From the Easy Chair

Contemporary Education

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 168-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161DK208

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161DK208, Contemporary Education, from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[ Rushdoony ] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 320, August 3, 1994.

Douglas Murray, Otto Scott, Mark Rushdoony and I will continue now discussing education with Sam Blumenfeld of our staff.

Sam, would you give us the essence of what you want us to consider in this hour?

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, there are several things. First, I just wanted to provide a little more information about the outcome based education.

[ Rushdoony ] Oh, very good. Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] {?} which was developed by Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues at the University of Chicago to prove to you that what they are... what outcome based education is, is really the creation of a ... a... a transforming the public school into a humanist parochial school. And it is.... it is based on a... the outcomes are based on a book entitled The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. In other words, they decided, now what are the objectives that we want the... the children to aim for and they put it in a book called The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. And in that book doctor... professor Bloom says, “Affective objectives vary from simple attention to selected phenomenon to complex but internally consistent qualities of character conscience. We found a large number of such objectives in the literature expressed as interests, attitudes, appreciations, values and emotional sense and biases.”

And he states, “The taxonomy is not completely neutral. This stems from the already noted fact that it is a classification of intended behavior. By educational objectives we mean explicit formulations of the ways in which students are expected to be changed by the educative process, that is, the ways in which they will change in their thinking, their feelings and their actions.”

He was very concerned about the age factor, that the older a child was a the more difficult it was to change them and so he was concerned about getting these children as early as possible. And he says, quote, “The evidence points out convincingly to the fact that age is a factor operating against attempts to affect a complete or thorough going reorganization of attitudes and values.”

Do you hear that? A complete or through going reorganization of attitudes and values. Now, Rush, I am sure that when you and I went to school our teachers were not interested in reorganizing our attitudes...

[ Rushdoony ] No.

[ Blumenfeld ] ...or values. They were interested in teaching us. They wanted to add to what we brought to the school.

He goes on to say, “The evidence collected thus far suggests that a single hour of classroom activity under certain conditions may bring about a major reorganization in cognitive as well as affective behaviors. We are of the opinion that this will prove to be a most fruitful area of research in connection with the affective domain,” end quote.

Now, of course, the affective domain was that part of the curriculum devoted to feelings and beliefs and... and morality and values, et cetera. So the... the main thrust in education today, the main emphasis is on reorganizing the values, beliefs and attitudes of the students.

[ Murray ] These are polite...

[ Blumenfeld ] And though you... pardon?

[ Murray ] These are polite terms for mind control and indoctrination.’

[ Blumenfeld ] Of course, of course. And this is ... and... and Benjamin Bloom is the god father of O B E. So I just wanted to bring that up so that the listener would understand that we are dealing with... with something really diabolical. This... this taking of children and of trying to reorganize their values and of using techniques that can bring this about in a single hour of classroom activity.

Now I often ... I often bring up as an example a youngster in Michigan who... an eighth grader... an eight year old in the second grade who was shown in his classroom a film on suicide. And the next night he hanged himself in his home. Now there you... there is an example of one hour of classroom activity that produced that kind of a result. Well, you know, he was not only reorganized, he was...

[ Scott ] Well...

[ Blumenfeld ] ...directed.

[ Scott ] It brings you back to the new Soviet man.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Scott ] ... which they used to advertise as their ... the product that they were going to produce. In the Soviet Union they were going to produce the new Soviet man. Well, what they succeeded in doing was breaking people down. They broke people’s powers of resistance down when they were children.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Scott ] It is very easy to break a child’s spirit. He doesn’t become a self functioning adult.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. Well, you know, the interesting part of this story is that the parents, the mother of the particular... Debbie {?} sued the school, sued the teacher, sued the superintendent, sued the principal, sued the makers of the this film. And, incidentally, the maker was not somebody in a backyard. It was Encyclopedia Britannica that made this film. It went to court and the judge decided that all of these people had freedom of speech and, therefore, they could not be prosecuted and the case was thrown out.

So, in other words, these people had no accountability. They can show anything they want to the children. They can corrupt them. They can destroy them, literally destroy them as they did this youngster and they don’t... they are accountable to nobody. They are...

[ multiple voices ]

[ Scott ] Well...

[ Blumenfeld ] They are no responsibility whatever.

[ Murray ] What ever happened to the judicial prohibition against yelling fire in a crowded theater?

[ Scott ] Well, that was just a comment by Holmes. The... France has something it called the intellectual author of the crime.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Scott ] In French law you are not put on trial until your guilt is already determined. There is, first, a complete examination of all the background and analysis and when they finally determine that you are guilty they bring you to trial. And in the trial your defense attorney presents mitigating factors. That is what the trial is about. If your wife insisted that she had to have a mink coat and you finally went out and... and broke into a store and stole the mink coat and gave it to her, why, then she would be the intellectual author of the crime and there would be some consideration given of that situation and to what to do about her. So in this case it is the America judge that you are talking about denied that there is any concatenation, there is any connection....

[ Blumenfeld ] Right.

[ Scott ] ...between what you are taught and what you do.

