"Mass education was designed to turn independent farmers into docile, passive tools of production. That was its primary purpose. And don't think people didn't know it. They knew it and they fought against it. There was a lot of resistance to mass education for exactly that reason. It was also understood by the elites. Emerson once said something about how we're educating them to keep them from our throats. If you don't educate them, what we call "education," they're going to take control -- "they" being what Alexander Hamilton called the "great beast," namely the people. The anti-democratic thrust of opinion in what are called democratic societies is really ferocious. And for good reason. Because the freer the society gets, the more dangerous the great beast becomes and the more you have to be careful to cage it somehow."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from the United StatesHistorians from the United StatesJews from the United StatesLinguists from the United StatesSocial anarchists
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Noam Chomsky
philosopher, linguist, political writer
1928 · United States
US-amerikanischer Sprachwissenschaftler und Autor
467 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Noam Chomsky →
Related Quotes
"In the post-Vietnam War era the need for Communist abuses has been no less pressing than before. More facts have come…"
"Among the many symbols used to frighten and manipulate the populace of the democratic states, few have been more impo…"
"And it’s gone on for the United States. We have measures of it. I’m sure you know that the Rand Corporation about a y…"
"The U.S.'s privatized for-profit health care system had long been an international scandal, with twice the per capita…"
"It is tempting to cast the blame on Trump for the disastrous response to the crisis. But if we hope to avert future c…"
"In the West, I think a large part of what’s happening, a very large part, is the bitter, savage, class war that’s bee…"
"The scale of the plague is surprising, indeed shocking, but not its appearance. Nor the fact that the U.S. has the wo…"
"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."
"I use Google all the time, I’m happy it’s there. But just as when I read The New York Times or the Washington Post, o…"
"The Native population (in the US) suffered a migrant crisis of an incredible kind ... where the immigrants come in wi…"