Review of US education Robert W. Whitaker: Why Johnny Can't Think
Subtitled 'America's Professor-Priesthood', June 28, 2010The title is based on 'Why Johnny Can't Read', an American plea for phonics (I think)—the same battle is still being played out in the UK—see Alice Coleman and Mona McNee. The subtitle however more accurately describes the book's central idea. It's simple enough—the professoriat has its own vested interests, and does what it can to reinforce itself as yet another interest group. They appoint successors, use examinations to ensure orthodoxy, ensure they get public money, censor and suppress opposing views—including by inciting violence, and do not examine their own possible limitations and mistakes. Whitaker's book is shortish and not very precise—but teasing out all the intricacies would be difficult. For example, he assumes bureaucrats and the professoriat (my word) are the same people—he doesn't analyse the vast number of low-level foot-soldiers—the teachers, employees of government, the hacks who mislead. This is all intertwined with 'communism'. Whitaker favours something like economic democracy—he says actors tend to be 'left wing' because they'd rather do undemanding work, that people won't pay for, than conform to public requirements. Whitaker assumes government control (a) is 'socialist' and (b) must be inefficient, neither of which is quite true. All this naturally overlaps with Jewish material—the USSR being a Jewish invention. Whitaker in effect describes the religion of Political Correctness, which is more or less the same as 'Holocaustianity', though Whitaker cautiously avoids saying anything like that. Whitaker assumes 'communism' is a homogeneous movement, something open to doubt; I know no evidence that Mao was a pawn of Jews—but then again I have no evidence he wasn't. Whitaker is a bit conventional here—he thinks the 'Viet Cong' existed, although in fact there was never any such group. This in my view muddies the water. Whitaker also, correctly, identifies a main strand in political correctness as anti-white racism; he quotes at least one person favouring extermination of whites. And others wanting third world immigration—but only into white countries.
Whitaker has quite a high opinion of science and uses it to counterpoint the fragile absurdities and wishful thinking of 'social science'. He knows about Semmelweiss, and Galen, and is fully aware that modern medicine took about 1500 years to develop, in the teeth of opposition from entrenched hacks. It doesn't logically follow that social science is in the same position, but clearly it could be. And religions, of course.
This book is available (quickly) as a secured PDF download from Whitaker's own site—the pages are a scanned image. A paper version may be easier to deal with.
Here's a very small sample of his prose style:----
Students hear their professors say, "Follow the money" when it comes to how greedy businessmen are. Students hear media commentators say "Follow the money" when it comes to how greedy oilmen or defense contractors are. So why do professors ignore the fact that black Africans were as guilty of selling black slaves as white slave-traders were of buying them? Could it be that they are just following the money? ... A college graduate who never outgrew his diploma cannot imagine that professors might have a bias. He cannot imagine that professors follow the money...
In an ideal world, this book would be seen as a rather lightweight expose of rather obvious possibilities of corruption. But in today's world, it's quite a punchy revelation of a group foisting its own image onto the rest of society and causing untold harm as a result.
© Rae West