Education programming 101: destroy logic
by Jon Rappoport
December 3, 2014
Once upon a time, in medieval universities, new students enrolled in the Trivium. It was the foundation curriculum. It was required. Its parts were: grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
Grammar: the interior construction of language.
Logic: the valid and invalid connections in the course of a formal argument; the method of proper reasoning; the deductive links in a chain, at the end of which appears a conclusion.
Rhetoric: oral and written presentation; the use of language to make a case; the capacity to persuade, even in the face of counter-argument.
Today, the subject matter of the Trivium is not only downplayed. It has been shattered.
This article focuses on the death of logic in schools.
When the intensive handling of ideas is seen as a laughable goal for education, indoctrination is plugged in as the only alternative.
The mind of the student shifts from being an active force to being a container.
The destruction of logic perverts rational thought at its core and inserts ideology masked as insight.
The actual meaning of an idea is firmly placed on the back burner. Instead? Praise or attack the people who forward ideas.
This strategy has gained great prominence.
“The revered Founders of the Republic? Shysters, con men, slaveholders, monopolists who saw rebellion from England as the way to win greater power for themselves, at the expense of everyone else living on American soil.”
Therefore, the argument continues, and this is crucial, the Founders’ IDEAS, as expressed in the Declaration and the Constitution, were rotten to the core. The ideas can be dismissed out of hand as coming from “a bad source.”
Ideas no longer need to be judged on their sense, merit, and alignment with basic principles. Nor are they judged by their position in a well-formed argument. All that is out. Now, you only have to “look to the source” and make ALL your decisions based on “who these people really were who expressed the ideas.”
And since that’s the case, learning to think or reason is unnecessary.
In logic, this used to be called the fallacious ad hominem argument. Now it’s not called anything. It’s praised as the insightful way to do intellectual business.
One by one, core ideas fall to the ax, and finally they cease to exist at all.
(To argue that very bad people have taken over an idea, and therefore the idea itself was never good, is like arguing that, since hijackers took over a plane, the plane was a despicable object altogether and probably deserved to be stolen or blown up.)
You might be surprised by the number of people who believe that the value of an idea depends entirely on who expressed the idea. If the wrong person first expressed it, it was never worthy.
Students with a vast sense of self-entitlement and meaningless self-esteem love this strategy. It allows them to parade around and call the shots and decide which ideas are important and which aren’t, without reflection. They have a scorecard of good guys and bad guys and that’s all they need.
In our teaching institutions, you could look in vain to find courses on the individual, his freedom, his power. That’s gone. It’s no accident that serious training in logic is also gone. And by serious, I mean the application of logic to formal arguments on issues that determine our future.
In many cases, instead, education is about: what group do you belong to? What are the needs of that group? Who is oppressing your group? How can you get government to solve the problem?
If you can educate the young to make snap judgments about core ideas, you eliminate their capacity to reason. You own them.
From that point on, they hold a hostile attitude toward anyone who can discuss and analyze ideas. They look at such people as an entitled and privileged class who is speaking a foreign language.
In order to engage in meaningful debate, people have to be able to recognize a train of thought and follow it. If they can’t, because they were educated not to, where are we? We’re in the dark. We’re living by slogans.
Freedom? Liberty? Collective need? Responsibility? It doesn’t matter what ideas are on the table, because the overwhelming number of people don’t know what an idea is. They don’t know how to walk up to one and look at it from several sides. They don’t know how to trace its implications. They don’t know how to fit that idea alongside its cousins. They don’t see a Whole. They see the ceaseless spinning machinery of an alien process, from which they’ve been excluded.
Then, no matter what shape society takes, it’s a dumb-show, as far the majority of its citizens are concerned.
Who solves that?
The invasive State takes charge. It picks up the pieces of the wreckage it was a key actor in delivering.
The goal of educating citizens about what it means to take part in a Republic has been blunted. This was done, a step at a time, through education.
Dismantling the ability to reason, employ logic, and handle ideas was the prow of that destructive campaign.
