183. The
Scientific Curriculum: The Underground History of American Education by John
Taylor Gatto from archive.org
The Scientific Curriculum
The
particulars of the scientific curriculum designed to replace the Christian
curriculum look like this:
First,
it asked for a sharply critical attitude toward parental, community, and
traditional values. Nothing familiar,
the children were told, should remain unexamined or go
unchallenged. The old-fashioned was to be
discarded. Indeed, the study of history itself
was stopped. Respect for tradition was held sentimental and
counterproductive. Only one thing could
not be challenged, and that was the school religion itself, where even
minor rebellion was dealt with harshly.
Second, the scientific curriculum asked for objectivity, for the
suppression of human feelings which
stand in the way of pursuing knowledge as the ultimate good. Thinking works best when everything is considered an
equally lifeless object. Then things can be
regarded with objectivity. Of course kids resist this deadening of
nature and so have to be trained to
see nature as mechanical. Have no feeling for the frog you dissect or the butterfly you kill for a school project —
soon you may have no feeling for the humiliation of your classmates or the enfeeblement of
your own parents. After all, humiliation
constitutes the major tool of behavior control in schools, a tool used
alike to control students, teachers, and
administrators.
Third,
the scientific curriculum advised neutrality. Make no lasting commitments
to anything because loyalty and
sentiment spell the end of flexibility; they close off options.
Last,
the new scheme demanded that visible things which could be numbered and
counted be acknowledged as the only
reality. God could not exist; He could not be seen.
The
religion of Science says there is no good or evil. Experts will tell you what
to feel based on pragmatic
considerations. Since there is no free will nor any divine morality, there is no such thing as individual
responsibility, no sin, no redemption. Just
mathematical decision-making; grounded in utilitarianism or the lex
talionis, it makes little difference
which. The religion of Science says that work is for fools. Machines can be built to do hard work, and what machines
don't do, servants and wage slaves can.
Work as little as you can get away with — that's how the new success is
measured. The religion of Science says
good feelings and physical sensations are what life is all about.
Drugs
are such an important part of feeling good we began to need drugstores to sell
the many varieties available. People
should try virtually everything; that is the message of the drug- store and all advertising. Leave no
stone unturned in the search for sensual
pleasure. With science-magic you don't even have to worry about a
hangover. Simply take vitamin B and keep
on drinking — nor need you worry about incurring the responsibility of a family with the advent of
cheap contraceptives and risk- free legal
abortion. Lastly, the religion of Science teaches that death, aging, and
sickness are ultimate evils. With pills,
potions, lotions, aerobics, and surgery you can stave off death and aging, and eventually the magical medical
industry will erase those scourges from
human affairs.
There.
It is done. See how point for point the curriculum of Science, upgraded from
an instrument to a religion, revokes
each of the penalties Christianity urges we accept gladly? See how Science can be sold as the
nostrum to grant absolute absolution from
spiritual covenants?
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