Article From: (NaturalNews.com):
Once upon a time, in medieval universities, new students
enrolled in the Trivium. It was the foundation curriculum. It was
required. Its parts were: grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
Grammar: the interior construction of language; the parts of speech; the proper agreement of parts of speech.
Logic:
the valid and invalid connections in the course of an argument; the
method of proper reasoning; the deductive links in a chain, at the end
of which is a conclusion.
Rhetoric: oral presentation; the use of language to make a case; the capacity to persuade, even in the face of counter-argument.
Today, the subject matter of the Trivium is not only downplayed. It has been shattered.
This article focuses on the death of logic.
When
the intensive handling of ideas is seen as a laughable goal for
education, indoctrination is plugged in as the only alternative.
The mind of the student shifts from being an active force to being a container.
The
destruction of logic is a conscious strategy, a game plan. Its goal is
to pervert rational thought at its core and insert ideology masked as
insight.
The game plan was cooked up a long time ago at the
Carnegie Foundation, where the undermining of American history was the
number-one pastime.
Instead of merely erasing knowledge of
American history, it was decided that the basic way ideas are studied
should be torpedoed.
The actual meaning of an idea was firmly
placed on the back burner. Front and center would be: relentlessly
assess and attack the people who forwarded those ideas.
And sure enough, this strategy has gained great prominence.
"The
revered Founders of the Republic? Shysters, con men, slaveholders,
monopolists who saw rebellion from England as the way to win greater
power for themselves, at the expense of everyone else living on American
soil."
Therefore, the argument continues, and this is crucial, the Founders' ideas,
as expressed in the Declaration and the Constitution, were rotten to
the core. The ideas can be dismissed out of hand as coming from "a bad
source."
If you want to see that sleight-of-hand trick in action,
just visit a few American studies classes in universities and catch the
wave.
Ideas no longer need to be judged on their sense, merit,
and alignment with basic principles. Nor are they judged by their
position in a well-formed argument. All that is out. Now, you have to
"look to the source" and make all your decisions based on "who these
people really were who expressed the ideas."
And since that's the case, learning to think or reason is unnecessary.
New
education, then, once you strip away the old essentials, is really
nothing more than learning who the bad guys were and the good guys were.
This can be taught by ideologically motivated professors in a few
hours.
In logic,
this used to be called the fallacious ad hominem argument. Now it's not
called anything. It's praised as the insightful way to do intellectual
business.
In the case of the Founders' ideas, we have, among
others: the free market; individual freedom; private property; severely
limited central government.
No need to examine these concepts. No
need to assess, for instance the success of the free market, despite
its corruption by criminals and monopolists, in providing a better
standard of living for millions of people. Forget it. All you have to
know is that the free market was proposed by phony American aristocrats
who wanted more power for themselves. On that basis alone, you can
reject the free market.
How about private property? Same thing. The same phony Founders put that idea forward; therefore, it must be wrong.
Thomas Jefferson? He owned slaves. Therefore, as the night follows day, everything he said or thought or did was wrong.
See how easy education has become?
Individual
freedom? Another absurdity proposed by the crooked Founders. Reject it.
Don't bother thinking about what that freedom has allowed you to
express. Who cares?
So, one by one, these core ideas fall to the ax, and criticizing America becomes destroying America.
To
argue that very bad people have taken over an idea, and therefore the
idea itself was never good, is like arguing that, since hijackers took
over a plane, the plane was a despicable object altogether and probably
deserved to be stolen or blown up.
Once the core ideas and ideals
of the American Republic are destroyed, new ideas inevitably take their
place. The possibilities are endless. But here is, in fact, what has
happened:
Instead of the sanctity of private property and right
of its owner to protect it, we now have, coming into vogue, "assigned
use." This means someone somewhere, at the top of the food chain, will
decide how property should be deployed, for the greatest good of the
greatest number.
He determines the definition of greatest good.
Instead
of individual freedom, we have the collective need. Behavior should be
adapted to the group. How this is defined falls to our leaders.
The free market becomes central planning and distribution of goods and services.
It can be quite interesting to discuss these matters with people who have been educated "in the new way."
On
the issue of the free market, I had a PhD candidate tell me this: The
idea of the free market was a smokescreen. It was proposed as a way for
the very rich to dominate commerce. The "free market" was a non-concept.
It never existed. It was an illusion, like people sprouting wings and
flying.
You might be surprised by the number of people who
believe this. They are essentially saying that the very EXISTENCE of an
idea depends on WHO expressed the idea. If the wrong person first expressed it, it was never real.
