A
WORD ABOUT WORDS, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AND HOPE
Children sometimes enjoy repeating a word over and over
again, until it becomes nothing more than meaningless sound. One may still do
this, even as an adult. Try repeating aloud any
word, say, for example: “politician, politician, politician…“100
times in rapid succession. Granted, this is a relatively meaningless word to
begin with, but it becomes a truly meaningless series of sounds when one’s
ability to think is overwhelmed by excessive repetition. This is what has
happened today on a broad scale to a number words in the English language.
A good example is the word ‘awesome!’ Originally, this word was only applied to something truly
amazing, something that caused you to
stop and stare in awe and wonder. Now, people regularly have awesome haircuts,
awesome underwear, and awesome bowel movements… awesome everything …every day!
The word has become almost completely meaningless, -just a filler, like ‘well’,
or ‘you know’ or ‘… uh’!
Another such word is ‘university’. Originally, a university
was an awesome institution of higher learning. A university contained many colleges,
each representing a well-defined field of learning, with eminent learned professors,
each teaching a series of increasingly advanced courses in their chosen fields
of study. Today, a storefront with a few computers can call itself a university,
and anyone can buy a degree.
The word ‘educated’ used to mean having a certain degree
of learning, and most importantly, a significant depth of understanding about a number of subjects. Being awarded even elementary-school
and high-school diplomas meant that you had mastered
the subjects and material taught at those levels. Today, after decades of excessive
societal concern that everyone should
be entitled to an education, such diplomas
have become almost meaningless, documenting nothing more than the possibility
that the ‘student’ may have spent a certain amount of time in class or on line.
Today BS, BA, MS, MA, MBA, and even PhD degrees can be obtained on line.
Unscrupulous individuals can, and do, hire or persuade another with the
appropriate knowledge and understanding of a given subject to take the on-line
exams for them.
Originally, if you could not show mastery of the subject matter,
you were not advanced to the next level. This has not been the case for a long
time now in public education in this country. In the early 1960s, after earning
a bachelor degree in mathematics with a physics minor, and completing 12 hours
of ‘education’ courses (which, in my opinion, were a joke, even then), I
decided to seek a teaching job in a ‘secondary school’ (formerly ‘high school’)
in the public education system of my home state. I was appalled when the HS
principal, also the basketball coach, told me that I could not fail any of the basketball team members enrolled in my algebra
and geometry classes, no matter how poorly they did. The reasons given were:
the already over-crowded classrooms, and the ‘fact’ that everybody is entitled
to an education.
This mistaken philosophy that everyone is entitled to an education,
whether they want it or not, and whether they are capable of learning or not,
has penetrated our institutions of higher learning to the extent that even 20
years ago, when I was in a position to hire entry-level professionals, I had applicants
with degrees from colleges and universities who were functionally illiterate!
This deplorable state of affairs has penetrated even to
the level of MS, MBA, MD and PhD recipients. Fifty years ago, someone with
these letters after their name could be expected to possess a significant depth
of understanding of at least one complex subject. Today, anyone can find a way
to legally represent themselves as a ‘master’ of science, ‘master’ of business
administration, or even a ‘doctor’ of philosophy, whether they actually know
anything or not. Sadly, public education in America today has largely become a
case of the blind leading the blind.
Another word that, tragically, has become virtually meaningless
in today’s society, is the word ‘truth’. Thanks to trial lawyers who grossly over-populate
American politics, and have even become President, truth is believed to be anything
you want it to be.
The point of this little essay is that the deplorable
state of our country today, economically, morally and politically, is no
accident. It is the result of more than 50 years of the deliberate ‘dumbing
down’ of public education. We have ‘university’ graduates, people who think
they are educated, who don’t have the basic understanding of reality our great-grandparents
had with eighth-grade educations. Yes, they may have been exposed to more ‘information’
than existed in the world of our great-grand parents, 75 or 100 years ago; but
do they really have any understanding of that information? Many don’t even know
the basic realities of human history, the basic grammar of any language, or
understand much of anything they have supposedly learned obtaining their
degrees. One dangerous result of this pseudo-education is the proliferation of so-called
experts, gurus, and ‘life coaches’ who can’t even manage their own lives. Even
more dangerous is the fact that we have politicians who actually believe they
are qualified to run our country just because they can win a popularity contest
with voters who know little or nothing about anything.
This downward spiral is exacerbated by the wedding of Western
science to the spiritually bankrupt metaphysics of materialism. The spiraling
of science into the dead end of materialism, punctuated by misguided statements
by mainstream scientists like “We are nothing more than debris flying away from
a big explosion!” and “The more we know about reality, the more meaningless it
becomes.” is closely related to the spiral into social chaos and violence we are
witnessing today. A science that preaches there is no meaning or purpose to life
and the universe, fans the destructive flames of self-centered desire for
fulfillment in the moment at the expense of others and the future of the human
race.
Is this situation of wide-spread socially-engineered ignorance
and scientific atheism utterly hopeless? No, I don’t believe so. I still have
faith in the underlying human desire for justice and equality, and the basic
honesty and goodness of human nature. I believe that common sense, uncommonly
absent today, will eventually emerge from the mess and confusion of political
correctness that is part of the divisive pitting of various classes and ethnic
groups against each other by politicians seeking personal gain and power.
I predict that, slowly, and probably with great
difficulty, the human race will pull itself out of this self-destructive
tailspin created by misguided science and political ‘activists’ pushing social
agendas. This can, and I believe will happen as more and more people begin to realize
that mainstream science is wrong, and that the social agendas forced upon us by
political activists have repeatedly failed historically. With these realizations,
more and more people will turn toward the truth and light that still exists in
the heart of every soul, and in the teachings of the great spiritual masters of
all times.
I feel it has to, Ed, but only in a mutable form after cosmication; otherwise the Ultimate Force, my deity, will have failed in Its ever-evolving, conscious aspirations, ad infinitum, on planet Earth in the system of the Sun; and I don't think this is very likely, according to the edicts of my mystical-initiation of 1980 - Big subject, and enough said here, I feel, Ed, but as you now know my own Facebook sites, books and articles provide much more background to the subject. Amun!
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