[ Blumenfeld ] Right, right, exactly.

[ Scott ] ... which is to throw out all the results of everyone’s thinking throughout the history of the world.

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, this has been going on now, you know, throughout the ... certainly in America and probably in other parts of the western world by now.

[ Murray ] Has anyone drawn any parallels between the specifics of this to get the techniques that this man is talking about and the brain washing that was used during the Korean War?

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, I am... I am sure that some of us have... have drawn parallels. It is ... it is obviously methodology that is based on Pavlovian conditioning.

[ Scott ] One of the reasons he...

[ Blumenfeld ] He was a... he was a Skinnerian and a Pavlovian.

[ Scott ] One of the reasons they were able to do that in the Korean War was because our soldiers were ignorant. And they could not defend this culture or this country. They didn’t know how to.

[ Blumenfeld ] That is right. They didn’t know how to. And you meet a lot of people who cannot defend their own culture because they have not been taught how to defend it or that it is even defensible.

[ Scott ] Well the... the question has never arisen for them.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. But in any case so what do we do about it, you know? You had this ... there are people who think that vouchers are going to solve the problem. And I came to the conclusion some years ago that vouchers would only bring the government into the private sector because...

[ Scott ] It would kill the private school.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yeah. Once you accept...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] ... the... but now here in California you had quite a referendum. Now were the Christians for the vouchers or against them?

[ Scott ] Most of them were, I am sorry to say.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes, too many were. Some prominent Christian leaders in California were vehemently in favor of it. Protestants and, of course, almost all the Catholic leaders. What they refused to face up to is the fact that the courts have uniformly held that even though an act may exempt an organization or a school from control, if federal funds go somewhere, controls must follow. If state funds, county funds, funds from any government mental source require statist controls.

[ Scott ] Well, they have to account for the money they hand out.

[ Rushdoony ] That is right.

[ Scott ] And how you behaved with it.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Scott ] It is a self evident sort of thing.

[ Blumenfeld ] And the Christians don’t understand this? They... they...

[ Rushdoony ] I think they are simply unwilling to put the money out, to put their money where their mouth is. They want somebody else to do it for them. They want an easy way. It is the same mentality that you have in gamblers.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] Something for nothing.

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, they... they have this illusion that the government is going to pay them to be free.

[ Scott ] Well, there is a lot of people who think that government wants them to be smart and wants to educate them.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Now obviously if you were educated, if we had an educated government, our government would be changed next ... tomorrow afternoon.

[ Blumenfeld ] Sure. Well, I mean, well, there you have some... so vouchers are not going to work. And yet I... I think some conservatives react to vouchers in a knee jerk. You talk about knee jerk liberals. There are knee jerk conservatives.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] You say the word voucher and they say, “I am for it. Yes. Vouchers,” you see. And there are a lot of very high conservative leaders...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] Like Bill Bennett and so-called conservatives.

[ Scott ] You would think he would make that amendment.

[ Blumenfeld ] ...you know, who... who promote vouchers as being the ...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] ...solution to the problem.

[ Scott ] Well, it is...

[ Blumenfeld ] And... you wonder when they are going to change their minds. You wonder when they are going to realize that what they are advocating is self destruction.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Well, they were just running to get ahead of the parade.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] It is... it was a popular motion and these... the Wall Street Journal was in favor of it, a paper whose sometimes intelligent and... and many times not.

[ Blumenfeld ] All right, well we know that vouchers are not going to solve the problem. What about conservatives and Christian running for school boards. How do you feel about that, Rush?

[ Rushdoony ] I have no objection if they want to, but they cannot accomplish much for the simple reason that year after year their power to affect anything is limited more and more. If they take an aggressive step they can be replaced immediately. There are ways of eliminating them. It isn’t worth the effort and the aggravation.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. I would agree with you there. You... you are probably aware of that case in Vista, California down in the San Diego area where a group of conservatives were elected to the school board and they wanted to get Creationism in the schools and, of course, that created an incredible fracas in the community. The Humanists rallied and created quite a brew ha ha and now what the Humanists are doing with the help of the NEA is they have initiated a recall movement. And they have gotten enough signatures so now it is going to be on the ballot, this recall. I mean, you see, the human... it is interesting that when a conservative gets on the local school board it becomes national news.

[ Scott ] Well, it is a...

[ Blumenfeld ] It is... Yes. Coast to Time magazine, you know, it is on the six o'clock news.

[ Scott ] Well, haven’t you heard the diatribes against the Christian right sneaking its way into public office?

[ Blumenfeld ] By stealth.

[ Scott ] Yes. Yes, something very dirty about this.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. But so there you have Christians who go to all the trouble to get on the school boards thinking that they are going to change things in the public school and yet don’t they realize that the entire premise of public education is totally wrong, that it is a government system, that it is corrupt, that it is statist, that it is anti Christian to the core?

[ Scott ] No, they don’t realize that school teachers are government officials. Now if we had... if we could go about it a different way, if we tried to enact a law that forced them to wear a uniform, maybe we could make the point.