Therefore, the people who still know what logic is need to teach it in any way they can.
The first steps are the hardest. But when a student suddenly sees that world open up to him, when the lights go on, when information that was formerly a blur and a blob snaps into place as a recognizably logical (or illogical) sequence, when the student’s aimless wandering mind suddenly focuses with power…when he knows that he knows…the rewards are self-evident.
A dullness becomes bright.
Jon Rappoport
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at NoMoreFakeNews.com.
great job Jon- you nailed it—–
You are correct in the identification of the symptoms. However, the disease is a system that was specifically designed to generate many of those symptoms. The original Prussian model of compulsory government schooling was imported into this country in the mid 19th Century. Its purposes, as noted by educator John Taylor Gatto, was to deliver this: “1) Obedient soldiers to the army; 2) Obedient workers for mines, factories, and farms; 3) Well-subordinated civil servants, trained in their function; 4) Well-subordinated clerks for industry; 5) Citizens who thought alike on most issues; 6) National uniformity in thought, word, and deed.”
“The area of individual volition for commoners was severely foreclosed by Prussian psychological training procedures drawn from the experience of animal husbandry and equestrian training, and also taken from past military experience.”
Compulsory government schooling has generally been successful in achieving the original goals. It was never designed to deliver an education in the classical sense. It is also a system that is antithetical to our founding principles.
Sure some logic is needed.
Is the glass half full or is the glass half empty?
Logically, both are right about “HALF”, but who is right about “Full” or “Empty”? It all depends on your perception.
Logic and perception are two different things.
I like logic and I respect perception, but I much prefer Imagination.
“Logic will get you from A to B, Imagination will take you everywhere”.
Albert Einstein
Facts are also very questionable.
Long ago it was a fact that the Earth was flat, we now know the scientists were wrong.
“If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.”
Albert Einstein
To resume my thoughts:
Logic, perception and imagination are about all we need.
As for facts, they are often very misleading and often manipulated, so I never rely on them to affirm anything.
You seem to be conflating “facts” with what Jon calls “ideas.” Facts and ideas are not the same thing. Not by a long shot. 🙂
Not really.
Ideas are often based on our lifetime knowledge and rational consideration of facts.
But since facts are often manipulated, our ideas can also be bias.
This is why we need perception, imagination and logic, more than facts to reach an Idea that is worth it.
That’s all I’m saying..
Your further explanation makes more sense. 🙂 Thank you.
Québec, this is an example of how words have been redefined. Facts. The new thinking is that facts are fluid and changing. But that’s not what the word is “supposed” to mean. In the modern way of the use of this word, facts don’t matter, as you’ve stated. So since facts don’t matter, people are left to interpret the world in a bizarre and ridiculous way. And in the modern world, since people can’t put a logical thought together, whatever weird way they’ve planted their ideas in their head become the “truth” to them. They can state their ideas to the world. But since they are not related at all to reality, others may hear what they say, but have no logical way to decide what to do with them. People are left to make a weird judgement as to what to “believe” and what not to. Do they like you? Do they hate you? Do they like your shirt today? Do they hate your haircut? Whatever bizarre reason they come up with to decide if they want to accept or reject what you say.
Facts are not fluid, they don’t change. The sky is blue. That is a fact. And it’s not perception. Blue is our definition of a range of wavelengths. Period. If someone is color blind, it doesn’t change the wavelengths; if someone has pink glasses on, it still doesn’t change the wavelengths that the sky sends out. If some “fact” changes, then it wasn’t a fact. It might have been information, but it wasn’t a fact. This is a major disctinction the modern world has removed. Thus leaving people blind. And one of the worst, and saddest things is the people have no idea they don’t know. None. They are blind and have no idea they are blind.
If you don’t have the ability to have “facts”, real facts, real truth as it truly exists, then you have NO WAY to LOGICALLY navigate the world. But being blind and not knowing you are blind, you also have NO WAY of knowing that. This is the main reason we see insanity all over the place in our world today. But people are paralyzed to do anything about it. They have absolutely no idea how to solve anything of substance. None. Crazy laws are put in place, and people just accept it, blindly.
