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Abstract
I will argue that those of us in 'the head-fixin' industry are an important part of the social mechanisms for indoctrination of young people, and that the pervasive ideology of US culture, and that of much of the world, is leading precipitately to the destruction of humane values and to the devastation of the biosphere. In my home institution, the University of Massachusetts at Boston, I began trying to respond to these dual but inter-related threats in 1972 by developing an interdisciplinary course called Science for Humane Survival, a maverick course for an ordained theoretical physicist to undertake. This year [1994-5], on sabbatical leave at the tribally-run college on the Pine Ridge Reservation, I see pressures on this institution (a primary purpose of which is preservation of the Lakota Nation with its language and culture intact) to yield to the values of the dominant culture. I will contend that even we, the credentialed academics, can by our individual wills and mutually-supportive efforts, act in our institutions to subvert the dominant, fatal culture.
TextWhat is Anarchism?I need to start by saying what I mean by the term 'anarchism', because it is most often incorrectly used. The concept of anarchism as a mode of social organization envisions the possibility that we humans are capable of organizing our lives with a minimum of coercive power, and that in such a social setting each individual will be able to develop and flourish to the greatest extent possible without others being deprived of the same opportunities. An immediate consequence of this conception of society is that it (the society) must be without classes--there can be no peons to slave for a wealthy class--no poor and no rich, no elites. This of course is why the elites of every nation-state are consumed by hatred of anarchists whenever they appear, why they use (really misuse) the term 'anarchism' as though it is loathsome. For them law and order means the maintenence of social structures--structures which invariably utilize coercive power--structures that afford and guarantee them their special privileges, their elite status. Another immediate consequence of the anarchist conception of society is that hierarchical power structures are inimical to our well-being, and ought to be eliminated, or at least reduced to the greatest extent possible. Such hierarchies are always established in order to maintain the privileges and power of those in control, and to keep the rest of us subservient. Anarchism as a social philosophy rests fundamentally upon the belief--and I stress that this belief is a matter of faith--the belief that human beings are not inherently bad, and that given the opportunity to act in reasonable ways that are helpful to themselves and others, they will generally do so spontaneously, and without the need for coercion. Humans are social animals, not disposed to live in isolation from other people. We need to have a social fabric in which to live our lives, and that fabric needs, of course, to be ordered so that chaos does not prevail. Anarchism sees that fabric as arising from our natural needs--for food, for warmth, for shelter, for love, for respect for our personal integrity, for compassionate understanding, for receiving help, for sharing our happiness and our sorrow, for avoiding loneliness, for having friends, for seeing our children and grandchildren thrive, for the beauty and grandeur of the natural world, for art, for music, for artisanship, for storytelling, and so on.The Head-fixin' IndustryAbout a quarter century ago I was beginning to be aware of the anarchist critique of Marxism, of the Soviet Union, of China, and of other centralized dictatorships that labelled themselves Communist, dictatorships ostensibly for the benefit of ordinary everyday working people. I was intrigued to learn about that unique American union, the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.), which thought of itself as 'one big union,' and whose members were known as Wobblies. At that time I was fed up with the pseudo-legal posturing of the toothless American Association of University Professors (AAUP), and so I wrote to the national office of the I.W.W.--then in Chicago--saying I'd like to subscribe to The Industrial Worker (which is still published), but that I wasn't eligible for I.W.W. membership because I was a professor, not an industrial worker. The guy in the office wrote back, "Sure you qualify. You're in the head-fixin' industry." He was right. I was in the head-fixin' industry, and still am. Most of us in this room are in the head-fixin' industry. Now that's a kind of rough-and-ready way to say it, but what exactly does it mean, the term head-fixin', or rather, what did he mean by it? Clearly not just correcting ideas that are factually incorrect, like saying to a student, No! 2x3 isn't equal to 5; it equals 6. Getting facts straight is an important part of teaching, or head-fixin', but what he meant to refer to is, I'm sure, what I believe is the most important part, what we call teaching values. All of us learn values, or more precisely, we come to accept and incorporate values