School: Institutionalized Conformity

by Caleb Freeman

            A decent education has become essential in order to survive in the working world. The average man cannot make much more than minimum wage with as much as a college undergrad more-less a high-school diploma. Why is an education so crucial to success? Many would say that knowledge is the key to survival. However sixteen years for a bare minimum education seems a steep price to pay for “essential” knowledge. How did people survive back in the days when the majority of society did not have the means in which to be educated with this “essential” knowledge. Take Abraham Lincoln for example. The 16^th President of the United States obtained no more than a year of formal schooling. Successful, that would be an understatement, Abraham Lincoln changed the course of America, and thereby the world. His strong leadership during the Civil War reunited the divided country, and established the Emancipation Proclamation which resulting in the liberation of African-American slaves in America. Without his leadership America might have turned out to be another Europe. Sovereign states divided and always at odds with each other. Instead he strengthened Federal control and unified America. Whether you agree with his actions or not, no one can claim that he did not change the world, that he was not a great leader in his time. Therefore how did he obtain success without obtaining a formal education? How did he learn the “essential” knowledge that only sixteen years of education could impart, and then go on to lead America through bloodiest war in its history, even to this day? He did obtain knowledge. Lincoln devoured an endless number of books at a young age. Lincoln studied law through books he found in the bottom of a barrel. This should shock our society since it swears by formal education. A great man  not shepherded by the light of authorized teaching. In a society where a college degree can hardly guarantee even a job more-less job security, we should be amazed by Lincoln’s incredible rise to power. How did he achieve greatness on this unbeaten path? The answer lies in the fact that the path was unbeaten.

            The principle aim of a formal education is not to instill knowledge or truth in the student, but instead to impart a popular agenda. Education is not interested in learning as much as conformity, conformity to the school’s agenda. This can be sensed in every educational establishment. The more renowned school the more pronounced the agenda. One could go to a public school, private school, Christian school, Catholic school, it does not matter. Everyone has an agenda. Each educational facility has its own agenda no matter how un-biased they proclaim themselves. Therefore this “essential” knowledge in which one becomes a “well-rounded” person is effectively a social conditioning or brain washing in which the student is conformed to the teacher’s ideas and beliefs. It is institutionalized conformity to a pronounced code of thought, reason, and belief system. To not conform means a bad grade. Therefore the best students are the best conformers, not necessarily the most intelligent or the brightest or the most creative or anything above their peers. The best students simply are the best conformers. Period. That is all education really accomplishes. Yes you do receive a level of knowledge and holistic perspective on the world, but the knowledge given to you is knowledge based upon the teacher’s presumptions, which whether open or hidden, affect the conclusions made, and the holistic perspective is a holistic perspective according to the teacher’s belief system. Yes, you do receive the perspective of other religions and other cultures, but you are receiving them through a filtered source. A person’s belief system acts as a filter which accepts and rejects knowledge and reason according to its compatibility with that belief system. A piece of knowledge that agrees with or supports the person’s belief system is recorded as fact and therefore becomes material in which the person can willingly  and earnestly convey as knowledge whether in conversation or in the classroom. Where as piece of knowledge or reason that does not agree with an individual’s belief system is filtered out and discarded as bad logic, or simply an insane proposition. Insane, for sanity is reality, and only reality according to the individual, therefore and presumptions or conclusions that do not parallel the person’s version of reality are labeled as insane. That is true only if there is no constant. (read the essay “Knowledge” for more on the implications of relative truth and knowledge) However if there is a constant truth and knowledge then education must strive for that immutable truth and knowledge. However if truth is relative and reality is reality only according to the individual’s view of reality then truth is based on men and thereby truth is just a word to describe a reality according to an individual. (By the way this is the key weakness of American Individualism, the result is incompatible with belief in God.) Therefore in order to create civilization in a world based on Individualism there must be institutionalized conformity, for in order that an civilization be established, anarchy must be overcome. Anarchy being a incompatibility of beliefs and knowledge between individuals. In order that the walls of anarchy are torn down, a single belief system must pervade, or tolerance for all belief systems must pervade. However in the event of tolerance of beliefs there is limited compatibility for two individuals of different beliefs systems cannot pursue knowledge to the same conclusion. Therefore a group of individuals of the same belief system must either destroy those of another belief system or conform them to their own way of thinking, thereby endeavoring in institutionalized conformity. Now in a society that promotes tolerance destroying a people group that opposes your belief system is called genocide and does not promote tolerance. Therefore the second option must prevail in order that knowledge is pursued. The institution of education conforms men’s minds to a certain belief system. Now since tolerance is promoted, each belief system may create its own institution in which to conform the minds of men to their own system of reason. Therefore those that are most conformed to the institution’s system of thought, belief, and reason are the better students and excel at that institution. Now each institution in a tolerant society is also graded by the popular system of beliefs. Should I say not necessarily popular but most promoted set of beliefs. Therefore the educational institution that better agrees with the most promoted set of beliefs is said to be the more illustrious or more prestigious location for learning.

       Therefore the person receiving an A in high school and going straight to Harvard has only conformed better to the system than the person who received a C and is going straight to community college. The grade does not reflect their talents, their abilities, or their leadership capabilities. It simply implies that this person will not rock-the-boat. The consummate student has been trained to not rebel against the implemented belief system. Now there are the exceptions that stray from their formal training, but even they are bound to a certain code in which the system of education has endowed them with. The good student is trained to be narrow minded. They are trained that they know the truth because they have the higher grade of conformity. They have been conditioned by the popular system of education. Therefore they will be more successful.

       The paradox of this system of education is that it claims that at its pinnacle (i.e. Harvard, Oxford, Yale) it fosters leadership and thereby leaders despite the fact that the whole system is founded on conformity to the code of those that control it. Therefore to be a leader you would only be promoting the popular ideology. Therefore the type of leaders that the current education system promotes are those that have been conditioned to be narrow minded. These leaders do not promote change but simply promote the ideology that they are taught to promote. If they rebel against the ideology they are taught to promote then they are denounced by the system. Take Bill Gates for example. The consummate student through high school it was no surprise that he advanced to the pinnacle of modern “learning” Harvard, in which he flunked out, and went on to become the world’s wealthiest man. He did not conform to the system, yet he changed the world. That is because conformity is anti-change. Now if the world does not need change then please do conform, but I’m sure that universally everyone thinks the world needs change. The problem is that everyone thinks the educational system of conformity is the path to change. I beg to differ, it is the unbeaten path that guarantees change.

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