The Crisis of Democracy And the Indoctrination Of our Children By H. Michael Moya English 2 Professor Deena Hutchinson November 29th, 1999Literacy for cultural reproduction uses institutional mechanisms to undermine independent thought, a prerequisite for the Orwellian "manufacture of consent" or "engineering of consent." In this light, schools are seen as the ideological institutions designed to prevent the so-called crisis of democracy, another Orwellian concept, meaning the beginnings of democracy....... In fact, this very perspective on schools was proposed by the Trilateral Commission…….This commission was created in response to the general democratic participation of masses of people in the Western world in questioning their governments ethical behavior. Its major purpose, as many understand it, was to seek ways to maintain the Western capitalists cultural hegemony. The Trilateral Commission referred to schools as "institutions responsible for the indoctrination of the young." Noam Chomsky stated it simply: The Trilateral Commission argued that schools should be institutions for indoctrination, "for imposing obedience, for blocking the possibility of independent thought, and they play an institutional role in a system of control and coercion."-Donaldo MacedoLiteracies of PowerThe vulnerability of democratic government in the United States (thus) comes not primarily from external threats, though such threats are real, nor from internal subversion from the left or the right, although both possibilities could exist, but rather from the internal dynamics of democracy itself in a highly educated, mobilized, and participant society. -The Crisis of Democracy: Report on the Governability Of Democracies to the Trilateral CommissionEnglish Only. Official English. Ameri...
