As I said in my last column I want to take a step back from what I usually do, so I can set the tone for my last year on this staff, and talk about why it’s in this administration’s best interest to exonerate people being untruthful, how this pertains to education now, and how liberation can become something out of reach looking forward.
When we talk about untruth, I think that it’s important that it’s framed as a strategy, and not as just an accident. When the current administration normalizes lies, exaggerations, and contradictions, they, in turn, condition people to accept confusion as reality.
When the line between truth and lie is blurred, bent, and by all means pretty much buried, the general public and students like me and you become weary of sorting the mess out. And that exact moment when we, the public, become weary is the exact moment we become complacent.
And that’s the real danger: untruth will make you numb. When you turn on your TV every day to a new lie or fear-mongering, it creates a culture where facts feel negotiable. This is important to highlight because people asking questions won’t be the default. They won’t even begin to ask because the answers will seem nearly impossible to pinpoint. This ideal complacent society we live in is a perfect way for power to entrench itself.
However, to contextualize this for anyone reading, it mainly affects education. An administration that benefits from untruth, and a complacent public also benefits from weakening education. They benefit because education is the way in which people are liberated. What I’m suggesting is that education, on any level, gives students the knowledge they need to break free from any form of oppression. It does this by promoting critical thinking, individual thought, and providing the tools necessary to combat injustice.
So when they take away slavery exhibits out of museums, or mend data to make it look like job rates are better, or make fake numbers, It is furthering the line more and more, so this current generation of students and kids are never able to realize what is wrong. If they make everything a lie, the reality we live in full of them will become the truth, and education will become useless.
