation of what we see now and it is chilling. 7/
Suddenly, the university went from a loved institution into a danger. Children could go there and become "radicalized." The right wing began a war against higher education. They starved it. Vilified it. Turned it from a place of learning and power to an elitist institution. 8/
Listen. We could argue all day long about what the university is and isn't, but here's what it is: THE BASE OF KNOWLEDGE. When the Right Wing starved it and vilified it, they essentially kept the country from having the ability to understand itself and plan for the future. 9/
If you're an academic, certainly you've seen it. The studies are all out there that explain this moment. Your discipline has key elements. BUT. We're quarantined. We're not given as much time in press and media because we're not salacious enough. 10/
What ends up happening is we get silo-ed. We don't talk to one another enough. We don't collaborate. As a result, the answers don't always come together because we're so busy trying to survive the next round of budget cuts and attacks. It's a terrible cycle. 11/
Meanwhile, STEM and business continue getting funds and emphasis. We keep moving further and further in a direction when what we need is a well-rounded education. The consequences of this extreme movement is a society that simply doesn't make sense or understand itself. 12/
STEM and other fields are hugely important, but they need to be mixed with the disciplines that help them make sense of the world and put human experience, history, and the rest into context. But the war among disciplines prevents that. 13/
What I'm finding in my research is that this moment we're in, as confusing and chaotic, was predicted by voices that have been obscured and hidden for decades. And the reason: because of our own prejudices and because the academy has been buried. 14/
Rising fascism, the death of truth, the fracturing of reality, ongoing attempts to undermine democracy and people's lives? The antidote to all of it is education. Well-rounded, honest, critical education. That gets past fake news, manipulation, all of it. 15/
AND before someone accuses the liberal professor of being on his soapbox, this is a bipartisan thing. People of all ideologies should care about logical, constructive understanding and debate. Education is for everyone and it should help us all have better understanding. 16/
There is nothing more bipartisan in nature than education. Those who make it a partisan issue are actively manipulating people and ruining lives and societies. Get the facts out there. Get the voices heard. Get the education flowing again, and we'll find a way out of this. 17/17
