144. A New
Collectivism: The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor
Gatto from archive.org
A New
Collectivism
By 1919 a deluge of
state legislation appeared, specifically designed to counteract rampant Bolshevism. Idaho and Utah
established criminal penalties for failure to attend Americanization classes. Fifteen states ordered English to
be
the only language of
instruction in all schools, public and private. Nebraska demanded that
all meetings be conducted in
English. Oregon required every foreign language publication to display prominently a literal English
translation of its entire contents. In 1922, Oregon outlawed private schools for elementary school
children, a decision reversed by the Supreme Court later in the Pierce vs. Society of Sisters case (1925).
At the same time, or just a bit later, a
new biology began to emerge — a molecular vision of life under the direction of the Rockefeller Foundation, a
vision in which scientific interventions could and should be used
deliberately, by the best people, to control biological and social evolution. With Rockefeller as a
principal engine, the shared social
view of corporate thinkers was comprehensively imposed, bit by bit, on
academic science. Elite universities,
with Caltech as leader, became sites for implementation of the Rockefeller project. It was, in the
words of Lily Kay in {The Molecular Vision of Life), "a potent convergence of social agendas
and scientists' ambitions."
Eugenic goals played a significant role
in conception and design of the new Rockefeller biology, to such a point that open discussion of purposes
had eventually to be kept under
wraps as a political liability, particularly when the great dictators of
Europe appeared to be taking some
of their cues from America. Molecular biology promised a politically safer, and even a more certain path to
an eventual Utopia of social planning by elites, and one now properly "scientific," completely free of
the embarrassing candor of eugenic
selection.
The experience of these times gave
reformers a grand taste for blood. Government intervention everywhere was proclaimed the antidote for
dissent. Intervention took many
unexpected shapes. For instance, the "Athlete's Americanization
League" agitated intensely to
provide free sports equipment for every public school with its battle cry: "Sports are the logical antidote
for unrest." By the time national passion cooled, in every nook and cranny of American life new
social organizations with powerful government or private sponsorship flourished. All fed on intervention into
families for their nourishment,
all clamored to grow larger, all schemed to produce political testimony of their value. A new republic was here at
last, just as Herbert Croly'" had announced, and government school was to be its church.
10. The new republic we were driving
toward, according to Croly, bore little resemblance to either a republic or a democracy. It was to be an
apolitical universe, a new Utopia of engineers and skilled administrators,
hinted at by Bellamy, spun out further
by Veblen in The Engineers and the Price System, and The Theory of
Business Enterprise. A federal union of worldwide scope was the target, a peculiar kind of union of the sort
specified in Cecil Rhodes' last wills, which established the Rhodes
Scholarships as a means to that end.
Politics was outdated as a governing device. Whatever appearances of an
earlier democratic republic were allowed to survive, administrators would actually rule. A mechanism would
have to be created whereby administrators could be taught the new reality
discreetly so that continuity and
progress could be assured. De Tocqueville's nightmare of an endlessly
articulating, self-perpetuating bureaucracy had finally come to life. It was still in its infancy, but every
sign pointed to a lusty future.
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