… I am afraid that education is conceived more in terms of indoctrination by most school officials than in terms of enlightenment. My own belief is that education must be subversive if it is to be meaningful. By this I mean that it must challenge all the things we take for granted, examine all accepted assumptions, tamper with every sacred cow, and instill a desire to question and doubt. Without this the mere instruction to memorise data is empty. The attempt to enforce conventional mediocrity on the young is criminal.
–Bertrand Russell
My high school experience was almost exactly as described by Bertrand Russell. My real education only truly began when I left school. I was chastised, even by some of my former classmates, for daring to think differently and confessing this.
Unfortunately for many, what they learn from their parents and school becomes foundational truths they live by, invariably with genuine conviction, for their whole lives. The truth value of these learnings tends to become inconsequential as they shape their lives in specific directions.
A tragic example of successful indoctrination that continues to this day is the Israeli Zionist project. Israel has, since the formation of the Jewish ethnostate in 1948, conducted a brutal occupation of the land and oppression of the incumbent Palestinian people. Israeli Academic Nurit Peled-Elhanan wrote exposés about the indoctrination of citizens during their formative years in school in her books Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education, and Holocaust Education and the Semiotics of Othering in Israeli Schoolbooks. According to Nurit, indoctrination in the school curriculum shaped Israeli culture and reinforced settler colonial hegemony. Meanwhile, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe wrote many books about the oppression, dispossession of land and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
However, indoctrination alone did not ensure that Zionism’s dirty secret was kept under wraps. It took a giant government propaganda machine and influencer network to ensure the truth remained obscured. It also took the weaponisation of antisemitism to ensure that detractors were battered into compliance.
Consequently, the world remained largely criminally unaware of the nature and extent of both the indoctrination of settlers into the cult of Zionist supremacy and the brutal oppression of the Palestinians until the Hamas incursion from Gaza in October 2023, which resulted in the tragic killing of over 1000 Israelis.
This single event lifted the veil on 76 years of shameless oppression and inhumane violence against Palestinians. However, while the veil may be lifted on indoctrination and oppression, its effects are not often successfully curtailed or halted altogether.
Despite global awareness now of Israel’s deplorable inhumanity, there have not been any consequences for them. Military and diplomatic support from Western nations remain inviolate. Also, despite well-deserved, scathing criticism worldwide of their criminal behavior, Israel’s population remains unshaken; such has been the success of their indoctrination.
Last week, I came across a YouTube video which featured a segment from an old Jerry Springer episode from the 90s. While I’d never watched any of these shows, I knew of the host by reputation only after the television series was nearing its end after 27 seasons. The show featured a sensationalist approach to common family issues, so it’s hardly surprising that it became branded as “trash TV.”
The episode concerned racial hatred. It featured two families, although the segment I watched focused mainly on 16-year-old Jennifer Kreis and her younger sister. Their parents came out later during the episode, but I found a follow-up episode, which I will refer to later.
From the video segment, it is clear that the children’s hateful impressions of non-Whites, Jews, as well as religion, were indoctrinated into them by their parents. It’s not hard to imagine many children from this era as having successfully integrated into the MAGA cult that has cemented the current wedge between left and right in America. I will concede that the MAGA cult is not purely about race. However, if these kids were indoctrinated about racial issues, they could just as easily have been susceptible to being negatively influenced on cultural and economic concerns.
That last thought left me wondering what had happened to the Kreis family. Are they now influential figures in the MAGA cult? That seemed like a natural progression.
I’m happy to report that Jennifer Kreist, well into her forties now, has abandoned her racist past. Upon further digging, I have learned that Jennifer’s father, August Kreis, who was a Ku Klux Klan member and leader of the right-wing hate group Aryan Nations, had sexually assaulted both his daughters and is now serving a 50-year prison sentence on other sexual abuse charges.
I also found another video where Jennifer claims that she was forced into making all those racially hateful statements on talk shows by her father. Even if she was coerced, it looked to me like she said those things with conviction in the Jerry Springer clips. I could, however, be mistaken.
In any event, the outcome of Jennifer’s indoctrination was not successful. She learned to re-educate herself and cast off the brainwashing. How many others manage to do the same?
lenny unencumbered 