It’s sad sitting on the edge of society as I do, watching this, watching people walk to their destruction. This will not end well unless people learn. But many will actually go to their death and will still not know they are blind. So, even though the system KILLED them, they still don’t even see it. Just watch a loved one die of some chronic disease or be killed by the treatment, and they still will not realize they’ve been conned. And everyone around them also will not realize. It’s scary to realize how absolutely utterly terrible it will have to be for many people before they realize something is wrong.
We hear of many millions of people being killed by dictators from history, and we wonder how on earth they got away with it. But this is how. People go to their death not realizing they’re being conned. And those around them too. I would have been off my a** and out of their before letting that happen. A hundred mile treck through the blizzard driven wilderness sounds better to me than letting some crazy maniac kill me.
What can be done? Well, in a perfect world, everyone would love to learn the Trivium and the Quadrivium. But that’s not the world we live in. But there is something you can do. If you know logic, REAL logic, and you know how to put an argument together, then use that in your everyday conversations with people, but use it like you’re talking to a 3 year old. Take people from one point to another in tiny little steps. Like I did with the example of what “blue” is (or even simpler). And just like a 3 year old, they don’t get it the first time. And one conversation will not be enough. Or 3, or 10 or maybe even 100.
So, learn more about the Trivium, and realize you don’t know it all perfectly, and hone the art, and learn to use it in the real world, and how to “teach” the world without them really realizing you’re teaching them. Along with that you’d be wise to realize that many of the “facts” and “beliefs” you yourself hold are wrong, and allow yourself to unlearn along the way. It’s great practice of the Trivium to use it on yourself. You’ll find lots of stuff you think you know, that this art will destroy. So let it destroy those things, your life will be much better, more clear, on the other side.
“this is an example of how words have been redefined. Facts. The new thinking is that facts are fluid and changing. But that’s not what the word is “supposed” to mean. In the modern way of the use of this word, facts don’t matter, as you’ve stated.”
You have nailed it. Words have been redefined . For many people, “consensus” are “facts” when we know that a consensus does not mean anything.
“A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually”.
-Abba Eban
People also take for a fact that a PHD doctor must knows about medicine. But most doctors do not know about health issues, all they know is what kind of pills will mask the symptoms.
If you throw yourself off the Empire building, you will crash on the ground. The law of gravity is a fact, we can experience it for ourselves.
But then again, some people can do levitation… is this a fact or a myth?
As for the sky, I agree it is blue, but sometimes it is grey when it rains or purple and pink at sunset. If you were a blind person all of your life and after a medical operation you gained your vision for one day and when you looked at the sky and it was pink at that particular moment, for you it will be a fact that the sky is pink.
Now, when an autopsy is done to solve a crime, the results comes has “Facts” in the Court House… but are those facts right or wrong? They could have been manipulated to not indict a cop for instance.
There are not that many facts that we can rely on 100%, because as you say, words have been redifined and facts most of the times are not really facts.
You should actually start thinking of another word (and for tons of other words). Start using “fact” as it was meant to be. Most of what the modern world means when they say fact is opinion, or some similar type of thing, depending on the context. Then if someone says something is a fact, when it is not, you can correct them. If it’s an opinion, then tell them it’s an opinion; if it’s some current understanding of knowledge, then say that. And it’s often now used incorrectly, and will imply some truth or certainty to something when there is none; for example: The fact is the law allows that … This may be common language, but it implies something that is more certain than it really is. Just because a law is written down, does not make it a fact; it may be the current state of affairs, but tomorrow it could be changed, thus the thinking is that the facts changed. No, they did not; the word fact should have not been used in that context.
As we learn more about what words really mean, and start to use correct words, then others will follow our lead. We gain understanding ourselves, and help others understand just by being out in the world.
Many want some great, grand transformation to turn the world around. But that’s not how it happens. It’s tons of little things, and they are powerful. Though you may not even know you made someone think in a different way, you will. And if you show those around you that you’re always learning, they too will see that it’s doable, and again will follow your lead.
