Plato is winning: From institutions of higher education to labor camp prep-schools.
Aristotle is rolling in his grave right now. At least, had he not been a flaming ultra-nationalist he would be.
I first read Aristotle in my sophomore year of high school. The instructor shaped all of her lower-case es the same as in the Greek alphabet. I have been shaping mine the same since.
I remember coming home one day with a dilemma: I had found my calling in life.
“How do you become a Philosopher?” I asked my mom. This question left me stumped. Paralyzed.
I was never able to answer that question, though I really wish I had a mentor back then, someone who could have pointed me to the right outlets for my zeal.
These days, the time to major in Philosophy in America has passed.
A current look at the list of course offerings at a private college in California is sobering.
Little Suzie wants to be a construction worker when she grows up. PLEASE try to follow the specifications next time, Suzie.
Over 350 classes offered if you want to focus your area of study on something like Carpentry, Welding, or Furniture and Cabinet Technology.
14 classes listed in the catalog for Philosophy but only 4 are scheduled for the next term.
7 listed in Economics, of which 5 are scheduled for the next term.
Fun fact: average salary for a carpenter or a welder in the US is 39k! 
Wanna make it big as a small business manager? I suppose we’re going to need a lot more of those in the future and a lot less entrepreneurs. Rest assured, this college has you on the path to be making 50k a year (before taxes) in no time! And on that salary you’ll only be able to raise one child per family (if that) so you can sleep well knowing you’ve done your part toward keeping that population down. Bill Gates applauds you. Four classes are scheduled next semester, so don’t delay! Your future, and the staple gun that you’ll be shooting yourself in the head with, awaits.
…Not quite your thing? Why don’t you try one of the 32 classes offered under the major for the Administration of “Justice”? With exceptional class listings such as, Racial Profiling (yes that is an actual class offered), you will be thoroughly brainwashed into your uniform as a “peace” officer.
Get started on your IT career today. All of the kids overseas, in India and others have come to their senses amid economic growth, (see High-Tech Japan Running Out of Engineers), so now we’re offering you over 76 classes to hard-wire your brain with cold computer languages and protocols.
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Someone is going to have to be around to keep the internet running when their boomers die off.
However, they still might not hire you. This study in Japan concluded that less than a quarter of companies in fascist Japan planned to hire their own national applicants that had studied abroad. Chances for foreigners aren’t looking good.
I guess the Japanese just don’t find that our universities produce the same brainwashed assembly robots that they’re so proud of. But don’t worry, Japan, we are soon on our way to changing all of that. We’re going to one-up Europe’s Bologna Reforms.
In the US, austerity measures have homogenized classes and sped up our transition to complete totalitarianism.
I have spoken to disheartened professors who, unlike previous years, now face the challenge of a spectrum of skill levels in their classrooms.
We know the results. They try to manage it by breaking the class up into sections and running back and forth until they are exhausted or even asking other students to lead class for them.
When that doesn’t work and they finally give up they’ll conform to a standardized version of their class and lose students to both difficulty understanding the material and a lack of interest from those for whom the study is moving too slowly.
“Aristotle argues that people can be made good through nature, reason, and habit.
He [...] concludes that the Greek combination of high spirit, skill, and intelligence is ideal.”
Homogenized education breaks the spirit of both the student and the teacher.
If we want to see what a nationalized education system does for our spirit, let’s take another look at Japan:
And the low morale follows them through high school and university until they’re career aged, at which point they can look forward to a yearly earning of about 3.8-6 million yen, or 47-77 thousand US dollars, which is the average for a Japanese national. Good thing all of that hard work paid off. For their bosses.
In the Japanese model, children are taught to think out of habit, habit, habit in order to survive. There is no reason or spirit to temper the rat-race to their passionless jobs. It isn’t any wonder that suicide is the leading cause of death for people under 30 in Japan.
In fact, Japan ranks 7th in a global list of countries by suicide rank while the US is listed as 41st.
But are things really so different in the states? We were shocked when Japan had over 30,000 suicides in 2009 for the 12th year, but did you know that the US had 33,000 suicides in 2006? Also, in 2008, it was observed that U.S. suicide rates, particularly among middle-aged white women, had increased, although the causes were unclear. The doctor-authorized pills just weren’t doing their job- or were they?
This information can be found from the previous link. Scroll down to the US position on the list and click ‘read more’. Did you notice than no other countries needed further explanation for their rank on the list? Mysterious.
This article very astutely points out that suicide has been associated with tough economic conditions, including unemployment. War seems to have peculiar effects on suicide rates. HMMMM…. go figure.
My little sister is about to enter her first year of high school. She will be attending the same public school that I went to.
It’s hard for me to watch her grow up, especially when she says things like “I don’t want to make friends. I want to take Spanish and Avid and stay home and do homework”.
She has been putting a lot of emphasis on where she is going to go to college and she feels this pressure to pick a career right now and start working toward it.
What the hell is happening to us? What’s happening to our children?
What happened to the free-thinking and spirited girl who loved to ask questions and made me laugh with her whimsical and defiant theories on morality and power?
I hope that she’s not gone.
I feel that she is the last breath of an old way of life in America. And what we have to look 
forward to is very different.
Think, Children of the Corn. Devoid of spirit, devoid of appetite. Slaves and enforcers of the indoctrinations of this criminal system we’re under the pressure of.
-Hooper