into our unconscious thinking, not just from formal teaching but from the whole body of our life experience. A more accurate term to describe the formal teaching and learning of the set of values by which we are supposed to lead our lives is indoctrination. Each of us is indoctrinated, and what my I.W.W. correspondent surely meant by saying I was in the head-fixin' industry was that my job was primarily indoctrination of young people. You may bridle at the idea that the term 'indoctrination' is an appropriate description for the work that people like ourselves do, teachers who live in a supposedly free and open society. It is a word that rings of pressure to conform, of unfreedom. However, the fact is that in every society, there is, and must be, indoctrination. As one example, Rigoberta Menchu, in her book I, Rigoberta Menchu, which is about the horrendous experiences of the indigenous Quiche Mayan Indians in Guatemala (since 1954, when the CIA, at the behest of the United Fruit Company of Boston, overthrew the moderately progressive Arbenz regime in favor of military butchers who protect American business profits), Menchu describes how children, from earliest infancy, are indoctrinated with the values of her culture, how they are impressed deliberately and repeatedly with their responsibilities as members of the community, with the need to share, to not have things which others in the community cannot have. Menchu ascribes the high value placed on sharing to the poverty of the Quiche community, which may or may not be correct (I believe she is mistaken). But the point is that Quiche youngsters are indoctrinated with this value. If sharing were highly valued in the dominant U.S. culture, then no one would be hungry or starving while others eat, and even waste food. Clearly we in the dominant culture have not been indoctrinated with any such sense of community and with the value of sharing. Rather we are taught--indoctrinated--to place very high value on achieving success, measured in terms of money and property, within a highly competitive social structure. The individual impulse to share, arising from one's compassion for other human beings, is channeled, in this society, into individual charitable acts, often facilitated by religious organizations. Sharing, to the extent that it is condoned at all, is relegated to the status of a marginalized activity, not a part of mainstream activity--the so-called economic lifeblood--of the nation. Every society, including U.S. society, conditions its members, indoctrinates them, in order to keep the society functioning on a continuing basis, that is, in order to maintain the status quo. In a society which institutionalizes education, which sets up formal and accredited schools, the entire educational establishment is part of the machinery of indoctrination. Schoolchildren are taught that it is good to be patriotic. Young people are pressured to accept slogans such as, "My country, right or wrong," or "Deutschland Uber Alles" (Germany above all), abstract amoral slogans that support loyalty to the nation-state. They are pressured to pledge allegiance to the nation-state, and to sing patriotic songs. This is all very obvious. In colleges and universities there are much more subtle forms of indoctrination. Here's one example, which I think you will have no trouble recognizing. We all know that there is widespread hunger and starvation in the world. How are we to understand that fact? One of the most common 'explanations' offered to us is that there are simply too many people. Hunger is one of the many social failures ascribed to 'the population problem.' I'm sure you can find faculty members on practically every college campus who believe overpopulation is the cause of hunger, and not a few who teach it. The time-honored argument to support this view, which goes back to Malthus (1766-1834), is that population tends to grow at a faster rate than that at which the food supply can be increased. Ecologist Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University, founder of the group Zero Population Growth, is a prominent propagandist for the idea that overpopulation is the principle cause of much social misery in the world. I use the term propagandist not as a derogatory label, but in the sense of its historic meaning, someone who advocates the correctness of ideas which are not simple indisputable facts. A propagandist may sincerely believe the ideas he or she is advocating, or may knowingly argue for viewpoints he or she disbelieves, for some purpose other than seeking to establish truth. I am confident that Ehrlich believes what he says. I am equally confident that the paid propagandists in the advertising agencies who compose full-page newspaper advertisements for the tobacco industry that equate their clients' freedom from regulation with 'the American way of life' do not believe what they write. I regard myself a propagandist for those ideas I believe to be true. One such belief, for the correctness of which I could provide quite convincing evidence, is that up until now, 1995, 'overpopulation' is not the cause of widespread hunger. The true explanation, I believe, is much more insidious, and