Those who consume news about the Taliban’s war on female education, like the shooting of Malala Yousufzai,  perhaps don’t realize it’s a more widespread attack on education, considering the frequent destruction of school buildings in Pakistan and Afghanistan. At least 600,000 children in northwestern Pakistan alone have missed a year or more of school because of militant attacks or threats. By 2050, the Pakistani population will surpass the US population today, making for a giant malleable population to be victimized by the Taliban.

Like American conservatives, the Taliban knows the success rate of conversion to their ideology is greater for the uneducated, those who have less critical thinking skills and those desperately poor. Angry, polarized, and with reduced hope for their future, they are like putty in the hand.

The Taliban is a faction of militants wanting to topple secular government and impose Islamic law. American conservatives of today make up the radical rich elite, who are unified behind a right-wing code and wish to render us disgruntled and/or poorly educated. Their main goal has been to destroy the progressive influence and enforce a plutocratic government.

Of course, conservatives in the US would never literally blow up schools, but they would tend to literally hijack education to promote their ideology. Under the guise of helping education, their goal is to destroy public education unions and sponsor private for-profit education. That is why you see their advocacy for charter schools, on-line privatized education, and school vouchers, as well as a rejection of liberal arts, control of history content in classes, acting as champions of a creationist science, and promoting testing on core subjects only.

In effect, conservatives have demonstrated at least three goals in education: a weakening of the public-education base which supports opportunity for the poor, a for-profit privatization of education, and a reduction in critical expression skills among students.

More and more, right-wing Republican policy and Wall Street’s casino capitalism have redistributed money from the needs of public education to the rich. Education has become a commodity, something you purchase for satisfaction in the form of success and higher pay. Furthermore, with the vast outlay of money required for advanced education, its connection with higher pay overrides its goal of knowledge, especially in an economy that gives education no financial rewards while impoverishing students with immense debt.

Also, the political and media scene overrules the need for the educated and the informed.

For example, with the media attention given to superficial indicators in campaigns and campaign debates, like the tilt of heads, anger in the voice, evidence of controlled aggression, “gotcha moments,”  your appearance or social signals, what need do you have for real debate and for developing critical thinking skills, not to speak of unchallenged – at least by the media – lying.

There’s no need for frontal lobe action. The limbic region, the amygdale in particular, is enough to stimulate the cortex with motivational signals relating to fear, reward and social function. No need for critical thought. That might cause you to reject candidates with stands against your own interests.

If we are all “lizard brains,” candidates from both parties can perform in a similar manner: lie with impunity, limit rights, promote the exportation of jobs overseas, take away our social safety net, eliminate long-term planning, and pollute your air and water.

Toxic thinking activates the body’s “fight or flee” primitive impulses which disengage the higher thinking processes of the brain by protectively cutting off its oxygen flow. Therefore, the brain is in “protective mode” rather than “learning mode.”

Psychologists know this, especially psychologists employed by right-wing think tanks. They know that developing critical thinking skills tend to dampen the susceptibility to the “protective mode.”

Ultimately limited education and restricted earnings for the masses can enhance our vulnerability to even simpler campaigns that promote an even more polarized society preconditioned for a campaign’s application of fear, categorical loathing, angst, and frustration that guide us to remedies favoring right-wing ideology.

Fear engenders the protective mode not the learning mode, especially in preconditioned populations. That is why politicians and marketers use the “fear” theme to guide our behavior.

——————————————

Facebook @ ——> Common Good