Education is a means of brainwashing a society Essay

This can also be observed in our present Western world, where higher education can be gained with capitalist power, meaning money. If we regard this issue from the global point of view, on can see how our Western world exhaust the 3rd world, and keep it down in order to profit from their cheap working forces. This withholding of knowledge gives the Western states a position of enforcing its imperialistic politics on other populations. Moreover the knowledge is also essential to express criticism, which is not being in given in these backward countries. In the Iraq for example, a whole population is being oppressed by a corrupt and oppressive regime; however, instead of opposing the regime on the streets or express a sense of resistance, the whole population is fascinated by the leader and adores him. This would truly not have been possible with a decent amount of education. On the other hand one has to say that in a country such as Iraq, objective reporting are overshadowed by the highly subjective, the regime supporting propaganda reporting; due to the lack of education the brought masses are very accessible for such kind of information. What it basically makes clear is that without an objective education, criticism is impossible and prejudice is indoctrinated. Without education, a human being cannot differentiate if something is right or wrong; thus it just accepts its situation and becomes vulnerable to leaders or regimes, which can then impose their ideology upon the individual. We find a similar situation in Bernd Shaw’s play ‘Pygmalion’, where the lower Strata (in this case symbolized by Eliza) is not able to express any criticism due to her lack of knowledge; in a nai ve, non-critical way she accepts everything that is being told her. The quote of Higgins â€Å"Oh that’ll be all right. I’ve taught her to speak properly; and she has strict orders as to her behaviour. She’s to keep to two subjects: the weather and everybody’s health- (†¦ )† demonstrates how Elizabeth is being reduced to a common object in a experiment comparable to a rat in a laboratory. This inability to express critics on the way she is being treated emerges from her lack of knowledge how to speak properly and so lack of education. Taking this idea one step further, lack of education can consequently result in the transforming of a human being in a mindless machine; a human being’s is character and personality is defined through its experience on various areas of knowledge, which is gained by education. If this intellectualism is being suppressed, a society becomes vulnerable towards underhand manipulation by an intellectually more advanced minority that dazzles the people with the utopian idea of salvation and an improvement of their live conditions. Again we can observe this at out present society, thus in another way. Christian values are the basics of our society; laws like â€Å"You shall not kill† make a social living-together possible. These basics are being taught virtually from birth on. So we here have the example of how education is a pillar of our society, upon everything is based. Summing everything up, in conclusion it can be stated that education is essential for any individual; if there is none, no right/wrong discussion can emerge and so no criticism. This circumstance can be used by regimes to use education as a powerful and highly effective tool to manipulate a population. Doubtlessly education enforces prejudice; however to what extend this is objectively assessed or just imposed on an individual, that has nothing else to believe in, depends on the governing regime. In communism for example people are brainwashed and subjective beliefs are institutionalised upon them; however, to gain the ability to express criticism or an opinion and so prevent oppression, education is essential. The insidious increase of ignorant stupidity, caused by the malign influence of individuals/groups is the disease infiltrating a society and can only be fought with objective education.