Students
with a vast sense of self-entitlement and meaningless self-esteem love
this stuff. It allows them to parade around and call the shots and
decide which ideas are worthy and which aren't, without reflection. They
have a scorecard of good guys and bad guys and that's all they need.
In the world of social engineering, here is the larger program:
first make every idea dependent for its value on who proposed it;
attack the men who created the Constitution and thereby trash all the founding ideas of the Republic;
instead substitute the notion of oppressors and the oppressed---all the bad people who founded the Republic were the oppressors;
cultivate, encourage, and create many groups within society as "the oppressed";
come in behind that with big government as the answer to the problems of the oppressed;
ratchet up dependence and government control to new heights.
Of
course, big government, under its humanitarian banners, is a dictator.
To maintain the illusion that it is not, there must be new oppressed
people, new victims, new helpless people coming out of the woodwork all
the time whom the government can help.
From this angle, it
doesn't matter whether the ever-growing dependent population is genuine
or not. Sorting out the real from the imaginary obviously isn't part of
the program. Nor does it matter how government is disenfranchising
people to make them into victims.
Some people see labeling
themselves victims as a winning strategy for their lives. Others
actually are getting their noses shoved down into the mud.
In our teaching institutions, you could look in vain to find courses on the individual, his freedom, his power. That's gone.
It's
all about: what group do you belong to? What are the needs of that
group? Who is oppressing your group? How can you get government to solve
the problem?
Once the oppressor-oppression model is set in stone, everything that follows is a disaster.
Oppressor-oppression
equals victim-rescuer. The rescuer turns out to be a tyrant. He gives
and he takes. He makes the rules. He builds his power.
If you can educate the young to make snap judgments about core ideas, you eliminate their capacity to reason. You own them.
You turn them out as programmed androids. They follow your game plan.
From
that point on, they hold a hostile attitude toward anyone who can
discuss and analyze ideas. They look at such people as an entitled and
privileged class who is speaking a foreign language. If overnight, you
discovered that the most elevated members of society were all speaking
Hungarian and nothing else, do you think you could maintain a friendly
attitude toward them?
Here is another tool of the new education.
Blur over the distinction between a widespread condition and a universal
defining condition. For example, yes, there are oppressors and there
are people they are oppressing. True. But to move from that and say the
very ideas at the core of society were designed, everywhere and at all
times, to create only oppressors and the oppressed...that's a vast
generality which leads to all-inclusive programmatic general solutions.
And those solutions, voila, turn out to be the means of making slaves.
Criticizing
America is productive only when it has a reference point for
comparison. A rational discussion to establish the reference point is
essential. Are we going to hold up a mirror to the founding ideas of the
Republic, or are we going to say, for example, that the true and proper
purpose of government should be to alleviate suffering? And if the
latter, what exactly does that alleviation entail? How far does it go?
Who does it punish in the process?
This isn't a brush-off
conversation. In order to participate in it, people have to be able to
follow a train of thought. If they can't, because they were educated not
to, where are we? We're in the dark. We're living by slogans.
Freedom?
Liberty? Collective need? Responsibility? It doesn't matter what ideas
are on the table, because the overwhelming number of people don't know
what an idea is. They don't know how to walk up to one and look at it
from several sides. They don't know how to trace its implications. They
don't know how to fit that idea alongside its cousins. They don't see a
Whole. They see the ceaseless spinning machinery of an alien process,
from which they've been excluded.
Then, no matter what shape society takes, it's a dumbshow, as far the majority of its citizens are concerned.
Who solves that?
The invasive State takes charge. It picks up the pieces of the wreckage it was a key actor in delivering.
Ever
since the ratification of the Constitution, the actions of the federal
government have confirmed the need for the limitations written into that
document. New needs and crises have "demanded" illegitimate expansion
of federal power.
In order to convince the people that this
expansion was, at every turn, vital, the goal of educating citizens
about what it means to take part in a Republic had to be blunted. This
was done, a step at a time, through education.
Dismantling the ability to reason, employ logic, and handle ideas was the prow of that destructive campaign.
And
yet...logic isn't only a subject that's taught to students whose minds
are a blank slate. There is an inherent tendency toward rational thought
that persists, despite programming to the contrary.
For example,
if a television station or web site offered a prolonged debate between
two intelligent people on the meaning of the 2nd Amendment---a real
debate, not just a brush-off---many viewers would be intensely
interested.
