Education and the Crisis of Public Values

The title of this piece is the title of a new book by Henry A. Giroux. I found it at www.truthout.org, to which he contributes. The material comes from the preface of that book. Full title: "Education and the Crisis of Public Values: Challenging the Assault on Teachers, Students and Public Education" (Counterpoints: Studies in the Postmodern Theory of Education), published by Peter Lang Publishing; First printing edition (July 30, 2011). Of course I throw in my two cents every now and then as well.

Giroux believes that since the early 70’s, rich, corporate power brokers and right wing advocates realized that education was important to creating a populist movement reflecting their interests. They have done exactly that over the last 40 years in the name of “reform” to accomplish their aims successfully. They created talk shows, anti-pubic think tanks,  and organizations while the left pursued single-issue movements. In the 80’s they educated the public on a wide range of issues the appeal to the overall public; tax reform, role of government, educational crises, family values, the economy etc. They emphasized unbridled freedom and individualism and a hatred of the social contract (concern for the common good.

The movement was cruel and vulgar in producing a new form of political illiteracy where one could see no difference between opinions and arguments, reason and emotion, evidence and false information. Science became a liability, anti-intellectualism was a virtue, social protections dismissed as socialism. The right wing Christian extremists became ready allies in this process. Thus conservative colleges were seen as equal as more prestigious liberal ones, and Fox media was as well receive as the Wall Street Journal.

Private schools, charter schools, etc, were promoted over public schools. They push anti-union values, and real educational reform and demonized previous programs that aided the country such as the New Deal and the Great Society programs. All of this funded and promoted by the rich and powerful in order to remain rich and powerful.

They have been very effective. Note the changes in TV fare over the years from family shows, variety shows that reflected middle class values to today’s crude reality TV, and celebrity watching. Kim Kardashian becomes the role model for vulgarity and stupidity.

This is capitalized upon by the new crop of Republican candidates, who so well reflect those values the public has been taught over the years. Their rhetoric pays little heed to science, rationality, or the public good, but panders to fears they generate and a general disregard for truth over what is pragmatic towards winning elections. Michelle Bachmann and Rich Perry deride science and dismiss it warnings, Govs. Scott Walker and Chris Christie go after unions. They seek to gut public services and sell them to the highest bidders.

“As the meaning of democracy is betrayed by its transformation into a market society, corporate power and money appear unchecked in their ability to privatize, deregulate and destroy all vestiges of public life. America's military wars abroad are now matched by the war at home; that is, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have found their counterpart in the war against the poor, immigrants, young people, unions, public-sector workers, the welfare state and schoolteachers. The call for shared sacrifices on the part of conservatives and Tea Party extremists becomes code for destroying the social state, preserving and increasing the power of mega-rich corporations and securing the wealth of the top one percent of the population with massive tax breaks while placing the burden of the current global economic meltdown on the shoulders of working people and the poor. Deficit reductions and austerity policies that allegedly address the global economic meltdown caused by the financial hawks running Wall Street now do the real work of stripping teachers of their collective bargaining rights, dismantling programs long associated with social services and relegating young people to mind-deadening schools and a debt-ridden future.”

Unfortunately, President Obama, in seeking to work with others felt the need to cooperate with these false values estranging himself from his progressive supporters and leaving behind the vision that captured our imaginations.

This thinking has infected the world stage as we see Europe in economic materialistic throes and Eastern countries who imitated the materialist west to a place of domination and power over the west. Other writers have talked well about the time when the U.S.A. just become a nation among nations rather than an international leader. We have abdicated our moral leadership and the world and we suffer because of it. Even the democracies emerging from the Middle East while liberating people, have a hard time finding good role democratic models that emphasis the public good over individualistic material gains.

The book looks to me like a good read.