The Quiet Revolution …

The quiet revolution …

November 25, 2005

Articles have surfaced recently concerning the writings of Antonio Gramsci; writings that figure predominately in what is happening in America today.

One such article is Gramsci and the U.S. Body Politic. This article is a must read for anyone wishing to understand what they are seeing happen in America today.

Antonio Gramsci was a transformational Marxist. As laid out in the above linked article, what Gramsci advocated was the transformation of a society to the communist state via gradualism — the gradual erosion of old ideals, replacing them with the new. As opposed to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and Mussolini, Gramsci advocated the quiet revolution.

The Hegelian Dialectic of thesis (and idea), antithesis (the opposite), and synthesis (the bringing together of opposites) to form a new thesis, ever evolving, plays a heavy role in the gradualism Gramsci proposed. Today, in America, the Hegelian Dialectic is played out in meetings at every level, all across America, under the name of consensus building using facilitators heavily trained in group dynamics.

The year 1939 is one that should be forever bookmarked in the pages of American history. In that year, several individuals from Austria arrived in the United States.

One was Peter Drucker who would become a good friend to Abraham Maslow, humanist, and father of Third Force Psychology and the Hierarchy of Human Needs. Maslow’s work, based on humanism, would be furthered in the works of men like Carl Rogers, the father of the Human Potential movement utilizing self-actualization (spirituality from within) and focus groups to break down the moral bearing and individuality of people, two very important concepts in the struggle to bring about the quiet revolution. Rogers’ works, although denounced by Rogers in his later years, are used heavily in education in America today, from the college and university classroom to the elementary school classroom.

The multitude of books written by Peter Drucker concern the semantics of the system (ie, systems philosophy) that must be in place if the quiet revolution is to be attained.

Also arriving in the United States at this time was Kurt Lewin. In the Foreword of the book, The Change Agents Guide, second edition, 1995, Mathew B Miles, of the NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Sciences, a not-for-profit educational entity, has this to say of Kurt Lewin,

“The truth is that not until the late 1940’s, when American behavioral scientists began exploring and developing the ideas of émigré psychologist Kurt Lewin, did we really have anything like a systematic science and practical craft of planned change in the kind of social systems that matter most—families, small groups, organizations, communities.” (emphasis added)

Although Mathew Miles calls him a “social psychologist”, Kurt Lewin was also (like Gramsci) a transformational Marxist. Lewin spent the better part of his career at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

MIT is also the home of Jay W Forrester who established the computer simulation model, World III, for the Club of Rome. Using information fed into the computer simulation model, futuristic projections (or future trends) were made relevant to population and natural resources.

The projections of the World III simulation model were the subject of the book Limits to Growth by Donnella Meadows, a “systems scientist” now residing at Dartmouth College. Although inaccurate, the projections of the World III simulation model are relevant from two aspects —

1. The “brown earth syndrome” that has become the mantra of every environmental group seeking to wrest control of planet earth from private ownership, not limited to, but including such groups as the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), Earth First, the Sierra Club, and the Nature Conservancy.

2. Earth can be saved if the humanoid population lives in a sustainable environment. If you thought this was a new term, think again. Like the term life-long learning, it was coined long ago.

The Gaia Hypothesis is the outreach of the environmental movement and reads as follows: the earth is a living, breathing organism (a living entity), irreducible to its parts (one system); what affects one part affects all parts (interconnected and interdependent); if we are to save spaceship earth, we must change our ways.

Another émigré also arrived on America’s shores in 1939. His name was Ludwig von Bertalanffy, considered the father of general systems theory or, more simply, systems theory. Bertalanffy, relying heavily on the works of Alfred North Whitehead, theorized that earth is a system of subsystems (also called systems) all interconnected and interdependent; what affects one system affects all systems; that within any one system is an infrastructure that is analogous across systems, irrespective of physical appearance. This is general systems theory defined.

