The true purpose of education, college, and the middle class in America

[WWu777]

Along with perpetuating the attachment of all individuals’ identities with their careers, the US elite powers also need to maintain the illusion that we are the freest and best country in the world. Here’s why, as one reader observed:

“The powers that be want those people working and happy to slave away at their jobs. Best type of slavery. A slave who thinks he is free works harder. They want them to stay ignorant of other countries. This way
they will do a great job at home, pay taxes and die young from all kinds of stress and diseases. All to the benefit of the ultra rich.”

This makes sense, and has been echoed by intellectual authors who think outside the box and see class divisions in society (Chomsky, Zinn, etc). Our system indoctrinates people to have a rigid 9-5 career or else be without a purpose or function in life. The purpose of such conditioning is to develop and maintain a happy slave labor force to serve the rich and those in power of our imperial empire.

The true purpose of education, college, and the middle class in America

The first thing they do is put you in public school to keep you under control, discipline and surveillance, so that you can be conditioned to be a future good worker for the needs of the empire, all in the name of "education". Education my a**. 99 percent of what they teach you in this "education" are things you don't ever need to know and will NEVER use, either in real life or in any jobs or professions. They know that, but they NEVER tell you that. Do any teachers admit to their students that most of what they are teaching them will probably never be of use to them? Of course not. What they tell you is to study hard, get good grades, and pass exams so you can move to the next grade and have a better future.

The purpose of education is not to educate, enlighten or increase your intelligence. It's all a scam to shape and mold you, keep you disciplined and under control, making you think that you are learning wonderful and useful things. And it's also to keep the next generation from thinking on their own which might lead to upsetting the status quo. Instead, they are told what to think (e.g. capitalism is good, socialism is bad, etc).

Next, after high school, you are encouraged to go to college to raise your career level and status, where again you are bombarded with higher level "education" which in reality is just more useless information that you're tested on. In reality, most of what you study and memorize from college coursework under your degree program is NEVER used in the profession that you are specializing in, and is largely unnecessary for the work that you actually do. And even in the few specializations which are the exception, you still cram down far more than you need to know, just to give the college system a purpose to disciple you and weed people out.

What they don't tell you is that the real purpose of college is not to educate you, make you wiser or smarter, or even a better more capable person (though those can be fringe benefits). The real purpose is to create a middle class that acts as a buffer between the rich and poor, protecting and shielding the elite (those in power) from everyone else below them that might undermine the status quo. By using the old "divide and conquer" strategy, the elite divides its subjects in two, creating a middle class that gives the lower class a way to move up to quell some of their oppression or dissatisfaction (or at least give them the illusion of it). (See Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States) But unless you have a radical socialist history teacher (like I did) you’ll never hear that from them.

And of course, throughout the whole "education process" they indoctrinate you with the promise that if you work hard for them and retire, giving them the best years of your life, then you'll have the time and means to do any extensive traveling you dream of. Yeah right, with the poison they give you in American food, fat chance (pun intended). So in other words, you aren't supposed to have too much fun until you're too old and unhealthy to have fun anymore. They know that it may not even work out that way, but they keep the illusion of that going to serve their interests (not yours). You are conditioned and brainwashed into thinking that that's the only route in life; there is no alternative. And while you slave away your best years to them, you get 2 weeks off a year to go to Disneyland, New York, Hawaii, or some touristy crap, where you will never see or experience even 0.0000001 percent of the world.

What the powers of imperial America never tell you is that you don't have to be old, retired, or financially independent to travel the world. Many young people with little money do it by hitchhiking (which much of the US makes illegal), camping, and using hospitality/accommodation websites (e.g. www.hospitalityclub.org, www.couchsurfing.com, www.globalfreeloaders.com, etc.), pulling it off for years at a time. For instance, see this famous case at: www.hitchhiketheworld.com , www.ledbydestiny.com .

[WWu777]

It would seem then, that the perpetuation of the obsession with careers serves a function and larger purpose of creating a middle class to keep our exploitative capitalist system intact. Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States explains:

http://www.lannan.org/docs/arundhati...trans-conv.pdf
“And this is so much the history of the United States which developed perhaps the largest middle class. That is, the United States has had enough wealth so it could bribe enough people in the population to create a middle class which became useful as a buffer between the very rich and that part of the population which could not even rise into the middle class. So the middle class, in the United States, has always been enticed by the establishment into thinking that it can rise into the upper class and not told that it can also descend. [Laughter]. The result is that the United States educational system teaches us from the very beginning that we are not a class society. To use the term "class", in the United States? it's just a term you use for school, right. [Laughter] ?This is my class? sort of thing.”

http://www.indexmagazine.com/intervi...ard_zinn.shtml
“Class is just not addressed in the United States. The pretense is that we're all one big happy family. The government uses language about representing "the national interest." This assumes that we all have the same interests you know, that Exxon and I have the same priorities, or that the government and I have the same desire to go to war. I'm suspicious of terms like "national security" or "national defense," which try to envelop the whole population within one common position which doesn't really exist.”

