Our Excruciating Modernity

On Modernity's public education

[14]

Public schooling teaches. At this claim, the pragmatic would ask "what" it teaches. The answer? Perhaps very little relevant material? Maybe helplessness? Or blind submission? I say all three responses are brutally correct. Does this imply that I have put forth criticism of public education, of a system that charitably grants crucial knowledge, under the form of "free" education, to all, one whose noble mission is raising the masses out of ignorance? Yes, very much so, but if one were to have no basic understanding of the history of this public education I so vehemently criticise, one would dismiss my claims under the pretence that I am an ill-mannered, repressed and most importantly, ungrateful child, which is why I must introduce this history to you. Prior to the early 19th century in the United States, forms of public education, under the form of tax-subsidised elementary schools, were parsimoniously built and happened to be placed in the most developed of areas, serving the richest communities and dismissing the common Man, along with his fields. In 1837, Horace Mann, who had been calling for costless and compulsory schooling for all children in the United States and been appointed as the Secretary of Education of Massachusetts, introduced the standardisation of public school curriculum. Crucially, the standardisation Mann advocated for was based on a model of education named the Prussian Model, and once he established it in Massachusetts, it spread throughout the United States so that by the end of the 19th century, most compulsory schooling laws implemented this model. Therefore, we can deduce that the children of Modernity were moulded by the Prussian model, and that even those that are placed into the hands of today's public education still are. But, isn't this just another irrelevant fact? No, for this fact becomes concerning when one learns the true purpose of the Prussian model, which I shall now reveal.

In 1806, Prussia was defeated by Napoleon after panic broke out amongst the Saxon and Prussian troops, which caused them to mistake each other for the French and shoot one another. This resulted in the ordering of a retreat that confused the Prussian troops to such an extent that a majority of them became uncontrollable and even deserted, leading to over 10,000 Prussian and Saxon deaths and a pathetic defeat whose weight was placed, by the leaders of Prussia, on the individual selfishness, lack of direction and disregard for authority demonstrated by their soldiers. Following this conclusion, a new educational model was created, and it was also made free and compulsory to ensure that the entirety of the "teachable" population, that is to say, children, would be made controllable through an indoctrination that instilled passivity along with uncompromising respect and obedience in the face of authority. This model was based upon principles of duty and discipline, for, as Kant put it, "Man is by nature raw and wild" [11] and, therefore, must be tamed. This model, which, bear in mind, is ubiquitously established and referred to throughout the modern world, is not designed for the good of Man, but for the good of the socioeconomic elite. One could even argue that the Prussian Model and modern public schooling benefits despots and their attempts at gathering support, for out of its gates come masses of gullible, simple minded and indoctrinated individuals who are particularly easy targets of manipulation into emotion-charged rampage, hate, blind intolerance and many more tendencies that are simple to foster yet are destructive on an individual and collective level. This socioeconomic elite, so the factory owners, have understood that the mass production of conformists, by means of an educator roaring orders to cease free thought or the stringent tolling of a bell, will float their bubble of power ever so slightly higher, and in doing so will make it simultaneously appear unattainable to the mystified herd, whose members, as a consequence, lose all ambition, hope and engagement, and suitable to being used as a control centre from which the distant and unaware masses, so the factory workers, can be swayed. The Prussian model, and therefore Modern public schooling, achieves this by compressing the spirit of entire populations into a mould designed to amputate the curious spirit of the youth, level out tendencies for free and independent inquiry, thought and action, and instil unwavering obedience to authority and hierarchy in children, essentially reducing them to a monochrome pile of expendable cardboard pieces whose only purpose is to neatly assemble into a sprawling puzzle, commonly referred to as the "labour force". The transformation of creativity, inquiry and engagement into subservience, which is a deliberate process governed by the rulers of Modern civilisation, has been complemented with methods that provide Man with an approximate understanding of what to learn rather than how to learn. After all, a Man who knows how to learn is a free Man, and a free Man is one less cog in the assembly line of society, one less easily manipulated vote, one less docile civil servant, one less impulsive consumer, one less soldier of the State, and one more disruptive sceptic.