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, all I am... all I... when I... when I generally advise Christians to do is I tell them not to run... not to bother to run for school boards. I tell them to run for the legislature. I said that is where policy is made. And I would assume that that is the wiser thing to do...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] If you are going to spend your time and your money running for something, run for the state legislature, because that is where the policies are made. That is where the budgets are made. That is where the laws are made. School boards are, as Rush says, are powerless.

[ Murray ] Local school boards are only carrying out state directives.

[ Blumenfeld ] That is it.

[ Murray ] And the states are carrying out federal directives.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Murray ] They are just... they are simply just imitators.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. Well...

[ Scott ] You know, the... the Europeans are not by and large as Christian as we are as a country. On the other hand, those that are Christian in Europe are apt to be more sophisticated than American Christians and they set up the Christian Democratic party in all these countries, in Germany, in France and... and so forth, which just by the fact that it is a political party and a faction prevents their opponents from attacking Christianity or Christians in politics. The Christians in the United States for some reason or another have seemed to have abandoned their constitutional right to do so.

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, that has become part of the problem.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] They... they... the... the abandonment of our own rights.’

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] ... to assert ourselves in the culture.

[ Scott ] That is right.

[ Blumenfeld ] Now the culture has been taken over by the Humanists. They have used the... the {?} technique of what they call cultural hegemony to destroy Christianity, destroy this country by taking over the cultural institutions, the, you know, the ... the art world, the music world, the universities. And all of these institutions are now in their hands.

[ Murray ] Well, there are so many games going on now. There are so many Trojan horses in the field all the time that parents of kids are... are buffaloed. I mean, a lot of people just simply don’t know what to do. They don’t know that there is a problem. Vouchers was a Trojan horse for government control.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Murray ] Bill Bennett is a Trojan horse.

[ Blumenfeld ] And, John, did you think they are going not try that voucher thing again in... in California?

[ Scott ] They never stopped.

[ M Rushdoony ] They will keep trying it.

[ Scott ] They never stop. The one thing that is true about the left is that they never given up.

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, I mean, they will... they will never give up opposing vouchers, but when are Christians going to learn that ...

[ Scott ] Well, the Christians haven’t learned...

[ Blumenfeld ] ...that...

[ Scott ] ...not to give up, because the...

[ Blumenfeld ] ...that the...

[ Scott ] .... other side is going to bring the vouchers up again.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yeah.

[ Murray ] Well, now if the Christians...

[ Rushdoony ] I am afraid the Christians are going to bring it up.

[ multiple voices ]

[ Scott ] The Christians will bring it up.

[ multiple voices ]

[ Blumenfeld ] {?} and we don’t need vouchers.

[ Scott ] Of course, we don’t.

[ Blumenfeld ] The other side doesn’t want vouchers. But, you see, the idea that ... that we want the same thing that the NEA wants, the idea we oppose the same thing that the NEA opposes. The NEA opposes vouchers.

But then Christians should also oppose it. Now for different reasons.

[ Rushdoony ] Well what vouchers will do is this. They will shut down Christian schools, unless those schools take the money which means they will then be state controlled.

[ Scott ] They will be part of it.

[ Rushdoony ] And what is the school that is going to resist that do?

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] If a parent can get voucher of 2500 to go to a state approved school, why would they bother to cough up 2000 or 1500 a year to pay for their child in an independent Christian school.

[ Scott ] Yes. Well, if the NEA was smart it would propose vouchers itself.

[ Blumenfeld ] But they are afraid of any threat to their monopoly, anything that would upset the stability of what they have.

[ M Rushdoony ] Their first... their first reaction is x number of students will leave the public schools for these private schools which basically have their faculty set x number of teaching jobs are going to be lost in the public schools over the next few years.

[ Blumenfeld ] Right.

[ Scott ] Well, it is immediate jobs.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yeah, yeah.

[ Scott ] But in the long run it would be the end of their opposition.

[ M Rushdoony ] A lot of...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ M Rushdoony ] A lot of Christians were buffaloed in California by the provision that said .... there were provisions in this bill which says this cannot lead to state regulation of the schools that receive the vouchers. Ok and that was very clear. The problem with that being is even in California it was initiative which would have made it part of our constitution.

That can be thrown out. A part of that could have been thrown out by a court.

[ Scott ] Yes, exactly.

[ M Rushdoony ] And then we have vouchers with controls.

[ Blumenfeld ] Exactly.

[ M Rushdoony ] They also down the road, if they had passed the NEA would have probably proposed another initiative saying, “Well, don’t you think we should have some kind of control on the use of these public funds by these rogue schools?” And they... they started using terms like anybody can start a school under this and get public money. And crackpots and cults will start their own school.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ M Rushdoony ] And it would have been very easy for controls to follow. It wouldn’t have taken very long. It could have happened within weeks. All it would have taken is a court decision saying that that part of it is not constitutional.

[ Murray ] Yeah.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yeah. Yeah.

[ Murray ] The camel’s nose.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ M Rushdoony ] The Christians didn’t really want to hear that.

