AC Grayling on the Need for more Educated and Informed Citizens

When people question seemingly uninformed voter choices, they are averting their gaze from politicians of the right, right wing media and related who are desperate to keep or put right wing parties in power, by attacking the centre and sensible legislation, why or how?

Not understood that across the Anglosphere and Europe mostly ageing voters dominating, with politicians, media and influencers, who are less educated and less diverse than younger generations, backed up by ‘collective narcissism’ and ‘pensioner populism’; see Brexit, Trump, Meloni, Orban et al.

However, in the ByLine Times article excerpts below from AC Grayling, his explanation of how we arrived here cites education as the issue; though this ignores amongst older dominant voters who are informed by activist right wing legacy media, influencers and including US fossil fueled think tanks versus younger who are outnumbered; not education now but the past?

Further, there are attempts through influence and lobbying to dilute education standards from the same fossil fueled Koch Network think tanks, in support of far right policies now adopted by ‘conservatives’ including more Christianity or religion in schools vs. attacks on supposed ‘woke’ or LGBT friendly policies.

However, this masks concerted efforts in the Anglosphere replicating education curricula from less developed authoritarian states including teaching, curriculum syllabi and content e.g. more religion &/or nationalism, less analysis, less maths/science and basically avoiding the hidden curriculum i.e. developing essential soft skills a la Bloom’s Taxonomy and well rounded citizens.

There is a collective need to avoid attempts getting at young people in preparation for when demographics balance out, neutering the dominance of less educated but more active above median age voters, especially in regions.

From ByLine Times:

‘Who or What to Blame? Education, Education, Education’

Too many voters are insufficiently informed and reflective to vote other than tribally or self-interestedly in exploitable ways due to failings in how we conceive of ‘education’, writes 

AC Grayling  2 August 2023

Let us ask why so much influence has been exerted by a dishonest and ultra-partisan media owned by non-dom billionaires with a vested interest in destabilising the country so that their preferred version of anarcho-capitalism can flourish. And let us ask why social media has found the British population such a plastic, malleable, easy playground for its bubble-creating, conspiracy-promoting, false-fact-spreading downside.

And then let us reflect on the answer: because well-informed and reflective people would not be so easily duped by either a dishonest press or unreliable and distorting social media, it must be that enough of the British population is insufficiently well-informed and insufficiently reflective – more bluntly: ignorant enough and unthinking enough – to be ripe for serving as their dupes.

How has this happened?

The Need for Active Enquirers

The fact remains that, in 2019, 43% of those who voted chose Conservatives, and enough Uxbridge voters – blaming a Labour London Mayor for Tory policies on the environment – voted Tory in a seat formerly held by Johnson. What explains them? Indeed, even supposing half of these were principled, loyal, Conservatives who had thought hard about the Government of the past 13 years and somehow liked what it saw – what explains how they could?

From among a plethora of answers let us focus on one very central one: the failure of our education system to achieve a good standard of active intelligence in enough of the population.

By ‘active intelligence’, I mean the useful general knowledge and the constructive scepticism that prompts people to test claims and promises made by those who want their money or their votes.

The price we pay is careless voters exploitable by a system and its career politician operatives into putting someone as grossly unfit as a Boris Johnson into Downing Street – to say nothing of the inadequacy of the compeers such an individual surrounds himself with.

To educate – not merely to train in enough basics of literacy and numeracy to qualify as a squaddy in the economic infantry – classes need to consist of fewer than 10 pupils, so that teachers have time to work with the individual grain of each pupil’s mind and personality.

Pupils should be active enquirers, not just passive learners sitting behind desks in a classroom: that means getting out and about, doing, travelling, finding out, making.

The value of musical education and art on general cognitive development, enhancing its capacities for success in maths and applied sciences, has been all but lost in the English education system.

Historical and geographical ignorance, and wholly inadequate levels of competence in a second and third language – plus frequent and active travelling in the countries where they are spoken – make for narrow, parochial, limited mindsets. 

I defy anyone to claim that the level of achievement represented by GCSE today is comparable to that of the ‘O’ levels of yore – and even the ‘O’ levels of yore did not pass the test of what is necessary for the informed and thoughtful populace that is the minimum requirement for any version of democracy.

Democracies are being made to fail all round the world today because increasingly larger portions of already significant percentages of populations are too easily taken for a ride by the political and politically-motivated agencies which benefit from their incapacity.

This problem with education means that efforts to explain why some claim or promise does not stack up simply go over the heads of enough people to make it possible for those who claim or promise to get away with it. This happens all the time.

As we know too well, serious newspapers and current affairs programmes get little traction because they speak to tiny minorities only, while tabloid media cleave to the parochial interests and prejudices of their consumers because that is what makes money – with little if any concern to inform or engage beyond the usual sodden fare of celebrity gossip and whatever is the hysteria of the moment.

The landscape of our democracy is accordingly a dismal one indeed. Its poverty and barrenness have been cruelly exposed by Brexit – arguably inconceivable in a better-educated nation (look at Scotland) – and its emblems will forever be Johnson and the gang of coarsely unsuitable appointments he has made over the past three years. 

