Mental Health: Science as Propaganda

We should not be surprised that schools are now seeking to identify every child as "mentally ill" or "at risk". The agenda for molding world views via mental health programs is not new. Scientists, psychologists, humanists, and behaviorists have been scheming together for decades and decades to heal the sick little children - children who have been subjected to the torture of their parents' world views. The common thread through the confluence of agendas has been to use "scientific research" as propaganda to drive the reforms which would lead to the creation of a new "world citizen".

In 1934, Carnegie funded a study by The American Historical Association called Conclusions and Recommendations, Report of the Commission of the Social Studies. It mentioned an

…international economy, the concentration of manufacturing and banking, the growth of corporate business forms and the concentration of control into fewer and fewer hands. ... Western civilization [is] now merging into a world order. ... American civilization...is modifying it's traditional faith in economic individualism, and embarking upon vast experiments in social planning and control..., ...individual property rights will be altered and abridged..., ...the age of individualism and laissez faire in economy and government is closing and that a new age of collectivism if emerging.

It goes on to talk about "scientific methods" as the basis for future actions.

In 1948, a group of leading scientists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health "experts" met in London for the International Congress on Mental Health and World Citizenship. Their chief concern regarding "mental health" was that individuals needed to break out of individual and nationalist tendencies and focus instead on their responsibilities to a greater "self" as a world citizen. They decided that becoming "internationally-minded" was an essential ingredient for mental health, and began developing an agenda for social change via this mental health "crisis".

Many potential avenues for modifying behaviors in both children and adults were examined. The chief obstacle to modifying human will and behavior was identified as individual and group resistance to change, and several main objectives in overcoming individual and group resistance to behavioral change were examined.

Most of their attention was turned to early childhood education. The World Congress found that society's ingrained resistance to major social change was rooted in a child's early formative experience. They also found that children were more likely to conform when placed in a group-learning environment outside of the home, where "opportunities arise for correcting earlier distortions" imposed on the child by the family. The World Congress stated: "In the group, the child learns that a measure of conformity to the standards of his age-mates is required to avoid abuse or ostracism, and to win recognition."

Their mental health "research" focused heavily on restructuring learning "environments" and changing the way a child "learns". In other words, method replaced content as the main avenue for changing behaviors.

To combat group resistance to change, the World Congress also agreed that "scientific research" must be infused into political, educational, medical, and economical avenues in order to facilitate the "change process". Here was much discussion about facilitation of behavior modification within society and within organizations, long before Steven Covey wrote about it. The World Congress advocated infusing its conclusions into society through a myriad of avenues, always using "scientific research" as a means of propping them up against resistance to change.

Taking the conclusions of this World Congress further (almost as if he had been there as a participant, so closely does his wording parallel those of the World Congress), Leonard Kenworthy wrote in The International Dimension In Education:

The program accents changed behavior through concentration on attitudes and skills as well as through knowledge. All the work we do in developing internationally-minded individuals should be directed to improved behavior. The real test of teaching is in such changed behavior.

That means that all the efforts in this dimension of education must be predicated on the research in the, reinforcement, and change of attitudes and on the development of skills. There is a rich mine of data now on attitude formation, change, and reinforcement which teachers need to study carefully and apply to this dimension of education as well as to others. For example, we know that most basic attitudes are learned very early but that attitudes can be changed at any age. We know that times of personal and societal crisis are the best times to bring about change.

We also know that changing a total group is easier and more likely to produce results than trying to change individuals. (page 37)

Kenworthy concludes:

In the field of skills there is much to be done in the development of internationally-minded individuals. Facts may change or be forgotten. Skills, once learned, are more likely to be used indefinitely. Teaching and learning in the future should therefore concentrate more upon skills and attitudes instead of solely or primarily on knowledge. High on the list of priorities.....is helping young people learn to learn. (pg 37)

You can cite "research" and "data" all day long and never escape the fundamental truth that there is a right and a wrong way to "teach" and "learn". Simply because you can change behaviors doesn't mean it's the right way to educate. The real debate is about behavioral instruction. Without behavioral methods of instruction, world views cannot be changed, minds cannot be reprogrammed to "process information" as desired by the government, and individuals cannot be robbed of their individual integrity, character, agency, and soul. Stop the behavioral methods of instruction, and you pretty much plug up the system.

We veered off course when we first sought to redefine learning as a behavior, and gave our classrooms over to the shrinks and psychologists. The focus shifted from content to method, and scientific research was crafted to propagandize the new behavioral methods. We are now on a crash course to losing our individual sovereignty as the scientists and behavioral psychologists seek to mold the "new citizen".

Ask yourself why the behaviorists and scientists scream whenever anyone suggests that children can be educated without psychologizing the classroom, without behavioral teaching methods, and without phony or contrived "scientific research". To suggest such things is considered heresy to them, and threatens an agenda that's been around since before we were even born. We need to get the psychologists, humanists, and behaviorists out of the classroom now!

Rebecca Bocchino

California

© February 1998

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