[ Blumenfeld ] That is unfortunate. And, well, I will tell you. The fault lies with Christian leadership that they are leading the flocks in the wrong direction. And I am talking about very prominent Christian leaders.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] Whose names I will not mention on this program, but it think we all know who they are.

[ Scott ] Well, I mean, the clergy ... the clergy really doesn't talk about the community. The clergy talks about the faith and it forgets the community in its sermons.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. But as far as the Catholic schools are concerned they have from the very beginning wanted state support. As a matter of fact...

[ Scott ] Oh, well, they want money over...

[ Blumenfeld ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] ...no matter where it comes from. They are... Lucifer set up the trust. They would be in line.

[ Blumenfeld ] ...because back in the early days of public education the Catholics fought very hard to have publicly funded Catholic schools and when the communities would not have it and for one very good reason. They said, “Well if the Catholics get publicly funded schools, then the Baptists will want them, the Presbyterians and everybody else.” And they said, “We can’t have that, so we are going to have no... no public funding of sectarian schools.” The result was that the Catholics did the intelligent thing.

[ Scott ] Set up their own.

[ Blumenfeld ] They set up their system which was very successful, extremely effective. They produced highly educated people and did a wonderful job until about 20 or 30 years ago...

[ Scott ] What happened?

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, they were taken over...

[ Rushdoony ] Vatican Council.

[ Scott ] Was it Vatican II?’

[ Rushdoony ] After the Vatican Council, the secularization of the Church was very rapidly put into effect. There were years when as many as 300 Catholic schools a year were being shut down.

One of the things the Vatican Council did was to, in effect, debunk much of the faith. So a great many people stopped giving as they once had. And the American church was the backbone of the Roman Catholic Church world wide, financial backbone. Sadly, the Vatican did not have much respect for the Catholics… American Catholics. It was bad situation. The American Catholics, prior to about 1960 made the entire world wide Catholic Church successful. They financed it. They had the zeal. And with Vatican II it was really a kick in the teeth. The European Catholics didn’t react as much. They were creedal Catholics. They didn’t care much as long as the tradition was maintained. But there was an intense faith here in this country. And over the years, as it ... beginning as a student I heard Catholic scholars from Europe act as though the American Catholics were a bunch of yahoos.

[ Scott ] Well, that was a... a European attitude toward all of us.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. But they were so much dependent the... these Catholics, generally, on the American Catholic. And yet they treated the American Catholic with contempt.

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, that is the... that is quite interesting. But in any case the Catholics did a wonderful job and now it is all over. And they ... they just want their money now. They are... they are totally humanistic in their teaching. They are going whole language, the whole bit, you know. They are not going to produce the highly educated Catholics that once were the pride of the Catholic system.

[ Rushdoony ] If... if I may say a little more on that. The much maligned American Catholics made possible the world wide work of the Catholic Church. The American Jews were treated also by European Jews as somehow beneath their dignity because they came of poor immigrant stock, but they were the ones that were financing things world wide in Judaism and then in Israel.

The American Protestants were financing a world wide missionary program. They were essential to the cause of Protestantism all over the world. Again, they were despised by the Europeans. The Europeans, I think, will have much to answer for their very contemptuous treatment of their fellow religionists in this country. I am not saying that American Catholics, Jews and Protestants did not have their faults. But they put their money where their mouth was. They were ready to help their fellows the world over. They didn’t look down their noses at anybody. And it is a great work they did and the story of what American Christians and American Jews have done in the past two centuries is a remarkable story that has not been properly reported on or written up.

[ Scott ] Well, the United States was dynamic long after Europe ceased to be. Europe... Europe has been living off us industrially in terms of our research and things like that in... since World War II. It has rebuilt a basically on what the United States has invented industrially. And we do have a large and healthy, basically a healthy population which is still, despite all the talk about our multi culturalism is still 68 percent traditional.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Scott ] So the... most Americans are traditional Americans. And now there is reaction beginning. I take this business of one million home schoolers very seriously. I think they are producing... they have all.... they have all got more than one kid.

[ Blumenfeld ] Oh, yes.

[ Scott ] And so we are talking about a cadre of several million people.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Scott ] ...that are going to be effective within the next decade.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Some of them are already graduating from high school level and into the college level. So that plus the Christian schools, which are holding fort and not all the Christian schools are... are dissolving. Some of them are very good... are going to, I think, provide the sinews of resistance.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] Oh, there is no question in my mind that we are ... that there is something... there is a good deal to be optimistic about.

[ Scott ] We didn’t have them a ... a decade ago.

[ Blumenfeld ] No, we didn’t. This is a phenomenon that is so recent that we are just beginning to understand its implications.

[ Scott ] How long have you been on this task?

[ Blumenfeld ] Oh, about 10 years.

[ Scott ] About 10 years.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And when you started it was a voice in the wilderness.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. Yes. But... And... and the movement has grown so fast and so... and with such strength that it is quite amazing. This is an amazing phenomenon, because what it represents is ... certainly for the Christian is a clean break with the statist, humanist institutions.

[ Scott ] Come right across the board.

