To Be Fully "Woke", One Must Be Awakened from Mass Hypnosis

Tocqueville Teaches Why Schools Continue to Fail in Describing Our Democracy

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”

Max Planck

Excerpt from page 12

For the sake of young people, for the country, and for democracy, we who have reaped the benefits of democracy are obliged to make sense of what is taking place in the US and especially in schools. If reactionaries, libertarians, or privatizers who want undeserved and unlimited control over schools and education were the first ones or the only ones delineating long lists of frustrated and bitter complaints about traditional public schooling, we could justify the denials and interminable delays in implementing meaningful change in those institutions. However, even a cursory study of the history of our public schools shows innumerable scathing evaluations and insider reports of chaos, contradictions, conflicts, and controversies from some of our best educators, which are ongoing.

Those who have been well-informed and who are tethered to reality and somewhat knowledgeable about human behavior may be flummoxed by how easily so many others, including those with a high school or college diploma buy into a big lie, such as the Republican’s “trickle-down” myth or Trump’s conspiracy delusions about rigged or stolen elections. However, an even bigger lie which causes nearly everyone to maintain an unshakable belief in these paternalistic institutions and faith in the authoritarian foundation on which they rest is on a different plane. That untruth is much more difficult to debunk. The obfuscated and covert lies are that schooling can accomplish mass education and save people from themselves, and that all need to be saved from themselves, rather than from outside influences, forces, and ignorance. Elemental beliefs may have multiple layers of misperception. They originate in the most basic emotions and orientations which are not accessible to the conscious mind without extensive deliberation and analysis. Discovering and spreading this awareness is the task with which you are assigned here. Are you up to it? (End of excerpt).

Alexis de Tocqueville foresaw something approximating mass hypnosis or widespread popular fallacies and illusions shared among the population which he believed might become dangerous to democracy when internalized by nearly all the citizens of a democracy, despite practical experience and ample empirical and/or other evidence proving those ideas to be misguided and false. He was amazingly perceptive, insightful, and intuitive. Although Tocqueville was clearly highly impressed with the Anglo-Americans and our relatively new and quite novel government of the time (early - to late 1830’s) when visiting from France twice about five years apart after our Revolutionary War, he had become well-aware that democracy is not an infallible, nor in any sense a perfect form of government.

Tocqueville recognized that democracy entails much, much more than merely holding elections every two years or voting for a national leader every four years. He expressed concerns about particular hazards pertaining to popular but erroneous ideas or unfounded conceptualizations and convictions which may always, or which could be expected to typically come with our rather convoluted system of government and others like it. Substantial barriers to liberty and justice had already been associated with America’s trajectory during the roughly half-century of its existence then as a democratic republic.

Tocqueville names and describes certain characteristics which have a likelihood of undermining liberty for citizens and undermining the government itself. A few of his most serious concerns have indeed materialized over the following two centuries. He recognized that almost an entire population can be lulled into a kind of self-hypnosis or a state of somnambulance, allowing the citizens to be distracted or misdirected by attractive ideas or individuals leading away from their most precious convictions and ideals. It starts with how children see their world and how they are treated and trained.

There is an urgent need today to understand how our society and politics have devolved into the extremely challenging quagmire in which we find ourselves, as well as to take swift and decisive action to rectify the major mistakes which have been made. What we now call “memes” and certain modes of thinking or lens through which we all or nearly all see life and reality were on Tocqueville’s mind as a sociologist.

A major factor in this for us now is the way children have been mis-educated, pacified, and indoctrinated in trusted institutions. No less crucial is the phenomenal intransigence among the public who ignore reams of evidence, passively accept school failures, and uniformly fail to honestly deal with those vexing issues or with associated constitutional questions. No one should imagine a golden age of education or schooling before Reagan which never existed, and no one should abstain from the struggle to retrace our missteps assuming that “experts” will work out the egregious wrinkles. Education is inherently political and getting it right matters.

We have put all our eggs into one basket, and we have stumbled headlong into the rocks of arbitrary authority and authoritarianism. Schooling is not the problem. Paying for it with taxes and government oversight are not the problem. But over-zealous government administration, because of a legal requirement to attend, IS the problem.

We cannot progress further until enough of us wake up from their sleep through achieving their own authentic education. We cannot avoid the demise of democracy if we do not figure out what education is and what it is not. The clock has run out and the wolf is at the door. This is our moment of truth.

Preparing Students to Pre-surrender Their Rights and Autonomy

Authoritarianism is a disease of the mind which typically begins at an early age in individuals and is cultivated and influenced within a society by many young people having experienced an emphasis on the ostensible inadequacy of individuals to live up to certain accepted standards; by the imagined societal need for constant guidance and control by a strong authority; by a compelling and irrational fear and desire to avoid chaos, anarchic conditions, and misdirection, and by a belief that there must be a small superior group of select or “special” people with a single great leader who can manage oversight and make wise choices for the whole group. Authority is an “attractive nuisance” to borrow a phrase from law.

Authoritarianism can only become a cancer where imposed authority in any context is not recognized as a constant danger. Conditional authority is necessary and useful in certain designated situations and relationships when used sparingly, cautiously, and appropriately and without malicious intent. When authority is allowed to become arbitrary or capricious, however, or when based more on fear and a desire for control or domination than on a duty or a mission, it will always be insidious and destructive.

After a period of exposure to these conceptualizations and presuppositions listed above and anticipated by Tocqueville, individuals incrementally come to self-identify as, either one of the few superior persons with great leadership capabilities and potential (including the hope to become that single leader destined to be at the top), or alternatively as faithful followers who understand that conformity to rules and expectations, obedience to authority, and loyalty to the group (as long as all remain loyal to the great leader) is paramount. Both leaders and followers who accept authoritarian values pose big risks to democracy.

What do I know? I am just a student; just a citizen; just a worker, or perhaps an obscure Democrat. About the followers or citizens who have developed a servile and dependent mind-set, Tocqueville says,

“There is no need to strip such citizens of their rights: they let those rights slip away voluntarily.

In another section he says:

“They adapt their souls in advance to this inescapable servitude and in despair of remaining free already worship from the bottom of their hearts the master who is waiting in the wings.”

A bit later he states, prophetically,

“…a nation cannot remain strong for long when each individual in it is weak…”

Compulsory school attendance laws, regardless of the intentions or expectations of the authors and proponents of such laws, teach many unintended lessons. The power brokers and backers of these laws failed to understand that, because laws depend on authority, and not just on authority but on arbitrary authority, as well as on rigid universal enforcement, they inadvertently instill a predisposition and an unconscious or unarticulated orientation toward subservience in the majority of students. Students are presumed to be weak and powerless and intellectually deficient, in need of an effective and powerful leader. Learned helplessness is at the core of the hidden curriculum.

The laws emanating from the original attendance requirement cultivate an unhealthy dependence on and compliance with authority. They foster a climate of social uniformity and blind obedience at the expense of individuality. No one should be surprised that over seventy million people voted for a fascist authoritarian who has claimed superiority, essential leadership skills, and privilege.

One additional Tocqueville quote seems mandatory at this juncture:

“…for what is a group of rational and intelligent human beings held together solely by force. I ask myself how in these times the idea of rights can be inculcated in the minds of men and made palpable, as it were, to their senses. I see only one way of doing it, namely, to allow everyone to exercise certain rights in peace. One sees this clearly in children, who are men in all but strength and experience.”

Did Tocqueville not just declare, in effect, that children should only attend school voluntarily, rather than under duress and under conditions of coercion, so that they can experience freedom and liberty directly for themselves and to know and experience the meaning of democracy as willing participants in free public schools? I cannot help but believe that he would have adamantly opposed mandatory attendance laws had he been confronted specifically with that question.

The 1984 egg (speaking of eggs) was hatched by anonymous authorities and officials in a school near you, and that is where it became a confounding and sickening omelet. Scrambled ideas scramble views and scramble brains. Following instructions without questioning them is a habit which can alter the mind if overused and normalized.