the reason why a false explanation is widely disseminated, through colleges and universities as well as by other means, is to hide the real reasons, to make them obscure. Thus, if I am correct, colleges and universities take part, not only in indoctrinating young people, but indoctrinating them with ideas which, under careful examination, may be shown to be false. In so doing, they are agents of false propaganda, i.e. propaganda intended to make people believe things which are not true. How can it be that colleges and universities are agents of false propaganda? In his book Language and Responsibility, 1979 edition, Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gives an example of how colleges and universities limit the scope of acceptable discussion by weighting their faculties with professors who hold one ideology rather than an opposing one. The instance he pointed to, in 1969, involved students in the Boston area who could not find a local academic economist who "was willing to question the neoclassical position from the point of view of Marxist political economy." One of my favorite propagandists, Upton Sinclair, in his book The Goose Step: A Study of American Education, makes it perfectly clear that the so-called 'higher' educational establishment in the U.S. was, in 1923, basically controlled by large financial interests. That situation was unchanged in 1969, when the incident Chomsky referred to occurred, and of course remains so today. This fact explains, not why American colleg es and universities are ideological institutions, but why they teach the ideology of capitalism. In my opinion the reason why so much hunger and starvation prevail in the world is because of the enormous disparities in wealth, and the fact that food is treated primarily as a commodity. In order to obtain food, it is not sufficient that one be hungry; one must have enough money to pay for it. I doubt there is, in any American college or university economics department, substantial consideration given to questioning whether that is a good principle on which to base the organization of society. Those questions whose consideration might challenge the very structure of society are ignored. They are treated as being unthinkable, and people who persist in asking them, and looking for answers, are regarded as being unrealistic, utopian dreamers. Slightly embarrassing perhaps, but not to be taken seriously. Imagine, the very idea of a world without hunger! Why would people work? And so the dominant propaganda goes on. What is needed, it is proclaimed, is population control to prevent continued overbreeding of the poor. Clearly, in the U.S., which is not a totalitarian nation-state, it is often possible to find, within a given public or major private college or university, some faculty members whose viewpoints are in opposition to those of the dominant ideology. The incident mentioned by Noam Chomsky was, I believe, probably somewhat unusual. However, the overwhelming preponderance of faculty who believe in the dominant ideology--who themselves were 'successfully' indoctrinated with it--is sufficient to marginalize the effect of occasional mavericks among the faculty. Governing boards and their administrative lackeys generally make sure that no more than a few maverick faculty become tenured. The actions by which they insure faculty conformity are, when necessary, quite blatant, as the following item, reprinted in its entirety from the November 1972 issue of Environment magazine, illustrates.Tenure Denied. . . Dr. George W. Cornwell, wildlife ecology professor at the University of Florida [was denied tenure by the university last winter, which means, in effect, that his contract will be terminated this year.] Ironically, Dr. Cornwell received the University of Florida Intrafraternity Council 1971-1972 award for excellence in teaching this year. Last fall he received a 3.5 out of a possible score of 4.0 on his students' evaluation of his teaching ability and has scored high marks in student evaluations since coming to Florida in 1967. The School of Forestry, which denied Dr. Cornwell [tenure], contends that he has not fulfilled his research responsibilities at the university and does not fit into the "future plans and directions of the school." Dr. Cornwell appealed the decision to the University Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure, and during the first portion of the hearings, he countered the charges of the Forestry Department by displaying the nine Master of Science in Forestry theses he has chaired (41 percent of the total for the department), the 37 papers he has published in refereed journals (about one-third the total school output), the 18 research proposals he has authored or co-authored, and the 23 research projects he has been involved in. Since coming to the university in 1967, Dr. Cornwell has demonstrated the greatest academic productivity of anyone in the entire Forestry School, which totals twenty faculty members. When Dr. Cornwell came to the university there were 31 students enrolled in Wildlife Ecology. Last fall the program had 81 students, an increase attributable in great part to the rising concern over environmental