The Tool of The Gods

I'll never forget the day I dropped out of graduate school. I'd already completed the course work for my Master's degree and was ready to write my thesis. But one day, I had an epiphany... a word I learned in college by the way. I don't think I've used it since either. Anyway, I experienced a profound realization. I realized that school was a complete waste of time and that I wanted to pursue filmmaking instead. My family freaked out of course. Quitting so close to the finish line seemed crazy. But to me, the only thing that was crazy was having gone to school in the first place. So I became a dropout and a filmmaker and I've never been sorry. 

I've never really liked school. From kindergarten right on up to university level. School always made me uncomfortable. There was a strange, artificiality that left me more confused than enlightened. I never belonged there and I knew it even as a child. So I've always been deeply suspicious of the educational system. I knew what it claimed to be and what it claimed to do, but I never bought it. Those claims always sounded like false advertising. 

My last blog dealt with the fashion industry. I called it a machine designed to shape society. Well, the educational system is designed to function in much the same way., Granted, one purpose of so-called education is to teach the fundamental knowledge we need in order to function in life; reading, writing and arithmetic. The "basics". But these basics are actually a very small part of what education is all about. There's a whole other curriculum being taught. 

We're born into this world with a precious, powerful gift. It's called imagination. Like a magical wand, imagination can be used to open doors to endless possibilities. We may be born with legs, but it's imagination that gives us wings. Imagination is the one tool that enables man to be a god. The problem is that we don't live on Mount Olympus. 

The purpose of the educational system... from kindergarten up to the university level... is the continued production of the worker class. Visualize a long stream of smiling graduates with diplomas in hand... all seated on an endless conveyor belt. The widgets of tomorrow. And the single most important first step in building a good widget/worker is the removal of the imagination. Imagination is for gods, not beasts or drones. Good workers don't need imagination. So schools function as behavioral training laboratories where students learn the skills they'll truly need in society. There are three fundamental things that the educational system is designed to teach. These are the real basics:

1. Performance of meaningless tasks

2. Memorization of useless information

3. Blind obedience to authority figures

Is it any wonder why big business and major corporations have traditionally been the biggest donors to education? If you're having trouble understanding what I'm saying here, consider yourself "educated". 

In all fairness, it should be pointed out that most people are not meant for godhood anyway. So removing their imagination is like removing their appendix. I will have no real effect. In fact, most people are probably better off without imagination anyway. Such people are perfectly content to answer the questions. 

However, the rest of us will continue to question the answers.