In tested democratic governments, several then in Europe and others previously around the world in antiquity, which also legitimately qualified as “democratic” systems, Tocqueville noted specific identifiable tendencies or peculiarities which could result in potential drawbacks or serious dangers which he had named and described, right along with all the various positive obvious benefits democracy offers for citizens and for countries. Giving the most weight to the greatest number of votes for objectives spelled out in proposed legislation or in elections for offices means that there will always be winners and losers and the possibility of a variety of conflicts or complications.

In some instances, these difficulties can metastasize and threaten the viability of the system. That simple concept was the beginning of a very long story and a canvas on which to paint a large and colorful picture for Tocqueville. We are concerned here mainly with just this one ubiquitous system of counterproductive laws that were deceptively sold to the public by radically conservative influencers which poison the intellectual environment for students and teachers. It derives from a wide range of factors, concerns, impulses, inclinations, and events or accidents. However, it is necessary to look first at the whole picture.

A Majority Becomes Mindless When Minds Are Manipulated

It has seemed unlikely that a large and variegated people could ever be “of one mind”. The term “tyranny of the majority” had little meaning for me until I read Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. As one of my long-forgotten teachers or professors would often repeat decades ago, “Millions of people can be wrong”. However, it was never quite clear how such a preponderance of the voters in a democracy might nearly all imperceptibly become misled and persuaded of certain erroneous supposed ‘core precepts’ or fundamental impressions, which could create threats to that very marvelous system.

Tocqueville explains with some clarity how this all might come about. He warned that the phenomenon of a majority willing to unwittingly sacrifice freedom, liberty, and justice for other priorities and preoccupations might eventually result in prevailing attitudes and subsequent legislation dictating risky or catastrophic trends and significant moves in misdirection. Little did he know how soon after his warnings his concerns would materialize.

In a functional democratic paradigm, we believe we are obliged to trust the wisdom or the will of the greatest number of people, assuming complete and accurate dissemination of information. That is assuming far too much at this stage, unfortunately. We ordinarily accept that whichever proposed legislation or whomever receives the most votes in a democracy should logically carry the day. However, that only works when there is good faith and a balance of power, and no pervasive corruption.

Experience shows, as Tocqueville outlined, much can go wrong, and information can be polluted and perverted. The potential for tyranny is always present, even in a system theoretically based on fairness and equal representation since opinions and choices made by a large number of people may be oppressive for any minority. Factors which sway the public with overwhelming power or passion and big money may be prejudicial or antithetical to constitutional principles and may ultimately result in delusions adopted by the majority, causing them to favor policies and laws which are destined to cause great harm or complete failure.

The following Tocqueville quote summarizes his thumbnail sketch on this thorny issue. He elaborates on the theme in many different sections of the book. We will try to include others in summarizing as briefly as possible.

“When an opinion takes hold in a democratic nation and establishes itself in a majority of minds, it becomes self-sustaining and can perpetuate itself without effort, because nobody will attack it. Those who initially rejected it as false end up accepting it as general, and those who continue to oppose it in the depths of their heart do not show it. They take great pains to avoid dangerous and futile struggle.”

Cognitive dissonance, suspended disbelief, disassociation, compartmentalization, and some of the other terms in common use in the field of psychology today had not yet been invented. But our favorite French author of two centuries ago had put his finger on concepts represented by those modern terms used now.

An instructive example of this which does not require explanation, or elaboration, might be the way most people today think about employer/employee relations. The portrayal of a crass CEO firing people arbitrarily in a reality TV show reflects the popular conception of bosses as entitled in their dominance over and exploitation of workers. The American people watched that disgusting display with enthusiasm for how many seasons – and now reruns are available! Such images should have driven people to change the channel.

Reports and scandals exposing the routine exploitation of workers by employers and depressing statistics proving extreme inequality seem unable to penetrate and change the popular misconceptions about the irrational traditional capital/labor relationship. People become desensitized and accept their own abuse or that of others. Even the language we employ reflects unconscious biases and beliefs about this vague set of impressions and ideas, as well as many others.

On that particular topic, Tocqueville says that “Thus as industrial society steadily debases the class of workers, it raises the class of masters.” The master’s mind “expands as the worker’s contracts”. The worker is in a “state of constant, strict, and necessary dependence…and seems born to obey, as the other seems born to command.” Monkey see, monkey do.

Everyone ultimately takes for granted what they see daily or consistently as routine and as reality. Schools are modelled on that insidious ‘capital as preeminent’ and ‘employer as supreme’ framework. To see the forest, it may be necessary to cut down a few trees. The rich first direct us to what they want us to think about and then to what they want us to believe, which we already may be inclined to believe, and it becomes our reality.

The central focus for this piece will be the lens through which children see the social and political universe as a consequence of their experience and as they live a perplexing contradiction. Their perspectives and daily reality are the result of intentional strategies, and those are heavily influenced by people with a well-refined and carefully massaged agenda. To the extent those lenses make authority a necessity or beneficial part of an ordered and organized or safe existence, they come to accept and even defend the oppressive authority which will surely limit and control them in the future. This must change.

Majorities Rule – But Not Always Wisely

On the overriding power of the majority in the US, Tocqueville made numerous references including the following:

“A number of specific circumstances tend, moreover, to make the power of the majority in America not just predominant but irresistible.”

“In America, the majority erects a formidable barrier around thought.”

“If the influence of individuals on such a people is weak and almost non-existent, the power exerted by the mass on the mind of each individual is very great.”

“The idea of a right inherent in certain individuals is rapidly vanishing from the minds of men; the idea of society’s all-powerful and in a sense unrivaled right is taking its place.”

It is crucially important to be cognizant of the fact that, ordinarily when we talk about the “majority opinion”, we are not talking about well-documented facts, empirical evidence, scientific research, or validated hypotheses. In most instances the majority opinion is merely what is believed by more than half a population, or by a preponderant portion, regardless of the often-specious basis for that belief.

Opinions are hugely important in a democracy as indices of political power and influence. However, they are almost always more about traditional or customary expectations, habits, and thinking than they are centered on essential concepts and verified facts. For most they are entirely subjective. For some they are planted as bad seeds in a rocky field, cultivated under bad laws. They are potent, especially for certain people.

Typically, opinions are generated from unexamined emotion and passionate devotion to intractable ideas or ideals. They develop from what individuals believe they need, deserve, and want, and who or what they value as meaningful representatives and as special benefits or protections for their lives and families.

No one expects an educated population to be associated with a ‘herd mentality’. Intelligent people need to objectively evaluate and study issues to arrive at an informed choice. But democracy does tend to promote uniform ideas and beliefs, nevertheless. This hugely important distinction will be very relevant later in this discussion. (A discussion about minorities had to be cut in the interest of brevity).

Equality is Tocqueville’s Primary Suspect

The most obvious issues are brought about precisely because of the equality among individuals implicitly in democracy (this had not occurred to me before). Tocqueville had identified equality, which was and remains a central feature of democratic systems as an especially problematic feature in the US, claiming that everyone here was too much alike along certain dimensions, with similar goals and interests. He shows how the majority can too conveniently carry the individual along with its sweeping tide and how government, as the embodiment of the majority’s will and the one great power over all the people, can become oppressive or tyrannical under certain conditions. He shows how, ironically, citizens become isolated or insulated to a higher degree by their independence and political autonomy, and how, as one individual among a vast multitude, one person is relatively weak without the distinctions which are commonly developed in stratified systems and in most other democracies.

In reading Tocqueville’s work, it often seemed as if he might have exaggerated some things and over-generalized inordinately. Yet, his logic is impeccable and there are valid markers even today which bear out his analysis on equality’s sometimes corrosive effects. I believe he substantiated other points adequately and drove home his message thoroughly with many pertinent examples and eloquent statements, as well. For example, it is telling, prophetic, and ironic when he writes that, “Within the bosom of liberty habits are thus formed that may one day do it great harm”, referring to the lifestyles and penchants of citizens he had discussed which may undermine stability under a democratic government. Our most recent election seems to prove him right. I expect to return again to these questions before ending this analysis.

