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 Are
We Preaching to the Choir?
Nancy Salvato
July 13, 2004 |
I recently received an e mail from a
colleague, actually more of an icon since he’s been so long in the business,
congratulating me on a piece I’d written;
Treason and Slander in
the Fifth Column, and had published in a major media outlet. He wanted
to express his appreciation for the subject matter of my editorial. I was
very humbled to receive such praise from Mr. Lee Ellis. He also raised some
interesting ideas in his correspondence.
He was adamant that my viewpoint needed to be repeated over and over until
it was heard. His suggestion makes complete sense. I once learned in a
teacher’s workshop that intelligent students need only hear something 1-3
times before it’s retained. The average to below average student needs to
hear something up to 27 times before it becomes part of a knowledge base.
The irony of his observation is that my husband Frank and I had only
recently been expressing our frustration with the misinformation which
regularly bombards the target audience of mainstream media. So much baseless
propaganda becomes accepted as fact. The studies of Solomon Asch prove that
if you hear something enough, regardless of your initial perception, you
will begin to believe what you are told.
Asch’s participants were told "to match the length of a standard line to
three comparison lines.” His study groups only contained one "real”
participant. The rest of the participants were "plants” told to give
incorrect responses during some trials. The "real” participants when exposed
to the incorrect responses vocalized by the "plants” conformed to their
answers 33% of the time, with 75% of them conforming at least once. This
experiment demonstrated the ease in making a person conform in a group
situation.[1]
Mr. Ellis later referred to Antonio Gramsci and noted how Gramsci’s theory
has actually spread to the infiltration of the mass media, schools,
colleges, and churches. Not wanting to appear ignorant, I didn’t ask him to
explain his comments. Instead, I went to the internet and did some research
on the man.
Gramsci, a Marxist, believed that the consent of the masses to the
ideology of their rulers is what allows them to be controlled. A
Communist or Socialist Revolution is not feasible if the majority of the
population accepts what is happening in society as common sense or
the only way of running society. Therefore, the ideological bond must be
broken by questioning the belief system that justifies the rulers’ political
and economic rights to rule. Conversely, in order for the ruling class to
maintain its influence, the educational system needs to produce graduates
who are socialized into maintaining the status quo.
Belief systems can’t be imposed. To achieve socialist consciousness,
intellectuals from all classes of society have to question the dominant
ideal; thereby upsetting the inherent balance necessary to the existing
system .This creates the counter influence necessary to transform their
current belief system.
Each social class must be capable of thinking, studying, or ruling to
eradicate existing differences. For this reason, Gramsci opposed vocational
schools. He saw them as perpetuating social differences. The education
system needed to be confronted and changed dramatically. Learners must
construct their knowledge, not be passive recipients of the status quo
information. School must relate to the student’s everyday life to maintain
their interest. Finally, there should only be one kind of school to attend
until it’s time to choose a way to make a living.2
My thoughts are that many of today’s graduates might leave school much
better prepared for employment if vocational classes were offered as viable
alternatives to college preparatory work. Square pegs shouldn’t be forced
into round holes. Recognizing individual strengths and abilities should be
seen as essential to developing healthy personalities. Not fostering what
could be a useful skill should be seen as negligence in education.
Core knowledge must be possessed before one can think critically or credibly
about a subject of discussion. In order to gain that information, a certain
amount of passive learning (not reinventing the wheel) must take place.
Students must be receptive to learning about or memorizing facts and
figures. Not every moment of instruction can or should be based on the
students’ interests or favored learning style. Real world situations don’t
allow for such indulgences.
Finally, Mr. Ellis wonders, by reaching out to an internet audience are we
not just preaching to the choir? I wondered, with my pieces about how
imperative it is to educate our students in the foundations of our governing
system; the values of capitalism; and the morality safeguarded in religion,
am I? I know that in order to understand or accept an idea, there must be
something inherent in a person’s existing knowledge with which that thought
can be connected.
Those with "globalist” or "multicultural” agendas seem to exert the most
influence on the mainstream media, which then connects with those educated
in the schools’ politically correct environments with an emphasis on
multiculturalism and world order. Yes, he is on to something. Gramsci’s
transformation is taking place.
The choir of internet readers; those who understand the point I’ve been
trying to make, seems to have received their education prior to the
progressive education movement which thrust the goals of "multiculturism”
and "world order” into the mainstream. So, I ask the choir, how can we bring
our ideas back into the mainstream?
It’s imperative we affect the course of events so to break the stranglehold
of our education system over generations of citizens who are abdicating our
their civic responsibility in favor of a globalist world order, which in the
long run will serve to overthrow the best system of government in the world.
[1] Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:t8V3qsp3z90J:www.units.muohio.edu/psybersite/cults/cco.shtml+Asch%27s+conformity+experiments.&hl=en
[2] Antonio Gramsci
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-gram.htm
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