17 May Of feminist glaciers and economics, cybernetics and education, and world happiness quantified
“America’s next president will inherit a shadow government, a permanent, corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country” John Whitehead in interview with Daily Bell staff
That is true whether we like it or not. It has been true for decades. But that isn’t to say we cannot do anything to change things. We can – and must if we wish to remain free. To make change requires informed citizens. To be informed means to sort real facts and data, from brainwashing. It also means to find out what is going on in government, especially at the higher levels because all their machinations will filter down to the local level. If we can know what is coming before it gets here, we have an easier job of stopping any program before it becomes entrenched.
Meanwhile our government, the UN, our citadels of higher ‘learning,’ are brainwashing the masses as they had told us they would in the Behavioral Science Teacher Education Program (BSTEP) that I have mention before. [Read more]
BSTEP, on p. 259, gives us: “The use of the systems approach to problem solving and of cybernetics to manage automation will remold the nation. They will increase efficiency and depersonalization. Traditional slow speed in thinking room problems, analyzing alternatives, testing and evaluating them, and implementing them will be eliminated buy computers and cybernetics. Only a few people will be able to have a major role in the process, and they will apply the remnants of the Protestant Ethic. Most of the population will seek meaning through other means or devote themselves to pleasure seeking. The controlling elite will engage in power plays largely without the involvement of most of the people.”
I guess they forgot to add the studies of the inane and the ridiculous as the study of the sexuality of glaciers or feminist economics.
The Centre for Development Policy and Research (CDPR) is delighted to inform you about an important new Summer School programme at SOAS, University of London.
Among the various programmes on offer, SOAS is launching a new course in Feminist Economics and Development. For full details of all programmes on offer, click here.
The Feminist Economics and Development course is designed for individuals looking to become familiar with debates in feminist economics and gender & development theory and their application to developing countries. The course provides a critical review of economic theories, methods and policy-debates from a gender perspective. It also offers students the chance to explore alternative feminist theory and apply such theories to concrete problems in the developing world.
Students will be exposed to established debates in feminist scholarship including the crucial gender issue of unpaid care work and the relationship between gender equality and economic growth.The course will also assess how the global economic crisis has impacted men and women and how policies have responded to the continued challenge of gender equality.
The course does not require students to have prior qualifications in economics and is intended to be accessible to those working in policy-circles, academia or anyone with a general interest in the subject.
Outline of the course:
In 1997, Michael Sanera and Jane S. Shaw, wrote, Facts, Not Fear: Teaching Children About the Environment. This was almost 20 years ago. It was written because, already back then, our children were being brainwashed in our schools about environmental issues.
In 2007, Tom wrote an article about what is going on in the schools – this was pre-Common Core, or I should say, what Common Core was designated as back then. He noted:
Social, political, multicultural and especially environmental issues are rampant in the new math programs and textbooks. One such math text is blatant. Dispersed throughout the eighth grade textbooks are short, half page blocks of text under the heading “SAVE PLANT EARTH.” One of the sections describes the benefits of recycling aluminum cans and tells students, “how you can help.”
Charlotte Iserbyt, the doyenne of the dumbing down tactics in American education, has document the destruction of our education system from the beginning. Describing what transpired in the 60s, she said, “residents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson, while ostensibly concerning them- selves with racial injustice, economic inequities, and equal educational opportunities, were, in fact, responsible for installing the lifelong control system—the Planning, Programming, Budgeting Manage- ment System (PPBS)—into all departments of government. This was accomplished during what would become “The Sick Sixties” under the guise of “accountability to the taxpayers,” a theme which will be repeated throughout the remainder of this century.
“American education would henceforth concern itself with the importance of the group rather than with the importance of the individual. This would be true in spite of the push towards individualized emotional health rather than on his academic learning. In order to change society, it was essential to identify the attitudinal changes needed in each student; then, modify the student’s behavior according to the preconceived model approved by government social engineers known as “change agents.” This model did not allow for competition or individual thought, belief, etc., but was conceived to standardize (robotize) human beings—particularly Americans—so that the entire populace would be in general agreement with government policy and future planning for world government. Removal of the last semblance of local control would come through the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), the most important piece of legislation to pass during Lyndon Johnson’s administration.”
“Two of the major federal initiatives developed with funding from The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 which have contributed to the “deliberate dumbing down” of not only students but teachers as well, are listed below:
1. the 1965–1969 Behavioral Science Teacher Education Program (BSTEP), and
2. the 1969 publication by the federal government of Pacesetters in Innovation, a 584-page catalogue of behavior modification programs to be used by the schools.”
The following goes beyond the stupid studies to entertain us masses. It is the program that is to replace the use of GNP to determine the worth of a country (or state, county, or even, city). I wrote about this in 2012; here is a piece from the
2015 World Happiness Report
It is still early days for this new approach. Rhetoric about happiness is not enough. To build a better world requires that decision-makers give a central role to the happiness criterion in decision-making at every level, requiring changes both in how outcomes are evaluated and in how policies are designed adapting cost-benefit analysis to take a broader focus.
Pro-sociality entails individuals making decisions for the common good that may conflict with short-run egoistic incentives. Economic and social life is rife with “social dilemmas,” in which the common good and individual incentives may conflict. In such cases, pro-social behavior – including honesty, benevolence, cooperation, and trustworthiness is key to achieving the best outcome for society.
“Subjective well-being encompasses three different aspects: cognitive evaluations of one’s life, positive emotions (joy, pride), and negative ones (pain, anger, worry). While these aspects of subjective well-being have different determinants, in all cases these determinants go well beyond people’s income and material conditions… All these aspects of subjective well-being should be measured separately to derive a more comprehensive measure of people’s quality of life and to allow a better understanding of its determinants (including people’s objective conditions). National statistical agencies should incorporate questions on subjective well-being in their standard surveys to capture people’s life evaluations, hedonic experiences and life priorities.”12
If you have read and absorbed the above, remember the mention in BSTEP about cybernetics (written in 1965) when you read:
Why The System Is Set For Tyranny: The High-Tech Collectivist State
During the height of cybernetics, it was East German Stasi who used cybernetics to direct a hyper-efficient surveillance state model that repressed absolutely everyone, induced fear of arousing suspicion and compelling neighbors and family members to snitch out their close companions for crimes against the state.
Collectivism is Tyranny, and the Destruction of the Individual
Whether in a flourishing modern technological democracy or a tight-sealed super state, cybernetics ultimately results in “computeriz[ing] our political decision-making” leaving individuality and human freedom more and more on the margins.