I'm talking about an old-style debate, one that
lasted at least several hours, with each proponent allowed sufficient
time to make his case fully. No name calling or shouting of slogans. No
interruptions from either side. No stupid moderators.
This
traditional long-form format would serve to wake people up to the fact
they have minds, they can think, they can spot contradictions and
non-sequiturs.
Or, as I've suggested before, why not a Debate
Channel, devoted exclusively to key issues of our time, taken up in the
long-form?
True, many viewers would tune out. But others would
feel a jolt of inspiration. A sense of deja vu. "I've been here before. I
can't remember when."
Yes, they've been here before, when they could think and reason, before the curtain was lowered.
Actual
reasoned debate could become a growing trend. And by contrast, the
insane nonsense that presently passes for argument on television would
be highlighted as a counterfeit substitute, a fool's errand.
You
can make your own list of vital issues you'd like to see debated, in the
long-form, by people who know their material (not merely the usual dome
heads and pundits). I have my list.
It's never too late to wake up. It really isn't.
For
instance, suppose we had a ten-hour reasoned debate, over the course of
two days, on television, or on the Web, on this simple question:
What really happened at Sandy Hook?
Do you think that might draw a few viewers?
Are you kidding?
It would outrank many major network programs. It would put the networks' coverage to shame.
Never a bad thing.
Coda:
Here is an illustration of no-logic in action. It occurs in a recent
article in the Washington Post, "Uncle of young Newtown shooting victim
turning tragedy into action."
From the headline alone, we pick up
the slant of the article. It's going to praise the uncle for being able
to turn grief into action.
The uncle is attorney Alexis Haller. His nephew, Noah Pozner, was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting.
The
Post article tells us that Haller has worked as a lawyer for the
Vatican. We don't learn exactly what he did for the Vatican, but it's
more or less suggested that, because Haller has a keen interest in
"reporting requirements," where child abuse is occurring, he may have
had something to do with the Vatican now "expecting" (requiring?)
bishops to report pedophile priests to law-enforcement authorities.
This is quite fuzzy. The Post doesn't clarify what role, if any, Haller played in the new Vatican expectations/requirements.
Nevertheless,
the article presses on to indicate that Haller saw a way to codify
reporting requirements in situations of imminent violence, like Sandy
Hook. In fact, Haller has written (or made notes on?) a bill:
When
a person "has knowledge of a grave or imminent threat of serious harm
or death made by someone with access to a gun," that person must notify
the police within 24 hours.
Haller has met with Joe Biden's committee and discussed his proposal.
The
article doesn't bother to take up how this bill, if made into law,
would be enforced, or what implications might flow from it---such as the
birthing of an expanded snitch mentality; and excessive, wrong-headed,
or even malicious reporting in cases where the threat of imminent
violence wasn't real.
No, this article, we learn, is more a human
interest story about Alexis Haller and what's he's motivated to do in
the wake of the death of his nephew.
The Post article doesn't
bother to cover Haller's actual history as a defense lawyer for the
Vatican. For example, in a case involving the sexual abuse of a
Portland, Oregon, boy, in the 1960s, where a 2011 suit was filed against
the Holy See, Haller was defending the Vatican, claiming that the
pedophile priest, Andrew Ronan, was committing crimes against children
without the knowledge of the Holy See, and was not an employee of the
Vatican.
Why is this significant? Because the Post article
states: "Haller had crafted and forwarded several proposals to prevent
future gun violence that were shaped by his experience as a lawyer for
the Holy See."
Which part of that experience? Ahem, cough-cough.
By the end of the article, we know nothing about the precise wording of Haller's new bill to limit gun violence.
We
do know that he was tragically connected to the Sandy Hook shootings.
We know his initial efforts to have input in new gun legislation were
ignored. We know he overcame that problem. We see his posed picture
above the article, in which he's walking in the rain under an umbrella.
We understand the Post is "on his side."
This
is the old ad hominen argument, in which the person forwarding an idea
is more important than the actual content of the idea...except in this
case, the person isn't being attacked, he's being praised.
As if that gives more credibility to his idea, the precise legal content of which we don't know.
Perfect.
Jon Rappoport
The
author of an explosive collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon was a
candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of
California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an
investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics,
medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine,
Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has
delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and
creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his
free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com
About the author:
The author of an explosive new collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon
was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of
California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an
investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics,
medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine,
Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon
has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic,
and creative power to audiences around the world.
www.nomorefakenews.com