Too many voters are insufficiently informed and reflective to vote other than tribally or self-interestedly in exploitable ways, and a large part of the reason for this is that our education system is too poorly funded to achieve in enough cases the kind of intellects that would be more resistant to such exploitation.

I argue that the systemic failure of our political order, for which this insufficiency of education is responsible, led to Brexit: and that Brexit is the ultimate condemnation of both.’

AC Grayling is a philosopher, Master of the New College of the Humanities, and Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne’s College at Oxford University

For more related blogs and articles on Adult learning, Ageing democracy, Conservative, Critical thinking, Demography, Koch Network, Media, Populist politics, Science literacy and Younger generations, click through:

Trojan Horses – Ultra Conservatives Disrupting Education Curricula to Influence Youth

Libertarian Curricula – Science and Culture Wars vs. University Maths Teacher Training

Critical Thinking or Analysis: Importance for Education, Media and Empowered Citizens

Dumbing Down and Gaming of Anglosphere Media, Science, Society and Democracy

Skills of Critical Thinking

Collective Narcissism, Ageing Electorates, Pensioner Populism, White Nativism and Autocracy

Narcissistic Political Leaders – NPD Narcissistic Personality Disorder – Collective Narcissism – Cognitive Dissonance – Conspiracy Theories – Populism

Ageing Democracy, Nativism and Populism

Australia Return to the Anglosphere – Ignoring the Australian Eurasian Society and the Asian Century

Article following from Carol Johnson in Inside Story regarding Australia ‘An intersection society no more?’ being lured or drawn back into some Anglosphere fantasy due to not just Anglo Celtic or ‘skip’ culture but how it’s been allowed to dominate in a diverse society through monocultural elites? 

“Australia turns its back on the twenty-first century, the century of Asia, for the jaded and faded Anglosphere.” (Paul Keating).

It is manifested in narratives, headlines and sound bites in media, society, business and community, while the stories and achievements of ‘immigrants’ and ‘non-skips’ have disappeared from public narratives, and urban centres are criticised for being overcrowded or ‘immigrant hell’?

This is neither organic nor coincidental, but an intentional strategy in cooperation with the media to create a ‘conservative’ voter block for the LNP and right wing fringe parties, especially in regions, why?  

For now, older population cohorts are white Anglo Irish heritage, ageing and inclined to vote conservative, more nominally ‘Christian’, less educated, declining (electoral roll populations) with youth departing regions, hence dog whistling of divisive proxy issues to spook the oldies (though most are at least partly dependent upon ‘Asian’ immigrant health medical care). 

This white nativist tactic of dog whistling focuses upon immigration, refugees, NOM net overseas migration and population growth, without credible evidence or research, supposedly causing e.g. unemployment, high property prices, load on infrastructure aka ‘carrying capacity’ etc. then blamed for wrecking the environment allowing fossil fuels to avoid scrutiny and potential constraints.  

However, it also hints at radical right libertarian socioeconomic influence by also dog whistling and white anting Labor governments, unions, universities, public service, science, education, minorities or ‘other’, women and future generations to avoid constraints of democracy, sensible regulation, informed and educated voters, plus taxes and government.

The former nativist tactics have been imported from the US via John Tanton Network linking through to and informing Sustainable Population Australia, ‘Australia’s best demographer’, media, unions, non science academics/researchers, Parliamentary committees, MPs and Ministers; ditto UK too.  

The deceased John Tanton was an admirer of the white Australia policy, described by NYT as ‘the most influential unknown man in America’, then by SPLC as ‘the racist founder and architect of the modern anti-immigration movement’, muse of Steve Bannon, groups informed the Trump White (and still inform media) had visited Australia and also described in the US as anti-semitic, anti-Catholic and proponent of ‘passive eugenics’.

This is related to Koch Network which has a strategy of implementing unpalatable socioeconomic policies, by the tactic of masking the same with Tanton’s nativism, cultural or faux environmental issue; aka Brexit. This is like Sustainable Population Australia viewing post 1970’s immigrants as an ‘environmental hygiene’ issue round population growth, to then avoid constraints on fossil fuels, auto and related industry.

Koch Network presence in Australia, via their global Atlas Network, is AIP the Australian Institute of Progress in Queensland, Taxpayers’ Alliance in Sydney, along with CIS Centre for Independent Studies and the infamous IPA Institute for Public Affairs in Melbourne who access media very easily to promote themselves with little if any scrutiny.

One assumes that underlying Howard’s tactics of spruiking the US led Anglosphere was not to simply differentiate himself from Keating and the ‘Asian Century’ but because he personally believed in it.  However, like others Australians involved with and promoting Brexit and/or Trump i.e. Abbott, Downer, NewsCorp/Murdoch, Crosby Textor, IEA (Koch think tank with then an Australian head) et al., Howard seems to look up to the UK and USA at the expense of other nations and Australia’s relationships with the Asian region especially and again masking their obsession over ‘western civilisation’.

