Lack of education is the #1 issue here. America's education system emphasizes nationalism and obedience. It doesn't encourage critical thinking or alternative worldviews.
We're so deeply entrenched in the "American Dream" (Capitalism & Trickle Down Economics) that we're unable to challenge the current status quo.
Worse yet, this is driving us towards the defunding of public education, and the further worsening of our problems.
Our collective ignorance manifests itself in a number of ways, from wealthy mainstream journalists blaming economic problems on the poor to their audience of middle-class Americans, to mass-delusions regarding conspiracy theories intended to divide people.
I agree with your assessment of our education system. I would go further and say we intentionally do not teach money management skills as it makes people harder to fleece. We have indoctrinated a whole country that debt is good, rampant consumerism is good, all of which leads to really bad money management.
I am of the opinion that these habits and the ideology that supports it is the biggest reason people who are in the lower income brackets continually stay there. The best path to wealth is to convert your work into capital. If you spend everything you make and more there is no excess to re-invest.
>intentionally do not teach money management skills as it makes people harder to fleece.
Yeah, this is a perfect example of "don't attribute to malice what is equally explainable by incompetence."
I'm not talking about the incompetence of teachers. I'm talking about the incompetence of the system, and it's inflexibility towards change. This is not caused by malice. It's caused by is being completely unable to effectively handle the millions of different perspectives of "what education should be."
You talk about indoctrination of a country, but I don't think it's indoctrination at all. It's people clinging to their views and being completely hostile to the idea that they might not understand important parts of the system. It's people turning to ideology instead of engaging with the actual complexity of the world.
> It's people turning to ideology instead of engaging with the actual complexity of the world.
As predicted in 1970:
'the accelerated rate of technological and social change leaves people disconnected and suffering from "shattering stress and disorientation"—future shocked.'
Most of the time the argument is "if we spend less on military and more on education it would solve X". So I disagree. The people I get into a discussion with on education funding always seems to think the USA spends less than other first world countries.
In general, yes, but the parent poster makes a different claim than usual.
> America's education system emphasizes nationalism and obedience. It doesn't encourage critical thinking or alternative worldviews.
They're not complaining that we're not teaching enough, they're complaining that we're teaching the wrong things; that the same resources could be used for better teaching.
We're so deeply entrenched in the "American Dream" (Capitalism & Trickle Down Economics) that we're unable to challenge the current status quo.
Worse yet, this is driving us towards the defunding of public education, and the further worsening of our problems.
Our collective ignorance manifests itself in a number of ways, from wealthy mainstream journalists blaming economic problems on the poor to their audience of middle-class Americans, to mass-delusions regarding conspiracy theories intended to divide people.