Another purpose of the middle class, summarized by one of Zinn’s fans, is:

http://www.geocities.com/howardzinnf...istreview.html
“The middle class has been created as a buffer between the hungry lower class and the well-fed upper class. By taking resources away from the poor and giving away just enough resources to the middle class, the upper class causes enough tension between the two classes to divert attention from the real crook, itself.”

Here is how another Zinn reader paraphrased the choices the ruling class faced when creating college and the middle class:

http://www.kalamu.com/bol/2005/11/06...enny%E2%80%9D/
“Eventually, Zinn notes, the rich realized that they couldn’t keep ALL of the wealth to themselves. They decided it was necessary to create an educated, civilized and semi-monied middle-class that would serve as a buffer against the masses of the poor. You know the old saying: a man who has nothing, has nothing left to lose. Therefore, threats of joblessness, or jail, or even death, are insufficient to keep him in his place. When you have an socio-economic system that, by definition, creates massive amounts of extreme poverty, the ruling class of said system have only two choices: employ a standing army to protect themselves, or, has eventually happened in America, tweak the system.”

But the middle class is what keeps our exploitative system intact, as political prisoner Jeffrey Luers elaborates on in his pamphlet:

www.freefreenow.org/beyonddissent.pdf
“The enormous wealth in this country has created the richest ruling class in history with enough left over to pass out to the middle class, ensuring they act as a buffer between the have and the have-nots. Is it any wonder that the presidential 'elections' revolve around middle class issues? All two of the recognized candidates are constantly seeking support from middle class America promising this or that in return. Meanwhile, the money to support campaigns comes in from corporate donations, ensuring that government policy is well paid for. Why is it no candidate ever reached out to the 50 million people struggling to get by? The middle class lends legitimacy to a well thought out facade. But when all is said and done, a rich ruler is a rich ruler is a rich ruler.”

But with globalization, some say there is hope based on mutual interdependence:

http://www.informit.com/articles/art...92276&seqNum=1
“The global system has come to a critical juncture. No longer will the rich be able to buffer themselves easily from the poor. Those in the caboose of the train of humanity will spread their germs, their unemployment, and their financial and political problems to the middle-class and first-class cars. Globalization has made this inevitable. If a country such as Thailand or Russia goes bankrupt, stock markets in the United States, London, and Frankfurt tumble. If there is a SARS outbreak in Hong Kong, it arrives in Toronto and New York in a matter of hours. If a chain reaction of bioterrorism occurs in one country, it may erupt in other countries faster than the international community will be able to act to stop the cycle of violence. The reactionary unilateralism of American foreign policy is a desperate attempt to head off the violent train wrecks that the global speed trap makes inevitable………….. Is there a way out of this global spiral of diffusion and disintegration? The wealthy can act now to create opportunities for greater self-sufficiency for the poor. Their contributions can target investments to build environmentally sustainable, competitive, customized "pilot" communities. By doing this through a transparent, nongovernmental organization, the rich may be able to bridge the chasm between themselves and the poor while avoiding the corruption of governments and the bureaucracies of international organizations. The affluent may be able to stabilize their own interests as well as the life chances of the less advantaged…………….. Collective patterns of behavior of both the rich and the poor must be altered if the divergence between them is to be reduced. Somehow, the "winner-take-all" mentality of many of the new rich must be tilted toward sharing for sustainable development or the earth will become inhospitable for the well-to-do and the poor alike. The dominant model of democratic capitalism appears to be too short-term oriented and dependent on corporate interest groups to be successful on long-term environmental issues………… Paradoxically, in the long run, the rich will need the poor almost as much as the poor need the rich. Who, for example, will buy the innovations the wealthy would sell? How will the masses of mankind tap into enough financial resources to be able to keep the global economy humming? Not enough people seem to be aware of this natural interdependence. …………. The more palpable global crises become, the greater will be the recognition that opportunities for hopeful life chances must be more justly distributed to include the least advantaged.”

[HATALbR]

WWu777:

Happy Holidays! I haven't read your entire post...or the sum of your posts...however, generally speaking, I share your frustration with "middle class education." I prefer to call it "the student loan trap."


C-ya,
natash