However, demography will get them in the end as significant demographic change happens due to passing of the pre WWII oldies, then the post WWII baby boomer bubble followed by lower fertility but much diversity; Australian is not Anglo-Celtic but Eurasian.

From Inside Story:

An intersection society no more?

Australia’s retreat to the Anglosphere has implications beyond defence and trade

CAROL JOHNSON 4 OCTOBER 2021 

Not so long ago, many Australians hoped that Australia would be an intersection society linking East and West — an East not defined by China and a West not defined by the United States, although Australia hoped to play a role in reducing tensions between the two. We were to be an independent middle power, forging our own way in our region and the world, retaining old friends while strengthening relations with other powers in the region, including France, and with our Southeast Asian neighbours.

It was not to be. The creation of the AUKUS alliance shows we have been lured back into our old Anglosphere fold, prioritising relations with Britain and the United States.

Electoral considerations undoubtedly played a role. Having failed to protect us from Covid-19, Morrison is now banking on pledging to protect us from China. The Coalition has a long tradition of using fear of China to try to wedge Labor. Indeed, the 2019 election campaign showed signs that it was gearing up for an assault on Labor as too soft on China. As a result, the opposition has been treading very carefully in response to AUKUS, acknowledging legitimate fears about China while questioning aspects of the government’s approach.

The military and trade implications of the AUKUS alliance have been widely canvassed. Australians are rightly concerned about an increasingly authoritarian, assertive and aggressive China. But after the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Vietnam decades earlier, many Australians are also cautious about being too closely aligned with American military strategy. Polling suggests that most Australians want our country’s complex relationship with China to be managed carefully.

The trade implications don’t stop with our worsening relationship with China. They also involve France. Under the Turnbull government, France was to be not just a key defence ally but also a key friend in facilitating relations with the European Union now that a post-Brexit Britain could no longer play that role for us.

Nor should we forget the cultural and intellectual implications of this shift. Australia’s projected role as an intersection society involved a different conception of our national identity. The hope was that we could forge a more independent, multicultural and cosmopolitan identity while still valuing our links with Britain and the United States. It was a vision that seemed to be developing an element of bipartisan support, at least during Malcolm Turnbull’s moderate Liberal prime ministership.

But Scott Morrison (ably assisted by Peter Dutton) is increasingly sounding like John Howard–lite when it comes to issues of cultural and national identity. Howard repeatedly emphasised Australia’s Anglo-Celtic identity and its closeness to Britain and the United States, thereby distancing the Coalition from Labor’s more cosmopolitan and multicultural view under Paul Keating.

It’s true that the government’s defence policy has also embraced the Quad of India, Japan, Australia and the United States. But Morrison’s comments regarding India often depict it as an extension of the Anglosphere with common values, including a commitment to democracy and religious freedom. It’s a view that seems particularly inappropriate given prime minister Narendra Modi’s increasingly authoritarian, Hindu-nationalist India, and has echoes of John Howard’s somewhat banal highlighting of the two countries’ shared love of cricket and experience of British influence. Kevin Rudd, by contrast, had a much more nuanced understanding of India’s postcolonial history.

A shift towards the Anglosphere also has implications for our cultural institutions and academia, and not just because of the increasing scrutiny of university research on security grounds. Many academics hoped that Australia could become an intellectual intersection society — that our universities would draw on all that is best of the knowledge produced in European and North American universities and all that is best from the great universities of Asia. We argued that this would position us well in the changing geopolitics of knowledge that characterised the Asian Century and would position us differently from the European and North American universities with which we compete for international students.

Such a vision would have built on and transformed the initiatives of past governments, Labor as well as Coalition. After all, it was a Liberal foreign minister, Julie Bishop, who oversaw the development of the brilliant New Colombo Plan, whereby Australian students would be encouraged to study in Asia. Such intellectual exchanges seem far from the Morrison government’s priorities. Indeed, the Coalition has been accused of carrying out a culture war against universities, starving them of funding at a time when the pandemic’s impact on international student enrolments is wreaking havoc on their budgets.

For all these reasons, AUKUS signals more than a defence decision about submarines and sharing other technology. It also potentially signals a cultural shift that has major implications for Australia and its role in the world. We have to hope that Paul Keating is wrong when he claims that AUKUS marks the moment when “Australia turns its back on the twenty-first century, the century of Asia, for the jaded and faded Anglosphere.” Because that would not be a good move at all. 

Related articles and blogs on Australian society follow:

Anglosphere – Radical Right Libertarian Socioeconomics and Authoritarianism

Economic Research – No Negative Relationship with Immigration and Wages, Income or Employment

Population, Environment and White Nationalists in Australia – US Links

Eco-System of Libertarian Think Tanks and White Nativism in the Anglosphere

Collective Narcissism, Ageing Electorates, Pensioner Populism, White Nativism and Autocracy

Australian Brexit?

Nationalist Conservative Political Parties in the Anglosphere – Radical Right Libertarian Ideology and Populism for Votes