I suggest you research the late Nikolai Levashov.
Killed in “mysterious circumstances” in 2012 or 13, he espoused that the Russian language had been changed to give many common words opposite meanings. How to turn good into bad?
The example I use on my website is “gay”. Gaiety once was “everything positive” and now it has been stained by the incessant campaign in favour of homosexuality. By intimation gay is “anal” (no fault of homosexuals).
Homosexuality as a campaign has transcended time, featuring in the Vedas, Judaic doctrine and Roman tradition.
Thank you for this Jon. I have been a fan (and an auto didactic student) of the Trivium for some years now and I love it when a writer of your caliber and following take up the subject. To me, the Trivium is the answer for humanity and I have written a book on the subject. I have been a fan of yours for a while now and I have taken the liberty to give credited quotations of yours in the book because they were so on point. You can read the first 3 chapters free at http://www.theillusionsapocalypse.com and I would love to have your review of Chapter 1, because that is a summary of the Trivium and how to regain our freedom through application of it. I love your articles and insights, thank you.
@Larry
Manipulation/rebranding of words is a big piece of the endless propaganda puzzle.
Never thought of male & female accounts/stories. Will process that. Thank you!
The male/female:negative/ positive is the sum of the problem, and the solution. The manipulation of the language is the sum of the manipulation of perception. Solve the language/communication problem, solve the problem. It all begins with critical analysis, and that begins with the Mental Martial Arts…. the Trivium.
@Larry
My book has drawn this conclusion via a different route.
The female is soul and male is spirit. The genders of Isis and Ra are not accidental.
Thank you for your insight
OT
Agreed, Jon.
But isn’t the best logic the most controversial?
Who would present a case like this http://ozziethinker.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/why-the-jews-love-hitler/, for instance?
Well, me. The first paragraph releases a bombshell about Ebola et al.
Best
OT
Jon, this is SUPERB! Well said and well done!
Americans — as a whole — are not capable anymore of clear deductive, reasoned thought. Because of this and an equally serious spiritual malaise, I have very little hope of America ever pulling itself out of the mess that we have made for ourselves.
Our President, in his role as “community organizer”, was and is, a master of the Hegelian Dialectic; the process of building consensus amongst a group of disparate or undecided attitudes and/or opinions toward a pre-determined outcome. The overiding carrot at the end of the stick? “We’re all in this together!”. Of which Mr. Rappaport has spoken of many times.
By way of this slick tactic, our Globalist overlords have infuenced every center of power in American society and have, systematically and by design, reduced a significant percentage of the American public into self-obsessed herd animals.
After five or six decades of educational indoctrination, chemically compromised food, water, air and medicine; coupled with the “community organizing” efforts of the Gramsci/Alinsky/Obamas of the world — PLUS the outright social-engineering of a little reptile named Edward Bernays, the Herd can be nudged into accepting just about any evil-minded stupidity that is bleated long enough and loud enough at them by the equally culpable, sold-out Corporate Media.
The fear of being branded “racist” or “judgmental” is more than sufficient to stifle any serious debate or dissent, for the very reasons outlined in this article. (leave THAT nonsense to the “conspiracy theorists” and their so-called Alternative Media).
With relatively little effort, The Herd can now be pointed in any direction that the Globalists want to steer them. If they want us to “vote” Democrat, we vote Democrat. If they want us to “vote” Republican, we vote Republican. If they want us to feel like we are controlling the GMO-pushing Monsantos of the world, we “make them” label their products as such. If they want us to “Go Green”, we Go Green.
If they want us to riot — we riot.
It’s E-Z when you’ve primed The Herd and know how to push the right buttons.