deterioration and the strong leadership Dr. Cornwell gave to the program. . . . Dr. Cornwell has been one of Florida's most effective environmentalists. He was one of the original founders of Conservation 70s, the Florida Conservation Foundation, and The Florida Defenders of the Environment, which led the successful fight against the Cross Florida Barge Canal. He is an advisor to the student Environmental Action Group (EAG), which recently won a highly publicized battle to stop a four-lane highway from slicing directly through the campus, a plan that the university administration was short-sightedly in favor of, and consequently came into direct and prolonged conflict with EAG. In 1970, Dr. Cornwell was awarded the Florida Governors Conservation Award in recognition for his many environmental contributions, far too numerous to list. Dr. Cornwell's environmental role often brings him into direct conflict with forestry practices advocated and taught by faculty of the Forestry School, and his philosophy on environmental management frequently clashes with administrators of the university's Institute of Food and Agricultural Science, especially over the use of DDT and other hard pesticides. . . . As a student of Dr. Cornwell, I have come to admire his convictions, his intelligence, his capability as a leader, and his willingness to lay it on the line for what he believes. The hearings have been in process for some months now and promise to continue for many more. The university has provided unlimited legal funds to the School of Forestry while Dr. Cornwell must finance his own defense. Students, friends, and colleagues of Dr. Cornwell have formed a legal defense fund to provide help; however, legal costs have exceeded $5,000, and money is of the essence if the battle is to be continued. Those interested in aiding in this struggle are asked to send their contributions to: The Cornwell Defense Fund, P.O. Box 13062, University Station, Gainesville, Florida 32601. E. Curry Hutchinson, Gainesville, FloridaThe Head-fixin' Industry (continued)This example of the control exercised over faculty composition is by no means unusual. In The Goose-Step: A Study of American Education, Upton Sinclair told how the best professors under whom he studied at Columbia University were forced out by the administration. The drive for conformity within the entire educational establishment is perfectly understandable. It is part and parcel of the effort by the dominant social groups to insure that the ideology of the status quo will prevail. Dr. Cornwell's case is a flagrant illustration of the predominance of ideological criteria over those of academic competence in determining faculty makeup. I don't doubt that the same criteria lead to the dismissal of numerous faculty who are competent but less outstanding than Dr. Cornwell. And this points to another part of the indoctrination of students by colleges and universities. Students are of course influenced not only by the subject matter of their classes, but also by the structure of the educational institution in which they are enrolled. To what extent is it organized hierarchically? or democratically? How much freedom do students have in determining their individual courses of study? How restricted are they by various academic requirements--core courses, writing proficiency exams (in English, of course), minimum grade point averages, and so on? Are grades considered to be important? Do they feel that they must compete with other students for high grades? Is there a school of business or a school of management within the institution, that is, a school which is explicitly devoted to the operation and preservation of the capitalistic system? And if so, how was the decision made--democratically or hierarchically--to establish that component of the university? These are not just rhetorical questions. We all know the answers, and they are not reassuring. Before I outgrew the academic diaper stage, I believed in the purity of knowledge and in the academy as the repository of that distillation of truth wrought by reason from the universe of human experience. Naivetesimply doesn't do justice to the infantile beliefs I then held.The Pervasive Ideology and World DestructionIt is probably not far off from the truth to say that within the dominant groups of every nation-state, the prevailing ideology can be epitomized by the term, insatiable greed. The only possible exception that springs to mind is the Ayatollah Khomeni, who lived an austere life even during his tyrannical, brutal rule as de facto dictator of Iran. The rule of greed is so overwhelmingly evident to all who do not wishfully close their eyes to it that I won't try to document it here. Rather, I will offer a few bits of evidence. "California to Allow Logging of Old Redwoods"-N Y Times, 3/17/95. "Pacific Lumber's president, John Campbell said that in trying to log the land or sell it, the company was merely exercising its rights as a private landowner with a responsibility to its shareholders." These are "ancient giant redwoods in the last privately owned virgin stand of the trees in the world.". "Banks Earnings Hit Record High in '94"- N Y Times, 3/16/95. "The