[ Blumenfeld ] A complete break, you see. And the... the result has been, of course, the ... you might say the reconstruction of the Christian family. I mean that in itself, I believe that you cannot have Christian reconstruction without reconstructing the family.

[ Scott ] I think this thing is running about 80 percent Christian and 20 percent... 10 percent Jewish and 10 percent sectarian.

[ Blumenfeld ] I wouldn’t say that it is 10 percent Jewish.

[ Scott ] No?

[ Blumenfeld ] Much lower.

[ Scott ] Much less.

[ Blumenfeld ] Lower. Yes, much less.

[ Scott ] Mostly Christian?

[ Blumenfeld ] That is...

[ Scott ] More than 80 percent?

[ Blumenfeld ] It is... it is mainly a Christian movement.

[ Scott ] It is mainly a Christian movement.

[ Blumenfeld ] But you do have humanists, believe it or not.

[ Rushdoony ] Yeah.

[ Blumenfeld ] And... and hippies involved...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] ...in the home school movement.

[ Scott ] Has any other country tried anything like this?

[ Blumenfeld ] I... you mean home schooling?

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, America... the...the American home school movement has... has considerable impact abroad, particularly in Australia which usually takes its cue from... Australian conservatives take their cue from American conservatives.

[ Rushdoony ] Christian schools also have sprung up in the past decade abroad in countries where they did not exist before.

Dorothy was reminding me a few days ago, about a week ago, that in the 50s I wrote Intellectual Schizophrenia on the Christian school movement and then Messianic Character, which came out in the early 60s. Of course, she did a lot of the typing for Messianic Character of American Education. As I would go to the Stanford Library and bring back stacks of books or get them out of the state library in Sacramento. And she thought all the work I was doing writing was very interesting, but while she didn’t say anything at the time she thought it was futile, because the state schools were triumphant. All the parochial schools, Catholic and Protestant were just a drop in the bucket at this compared to the total percentage of number of students in the country. And yet look what has happened since that time. It is now a movement that frightens the state educators.

In the 50s and 60s the state educators treated the Christian school movement as a curiosity, not a threat. They were ready to give a kind of patronizing pat on the head to these schools to prove how tolerant they were because it would never be a threat. And then suddenly they found they were growing by leaps and bounds and their tolerance suddenly dissipated. They began to be very hostile and the court cases began to come up, because suddenly the movement was taking off.

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, yes, I remember ... I... I know, Rush, that you have testified in many of these cases at home schooling cases, particularly, which is an indication of the concern that the state has had and basically we have pretty much won.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] In other words, parents have asserted their right to educate their own children as they see fit which is a God given right. Deuteronomy, you know, commands parents to educate their own children.

[ Rushdoony ] The areas where Christian schools and home schools lost were essentially the plains states.

[ Blumenfeld ] Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, more to the north, although Kansas was not too good, but Nebraska, Iowa, the Dakotas.

[ Blumenfeld ] Right.

[ Rushdoony ] Because that area was settled last of all. It was settled by Germans and Scandinavians.

[ Scott ] Lutherans.

[ Rushdoony ] Lutherans and Catholics. It is really the Bible belt and yet they brought over with them their Scandinavian and German Socialism. And to them it is unthinkable to take education out of the hands of the state. So the hostility there has been intense. The northeast, New England, was really the last area where Christian schools took off. Before them it was the South. Most people assumed that the South led off because of antipathy to integration. And that is a myth.

[ Scott ] No, that would be more like antipathy to Washington.

[ Rushdoony ] The citizens council’s schools were started all over the South as a reaction to integration in the 60s and they died. There wasn’t the religious faith.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] And they were a flash in the pan. Since then a great many schools have started throughout the South and are integrated and are doing very, very well, but it was the Midwest and the West that led off in the Christian and home school movements.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Scott ] I... I talked to one pastor from the South from Mississippi who brought up an aspect that I hadn't thought of. He said, with all due respect to Dorothy, the influence of women have kept the Christians in the United States from fighting as much as they should.

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, but the interesting thing is that it is the... it the women who have... you have these powerful women who have been fighting the state, particularly in Pennsylvania with Anita Hogue and Peg Lucsic and you have got some very fine women who have done ...

[ Scott ] I think the home school movement has brought the women to the floor.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes, yes, the mothers.

[ Scott ] ...which... which wasn’t true when it was just a Christian issue.

[ Blumenfeld ] But I will tell you what is wonderful about the home school movement and it is the fathers who are own taking responsibility for their children’s education. And one of the beauties of a home school conference is you see all of these young fathers with their children, you know, interested in ... in educating their children. {?} I think you and I were brought up in a time when fathers were distant from their children.

[ Scott ] Oh, yes, sure.

[ Blumenfeld ] You know?

[ Scott ] Oh, yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] That was left up to the mothers, you see.

[ Scott ] That is right. Yeah.

[ Blumenfeld ] And we barely knew our fathers.

[ Scott ] Well, we saw him, you know.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] ...coming in and leaving for the office.

[ Blumenfeld ] That is ... that is right. Coming home late at night.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] Going out early in the morning.

[ Scott ] That is right.