Masses on Autopilot with “Blind Instincts” and “Invincible Habits”

In a chapter about the concentration of power in this democratic system, Tocqueville explained that an idea such as having an “unrivaled central power” such as our national government and “uniform legislation” which neither privileges nor excludes, wealthy or powerful individuals, ultimately become “instincts so blind and habits so invincible that they continue to direct action without regard to particular facts.”

In other words, we are to some extent on autopilot when it comes to some thinking and attitudes about various things. How we all see government is a function of how insignificant we feel individually and of our experience when being directed or restricted by authorities or legal codes in our activities.

In elaborating further, Tocqueville says:

“…each citizen, having become just like all the others, is lost in the crowd, until nothing can be seen any more but the vast and magnificent image of the people itself.”

He goes on to say,

“Americans believe that the social power in each state should emanate directly from the people, but once that power is constituted, they do not, as it were, imagine it as having limits.”

Tocqueville’s genius is on display when he discusses in one or two chapters what a serious mistake it is for governments to try to intrude into private lives and institutions or community affairs and the affairs of individuals of which they lack sufficient knowledge or finesse. He speaks about the fallacy of government undertaking “all the parts of a great umpire”, or the “minute details of a uniform code”. He says, “the vast machine turns out to be astonishingly feeble. It is suddenly reduced to impotence.” Legislating morality or the accepted standard or parameters for knowledge is a fool’s errand. In my estimation, here is his best summary of that concept:

“No central power, no matter how enlightened or intelligent one imagines it to be, can by itself embrace all the details of the life of a great people….If it tries to build and operate such a complex machine on its own, it will either content itself with something far short of its goal or exhaust itself in futile efforts.”

How better could anyone ever describe the foolishness of an authoritarian bureaucracy that is a school district under compulsory attendance law, and which is fully under the auspices of government, than those “complex machines” for schooling and indoctrination which we have in every state? Each one is tasked with implementing “the minute details of a uniform code” and indeed, each one is “astonishingly feeble”, “reduced to impotence” regarding the many ambitious stated goals and with regard to serving the children of the community. The “900-page book of rules” is a common joke circulated by teachers frustrated by pettiness, red tape, and micromanagement. I have seen those ponderous statutes, regulations, prohibitions, and definitions.

The last statement in this analysis is perhaps the most important and is predictive of the primary issue in schools today. The administrators are in the driver’s seat but through their tinted windows they see only an indistinct and very blurry landscape in which children and teachers are objects or subjects lacking personalities or complex knowledge of their own. He elucidates the grave danger of vague general strictures and arbitrary authority when he says:

“For a government can only dictate precise rules. It imposes the feelings and ideas that it favors, and it is always difficult to distinguish its recommendations from its orders.

This is not an argument against having a federal Department of Education. It is an argument against having any government, designing, defining, or dictating curriculum for any school. In the dynamic early days of this budding democratic republic, Tocqueville almost certainly knew that Americans did not see the locus and responsibility of government as providing the constant and abiding assurance that every child would be properly and uniformly nurtured and instructed in schools, that curricula would meet official and established design specifications in which it had direct involvement, or in declaring the social and legal parameters for behavior and decorum in classrooms. For most people, that kind of direct hands-on participation and meddling by presumed experts and social engineers was not ever seen as appropriate for government on even the local community level, if I understand the histories I have read.

To be certain, government should have a very limited role in schooling. There absolutely should be state and federal departments of education, obviously. Education is a public good. Government should oversee schooling and protect against discrimination and abuse, of course. Schooling is a valuable public service if performed as a service, rather than as a required duty serving the interests of the state or demagogues. But schooling is no guarantor of education, and government has other fish to fry.

Governments exist to serve and protect, not to define morality or knowledge, and not to dictate the comings and goings of citizens at any age for decades. They should conduct research and support students, parents, and teachers in every way possible. Yet, the nature of government and the enormity of its power and influence make it incompatible with the actual daily operation of any school or the setting of boundaries for education. We are not in Orban’s Hungary. Yet.

We Once Heard Loud Complaints About “The Establishment”

Presumably, we still have a bit of distance to go before establishing the “mass hypnosis” hypothesis, which is our primary purpose. If anyone at all ever reads this piece, hopefully they will exercise patience. If getting to where we are now has taken a couple of centuries involving many twists and turns and fits and starts, sorting it all out may not happen in a straight line.

Most people, especially those who suffer from the illusion (or delusion) that our schools are providing a moderately adequate education to students and those who are unable to conceive of a time in the near future when attendance laws are history will probably need a great deal more persuasive information and evidence. We have yet to scratch the surface. On the power of the collective and popular sentiment, Tocqueville offers the following. (The first two lines are repeated from page 7 for continuity):

“If the influence of individuals on such a people is weak and almost non-existent, the power exerted by the mass on the mind of each individual is very great.” …public favor seems as necessary as the air one breathes, and to be out of tune with the masses is in a sense to be deprived of life. The masses do not need to use laws to force those who think differently into submission. All they need to do is register their disapproval.”

He then goes on to say about Americans,

“The ardor they put into their activities prevents them from becoming passionate about ideas.”…“It is not at all easy, I think, to arouse the enthusiasm of a democratic people for any theory that has no visible, direct, and immediate relation to their daily practice.”…”Thus democratic peoples have neither the leisure nor the desire to seek out new opinions. Even when they come to doubt the opinions they have, they hold on to them nevertheless because it would take too much time and require too much study to change them. They hold onto them not as certain but as established.”

Remember that last line! LOL, or for crying out loud. Can we talk about peer pressure? Can we talk about confirmation bias or groupthink? Ideas, once established within the populace, take on a life of their own. Earlier, in this same vein, he says:

“Even when one has gained the confidence of a democratic people, it is still no small matter to gain its attention. It is very difficult to get men who live in democracies to listen to you unless you are talking to them about themselves.”…”Whenever conditions are equal, the general opinion weighs very heavily indeed on the mind of each individual. It envelops, directs, and oppresses each man’s thinking.”…It will always be very difficult to believe what the masses reject and to profess what they condemn.”

IS IT SOMETHING IN THE AIR? OR IS IT SOMETHING IN THE WATER? WHY ARE AMERICANS UNABLE TO EVEN IMAGINE ENDING COMPULSORY SCHOOL ATTENDANCE LAWS? THIS IS OUR BIG QUESTION, TOO LONG PUT OFF. IT MATTERS. PLEASE STAY WITH ME.

For the sake of young people, for the country, and for democracy, we who have benefited from democracy are obliged to make sense of what is taking place. If reactionaries, libertarians, or privatizers who want undeserved and unlimited control over schools and education were the first ones or the only ones delineating long lists of frustrated and bitter complaints about traditional public schooling, we could justify the denials and interminable delays in implementing meaningful change within those institutions. However, even a cursory study of the history of our public schools shows innumerable scathing evaluations and insider reports of chaos, contradictions, conflicts, and controversies from some of our best educators from the beginning, which are ongoing.

Those who have been well-informed and who are tethered to reality and somewhat knowledgeable about human behavior may be flummoxed by how easily so many others, including those with a high school or college diploma buy into a big lie, such as the Republican’s “trickle-down” myth or Trump’s conspiracy delusions about rigged or stolen elections. However, a bigger lie which causes nearly everyone to maintain an unshakable belief in these paternalistic institutions and faith in the authoritarian foundation on which they rest is on a different plane. That untruth is much more difficult to debunk. The obfuscated and covert lies are that schooling can accomplish mass education and save people from themselves, and that they all need to be saved from themselves, rather from outside influences, forces, and ignorance. Elemental beliefs may have multiple layers of misperception. They originate in the most basic emotions and orientations, which are not accessible to the conscious mind without extensive deliberation and analysis. Discovering and spreading this awareness is the task with which you are assigned here. Are you up to it?