We often times think that we think for ourselves. My question is, what if we no longer have the ability to think? Have we forgotten Aldous Huxley’s prophetic book Brave New World? Huxley’s book has us being genetically manipulated to fit into five different caste systems from birth. Need I say vaccination anyone? Logic, perception and imagination might be all you need if you are lucky enough to be an alpha or beta but what about the rest of us who are unlucky lower caste epsilons, gammas and deltas? Might our arrested development hinder our most basic educational programming or our ability to even think for ourselves? Just a thought!
Elite private schools still teach trivium and quadrivium, one does not become CEO’s, Heads of state and captains of industry with common core.
and, just to add,… “with heavy vaccination and fluoridated water and pesticide-laden food”.
Collegiate School (New York City)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collegiate_School_%28New_York_City%29
[Founded in 1628 — when New York City was then New Amsterdam], Collegiate School is an independent school for boys in New York City and is the oldest school in the United States. It is located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and is a member of both the New York Interschool and the Ivy Preparatory School League. It is ranked the best K-12 all boys prep school in the United States.
Bingo!
@Gary
Whereas this is true, to a degree. In fact elite schools merely foster “networks” of dunderheads, for the most part.
“They” know education cannot be forced. Dogma discourages individuals to think for themselves CEO’s down. Whereas the trivium and quadrivium MIGHT offer an improvement on “conditioning by rote”, schooling relies on good teachers. Bad teachers close down a student’s will. They assert originality is “rubbish”. There you have the “American System” top to bottom.
No matter which schooling method that’s applied outcomes are constant.
Occasionally individuals pop up that cannot and will not be led. Fortunately, I could spell before I could walk and the only reason I did not write is my hands were too small for a crayon. We, true thinkers, are a rare commodity.
But there are two Triviums. There is the Trivium Method where Grammar is used to define “Who, What, When, and Where” then Logic is used to define “Why” and finally Rhetoric is used to define “How.” The second Trivium is called the “Classic Trivium” and it is what they teach in the elite private schools and this is where they attempt to answer “Why” before even quantifying “Who, What, Where, or When.” This places the Rhetoric before the Grammar and they are now trained in how to answer a question with a thousand words without touching on the original subject.
Religion confounds thought processes by skewing the order and placing Logic at the beginning, and it is an impossibility to answer “Why” without first quantifying “Who, What, When, and Where” and then an almost total elimination of Rhetoric completes the process to create a non thinking human who never questions and always accepts the Logic placed before them.
I would contest the second part of your argument…religion has no room for logic, it is based strictly on belief, dogma quantifies belief…logic would be the fly in ointment.
You will need a different word here…logic would destroy the subjective which is basis of indoctrination in religion.
Good point on classical trivium.
But that is exactly why logic is denied in religious thought. There are no room for questions. It is still a twisted form of the Trivium Method that is used to get the subjects into a certain preordained thought pattern. The Trivium Method is the escape from all pre-installed thought processes. I call it “The Mental Martial Arts” and freedom is an art too. The Classic Trivium is a weapon that is used against all untrained to deal with it.
@Larry
Who, what, when and where are not beyond manipulation and conditioned error, given the right “why”. Given the right ingredients, foul arguments seem plausible, credible and possible. Logic alone is not enough to discern the truth. logic has made science what it is today – limited, conditional truth.
You are exactly correct. It is the due diligent pursuit of Grammar (through etymology) that will eliminate the controlled manipulations through the changing of the meanings of the words, and it is the sum of the whole Method that will balance the equation for a true result. It takes the due diligent use of Grammar to confirm the definitions of the words, then the application of Logic to expose the fallacies, and finally the balancing of the halves (wright/wrong; negative/positive) through Rhetoric that will produce a balanced truth. Science has been manipulated the way it has been by distorting the Trivium Method out of order into the Classic Trivium, and by using a canned Logic that is designed to reinforce the fallacies rather than expose them, then an almost total elimination of Rhetoric by denial of debate (the science is settled and consensus has been reached….), and a constant manipulation of the Grammar (words must always be defined in the positive as to what they are, rather than the negative of what they are not.) The Trivium Method must always be em[ployed in the same order: Grammar/Logic/Rhetoric- and if the order is distorted then the final answer sought will be manipulated out of hand.
