The prescription I am referring to here is not to cure blindness. Instead it causes blindness to certain things. It creates blind spots and sometimes these are purely mental in nature, and other times they are actually us being conditioned to ignore things we see visually.
Reality is an interesting place. It consists of things that actually happen. There can be facts about what happened that are very specific. For example: Before some event the object was at position A and now it is at position B. This would be a fact because the position did change. The term truth tends to come into play when you ask someone to tell you the truth about how the object moved from A to B. People will give you the "truth" based upon their knowledge. "It was an earthquake", "An animal moved it", "A human moved it because he didn't like where it was at". These can all be considered the TRUTH from the perspective of the person providing the information. That doesn't mean they are FACTS. The truth that the person is providing could be completely false, but they are telling you what they have interpreted it as with the limited information they have, and it will be flavored by their own personal bias. This is why you will sometimes here the phrase "Just the facts maam" because what people perceive as the truth can vary. The facts are the details that don't change.
I spoke of this as it is important to understand that someone telling you their version of the truth is not actually lying to you if they truly believe what they are saying. They simply may be ignorant of details and information.
They may also be suffering from the blindness that I wrote this article to describe.
In the late 18th and early 19th century educational reforms in Prussia became what we refer to as the Prussian Education System. It is important to know about these reforms so that we know what is going on in our own education systems. Why, you may ask? Well, that is because it is the model upon which almost every education system on the planet is now following and has been for some time.
One of the things we've come to know it for is the compulsory education. In other words, everyone of certain ages must participate in the education. We've been doing this in the U.S. since the late 18th century so this is normal to us now and being forced to attend this education is not something we even see as force, or even question. Well some of us question the motives behind this now. There are good motives, but there are also nefarious motives.
I am going to share some quotations from various websites and articles. It is relevant to building up towards my prescription for blindness. It should be noted that it did significantly increase the standards of education. There were positives. I'd direct you to my article from a couple of days ago about candy coating something that tastes bad as there is a bit of that going on in the history of this education system as well.
Source: MedClient.com
The things that are good about the approach in the education system are immediate and obvious in contrast to when it was not present. The education and learning of knowledge initially seems quite profound and near universal for the citizens. This is the candy coating. As my previous article explained this is used to make the bad taste less or not noticeable. I don't believe this is WHY these particular traits in the education system exist, but it does appear to have some of the same effect.
The Prussian Education System I have seen some places referred to as the "Factory Model of Education" [1]. By this they mean a standardized view of the world (including history) and what is acceptable and not acceptable is part of that standardization. If you recall the section I mentioned above about truth versus fact. The Prussian Education System is about standardizing and pushing an accepted version of TRUTH. Note, that doesn't mean it is the whole truth, the truth at all, or a correct representation of the facts. This model and standardization will vary depending upon the geographical environment it is being taught. In the U.S. the history will be told to show no U.S. blemishes and blame all woes upon other countries such as Russia. In Russia (and previously the Soviet Union) they will teach similar things but, it is likely often the U.S. that is the target of the woes. As far as the people teaching it who themselves came up through this particular factory of education are concerned it is the truth. They are repeating the truth that was standardized into them. Anyone with a small grasp of logic that takes the time to think about this realizes that all of these factory truths cannot be true. They generally are contradicting what is said elsewhere. What is missing from this is the facts.
It is a purposeful painting of the world in certain colors while leaving those it indoctrinates blind to others. This is why I suddenly began referring to it as a prescription for blindness. It pushes an agenda, and purposefully teaches its students how to ignore and have immediate mental guards go up when confronted with any facts that do not fit this narrative. This indeed is a form of blindness. You can hardly go a day speaking to anyone about controversial subjects or watching debates about controversial subjects without seeing this blindness in action.
It is not about the facts. It is about BELIEF and the agenda. People have been taught that it is okay for their beliefs to be more important than facts. They will react and defend their belief against all comers. A threat to their world view is the ultimate threat and their fight or flight reflexes kick in. It quickly devolves to an emotional tirade based upon total lack of familiarity with critical thinking. Ad hominem attacks to shift the discussion to the flaws of the person sharing information they don't want to hear, Red herrings designed to shift the discussion to a completely different topic so they can get away from the discomfort this one is causing to their world view. These are but a few of the common things that occur.
The Origins of the American Public Education System: Horace Mann & the Prussian Model of Obedience
For those of you that are proponents of a free market system. It should be noted that the Prussian Education System was the end of the free market education. It was changing to a one size fits all mentality.
It is also interesting that some of the traits that were admired by those that pushed for the adoption of this system was how successful it was in instilling obedience and less question of the government in the students. Think about this a bit. Does this taste bad to you? If not, then perhaps it's just me. I don't like this particular flavor.
The education was FREE and COMPULSORY. Yes it was free. Yet this is not what free market means. It was also compulsory, which means you did not have a choice not to participate. Considering it was now a factory to push a certain perspective of truth this becomes a rather nefarious tool.
I am a huge proponent of teaching critical thinking to all people and including children from an early age. That is not something that the Prussian model tends to focus on. In fact, they tend to push a different direction. Obedience, memorization, repeating what you are told, and not thinking and thus potentially questioning or doubting what you are told is what is desired in this model. Think about that. That is a pretty horrible tasting thing in my opinion.
It also means we are intentionally defining reality and blinding people to other parts of it. "Just the facts! Facts are important, and they are taught SOME in this system, yet often parts of it actually have little to do with facts.
Education Is a System of Indoctrination of the Young - Noam Chomsky