A Trump-style Autocrat Has Always Been a Possibility

In a number of passages, Tocqueville writes about a future autocratic leader who might appear having an uncanny resemblance to the current US president, should the trends he noticed continue without adequate precautions having been taken. He also gives a stunning account of the presidency of Andrew Jackson (who served from 1829 to 1837) to illustrate what can transpire when precautions are not taken. This should sound painfully familiar to a reader today. It was taken from a publication named “Vincennes Gazette”, partially quoted as follows. It perfectly echoes accounts of the sitting president:

“Throughout this whole business, the language of Jackson…has been that of a heartless despot whose sole concern is to cling to power. …He governs by corruption, and his criminal manipulations will end in embarrassment and shame. In the political arena he has shown himself to be a shameless and unrestrained gambler. He has been successful thus far, but the hour of reckoning is near. …repentance is a virtue he knows nothing of.”

From that example, it is not too hard to project that, in a democracy, there can be a high degree of uniformity, unity, and conformity which might result in the election of a despot, even if there is no conscious effort to achieve any of those things. As Tocqueville states, “The principal opinions that men hold become similar insofar as their conditions are alike.” Earlier he says, “…all end up unwittingly and unintentionally sharing a certain number of opinions in common.”

Going back even a bit earlier, he said, “Two things are astonishing about the United States: the great mobility of most human actions and the singular fixity of certain principles. Men are constantly on the move, while the human mind seems almost immobile”.

“The singular fixity of certain principles” referred to by Tocqueville is one troubling aspect of a society which might in fact condense the primary focus for this article down to one phrase. We are making massive numbers of people vulnerable to mass hypnosis. We have institutions which instill a fixity of principles as a major component of their purposeful mission. These include certain religious organizations and schools where teaching and supervision clearly imitate that of church organizations. The tests students take periodically are also designed specifically to preserve ‘a fixity of principles’, for example. It has been pointed out by many educated and conscientious objectors that most testing serves no other purpose.

Tocqueville outlines in detail how ideas, sentiments, and beliefs are typically formulated and spread in a democracy as opposed to how ideas and opinions are organized and proliferated in other systems. In certain instances, beliefs are sometimes extraordinarily undifferentiated, and change is stymied when ideas and innovations effectively have no audience or no potent proponent able to rise above the “din and the crowd”. The ‘multitudes’ ostensibly share several characteristics because of the common status and habits which are shared by equals (you and I) under the Constitution and the laws. We the people are inadvertently turned into lemmings.

While things have changed quite dramatically in many ways in two centuries, much can be gained from these astute analyses. He noted among American citizens an almost compulsive industriousness and busyness, a penchant for accruing wealth and property (land at the time was still cheap and plentiful), a high degree of involvement in local affairs (which was distinctive due to the history, size, and location of the country), and a religiosity which was somewhat exceptional. We are bathed in perceptions, sensations, and subtle, or not-so-subtle beliefs all during our youth, which determine our orientation. We get the bad along with the good. Being able to separate them is what education is about.

Christianity Set the Stage

It is important to note that one of the things which has contributed to a uniformity in thought and orientation from before the time of the founding was the predominance of Christianity. Tocqueville saw democracy as being compatible with Christianity (and vice versa). Once again, quoting from his book, he makes the point with this:

“Clearly, this new and peculiar state of mankind must have disposed men to receive the general truths taught by Christianity…”

The peculiar state of mankind he refers to is democracy as experienced in America, at least in his time. He apparently had accepted Christianity as truth for himself at some point and he makes statements of belief in one or two places in his two books, which are compiled into one volume. This also came as a surprise to me.

This is not a book report on Tocqueville’s work. However, to my amazement, many of his observations confirm my often-controversial beliefs and there are innumerable sections which offer support for what I have been saying for decades. Therefore, I will continue with quotes and excerpts which strike me as apropos and pertinent. For those who have not read his work or who have other priorities, this may spare them the trouble of finding the book. Preferably, it will pique someone’s interest in getting the book.

“Social Power”, “The Principle of Social Utility” & the “Dogma of Political Necessity”

In a section titled, “On the Power That the Majority in America Exercises Over Thought”, Tocqueville says, “…the majority lives in perpetual self-adoration...” Further on, he says about the publication of books which take a position contrary to Christianity, “In the United States the majority has such sway that…it has banished even the thought of publishing such books.” This can apply to other things.

Repeating the quote from page 7, “In America, the majority erects a formidable barrier around thought.” This is more accurate than I could have imagined. There may not be anything to ‘mental telepathy’ but attitudes and ideas form over time which affect most of us in similar ways.

Tocqueville worried that in democracies, people would see and fear (somewhat irrationally) the development of “anarchic tendencies” leading to disorder because of the inherent equality and liberty. In that context he says, “They are terrified of their free will; they are afraid of themselves.”

One thinks immediately of the popular reactionary ideas and Republican backwardness we see all around us. When one reads that sentence, one cannot help but think of Christian nationalists, misogynists, white supremacists, book banning, or an entire party brainwashed by a single fear mongering television network or belonging to a cult. They see their own nature as “sinful”, wicked, or hopelessly uncontrolled and anti-social. They are mortified and terrified. Continuing, he states,

“I have shown how fear of disorder and love of well-being imperceptibly led democratic peoples to increase the prerogatives of the central government, the only power that seems sufficiently strong, sufficiently intelligent, and sufficiently stable to protect them from anarchy.” “…citizens are likely to succumb to a very disorderly love of order.”

We are witnessing a “very disorderly love of order” in 2025. I think most will agree. While unlimited books may, for the time being, still be published today without the need to totally self-censor (I hope), it is still true as Tocqueville suggests, that finding a receptive audience or a publisher may be all but impossible regarding some topics. Admitting publicly that one is an ‘unbeliever’ can still quash one’s hopes of “chance of a political career” in many places. The trend has been to isolate and shun and even fear those who are different or who think differently. Disbelieving certain other universally accepted “truisms” or myths tends to make one irrelevant or a lonely outcast, as I have painfully discovered.

In contrasting a monarchy with democracy, Tocqueville reminds that a king’s power has no way of influencing wills. But in the majority is vested “a force that is moral…which shapes wills as much as actions and inhibits not only deeds but also the desire to do them.” We are programmed to think within a kind of box, as many have long recognized, and thinking ‘outside the box’ is a much more difficult proposition in a democracy than most of us can imagine. As moral questions, significant challenges to practices or ludicrous laws are effectively proscribed. The brick wall is almost impenetrable.

In the coming paragraphs I expect to show how a “conservative” majority today can still exercise an unhealthy and undemocratic influence on minds and wills and is clearly doing so, particularly in traditional schools, which are narrowly seen as preparatory for financial success and for fitting in in a capitalistic system. I firmly believe that the inordinate influence of Christianity, likewise, still undermines democracy profoundly with an obsession with male superiority and strict obedience to authority.

Schools are the primary vehicle for broadly transmitting ideas. They can devalue intellectual processes and elevate the tolerance for ignorance when those things benefit the powers that be and it all happens behind closed doors and without notice. The state is sovereign as it administers schooling by virtue of laws which establish schools, as it defines their operation and practices, and as it enforces attendance. When conservatives and radical right-wingers are able to control the state and the federal hierarchy, they dictate the tone and content of curricular materials (as they have for generations) and the idea of controlling behavior is never given a second thought. This concentration and focus on conservative ideation inevitably lead to a concentration of power.

Analogues Are Evident Today – Please Pay Close Attention

The difficulty of introducing and advancing ideas which run counter to the biases and beliefs of the majority should not be underestimated. Once something has become accepted as the norm and as a fact, changing perceptions is extraordinarily hard. Indeed, there is typically a high price to pay for advocacy for any concept which is truly seen as odd or deviant.