[ Blumenfeld ] That was about it.

[ Rushdoony ] And you were very respectful around them.

[ Blumenfeld ] That is right. But nowadays there is a much... it is ... it is a... As I say, it is the reconstruction of the Christian family.

[ Scott ] Isn't that something?

[ Blumenfeld ] And it is a marvelous phenomenon to behold. That is what gives me the great ... great sense of optimism, particularly when you are in a room with 2000 of these people and a Christian speaker up there and ... and you see the... the... the response of the ... of... of the audience. And they are talking about things like hard money. That they are talking economics which you need economic freedom. These people are learning about American history in ways that they never learned in school and would have never learned if there had not been a home school movement, because that is the kind of information that is finally getting to these... these young parents.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, go back to the fathers. It wasn’t too many years ago that the men worked not eight hour days, five days a week, but long, long hours, 10 and 12 hours 365 days a week. Dorothy’s father worked such hours 365 days a year. The father, then, was an authority figure. He just laid down the law. He didn’t have time for much else.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes, yes. Well, you know, times have changed. Technology and other... other factors are ... are now involved and, in fact, another great development of the home schooling movement is the development of home industries, families, you know...

[ Scott ] Going back to the 19th century...

[ Blumenfeld ] ...and creating little businesses.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] Because, you see, what is happening in the United States.... there are... the are two trends that the computer revolution is producing and that is privatization and decentralization.

[ Scott ] Right.

[ Blumenfeld ] In other words, you can live up here in Vallecito and have instant access to the Library of Congress, to the New York Times, whatever you want today with the modems and the computers and CD ROMs. You can ... you can contact any stock market in the world that you want with your telephone.

[ Rushdoony ] You...

[ Blumenfeld ] That has given people a ... an independence now from the centers.

[ Rushdoony ] You are beginning to get newspapers that will take subscribers to their computer service news.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] The San Jose Mercury, I believe, was the first in the state of California.

[ M Rushdoony ] What is going to come out is customized newspapers. You say, “I want all news on Europe.”

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ M Rushdoony ] And it will gather articles and you can print that up. It specializes on news of Europe or news on South America or if you want sports they will give you nothing but sports and they will customize your own newspaper from various sources.

[ Blumenfeld ] That is terrific. Well, as a matter of fact I was visiting a lawyer friend in...in the Detroit area recently and she showed me her CD ROM, you know, apparatus there, her computer. Her entire law library is in three little discs, three little CDs. And she has one room, conference room which has a wall of books and that is used just as a backdrop for a conference, for news conferences so that the press will know that it is a law office. But she also has the Washington Times on a CD disc so that she can call up any story she wants. All she has to do is type in the particular subject like home schooling. And that CD ROM, the computer will locate will every single story in the Washington Times or in that... that period of time on... on the home schooling movement and then she can print out any story that she wants, you see. So that is an incredible advance in technology that is going to be available to every home, you see...

If you can afford that equipment, you can have access to... unlimited access to information and knowledge in the world.

[ Scott ] Well, the diversity now is so much more than it was. The world is larger. Our mental world is larger. And we have gone into his before. God has given us the instruments for a new reformation.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. That is ... that is for sure. That is for sure. But so this technology that has created this revolution of... of the decentralization and privatization and home schoolers are taking advantage of it. So, in a sense, they are on the cutting edge of all of the technological advance because they are making use of the cassettes and the videos and the modems and the computers and they are far advanced to anything in the public schools. I mean, the public schools are an anachronism. They are obsolete, these big buildings full of kids...

[ Scott ] Military methods.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. And to give you an idea, you know, there is a... an educator by the name of John Taylor Getto. Have you heard of John Getto, Rush? He was a ... he was a teacher in the New York City schools for 26 years. He was awarded teacher of the year in 1991. And he has given up on teaching. He says the system is destroying the children. And let me just go over, he says, in... he gives a speech entitled, “The Seven Lesson School Teacher.” And he describes the seven lessons that are taught in all public schools by all teachers in America whether they know it or not. And he says, “The first lesson I teach is confusion. Everything I teach is out of context. I teach with the unrelating of everything. I teach disconnections. The second lesson I teach is class position. Children are numbered so that if any get away they can be returned to the right class. The third lesson I teach is indifference. When the bell rings I insist they drop whatever it is we have been doing and proceed quickly to the next work station. The fourth lesson I teach is emotional dependence. By stars and red checks, smiles and frowns, prizes, honors and disgraces, I teach kids to surrender their will to the predestined chain of command. The fifth lesson I teach is intellectual dependency. It is the most important lesson that we must wait for other people better trained than ourselves to make the meanings of our lives. Only I the teacher can determine what my kids must study or rather only people who pay me can make those decisions which I then enforce. The sixth lesson I teach is provisional self esteem. The lesson of report cards and tests is that children should not trust themselves or their parents, but should instead rely on the evaluation of certified officials. The seventh lesson I teach is that one can’t hide. I teach students they are always watched, that each is under constant surveillance by myself and my colleagues.