It is easy to see, although worded differently, that the Gaia Hypothesis and system theory defined are the same, excepting the existentialist transcendentalism apparent in the Gaia Hypothesis but not apparent in, but present in the semantics of, systems theory.

Systems theory is the foundation of the works of the likes of Drucker and Deming and those who follow them. Ervin Laszlo, born in Communist Hungary, associate of Bertalanffy, consultant to the United Nations, is an avid writer and supporter of systems theory. His more recent book, How you can change the world, is yet another enlightening exposé on how systems theory is to play out.

Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline; the art and practice of the learning organization, who claims as his mentor, Jay W Forrester, is referenced heavily in books advocating education transformation in schools. Senge does not come right out and say, but insinuates, in the above noted book, that Christians who refuse to become part of the learning organization, ie, part of the collective mind, willing to engage in existentialist transcendentalism, deny truth and are a liability to the business employing them.

It is imperative that people understand that in order for the quiet revolution to see fruition, the structure (or system) built on systems theory, must be in place. The Goals 2000: Educate America Act — Public Law 103-227, and the School to Work Opportunities Act — Public Law 103-239, both passed in 1994, were to put in place the structure needed to bring systems education (Marxian education) into being.

I’ve heard ever so many say that the federal Goals 2000: Education America Act has sunset; is no longer an enforceable law; and this is true, just as the STWOA act also sunset. However, the system both these laws put in place is very much alive and well and providing the structure needed to implement systems education by whatever name called: outcome-based, performance-based, outcomes-driven developmental model, competency-based, etc. In the end, however, it is systems education: education based on outcomes delineating what the child should know and be able to do as a result of his “educational” experience, the goal of which is to produce a “world-class worker” — a decidedly Marxist term.

In sum total, systems education changes the focus of education from educating the child for intelligence to producing a worker; the school becomes a workforce development center, producing workers according to regional economic development strategies and regional labor market needs as determined by the regional Workforce Development Boards (established under the federal Workforce Investment Act of 1998) under the auspices of the federal government.

Nazi Germany and the U.S.S.R. were both built on a system finding basis in systems theory. A paper put out by the National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE), University of California, Berkley, is very telling in its praise of the polytechnical education system of the U.S.S.R. Of particular note is that the system described in Polytechnical Education: a Step is the system of education implemented in America under the Goals 2000: Education America Act and the School to Work Opportunities Act. This paper, comprising a total of 51 pages, was paid for by a $4,000,000 grant from the Office of Vocational and Adult Education, U.S. Department of Education. The mission statement of NCRVE was “to strengthen school-based and work-based learning to prepare all individuals for lasting and rewarding employment, further education, and lifelong learning.”

Nazi Germany, of course, ended with the death of Hitler and surrender to Allied Forces. The U.S.S.R. as a union no longer exists. This is not to say, however, that communism is dead in Russia or the satellite communist republics that once made up the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Far from it. Many Americans are quick to claim that we won the Cold War. Not likely. Khrushchev said, in 1956,

"If you don't like us, don't accept our invitations, and don't invite us to come and see you. Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you."

While American’s were busy laughing at this foolish little bald-headed man, after all we have our constitution to protect us — as though it were some indestructible entity capable of rebuffing the evil intent of any nation or individual, the transformational Marxists and systems thinkers were busy fulfilling Khrushchev’s prophecy within the borders of the United States.

But will they succeed? Will the quiet revolution reach fruition without bloodshed? Not likely, for several reasons.

The first reason has to do with systems theory. Under systems theory, we are going to “create the future” — we are going to develop and maintain a sustainable global environment. To do this all systems (irrespective of infrastructure) must be kept in balance at all times. Remember Al Gore and his book, Earth in Balance? There can be no dissension. All really does mean all. This means every human being must be included and must conform.

Not likely.