Here are some things Tocqueville had to say on this matter:

“…as long as the majority remains in doubt, people talk, but as soon as it makes up its mind once and for all, everyone falls silent, and friends and enemies alike seemingly hitch themselves to its chariot.”

“…the power that rules the United States does not like to be mocked…The slightest reproach offends it; the least sting of truth drives it wild.”

“The irresistible power of the majority is a constant fact, whereas its good use is only an accident.”

“Within the limits thus laid down, the writer is free, but woe unto him who dares to venture beyond those limits. “…he must face all sorts of unpleasantness and persecution. “…he is denied everything, including glory. Before publishing his opinions, he thought he had supporters, but having revealed himself to all, he finds that his support seems to have vanished…In the end, he gives in, he bends under the burden of such unremitting effort and retreats into silence, as if he felt remorse for having spoken the truth.”

“Rarely, I believe, will a man living in democratic society suddenly conceive of ideas far removed from what his contemporaries have already accepted. Were such an innovator to appear, moreover, I suspect that he would at first have great difficulty getting people to listen to him and even greater difficulty getting them to believe him.”

To all of that, I say, talk to the people in your orbit with whom you have been in agreement on many occasions and suggest that compulsory attendance laws should be abolished. Test their reaction. I wish you luck in getting real support, regardless of the strength of your arguments if you are ready to join me in my heresy. If you are not humiliated and mocked, consider yourself fortunate.

Did you suddenly go blank when you read that first sentence of the last paragraph on abolishing compulsory attendance, or have you just unconsciously tuned me out as soon as you read it? None of this comports with our image of ourselves as “open”, accepting of new things, or liberal. However, the contrary reality for some rings true in Tocqueville’s appraisal.

REFRESH. RECALL. WE ARE SOLVING A MYSTERY. AMERICANS DENY WHEN SCHOOLS FAIL; THEY DODGE THE ISSUE OF COERCION AND FORCE WHERE CHILDREN ARE INVOLVED IN LEARNING. THEY HAVE A PERMANENT MENTAL BLOCK ABOUT ARBITRARY AUTHORITY. WHY? WHAT DO PEOPLE FEAR?

Many people listened to Dewey and several of his contemporaries with a message essentially identical to mine on educational philosophy. However, those ideas and innovations could not be incorporated or maintained in a system based on arbitrary authority with the state as the ultimate authority. Many tried and many failed badly.

Some took Holt very seriously for a short period, but he was never more than a fringe voice, - - a ‘John the Baptist crying in the wilderness’. He was humored and barely tolerated by the academic establishment. The changes he advocated would have required circumventing that same arbitrary authority structure and the constant interference of officials and outsiders to which I have repeatedly referred. His followers are still organized and passionate, but impotent except in their own few rarified “free schools”. They still dream of a “tipping point” or a “critical mass” of converts as their movement sputters and stalls.

The laws are not symbolic, nor is compliance with them voluntary. They profoundly affect how people look at schooling both consciously and unconsciously, and at how schools operate. They dictate practices and policies which categorically and inescapably defeat the educational mission, and they are immutable. To make the changes recommended by reformers while they exist would be to undermine compulsory attendance and the authority structure it demands. Laws are utilized when people mean business and have an agenda to be implemented.

Sober Up Friends; That Kool-Aid is Spiked

At this point, it seems necessary to inject a version of the relevant history of schooling and the bitter truth about these bad laws which contrasts with popular metaphors and what the public believes with an elaboration from a contemporary critic whose analysis should shock doubters into a new awareness. This is from “Common Schools and the Nationalistic Aims of Public Education in the U.S, by Tim Scott (2017)

“… it is also vitally important for those of us who seek substantive social change to critically examine our history so as to not reproduce myths about the origins of universal public education in the United States. Doing so also allows us to disrupt insidious myths about American democracy. In fact, when we take a critical look at the true objectives of Mann’s Common Schools and the “equalizing” and “education for democracy” narratives attached to them, we discover they have more in common with the objectives and rhetoric of today’s corporate education reformers than many would like to admit.”

“Within industrialized nations, compulsory mass education (sic – if it is compulsory, it is not education) serves as an essential instrument in cultivating dutiful citizen subjects who will consent to (or champion) the demands and interests of those in power. Citizenship is therefore attached to duties and expectations relating to the maintenance, success and preservation of the nation-state in both domestic and international affairs. As a principal instrument of nationalism, mass education (sic) instills in children, as future citizens, a homogenous national identity and unequivocal loyalty to the nation-state – as an idealized and hallowed homeland – often attached to a transcendental authority. Essentially, it equips embryonic citizen subjects with the skills and worldview that enables them to eagerly participate in, or passively acquiesce, to a nation’s sources of cultural, political and economic power.”

That is sobering and unquestionably accurate. Now, it is worth noting that these thoughts circle back to what Edgar Z. Freidenberger said in his book, “The Disposal of Liberty and Other Industrial Wastes” (1975). He quotes Tocqueville earlier with an excerpt from another book I use on page 29, and then writes the following:

“The basic flaw in the democratic process is not that the average man is incapable of intelligent participation in the affairs of state. It is that he must be rendered incapable of doing so in order to prevent him from using his formal political powers to challenge the existing distributions of wealth and power” (emphasis his).

A bit later Freidenberger reminds that,

“…the institutions that socialize the young, especially the school system, accustom them to a climate of ressentiment until they come to accept this as an essential characteristic of serious, adult life and, becoming ressentient themselves, they mistake this for the process of growing up.”

Friedenberger defines ressentiment as a kind of resentment turned inward against the self in which the person has been “induced to convince themselves that their misuse by others is in fact in their own interests, and that they have chosen to permit this and indeed to establish and defend the institutions by which it occurs.” Much expensive therapy and rehabilitation have been necessary because of this.

They are followers, but they find slavish following to be contemptible. They are caught in an impossible bind created during their training and instruction, while being infantilized and while regularly under duress. Self-hatred is as common as the common cold.

This is why it is so important to school administrators that teachers continually admonish and harangue students about “consequences” and their “responsibility” for study, completing assignments, and grades, even though all that is inane busywork 90% of the time and students know it or feel it. The phrase, “this is a joke” was invented to describe schoolwork. Ignorance is manufactured in this way, and ignorance prevents rebellion. Independence, maturity, and critical thinking are what administrators preach and prescribe. What they actually practice and require of students, however, is dependence and obeisance. Tocqueville has somehow foreseen this. He says:

“The concentration of powers and individual servitude will therefore increase in democratic nations not only in proportion to equality but also in proportion to ignorance.”

REMEMBER, WE ARE STILL TALKING ABOUT MASS HYPNOSIS – THINGS ARE TAKING SHAPE. YOU HAVE BEEN PROGRAMMED. NO ONE HAS BEEN EXEMPT AND FEW HAVE ESCAPED THE DELUSION.

The Beginning of an Enduring Mythology

One could argue about the insights and observations or the projections for the distant future of a French genius, although I found him very capable and found little to criticize in his eloquent and articulate tome. However, things have indeed changed, and while his concerns for the preservation of democracy were surely all valid without a doubt, one important observation he made about Americans which was generally accurate then is quite demonstrably inaccurate now. He was greatly impressed with how much Americans knew about their government and with their engagement in politics, especially at the local level. THAT WAS THEN.

In a slightly lofty and solicitous statement Tocqueville said, “The American learns about the law by participating in the making of it.” That was probably true for a respectable number of white male property owners two hundred years ago, shortly after our great revolution and founding. It is patently untrue in 2025, however. It has been untrue for more than a century, contrary to popular belief. About the only people participating in the making of the law are legislators elected depending on their wealth and financial backing and very well-paid lobbyists.

No one was more clear-eyed and realistic than Tocqueville, presumably, and he was never more so when he stated that,

“There are limits to the degree to which the people can be enlightened. Try as one might to make knowledge more accessible, improve teaching methods, and reduce the cost of acquiring learning, there is no way for people to educate themselves and develop their intelligence unless they can devote time to the effort.”