At one point in time…”American Education” WANTED students educated in these areas. The “powers that be” wanted us to start off with a solid intellectual foundation–so that America and American individuals could compete and succeed in the world. That’s when our system was based on truth. When those same powers became the corruption…became the ones lying to us…they needed to dumb down the population. We have let them accomplish this through YEARS of abdicating our collective educational responsibility to the Liberals. Yaaaaaaaay us!
Sorry…but you have it backwards. It was Henry Ford the father of industrialism in the good ole USA who said…and had it practiced in his Ford schools for immigrants…”I don’t need thinking workers, I need obedient workers” Thusly came the birth of the Prussian school in American education system. Ford was not alone in these ideals, there are others involved…it is the greatest of conspiracies.
There are people, from fundamentalist christians to new-age adherents, who will tell you that using your mind is suspect; that your own thoughts are either satan whispering in your ear and shouldn’t be trusted, or that your world view should be informed solely by what ‘resonates’ and the mind just gets in the way; I know a few at both ends of the spectrum. And people that fall in between have ‘science’ to tell them what to believe. I guess the global oligarchs have all the angles covered on this troublesome thinking thing.
I was going to say something similar about “Science,” especially in the biomedical realm. It has become a fully commodified vehicle for selling the same pre-packaged worldview. However, it is especially dangerous because it has co-opted the language and trappings of genuine scientific and rational inquiry. It is dogma rebranded in a way that appeals to those who fancy themselves too enlightened to embrace Old World dogma but are still incapable of thinking for themselves.
Exactly right!
There are other fallacies rampant in our culture. The counterpart to the ad hominem is the ad verecundium (appeal to authority.) He has a PhD so what he says is true. No need for evidence. The ad populum fallacy says an idea is true because “everybody” knows it’s true. We see that a lot in msm push polling. In the straw man argument a person makes up his opponents argument for him and tears that apart. We also see post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this therefore because of this) a false cause fallacy.
Statistically, ad verecundium arguments have pretty much been wrong 100% of the time throughout history, yet the current generation still tries to appeal to modern “authority” as some kind of infallible standard by which truth is discovered. Seems to me that doing the exact opposite might be a better approach, but alas that would require a brain that is able to see plainly obvious patterns, which rules out 99.9999% of the population.
There is also the « politically correct crowd » , that came along and changed the words :
– A blind has become a “Vision impaired person”.
– A deaf has become an “Hearing impairded person“.
– A handicapped person has become a “Physically challenged person”.
– An homosexual has become a “Gay”.
– The poor people have become “The have-not”.
– A black person has become a “Person of color”.
– An illegal alien has become a “Undocumented immigrant”.
-A Ghetto has become an “Economically disadvantaged area”
– A joint use to be a bad place to be, now it is a marijuana cigarette…lol
– The term The Founding Fathers has become sexist, we must now say “The Founders”
– There is no more fat people, they are “Obese”.
– ETC….
The source of this evil: postmodernism and cultural marxism.
“Once upon a time, in medieval universities, new students enrolled in the Trivium. It was the foundation curriculum. It was required. Its parts were: grammar, logic, and rhetoric.”
That constituted the first half of the minimum training.
The 2nd half was “civics”, that branch of political philosophy dealing with personal rights.
The ability to communicate coupled with the ability to enforce one’s freedom was the gateway to a full life.
I suggest that a starting point for the civics portion can be found at 1215.org.
The milk is drunk and has caused drunkenness…blurred vision, shallow sensations, fear and loathing… Now what? Words, Touching, Light? Each one is not enough…Hence poetry…Separating the three into an educational system from parenting to academia is obstructive, but effective with insobriety. Addiction is broken by freedom, a sunrise or sunset, a true reflection in a ‘magic’ mirror, a conscious orgasm…Do we need more milk? No, we need to learn to die and be reborn. And that brings a responsibility beyond just philosophizing. Sitting on the edge/fence is not an option…But, lo, I forgot, we’re all too busy drinking milk…