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Beware The Tools of Totalitarianism
William Sherer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich makes interesting reading, especially when it comes to how the government used its schools to brainwash German children. Here’s what Hitler had to say about his program to indoctrinate the country’s youth into rabid nationalism, anti-semitism, and Naziism. “‘When an opponent declares, ‘I will not come over to your side’, he said in a speech on November 6, 1933, I calmly say, ‘Your child belongs to us already’.” And of course he was right, for the most part.
In addition to using the schools to control the German people, Hitler also used the press. Here is an interesting passage from The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich that illustrates how powerful these tools can be.
“I myself was to experience how easily one is taken in by a lying and censored press and radio in a totalitarian state. Though like most Germans I had daily access to foreign newspapers, espcially those of London, Paris, and Zurich, which arrived the day after publication, and though I listened regularly to the BBC and other foreign broadcasts, my job necessitated the spending of many hours a day in combing the German press, checking the German radio, conferring with Nazi officials and going to party meetings. It was surprising and sometimes consternating to find that notwithstanding the opportunities I had to learn the facts and despite one’s inherent distrust of what one learned from Nazi sources, a steady diet over the years of falsifications and distortions made a certain impression on one’s mind and often misled it. No one who has not lived for years in a totalitarian land can possibly conceive how difficult it is to escape the dread consequences of a regime’s calculated and incessant propaganda. Often in a German home or office or sometimes in a casual conversation with a stranger in a restaurant, a beer hall, a café, I would meet with the most outlandish assertions from seemingly educated and intelligent persons. It was obvious that they parroting some piece of nonsense they had heard on the radio or read in the newspapers. Sometimes one was tempted to say as much, but on such occasions one was met with such a stare of incredulity, such a shock of silence, as if one had blasphemed the Almighty, that one realized how useless it was even to try to make contact with a mind which had become warped and for whom the facts of life had become what Hitler and Goebbels, with their cynical disregard for truth, said they were.”
Canadians are very lucky to be living in a free country, and we must be ever on guard against the possibility of losing our freedom to a government that is tempted to use the tools of totalitarianism to advance its own agenda.
Yes, we may very well be free, but since the aftermath of the Nazi regime, the propaganda tools were refined and developed in all areas of business, public institutions, and the growth of public relations, and where propaganda theory is taught in large doses, under the disguise of harmless titles. Along the way behavioural theory connected with propaganda, according to the people who work in both fields, it was a natural progression, because the main problem is people’s behaviour, and how people’s behaviour gets in the way of change, and goals of governments.
No where do you see this action, is our public education system. It is in the little daily activities and conversations that take place, with parents and their children.
I will used only one example, that shows the experience of a parent and his child, who has early reading difficulties. This is based on my own experience, but it is the experience of a lot of parents out there.
In grade 1, I began to worry about the difficulties that my child was having in reading and writing. The school was saying, do not worry, she will catch up on her own. Common saying, where it tells the parent to do nothing. Meanwhile, at home I was discussing my worries with other family members, insisting she needs help, and the school was not doing anything. Well, the response dare I say, much the say way as this; “I would meet with the most outlandish assertions from seemingly educated and intelligent persons. It was obvious that they parroting some piece of nonsense they had heard on the radio or read in the newspapers”
Almost all family member tore a strip into me, how dare I question the teacher. The teacher knows best. As time went on, they actually went out of their way to urge me to accept my child’s limitations and that she is slow.
What was behind it, was another common misconception that schools find very useful to relay to parents in some type of covering to hide the meaning. ‘Children who are struggling with reading in the early grades, are children who are slow.’ A lot of people believe this, and the education system allows this belief, to remain in a lot of people’s minds. Even today, there is still family members that think, among other parents in my child’s class that the only reason she is doing well, is become I am doing all the work for her. I often respond when I hear that remark, how do I help her, if she is taking a test at school, since I am not there? The responses have range from I am supplying her to cheat, to getting advance copies of the tests, or the more common reply, it was just a fluke she did so well.
The public education system find it very useful, to employed propaganda and behavioural tools, the use of steady diet of mantras, until the majority of the people believe it and when there is snags as there is with children, parents have a difficult time to get the help for their children, It forces parents to become even more dependent on the school, because of the lack of support from other parents and their beliefs.
This is probably the number one reason, the school system, gets away not employing research-based curriculum and practices. There is no need too, because there is no demand for it, except from a very small group of parents.