That truism will be visited again in more detail a bit later. Please keep in mind that he wrote that in the 1830’s. Today, just as in the early 19^th century, working people and people preoccupied with family and finances are hard pressed to find time to become engaged in politics. Tocqueville was thinking in terms of the need for government to be unified and effective. Just prior to those comments he had stated that the leaders and legislators in government appeared to him to be inferior to the people generally.

I am struggling to recall what he said on that topic and to understand what I remember (I borrowed the book from the library and had to return it). But I think he thought that American politicians were amateurs with none of the established traditions and less direct contact with the people than French politicians, while the people in the US were avid readers of newspapers and books. In the New England states, town meetings had been vibrant and animated. All that is quite dramatically different now. People lead frantic and hectic lives. However, that is mostly because of priorities and choices which are more reflective of private goals and ambitions. More importantly, they have become dis-engaged, cynical, and feel impotent.

In other sections, Tocqueville praised America’s schools and their accessibility and spirit of equality and their focus on practical knowledge. He was effusive in saying that “I know of no other nation that has managed to build schools as numerous or effective…” He wrote in addition that, “In the United States all of education is directed toward politics.” Earlier he said of speaking with any random American, “He will tell you what his rights are and how they may be exercised.” Unfortunately, no one can make such a bold claim about Americans now. We have plenty of schools. If only democracy were alive there for students to experience.

We should review a few other significant matters related to schools, citizens, and education recorded by Tocqueville in that book. He writes the following in speaking about how citizens maintained the republic:

“I am even further from agreeing with the many people in Europe who believe that it is enough to teach people to read and write to make citizens of them straightaway.”

“True enlightenment is primarily the fruit of experience, and if Americans had not gradually become used to governing themselves, their book-learning would not be of much use to them today.”

“Americans do not take their practical knowledge and concrete notions from books. Their literary education may prepare them for such learning, but it does not supply them with it.”

Elsewhere, he says,

“Nothing is more unproductive for the human mind than an abstract idea.”

Industriousness was a way of life in the US to be sure, and free public schooling was meant to both prepare citizens for citizenship and to compensate for rapid growth, territorial expansion, diverse languages and cultures, technological changes, and secular influences. Great writers and leaders had not yet emerged, and in Tocqueville’s estimation, literature was sparse and shallow. I suspect he was mostly right about that, also. Nevertheless, optimism was consistently quite evident in his writing.

There is good reason to believe that Americans were very proud of their “common schools” and that they did have plenty of reasons to be proud in that era. The schools were not geared for scholars or for great intellectual discussion, debate, and deliberation, however. Liberty, justice, discovery, joy, and self-awareness for students were not part of their school equation.

The conscious objective for the schools was to teach basic literacy and numeracy. They were expected to inculcate good habits, the primary mores of the national group as a diversified whole, self-discipline, and respect for others, as well as respect for authority. Intellectual excellence was not considered practical for that kind of pedestrian and character-molding environment. Others have traced that mythology and others have taken note of the dumbing-down that is inevitable, but time limits prohibit further digressions for this effort.

The assumption was that the students in the states from the general population, along with the children of new immigrants who arrived in a steady stream, would be enabled in filling positions in industry, in participating in the economy and democracy, in living peacefully and productively in society, and of becoming adequate citizens and parents in succeeding generations. Bible reading was a must. Intellectual excellence or education as it was viewed during the earlier enlightenment period was only vaguely on the mind of the promoters of schooling then, and it still is NOT what educators promote daily, with obvious but infrequent exceptions. Democracy was something to honor and treat as an abstraction, but not to enjoy in the classroom.

Fast forward to 2025. Americans quite typically passionately believe that our schools are still the best in the world and that they have played a major role in our greatest accomplishments as a nation over the past two centuries. They will nearly all tell you, in contravention to the original stated missions for schools, that they are confident that basic literacy and numeracy for the great unwashed masses are sufficient to claim a sure path to superiority and to the continuation of our precious democracy (once various deficiencies are overcome and instructional or policy “reforms” are instituted, according to them - chuckle, chuckle, eye roll – who are they kidding?).

Smugness and intractability are not a good look for professionals or truthtellers. But I have met with imperiousness, complete indifference, and disrespect when pointing out the negative effects of attendance laws and the chronic nature of the problems. These over-confident folks have come to believe that the schools satisfactorily deliver a “good” education to any student who is attentive, cooperative, diligent in their study habits, and obedient to authority. They were apparently all good students, unlike their peers.

If students fail, therefore, most failures must be primarily owned by students and students alone. This reality is catastrophic. Meaningful change at the top is never even seriously contemplated, and paralysis is the rule except for superficial window dressing.

HAS A COMPLETE PICTURE FORMED IN YOUR MIND YET? IS CLARITY ABOUT THE TABOO AGAINST THINKING ABOUT ENDING ATTENDANCE LAWS A POSSIBILITY FOR ANYONE YET ? HELLO.

The Unpleasant Reality Which Cannot be Denied

Harsh and sometimes scathing criticisms of our traditional public schools from all quarters have been the rule, rather than the exception. They are coming out of the woodwork and have been constantly flowing for my entire adulthood (which spans oner 60 years). There is a massive body of credible literature by top-tier professionals and scholars over several generations which has demanded that the schools undergo wholesale reforms. It appears in books and prestigious journals or in the media, causes a stir in some circles, and is quickly swallowed by a Black Hole.

The Black Hole is the mass of frivolous happy talk and self-congratulation of educators and the hypnotic effect of the conditioned aversion of everyone involved to confront their ignorance and fear about the real causes of school failure, namely arbitrary authority. (For a compilation, see my Substack article entitled, “Evidence Irrefutable”).

For decades progressive thinkers and would-be reformers were honored and then summarily ignored, forgotten, or even bad-mouthed. David Gabbard, a brilliant scholar and critic, has recently been sidelined and driven to abandon hope of enlightenment within the academic community, along with any number of others. He took a sabbatical to regroup and does not appear to be writing anything new. Everyone supposes that there is an entrenched establishment guarding the “system” in conspiratorial fashion, which is partly the case. Although, the real issue is the ingrained and amorphous beliefs and fears of the “majority”.

There has not been any extended moment during more than a century when there was not a significant body of literature claiming that even basic literacy standards have not been met, that students are not well-educated or are mis-educated, and that many are scarred emotionally, psychologically, or educationally, or even physically harmed. Dewey was not the first, nor was he by any means alone or the last.

Still, a brilliant and highly reputable talk show host (certified as having a 141 level IQ in childhood) speaks in glowing terms about “the best schools in the world”! He is a prolific writer, a strong advocate for science and for education. He researches every topic prodigiously with this one exception. Instead of following up on suggestions for literature and research on schooling, he reiterates the party line.

Reagan, Bill Bennett, libertarians, and others were circling like vultures over a public-school paradigm and higher education non-system which was dying in the 1980’s. They attacked the schools in the way that my dog once attacked a wounded bird. However, the way to save the schools is not with more of the same unworkable floundering under a compulsory framework, but with schools free of political interference and intimidation or harassment by authorities.

As Tocqueville instructs about “discipline” and “obedience”, discipline is “…rooted in the will of the person who obeys.” He refers to Plutarch’s story of the “lives of great captains”, commenting that, “They lead by word and example far more than by coercion and punishment.” Compulsory attendance cannot be separated from coercion, control, punishment, browbeating, pressure, or an obsession with measurement. Those things are inherent and inescapable when attendance laws turn schools into virtual prisons.

For the moment, we will not discuss the uncomfortable truth that Americans have a very odd dichotomous or schizoid dual orientation toward schools. We have traditionally maintained a love/hate relationship with our schools owing to several unusual factors and personality quirks. But it cannot be denied that there has been constant controversy about the minimal adequacy of traditional public schools since the earliest establishment of compulsory attendance laws.

