When did the US decide that education was bad?

[Elfdart]

Many years ago, in several of the "red states", just opening a school could get you run out of town or killed. The society and economy of the South wanted people to be uneducated for the same reason Kim Jong Il doesn't want his serfs to read more than necessary: they might realize just how badly they're being fucked over and will either leave or do something about it. You don't want people to think that there are other ideas and other ways of doing things.

They don't want education for the same reason they don't want to travel or receive travellers from abroad, or even other parts of the country. They know that if someone sees a little bit of the world, they might not want to stick around in Pig Knuckle, Arkansas. You can't send her back to the farm once she's seen gay Paris. It also doesn't help that the very smart and/ or very ambitious can't wait to get as far away from the farm as possible.

As the excellent book Albion's Seed points out, this goes back to long before the US was founded:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 74-1878307

[Darth Wong]

Indeed, look at Uther on this very board, who has been posting in the "Bush's Abstinence-Only Sex Ed Program Full of Baldface Lies." thread that deliberately keeping kids in the dark and feeding them misinformation is the best sex-education policy. This is not just a hypothetical; some people do seriously believe that ignorance is strength.

[Patrick Degan]

Anti-intellectualism has been a longstanding American tradition. We even had a political party which proudly proclaimed itself the "Know-Nothings" in the 1850s

Actually, the official name for the "know nothings" was the American Party, who basically had no platform beyond anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic xenophobia: "know-nothing" was an informal name that didn't come from any anti-intellectual leanings the party may have had, but rather because it's members met in private and were very secretive about their party alliegence, and thus when asked about their role in the party by an outsider, their most common reply was "I know nothing".

Oh yes, I knew that. But the sort of rabid xenophobia and anti-Catholic, anti-Masonic paranoia which was the bulwark of American Party ideology can only be supported on the basis of ignorance which the Know-Nothings gladly exploited and encouraged.

[frigidmagi]

Ah guys, while the Know Nothings were not what anyone would called educated, they were called Know Nothings because of their response to interrgation by law officals, "I Know Nothing." (They loved to engage in arson and the cops don't like firebugs.)

They were celebrating the fact that they were a wall of silence against attempts to shed light on their inner workings (we see a bit of the same going on in Gangsta movements if you like a mordern example).

The Know Nothings were the birth of organized resistence to imgrents and immgrenation in the US often resorting to widespred violence to "put the papist in their place."

Something that other political parties picked up on and carried, from the Republicians, the Dixiecrats and the American Neo Nazi movment in varing degrees.

[Spyder]

It's not in the current governments interests to educate their voter base. People in southern states will continue to vote against their own economic interest.

"You know Clem, we mights be ables to afford a decent trailer someday with a decent welfare system."

"We don't need no dang welfare system, we's gonna be millionares some day and I don't wants none a you white trash taking away my money!"

Next on "Next on national education night: Government money, where it comes from and why it doesn't grow on trees. Later, a joint announcement sponsored by the Republican Democrat Comittee For A Better America: Are we not properly representing your views? Independants are awaiting your votes!"

[MKSheppard]

Many years ago, in several of the "red states", just opening a school could get you run out of town or killed.

Once again, Elfie makes wild spurious claims and shoots his mouth off.

Are we any surprised?

The truth is much more mundane than Elfpenis' wild accusations.

Pre-Civil War, in the South, it was against the law to teach Blacks
how to read or write. Despite this, many peope routinely broke
that law, including none other than Thomas J. Jackson.

[MKSheppard]

And many Christian organizations...well probably most of them support
literacy, which is the most important stepping stone to higher education.

Now, let us speak ruthlessly and cold-bloodedly.

Why should we teach the unwashed masses literacy and how to read and
write? Once that's taught, we can't make them unlearn it, other than a total
frontal lobotomy; and they might GASP read something that makes them
challenge religious teachings.

Better to keep them uneducated and ignorant hicks so they can't read the
books, and are reliant totally on their preachers "interpretations" of events.

[MKSheppard]

You think those are bad? I know someone who I think voted for Bush because she liked the color red.

There are always idiots like that, no matter where you live in the world.

[Enforcer Talen]

And many Christian organizations...well probably most of them support
literacy, which is the most important stepping stone to higher education.

Now, let us speak ruthlessly and cold-bloodedly.

Why should we teach the unwashed masses literacy and how to read and
write? Once that's taught, we can't make them unlearn it, other than a total
frontal lobotomy; and they might GASP read something that makes them
challenge religious teachings.

Better to keep them uneducated and ignorant hicks so they can't read the
books, and are reliant totally on their preachers "interpretations" of events.

the best way is stalinist methods - have them literate, so they can read your propaganda, but ignorant, so they cant find out or choose not to all other info.

[sketerpot]

Better to keep them uneducated and ignorant hicks so they can't read the books, and are reliant totally on their preachers "interpretations" of events.

That's an excellent description of why the Church in the 1300s hated John Wycliffe so much: he translated the Bible into English so anybody could read it, and then a bunch of his followers went around showing it to people.

[Uther]

Indeed, look at Uther on this very board, who has been posting in the "Bush's Abstinence-Only Sex Ed Program Full of Baldface Lies." thread that deliberately keeping kids in the dark and feeding them misinformation is the best sex-education policy. This is not just a hypothetical; some people do seriously believe that ignorance is strength.

Of course ignorance can be strength, but sadly in this world of internets and TVs people probably will get at the truth eventually. A populace ruled by a tyrannical technocratic elite is probably not really viable, if it ever was. But who knows what the future will bring?

Still, I think the recent example of Islamic terrorism shows how a populace, sufficiently fanatical and willing to use any and all means to further the Cause, is formidable indeed.

[Elfdart]

Many years ago, in several of the "red states", just opening a school could get you run out of town or killed.

Once again, Elfie makes wild spurious claims and shoots his mouth off.

Are we any surprised?

The truth is much more mundane than Elfpenis' wild accusations.

Pre-Civil War, in the South, it was against the law to teach Blacks
how to read or write. Despite this, many peope routinely broke
that law, including none other than Thomas J. Jackson.

Once again, Sheepfucker lashes out because he assumes that because he doesn't know something, nobody else does either. He also deals in non-sequiturs and red herrings -In effect following the sage advice: "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit!"

I linked to the Albion's Seed because it points out that cultural, religious, sexual, political and educational attitudes prevalent in different parts of the country trace their origins to well before the founding of the Republic. It's no surprise that Numbnuts and Ian Paisley are such good buddies and such big fans of a Redshirt diploma mill like Bob Jones University: Both come from the same tradition.