earnings [sic] of United States commercial banks reached a record high of $44.7 billion in 1994. [These] record earnings were fueled by higher net interest income and lower loan-loss provisioning, the F.D.I.C. said." "Formula For Tragedy"-N Y Times op-ed column, 3/25/95. "During the 1980's the wholesale price of infant formula in the United States grew by 150 percent. Tremendous amounts of infant formula are purchased for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC . [which] serves nearly seven million low-income individuals. [Because of] the spiraling cost of infant formula officials in a couple of states tried to get a better price through competitive bidding. "The infant formula companies reacted as if they had been attacked by gangsters. Competitive bidding? Never! They hired lobbyists from the left and the right ... No luck. Several states began to require competitive bidding for participation in WIC." In 1989 the Federal Government required states to institute competitive bidding. "Last year, with competitive bidding in all 50 states, $1.1 billion was saved. That money was used to provide WIC benefits to many additional women and children (1.5 million each month) without raising program costs." ...Where the wholesale price for infant formula was typically $2.30 or $2.40 a can, for new competitively bid contracts awarded in fiscal 1994 the average price was 36 cents a can. "Yesterday, as part of its welfare bill, House Republicans approved legislation that would scrap all Federal nutrition standards for the WIC program and end the competitive bidding requirement for the purchase of infant formula. "... Executives at the infant formula companies were delighted" that the new legislation would require only the most minimal kind of cost-containment system. "If it becomes law it will be tragic. ... Poor mothers and poor babies will be denied such basic items as infant formula, breakfast cereal, fruit juice and dried beans, while every possible effort will be made to funnel financial windfalls into the insatiable maws of big business." "On the High Price of a Nation's Morality''- N Y Times letter to the editor, 7/6/76. "The press, The Times included, is arguing strongly for a tightening of ethical standards in both government and business. But when, and to what extent, should morality prevail over other, amoral considerations? That is, what price are we as a nation willing to pay? And will the costs be equitably shared, with due regard for individual rights? "The Watergate affair clearly weakened the ability of the executive branch to conduct foreign policy, and we may well have sacrificed too much efficiency in international policy-making for too small an increase in the openness and thoroughness of the policy debate. Also because of Watergate, we have already incurred a substantial decline in foreign prestige and policy leverage in return for the mere prospect of a reduction in official lawlessness and immorality. Similarly, by cleaning up our foreign intelligence system we might sacrifice some hard-won global security and stability only to gain a slightly purer national image. "In the current anti-business climate, large corporations are forced to perform special services for moral special-interest groups. Luckily for the majority of stockholders, most companies have managed to fight off attempts to curtail their profit-making activities in South Africa and other morally blacklisted nations. But Congress is now completing its puritan anti-bribery drive against American business abroad. The costs of these ostentations of American incorruptibility will fall discriminatorily on selected stock-holder groups--although, for the sake of equity, one would hope that they will gradually "trickle down" through the rest of the economy. "Furthermore, myopic moralism is limiting the pool of available political talent while jeopardizing individual careers. In the insufficiently competitive market for ideas, the media have managed to reinforce existing public prejudices in regard to the moral fitness of such political leaders as Edward Kennedy, Thomas Eagleton, Wilbur Mills and, in Britain, Jeremy Thorpe. "Moral pressure of these kinds represents an illibertarian form of collectivism--and could perhaps be countered by a "moral equal rights" amendment. Its purpose would be to protect the private and public rights of deviant moral minorities, to the benefit of those who like to sin in private, or prefer dividends to crusades, or find the American ambitions toward international moral leadership pretentious and foolish. Meanwhile, civil libertarians ought to take up the cause of the conscientious objectors to this new, pervasive moralism." Kaj Areskoug, Associate Professor of Banking, New York University, New York, June 24, 1976. I have deliberately used items from one of the principal mainstream, and therefore capitalist, newspapers. Of course, examples of the dominance of the creed of profits above all else abound in alternative, critical publications, but the above few examples ought to suffice. The essay concludes with The Destructiveness of the Drive for Profits.— G.S., April 6, 1995
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