On democracy and ignorance
Posted on October 20, 2009
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There are reasons why liberalism has always exalted the importance of education. For a free society to function, educated citizens are needed who can think and act for themselves, for their familes and communities, and for the common good. An ignorant population will always in the end be enslaved – whether literally or metaphorically. So how is it that we have come to this:
What happens in a democracy when the demos is inadequately educated? What happens when, to win an election, a party does not have to appeal to the people who are willing and able to consider carefully the issues of the day but to a larger number who only care about their material comforts and the childish “news” headlines propagated by the mass media? New Britain happens…
In reality, the government does not need to go to any effort to hide the truth or subversive texts. All it has to do it ensure that sufficient numbers of people are not interested in the world around them. Make sure enough people get a shit education so that they grow up lacking curiosity in the way things work, make sure enough people are comfortable with their mundane existences, make sure that mass entertainment is sufficiently banal to stop people from opening their eyes and engaging their brains. As long as the number of people who can be bothered to keep themselves informed and are experienced enough to be able to form their own opinion is kept small enough, who cares what those people think?
If you want “power” in this country, you don’t need to have the best thought-out policies, you don’t need to be the brightest mind. This is socialism’s legacy: a nation so ill-educated that many haven’t even heard of the classics, where vast swathes of society don’t have to engage their brain to feed and clothe themselves, where generations of parents don’t feel the need to encourage their children to explore the world. This country is no longer run by a patrician elite, but by a cynical class of populist authoritarians who pander to every ignorant desire of the largest minority. Britain is a tyranny of the ignorant.
While this is all true, it is only part of the story. It is not just the education system at fault here. Postmodern societies have a tendency to minimise or reject the concept of absolute truth. There are no facts – just shades of opinion. As a consequence, all manner of matters are thrown open to “public debate”, in which the view of informed experts has to fight to be heard above the din of chatter from the great majority of us who have no specialist knowledge on which to formulate a reasoned position. In an era in which more votes are cast for the Big Brother TV show than in a general election, this ultimately means that control rests with whoever has the largest megaphone. Whoever can influence public opinion calls the shots: government, pressure groups, business, religious organisations. Democracy only works when the people are educated and engaged in the political process.
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