There are those of us who have a decided aversion to Marxism and the Marxist state. As time goes by, more and more people are becoming aware that something is decidedly wrong with this system they were told would be so wonderful and the answer to all of America’s problems. Dissension is growing, rapidly. How do the transformational Marxists intend to bring dissenters into the system quietly? Some people can be coerced. Some can’t be and won’t be.

The Marxists, of course, have a solution for this problem. One world futurist, in unpublished papers, stated that we are all atoms in a molecule and radical atoms must be exterminated in the greater good of the collective whole. Makes it pretty plain — execute dissenters much as the protestors in Tiananmen Square were executed not so many years ago.

But the threat of execution isn’t going to stop the civil unrest that is going to ensue when people come to the realization that this system they’ve stood by and let be implemented is going to take from them their right to live where they want, work where they want, eat what they want, drive what they want, go where they want when they want to, do what they want to do when they want to do it. At this point the only way forward will be by force.

The second reason centers on the mechanics of systems theory. In his book, A Strategy for the Future; the Systems Approach to World Order, Laszlo predicted that by the mid-1980’s computers would be highly enough developed to be able to more accurately predict future trends from given inputs; information needed to adjust systems in behest of sustaining the global environment. Such, of course, would depend on more sophisticated computers and computer programs then were obviously available at the time the World III simulation model was written and used. While the hardware (computers and component parts) may have reached that level of sophistication, computer programs (software) are only as capable as the mind building them and are subject to the fallibility of the human mind. And the human mind is very fallible. It is theorized that the lack of computers in the U.S.S.R. contributed to the “fall of communism.” More likely it was lack of education prevalent in systems societies and the resulting exponential increase in the fallibility of the human mind.

Not only this but the “given inputs” noted above comes from data gathered. This is the why and wherefore of the computer network being established around the world. In the United States, data from education (and other sources) is being gathered at the federal level by the National Center on Educational Statistics (NCES) under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Education. That data gathering is inclusive of health records, court records, religious affiliations, grades and courses, assessments of every possible imaginable kind … and much, much, more. The SPEEDE/ExPRESS book, put out by NCES, delineating codes for all the various inputs sought, is over 1¼ inches thick! Computers will, before long, be able to interface (talk to one another) such that an individual’s dossier, birth to death or birth to present, will be available for the viewing at the push of a button. Along with being used at the individual level, individual information will also be compiled at various levels (local, state, regional), to leverage systems.

The problem is that the information used will only be as accurate as the one giving it and the one inputting it. For example, assessments are a subjective measure of performance. They are not accurate nor an accurate predictor of ability. Not by a long shot. Because of this, the analyzing of data, coming from state assessments, to leverage the education system to reach its goal in achieving the sustainable global environment, will be decidedly inaccurate, and the education system will continue to fail.

The gathering and analysis of data is a necessity to the leveraging of systems to sustain balance. This is why it is so very important that people not give information or allow their information to be computerized; why parents should not allow their children to be assessed or take state assessments.

Nor is the sustainable system able to absorb the impact of sudden and unexpected natural disasters the magnitude of a catastrophic earthquake such as the Northridge Quake, a tsunamis such as occurred in December 2004 in southeast Asia, a hurricane such as Katrina, or a volcanic eruption such as Mt St Helens in Washington State or Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines. We all saw what happened following Katrina — the decided inability of the government to respond quickly and appropriately. Catastrophic natural disasters don’t have the intelligence to care that humans have categorized them into a system that is supposed to conform and stay in balance with all other systems. Obviously, another fatal flaw. There might be more to the claim of some that these catastrophic disasters are the work of God than we might like to believe. God certainly has His own way of letting us know we’ve gone astray.

But once in place, because tyranny will accompany transformational Marxism in its final implementation, the populace will be faced with the reality that those behind the implementation of Marxism in the United States will not give up their conquest without a fight. And the populace will have nothing left with which to fight, including their right to keep and bear arms and their right to free speech.

If we want to keep our freedom, the time to fight and defeat transformation Marxism is now.