One of the interesting things about the curse of our nation’s interesting times is the chance we have to observe how that triple threat — the War on Democracy, the War on Education, and the War on Science — work hand in hand in hand to wreak havoc on every core value of American society our parents and teachers impressed on us in what now seems like ancient days.
The inseparable bond between democratic government and public education is no doubt obvious to anyone whose mind and character have been nurtured by the lessons of progressive education — perhaps too obvious to understand how anyone could fail to see how each will die without the other.
At any rate, most of us can probably see how the war on democracy and the war on education are just two fronts in a larger campaign to nullify the core values our Founders labored to give birth on this Continent.
But the war on science? Or inquiry, knowledge, research, truth — however you want to put it? What is that about? Where does that come into the fray?
For one thing, think of the armory of double-think-tanks that constantly bombard the public with barrage on barrage of agenda-driven reports, the host of which tanks operate in exact opposition to the way genuine researchers are trained to conduct historical and scientific research.
For another thing, the public is now so inundated by the rain of abuse on our university-educated teachers that — unlike every other civilized country in the world — they forget the role that academic freedom plays in conveying the truth about realities not-to-be-denied to the generations that will have to face those realities squarely and without the escape of wishful illusion.
So you can’t have a really good war on democratic education without a multi-pronged assault on academic freedom, communication, information, inquiry, journalism, knowledge, research, science, and truth. Now can you?
Inquiry Into Inquiry 
Jon, are you interested in helping me with a concern I have about the links on the Gates Guest Blogs?
I’d like to archive the sites, so if the links accidentally break people can still access the references. Sometimes important stuff gets cut off by technical accidents at media sources — for instance, all my called-out comments had disappeared from Matt Herper’s Forbes piece. I emailed him, and their tech people told him it was an accident. He was able to get them back in again within a few days.
I’ve had the experience once of multiple general media links going on an early alarm bell I posted about Kaplan’s venture moves, and a major Business Week story I needed for Part 2 of this Gates blog had been misplaced, and deleted from their archive index, when they made a small correction.
This is what my (alpha geek) son suggested:
If you have some time to play around with it, email me and I’ll send you the word document with the links in it. That might be easier than opening them from the post.
The oversize congressional districts (compared to the electoral quotient of approximately 46,000 found in 1789), the senate and electoral college and disenfranchisement of over 20% of the population are significant, passive anti-democratic measures in place and continuing to worsen.
A great piece — and one that adds so much to be thinking. Thanks. But who am I thanking? Do write me at deborahmeier@me.com. It’s the direction that worries me; as dannydeh3 above says — it’s an old story. But it’s getting worse, not better.
One might add the fourth war, the “War on Drugs,” as maintaining an authoritarian mind set as well as the subterfuge attack on civil liberties, which again undermines open society and free inquiry.
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