The Anti-Educationalist Agenda

I haven't written about the election here yet. I mostly kept my head buried in the sand for the week of the election, other than going out to vote.

Voting in the Bay Area is kind of nice. The area is pretty politically active (one of my cow-orkers was working to mobilize the vote in the area, and even flew out to a swing state for the weekend before the election to help there). Better yet, I have a nice 10-minute walk to my polling place, which even in early November is a very pleasant stroll in 60s temperatures (as long as it's not raining). A pretty good motivation to go vote.

The day after was a day of depression, of course. No, not for me (even though I detest Bush and most things he stands for), but for many of my cow-orkers. I myself was kind of amused to see so many people walking around with dark rain clouds over their heads. I've been especially amused at the talk of people considering moving to other countries. Yes, that's it; let's just give up and cede the world's largest arsenal and economy to the wacky conservatives. That's the answer.

My attitude has basically been one of "This too shall pass." The sun still comes up in the morning (and still in the east, yet), my cats still love me, I'm still employed at a job I enjoy, and Wednesday is still comic book day. Life is good. It also helps that another four years of Bush is likely to have relatively little impact on my life, a point John Scalzi made better than I could (and I'm not even married). I realize that not everyone is in the same boat that I am. Still, watch out or Scalzi will brain you with a plank.

A week and a half later, things seem to be mostly back to normal.

The last ten days have seen a lot of verbiage spewed in various media about "Red States" and "Blue States", how both major parties have been hijacked by the extremists, how the majority of Americans are moderates but not politically active or who don't want to vote on the issues that the major parties want them to vote on. Does Bush have a "mandate" with his 51% popular vote win? What about the Supreme Court? Do the Democrats still have any power in Washington?

One idea which doesn't get much media attention is one which I've become increasingly convinced has become central to the electoral process in the United States. I sum it up thusly:

An educated society is a liberal society. An uneducated society is a conservative society.

Here's the kicker:

For the last 25 years (or so), the Republicans have been waging a war on education. They've been pursuing every policy they can think of to tear down the public (i.e., non-religious) educational system in the United States in order to achieve two ends: To cause more children to be educated according to Christian fundamentalist dogma, and to cause those children who aren't so educated to be less well educated overall. Thus, the introduction of the "school voucher" system (funneling children towards private - often religious - schools). Thus, the effort to force extensive standardized testing on schools, under the veil of "teacher accountability", while really it's an effort to make schools less efficient, more costly, and less effective. Thus, the forcing of creationism into public schools.

And I believe this anti-education policy has largely worked, and that it's the most stunning policy success of the neoconservative movement, one which has gone largely unnoticed by the media..

This policy aligns nicely with conservatives' two major backers:

1. Christian Religious Groups: Obviously the more children who are raised in Christian schools, the larger a flock of adults Christian churches will have. This leads to both more money for the churches (in the form of donations by churchgoers), and to more influence which the churches can wield in government, since they have more money and they have a direct pulpit from which to speak to the voters.
2. Big Business: You'd think that big business would want more educated workers. Actually, I suspect most of them could care less. Educated workers tend to be expensive workers - and worse, savvy workers who might unionize against them. What they really want are enough well-educated workers to fill the key management positions, and to fill top research positions to drive new innovations which can make them money. Other than that, workers only have to be educated enough to work personal computers, assemble parts (where not assembled by computer), and do what they're told. This keeps labor costs down, while the computerization of America leads to less need for highly-educated workers (e.g., workers who know math, never mind history or politics).

Again, I don't think all businesses buy into this attitude - heck, I don't know that any business buys into it explicitly - but I think it's an advantage for the anti-educationalists that their agenda dovetails nicely with business in this way.

This sounds like it's a giant conspiracy, but I don't think it is. I think it all follows from the basic principle I started with above, and that since Reagan was elected in 1980 conservatives have realized that it's a simple but incredibly effective agenda to pursue which directly helps their ability to take control of the nation's governments (national, state and local). As more of their members and allies have bought into it, it's built into an impressive juggernaut which is paying real dividends in the 21st century.

I can almost see the e-mail responses rolling in now: "Are you saying that I'm stupid because I voted for Bush?" Putting aside the obvious one-word retort, as well as the fact that people generally are likely to think that people who disagree with them are not as smart as them, that's not what I'm saying.

I think there are a lot of smart people out there who simply haven't been educated to think critically about the snake oil that today's conservatives are peddling. I think the Republicans have become very proficient at pushing a product based on fear: Fear that terrorists will kill you, fear that Democrats will take away your hard-earned money, fear that giving more freedom to women, or gays, or scientists will bring about the downfall of our society. For many people, formal education is the only avenue they have to develop these sorts of critical-thinking skills; they're spending too much of their life just trying to survive to develop them on their own. (And certainly people can do so. I've had a number of friends whose formal educational background is not high but who have worked very hard to educate themselves in fundamental ways.)

The other obvious question is: "Why do so many educated people vote for conservatives?" Well, many educated people also happen to be fairly wealthy (at least, they're not usually the ones trying to feed a family of six on $30,000 a year). Educated people may be better able to see through the product the Republicans are selling, but wealthy people are exactly the ones who want to buy that product, because they're going to reap the benefits of the top-bracket tax cuts and don't really care if Bush eviscerates Social Security or outlaws abortion in most states. They are, as the saying goes, voting with their wallets.

I would like to say that I have an answer to this, a way to fight back, but I don't. When the anti-educationalists control the Federal government, when their agenda is already a quarter-century along, when schools are already being crippled by dwindling funding and heinous sub-standardized testing, what can we do?

The answer, as with many things, lies in education. And therein lies the dilemma and the challenge for liberals.