The meaning of constant surveillance and denial of privacy is that no one can be trusted if privacy is not legitimate.”

[ Rushdoony ] I don’t think I agree with his outlook. If one were to follow him he would have to be an educational anarchist.

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, but he is saying is, though, that that is what is done in schools today. And he doesn't agree with it. You know, he is... he is... he has left the system because of this, you see. What he is saying, though, not... he... now it may be true. I don’t know what he... what his remedy is whether he would want to have a kind of summer held type school.

[ Rushdoony ] That is not what it sounds like.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. Well, he... he is for ... but... but...

[ Scott ] The fellow Neil who had summer hill...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] ...was unusual. But and apparently he ... he worked well with some kids. But somebody went along to find out what happened to the graduates of this school. And they went nowhere.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] But the point is that he is saying that the public schools today are... are simply throttling the kids and they are not learning and they are being ...

[ Rushdoony ] I wish they would throttle them a little more, frankly.

[ Blumenfeld ] Well...

[ Rushdoony ] They need throttling.

[ Blumenfeld ] But not throttling by the throat, not being throttled for the right reasons. Let’s put it that way.

[ Rushdoony ] All right.

[ multiple voices ]

[ Rushdoony ] All you have to do is to drive by a high school today and you wonder: Why doesn’t something do something.... someone do something? Aren’t the parents ashamed when the see their children?

[ Scott ] We are talking about a lost generation.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] And we are talking about parents who really are trusting educators, but there is also a very large group of indifferent parents. I think that is the problem, because the parents were concerned are those who are protesting those who are taking their kids out of the schools, those who are home schooling, those who are putting them into Christian schools. But then you have got an awful lot of parents who don’t care.

[ Rushdoony ] On... but I also believe, Sam, that we have a great many parents now who have simply given up because every time they turn around they are threatened.

[ Scott ] Well, they have no authority.

[ Rushdoony ] They have no authority. The students ... their children will tell them, “You try to do that and I will tell the school counselor.”

[ Scott ] I will call the police.

[ Rushdoony ] And we... Yes. And they cannot wait for the children to get out of the house because they are no longer their children, they are the children of the school.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] Incidentally the... of course all of this is going to get much worse, because now what the government is going to do is create this data collection system for the new world order. Everyone in the public school now will be on the computer and I was sent a ... a handbook issued in 1974 by the national center for education statistics on state educational records. And in this section on student pupil accounting they list the major categories of student information such as the three digit system is used to categorize the data. For example, personal identification, student number, race, sex, ethnic group. Then they have family and residence data. Then they have family economic information, family social cultural information, physical health sensory and related conditions, a student medical record, mental, psychological and proficiency test results and related student characteristics are in the data bank. All this data is to be collected and put in permanent data banks. What is going to be... what is the ... what is the point of having all this information?

[ Scott ] Why did they want this? Why do they need it?

[ Blumenfeld ] Well I ask you. Why do they need it?

[ Scott ] Well, for one thing people change. You can assess me or you or anyone else at a certain age and you are this.

[ Blumenfeld ] Right.

[ Scott ] Assess that same person at another age and that is somebody else.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Scott ] I look back on myself as a very young man with a great deal of embarrassment. In fact, I don’t wan to look back.

[ Blumenfeld ] That is right. But, you see, this record, this data system will... will comfortize all of that in... it will.... it will fix you...

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] And you are to going to be able to get out of it.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] In other words...

[ Scott ] It is like treating a person of 50 as though he is still the rat that he was when he was 18.

[ Blumenfeld ] Right. And what will happen is that this information will be available to employers, tax collectors.

[ Scott ] Oh, that is... that is terrible.

[ Blumenfeld ] The FBI, the CIA and all that.

[ multiple voices ]

[ Scott ] And it is going not define and limit individuals throughout their life.

[ Blumenfeld ] Oh, yes, and this is supposed to be a free society.

[ Scott ] It is the European dossier brought up to date.

[ Blumenfeld ] Right. Should a free society have dossier on every single infant ... individual from birth onward?

[ Scott ] No, there are things that are none of the government’s business.

[ Blumenfeld ] Then why is it doing that? Why is it doing that?

[ Scott ] Because it doesn't believe that there is anything should be allowed to the citizens. It wants total control.

[ Blumenfeld ] You know, that, for example, there is a... there is a test that they give to determine whether these kids are, you know, learning. And they have a... an assessment of citizenship and behavior referencing model incorporating elements related to the psychological notion of threshold is used. I don’t know if you know what threshold is.

[ Scott ] I don’t. No.

[ Blumenfeld ] But here are the kinds of questions they ask on such an assessment, 57 items measure willingness to exhibit good citizenship in may social situations under a variety of motivating conditions.

Now here is a sample situation. Quote, this is for grade 11, “There is a secret club at school called the midnight artists. They go out late at night and paint funny sayings and pictures on buildings. A student is asked to join the club. In this situation I would join the club when I knew, one, my best friend asked me to join; two, most of the popular students were in the club; three, my parents would ground me if they found out I had joined.”