It is not at all unlikely that the unsubstantiated glorification of our schools today originated with Tocqueville’s great praise. In every generation and presumably in every school since he was writing, teachers and others hoped to encourage and inspire students in pep talks and lectures with fulsome claims of the wonders of schooling for those who cooperate and participate without hesitation or doubt.

Horace Mann, Henry Barnard, and Horatio Alger who promoted schools, “proper” morality, and financial success are cast as (dubious) heroes. Teachers sincerely believe they are fulfilling the mission with nobility and honor, and most clearly do make herculean sacrifices and ardent attempts to inspire and educate students. Tooting one’s own horn is not bragging if one is merely reiterating what is ostensibly established everywhere as common knowledge. Still, many children know intuitively that what they experience is not education, and many resist or withdraw emotionally or physically in response.

Hypnotizing the Masses is All Too Easy with a Captive Juvenile Audience

The passage which originally drew me to Tocqueville was read occasionally by talk show host Thom Hartmann (mentioned above) many times to fill spaces on Free Speech TV while he did spots during commercial radio breaks. That passage, next to be quoted, had such an astounding resemblance to descriptions I have read about traditional schooling under compulsory attendance laws, I was compelled to read his book.

As you read the following paragraph about keeping citizens “in childhood irrevocably”, please substitute the word “children” for the word “men” in the first and fourth lines and ask yourself if it could be an accurate portrayal of schooling under duress and as officially and intrusively administered by the respective states.

Tocqueville was talking about our government in which the majority dictates the lawmaking and the rights and privileges of citizens (in theory), of course. In schools, three levels of government have power and influence, with the state government usually exercising the ultimate power. The title of his chapter is “What Kind of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear”.

“Over these men (substitute children) stands an immense tutelary power, which assumes sole responsibility for securing their pleasure and watching over their fate. It is absolute, meticulous, regular, provident, and mild. It would resemble paternal authority if only its purpose were the same, namely, to prepare men (children) for manhood. But on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them in childhood irrevocably. It likes citizens to rejoice, provided they think only of rejoicing. It works willingly for their happiness but wants to be the sole agent and arbiter of that happiness. It provides for their security, foresees and takes care of their needs, facilitates their pleasures, manages their most important affairs, directs their industry, regulates their successions, and divides their inheritances. Why not relieve them entirely of the trouble of thinking and the difficulty of living?”

Can you, the reader, see that “immense tutelary power” held by the state, now in your mind which seeks only to keep students “in childhood irrevocably”, as it administers every intimate detail and every fact of the school experience for inductees forced to attend? Does his “paternal authority” sound to you like “in loco parentis” which is the pretense used to justify taking children from parental supervision and protection for six hours a day for twelve years? Thinking is actually in competition with the need to satisfy the demands to “complete assignments” and to “learn” specified information and to prepare for tests, often with extreme anxiety, rather than to cause the student to exercise their mind.

The frightening prospect of criticizing and eradicating attendance laws has become reflexively repulsive or taboo. Or perhaps minds are simply not conducive to such incongruent cognition. Are you the sole individual who is still reading and trying to make sense of this missive? If so, please think of those terms with regard to schooling when reading the three quotes from Tocqueville below.

“It is impossible to believe that a liberal, energetic, and wise government can ever emerge from the ballots of a nation of servants.”

“…I cannot overcome my fear that men may come to the point of looking upon every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a vexing disturbance, and every sign of social progress as a first step toward revolution.”

“It is not at all easy to arouse the enthusiasm of a democratic people for any theory that has no visible, direct, and immediate relation to their daily practice. Hence such a people will not readily abandon its long-standing beliefs, for it is enthusiasm that drives the human mind off the beaten track and brings about great intellectual as well as great political revolutions.

THIS REQIRES FOCUS, WORK, AND DETERMINATION. DO YOU CARE ENOUGH ABOUT DEMOCRACY? DO YOU CARE ABOUT KIDS? ARE YOU TIRED OF EXCUSES AND DIVERSIONS? WHEN MINDS CHANGE, DOORS OPEN.

When one reads Tocqueville now, in this new century as he has described the characteristics of the masses as a feature of democracy then under those early conditions, while simultaneously, we are contemplating the current orientation, habits, and intransigence of the masses as they relate to the resolution of schooling and educational dilemmas we face today, one cannot avoid recognizing processes and outcomes identical to those he has described. In many ways, those things undermined liberty for certain citizens in that early democratic paradigm, as well.

I am thinking specifically about those in the majority today who are so oddly unable to think or act rationally and responsibly on these difficult and sensitive topics. I am thinking about the impossibility of getting anyone in any location or profession to engage in any meaningful discussion about righting the profound wrong which took place in each state when schooling was handed over to the state by laws which require attendance, and by the interminable details regarding compliance and management of the schools which must be specified under those paternalistic laws. I am thinking also about children who have a phobic reaction to school or who hate school and hate themselves when they have no options.

The objective from the start for this paper has been to draw parallels between the way singular common viewpoints are ordinarily shared by citizens in any democracy and particularly in our unique democracy in the US, as hypothesized and illustrated by Tocqueville, and the singular common viewpoints of American citizens now, in this third decade of the 21^st century regarding schooling and compulsory attendance. All the foregoing has seemed essential to set the stage and prepare readers for making the connection between bad laws and bad outcomes. Connecting the dots is not as difficult when one thinks for oneself.

Indeed, comparing the dynamics of public opinion formation in political dialogue as outlined by Tocqueville (pathologically obstinate and immutable) to the modern dynamics involved today in the stubborn resistance to meaningful and effective change in opinions and beliefs related to schooling and schools (pathologically obstinate and immutable), the similarity is striking. Should an audience of a dozen people happen to be curious enough to start reading this article, it is highly unlikely that even two of them will have stuck with me to read this far, even if they found one of my earlier posts provoking and interesting.

Translating What I Have Tried to Say and Have Said So Poorly, So Far

To the best of my ability, I will now try to summarize and to spell out what I am hoping to convey in a more direct manner and with as little verbosity as possible. The persistence of the episodic passionate belief and confidence in our public schools as adequate educational institutions and the public’s defense of them in the face of a constant barrage of criticism and an equally constant barrage of empirical evidence of their failure to deliver on their grandiose promises is a phenomenon which needs extensive and immediate exploration. We still only scratch the surface.

It has been all but impossible to persuade anyone to allow themselves to give serious consideration to the recommendation that compulsory attendance laws should be eradicated as the first and most crucial step to raising the educational level of US citizens. It is not that people make any meaningful attempt to argue the point or justify the laws. Nor is it that anyone can provide any credible and truly scientific or empirical evidence to demonstrate that the laws have not inhibited the education of citizens, rather than enhancing it, either. The on-again, off-again “opinion of the majority” is that forced attendance in schools contributes significantly to education because they see schooling as education, per se. The majority are dead wrong, however. Full stop.

When one hints that attendance laws are inimical, the response is nearly always some variation on the theme that children must learn “discipline” self-discipline, or the way the world works and the need to respect others, superiors, or authority. Once again, Tocqueville examines this question, although for the larger society and for private citizens (who have all been children, most of whom have attended school). By “good order” he means discipline and conformity to social mores, rules, and laws. He says:

“…every nation that has ended in tyranny has come to that end by way of good order”

A little earlier, speaking on the topic, he says:

“…fear of anarchy will keep them in constant suspense and prepared to abandon liberty at the first sign of disorder.” And, “A nation that asks nothing of government but the maintenance of order is already a slave of its well-being, ready for the man who will put it in chains.”

The desperate attempt to guarantee “good order” is the primary motive if not the only true motive for laws which require school attendance. Be honest. People cling to their tacit and unacknowledged belief in these laws because of this irrational or unconscious fear of children running amok, in the absence of a scintilla of substantial objective proof that would be the case.

