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Parallels Between Cult Technique and our Glorious Education System
How schools provide the 7 steps to starting a cult
It is time to acknowledge that the failure of our school system does not just mean less opportunity for our kids. It means pain for our kids, psychological pain. Because it is a system based on psychological manipulation. A system that has too many parallels with the tools used by cult leaders to control their followers.
Here are some of those parallels and what we can do to make school about education instead of manipulation. As with every solution, the first step is acknowledging the problem. These steps are from Stephen Mason, Ph.D. and Dr. Anthony Pratkanis, a professor from UC, Santa Cruz and the co-author of Age of Propaganda.
Create your own reality
Step 1: “Begin by creating your own reality. You do this by keeping your members away from outsiders.” — Stephen Mason Ph.D.
School is a sub-world, separated from the functions of life as a whole. We take children and isolate them from the rest of society for 7–8 hours a day for 5 days a week for 18 years. Then we wonder why they expect life to be like school. Why do they have so much trouble adjusting to real life? It is no secret that school is not like life. This means school is a sub-culture, sitting apart from many realities of daily life.
Be the key to paradise
Step 2: “Next set the leader and his/her inner circle up as the only link to paradise…only they hold the keys to the kingdom.” — Stephen Mason Ph.D.
In the world of education, paradise is the happy-ever-after world that we tell children they are assured to have at the end of their toil. The keys are the secrets that only teachers and school administrators have. Compliance with these leaders is the only way we can obtain happiness and success as adults.
In other words, study hard, do what you are told and you will live happily ever after.