Now what is the proper response? The response for each choice is yes, maybe or no. Guess what the politically correct answer is? In the norm referenced scoring positive citizenship was scored as two yes, one maybe, zero no. Negative...

[ Scott ] So you had to join.

[ Blumenfeld ] Negative ... in other words, two joining meant you were ok.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] Good citizenship because you wanted to paint things on people’s buildings.

[ Scott ] Sure. Well, the main thing is that you are conforming.

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, you see, but I am...

[ Scott ] ...to the group.

[ Blumenfeld ] Right.

[ Scott ] Even if the group is outlawed.

[ Rushdoony ] It is interesting that not too long ago in the San Francisco a school teacher, an art teacher was caught leading a group of students in graffiti painting.

[ Blumenfeld ] Aha. Well, they probably were, you know, passing this test.

[ Scott ] Right.

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, a Christian student would have had a very difficult time responding to the situation posed in the test. First of all, he or she would not have wanted to join a secret club. A good Christian youngster would not join a secret club or stay out late at night or paint pictures on private property.

The situation as posed in the test, represents the psychologist’s view that honesty and integrity are situational. But that would not be the case with the Christian. If zero yes, one maybe and two no equal negative citizenship, what would a three no score mean?

[ Scott ] Well, what would somebody like me be? I would refuse to join a gang when I was boy because I despised the kids that got in the gang.

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, then, you see, you would not pass this test. You would be considered a poor citizen.

[ Scott ] Well, I guess.

[ Blumenfeld ] But this is the kind of thing that is going on in the schools.

[ Scott ] In that sort of a society, yes. Of course, I would have to lead the revolution.

[ Blumenfeld ] I mean and things are getting worse. The Carnegie corporation has launched a plan, for example, to control early childhood education, early childhood development, starting with birth, even pre birth.

Now this plan was published, it came out. It was a report, you know, the... one of these big reports and was ... in Education Week on April 13th, 1994. Very elaborate report on how we have got to start controlling everybody from birth on up.

[ Scott ] Well....

[ Blumenfeld ] Now this was quite an agenda. I don’t have the time to quote all of this, but I simply want to tell you what happened next. Seven days later or less than seven days later there was a meeting at the White House about this report. And the ... and Hillary Rodham Clinton was the first speaker and she conceded that it will take uncommon political will and institutional fortitude to fulfill the report’s mandate, you see. And then not too many days later it is voted on in the Senate.

Now that is incredible power, to go from a report from a... from a... a Carnegie, from a private foundation to the White House and to the Senate...

[ Scott ] And get it through.

[ Blumenfeld ] In how many days was it? I think it was... I counted the number of days. I couldn’t believe that they could ... they could do all of that in such a short period of time. But it just shows you all of this is coordinated.

[ Scott ] Well, it is a mindset that they share and, of course, they are creating their own opposition. And they are creating more people in opposition every day.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. And let me just read you this opening paragraph of the Education Week’s report of April 20th in which they had this big conference, this White House conference. It says, “A Carnegie Corporation of New York reports sounding the alarm about a quiet crisis facing the nation’s youngest children evoked a loud and emotional outpouring of support from top government, business, health and education officials at a meeting in Washington, DC last week.”

Have you ever known a bureaucrat who evoked a loud, emotional outpouring of support for anything?

[ Scott ] No, but I am very familiar with a White House conference. Some years ago I got involved with the national child labor committee which then running out of the markets for itself changed itself into a committee for the employment of youth, which I thought was one of the funniest transformations I had ever seen.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And the White House conference under the Kennedy administration meant that every participant was screened so that everyone who appeared was of one mid.

[ Blumenfeld ] Oh, yes. Well, that is...

[ Scott ] This is... this is a feature of the Democratic administration.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Scott ] We have had a series of these administrations. We had Woodrow Wilson. We had Mr. Roosevelt. We had Mr. Kennedy. We had Mr. Johnson. Every single one of them have pushed this country further left.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And every single one of them has dumped on the intervening Republican administration and accused them of every kind of backwardness you can believe in. And we are now going through the throes that will push us over the cliff. Well, at the bottom of the cliff there is going to be a bunch of people who are not convinced we are going to be waiting with clubs.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, our time is nearly up. Is there a concluding...

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, when I...

[ Rushdoony ] statement would you like to make, Sam?

[ Blumenfeld ] ... when I ... first I would like to inform your listeners that if they would like to get any of my newsletters...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes, please.

[ Blumenfeld ] ... that they can call my publisher in Boise, Idaho and his number is 1 208 322 4440. And they can ask for the May, 1994 issue if they want this particular report on the... this Carnegie report that has been enacted into law in this incredible short period of time. And all the other things I have written on O B E, and whole language and... and the rest.

[ Rushdoony ] Well thank you, Sam. We very much appreciate your taking this time and we are grateful for the part you are playing in turning around the educational scene in this country.

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, I want to thank all of you and... and it is has been a great pleasure as always.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, thank you all for listening and God bless you.

[ Voice ] Authorized by the Chalcedon Foundation. Archived by the Mount Olive Tape Library. Digitized by ChristRules.com.