Conflation Comes Naturally – Like a Bad Case of the Mumps

Students are fickle, fallible human beings with separate pasts, unique thoughts, original beliefs and interpretations, and differing perceptions and sensations (like all human beings). Education via teaching and research has always been an organic process transforming students and simultaneously transforming knowledge, when done correctly. It is a very dynamic process except when too rigidly restricted and controlled. School, however, can only wish or pretend to be dynamic. It is contrived. It is academics and training imitating real life. It must always become a game with winners and losers.

In other words, school and education are by no means interchangeable terms or concepts. Yet the two have become completely conflated in minds everywhere almost universally. It is doubtful that one could locate a single contemporary professional journal article or paper which does not automatically equate school with education and use the terms alternatively throughout, without once clearly distinguishing between them. This is the source of untold grief and confusion.

The failure of the public or the “majority” to draw clear distinctions between school and education matters profoundly when we look at laws that mandate attendance and at schooling which chronically fails to meet our obligations to students or to fulfill the stated missions and promises of those institutions. It matters when schools claim to deliver education, when they are clearly not organized, equipped, or competent in something as crucial and comprehensive as education. Education is done by students, not to them.

Education is infinitely more complex than just teaching the 3 R’s and maintaining classroom control and decorum. While education may indeed happen with some frequency in schools despite their endless shortcomings and inherent flaws or because of extraordinary teachers and students, that most important objective depends on myriad factors. Most importantly, it depends on the motivation, engagement, and capability of the individual who happens to be enrolled.

I cannot resist the inclusion here of a statement I found recently which was published in another scholarly journal, (The Cyclical Rhetoric of Educational Reform and the Rationalization of a Failed Zeitgeist”, White, J.W. & Lowenthal, P.R. (2009). I have wondered if the authors may have taken it from my writing several years ago. They quoted the same paragraphs I have used frequently from Lakoff and Johnson’s book, “Philosophy in the Flesh, (1999).

“Education is not a thing; it's an activity. Knowledge is not literally transmitted from teacher to student, and education is not merely the acquisition of particular bits of knowledge. Through education, students who work at it become something different.”

In antiquity, the children of wealthy elites were taught by tutors, probably individually, one-on-one. When priests and scholars began to accumulate texts on scrolls and eventually in books, monks or other students were selected from communities to live in seclusion and to study, translate, and copy various texts, documents, laws, and writings. Knowledge was what the priests and scholars said it was, and depending on the century and the prevailing mythology, it was widely believed to be inspired by or delivered directly by the god or gods they happened to worship. For them, changing texts was risky business.

Religious institutions were presumably the sources for guidance and sponsors of the efforts to disseminate information and dogma produced primarily by religious figures, which was considered the equivalent of truth and knowledge. It was somewhat later before students were assembled in groups for instruction in what became various iterations of schools, which also were expected to rigidly stick to the script provided.

Nevertheless, in all these instances, education was never merely what students were taught. Education was not ever simply the precise reiteration or duplication of what had been recorded and dictated earlier as it was lifted intact from the work of scholars and priests without the slightest modification, deviation, or interpretation.

Children and even monks are not computers to be programmed or blank disks to fill with information, verbatim and unalloyed. Children and young students and even transcribers think and feel and develop alternative expressions, ideas, and perspectives. They are dynamic, idiosyncratic creators and actors, sometimes secretly and only occasionally, openly. Knowledge always evolves, primarily via the innovations of students.

Democracy Requires Education: Does Education Require School?

The following paragraph is also taken from Tocqueville’s chapter entitled, “What Kind of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear”.

“The sovereign, after taking individuals one by one in his powerful hands and kneading them to his liking, reaches out to embrace society as a whole. Over it he spreads a fine mesh of uniform, minute, and complex rules, through which not even the most original and most vigorous souls can poke their heads above the crowd. He does not break men’s wills but softens, bends, and guides them. He seldom forces anyone to act but consistently opposes action. He does not destroy things but prevents them from coming into being. Rather than tyrannize, he inhibits, represses, saps, stifles, stultifies, and in the end he reduces each nation to nothing but a flock of timid and industrious animals, with the government as its shepherd.”

It seems obvious that forced schooling is the sort of thing Tocqueville was thinking and speculating about as a signpost on the road to future despotism and impediments to liberty. He could not have imagined, except in general or hypothetical terms, precise consequences. However, once again, his description has a very familiar ring. “…a flock of timid and industrious animals,” with the government” or the teacher as “its shepherd” is a line that could have been written by Holt, Goodman, Illich, or others. “Kneading them to his liking” sounds oddly like what Governor DeSantis has tried to do in Florida.

If the reader takes these quotations as a description of the state (the government or the sovereign) which for generations has inducted all citizens of certain ages into schools, mandating them as the essential institutions to “embrace society as a whole”, and which spread “a fine mesh of uniform, minute, and complex rules”, one cannot escape the compelling symbolism and familiar sensations which are shared between then and now.

Again, I challenge anyone to reread those comments in that last quote and to deny that in many respects they accurately describe what is happening to students in most of the schools about which Americans brag endlessly. The statements clearly sound like those written in dozens of books critical of our schools from the 1920’s to the 1980’s, in which those same words, such as “inhibits, represses, saps, and stifles” are used often to critique traditional schooling.

*Please note that the “sovereign” refers to the elected government in a democracy.

Sadly, in far too many instances, the school, acting on behalf of the state does indeed “break” the wills of students, along with their spirits, quite casually, and the schools do force them to act in ways they are disinclined to act. Not infrequently, children are tyrannized, requiring them to be drugged, incarcerated in juvenile facilities, or to feel compelled to evade the law as truants, drop-outs, or run-aways, all which damage their relationships with their parents, sometimes permanently.

The answer to the question, does democracy require school, is not simple and I have consistently stated that schools can and do provide essential services which should be paid for by taxes and supervised by state officials. However, schools do not automatically provide education. To the extent that they are important in a democracy, they alone cannot guarantee that citizens will be well-educated, well-informed, or capable of protecting and preserving democracy. The state’s role should be minimal and primarily as a guard against discrimination or abuse. Other ways and much better and saner ways of promoting education would be found if schools were not seen as a panacea and as prisons simultaneously.

Tocqueville feared zealous and paternalistic “protectors” as much as tyrants. He saw a despotism which would degrade, rather than torment. “Subjection in lesser affairs”, (e.g., in schooling) manifests itself daily and leads citizens “to give up on expressing their will”. What is that if not the control, behavior modification, and subjugation which students experience as involuntary participants in tedious and abstract or meaningless instruction, erroneously pedaled as education? It is protection that is needed from ourselves, ostensibly. To quote further,

“In this way it gradually smothers their spirit and saps their soul, whereas obedience…only occasionally points up the existence of servitude…”

Tocqueville suggests that citizens under such conditions slowly lose “the ability to think, feel, and act on their own” thus causing them to sink “gradually beneath the level of humanity.” Children are citizens.

SUMMARY

School sucks. This is what kids say most commonly when they feel free to be candid or when speaking among their peers. Dr Peter Gray, a prominent child psychologist and author has written that “School is prison and is harming our kids”. Yet, those same kids when they become parents often wax nostalgically about how great their schools were, minimizing or conveniently forgetting the humiliations and anxieties they endured daily. Suddenly, they love the teachers they sang forbidden songs about. They just as often then complain about the schools their children’s generation attend today referring to the national picture, and almost in the same breath, praise their own local schools.

Almost everyone will freely pontificate on the topics of school and education casually when they come up, confusing the two. However, at the first mention of ending compulsory attendance causes anyone and everyone to drop the subject like a radioactive potato. They are oblivious to the real-world effects of attendance laws, and they react with immediate revulsion and anxiety, believing all hell would break loose without a way to force children to attend. They do not believe in people. They do not believe in themselves. Their brainwashing is complete. Their education is incomplete. Therefore, democracy may be eradicated instead of order and discipline. Snap out of it, America. Snap out of it, now.