ukmuiik

Question

So, there is a dystopian government called the Union of Fascist States. It controls both North and South America, the United Kingdom, and half of Africa. The NAF is the one and only party that controls everything.

The party and secret police control all of the citizens lives, and at age 4 every junior citizen is required to go to educational facilities to gain knowledge and whatnot. The problem is, why would the government want its citizens to be educated, as education could lead to gasp freedom of thought. Do, why would a dystopian government want its citizens educated?

The other side of the coin of education is indoctrination,propaganda, or brainwashing. Really, the only difference between education and "education" is whether what it is teaching matches your own preconceptions, the content is mostly irrelevant, that's just determined by whoever won the war. — 7 hours ago
"education" or "state provided education" - there is a difference. If you control the knowledge... you control the populace. — 7 hours ago

Fermi paradox 272312 · Answer 1 · 2018-08-05 17:57:54Z

Well they wouldn't want them to be "educated" in the classical sense, but they would want them to be "schooled" in the 20th-century sense.

Taking children away from their parents and making them sit in classrooms with same-age cohorts for all of their most formative years does a lot for your totalitarian government:

it weakens the family (the naturally strongest building block of society, hence the biggest threat to your government)

it breaks down independent spirits and creative thinking

it accustoms children to the idea that truth and validation all comes from the judgments ("grades") of authority figures they didn't elect for themselves.

Certainly the teachers will all be loyal party members, or true believers in the official ideology, so it's a way to reward the party's supporters with jobs and to reinforce party ideology as part of the curriculum. Also, it makes a lot of the victims/students grow to hate learning, so by age 18 they're ready to never read another book.

Uh... wait a minute...

Yup! Look up the history of the North American school system. It's descended directly from the Prussian system intended to prepare people for life in the assembly line at the beginning of the industrial age. — 22 hours ago
Actually, as bad as you guys think you have it, you'll have to go into way more controlled school systems to get some contrast. Try working in China's system. There is a reason people pump huge amount of money to sent their children to school overseas; people know their education system is messed up. — 11 hours ago
As an excellent illustration of how this works in supposedly free societies, see Erica GoldsonÃ¢Â€Â™s graduation speech. — 10 hours ago
Wrong. For one thing, the "family" is only the strongest unit of societies which insist on imposing paternalistic religions on people. — 8 hours ago
@jamesqf what led you to this assumption? I thought strong family bonds make school indoctrination less effective since it requires propaganda on 2 consecutive generations instead of 1. — 7 hours ago

Tim B II 16.8k23779 · Answer 2 · 2018-08-05 02:57:05Z

The problem with ignorance is curiosity. When you deliberately try to hide something from a person, they tend to get curious and actively seek it out. We love mysteries, exploration and the pleasure of finding things out that we didn't know before.

What that means is that a dystopian government that deliberately hides knowledge and learning from its citizenry is actually putting itself at a disadvantage. People will seek such things out, and then the government no longer as a seat at the table, so to speak. Education and learning are driven and controlled by outlaws who seek to undermine the government, meaning that students are taught with that bias integrated into their education.

Also, education is actually necessary for a society that seeks to maintain supremacy over its neighbours. Without research and development, you don't get the advances that your enemies already have and the last thing you want to do is fall behind technologically against people you don't like or trust. So, you really need your citizens to be learning new things and focusing on STEM subjects especially.

A strong dystopian government therefore promotes education to the point of making it compulsory. What it does however is it discredits or even bans independent or private education, forcing all children and students through a state run education system that teaches people with the integrated bias the State sets. It also works through talent identification to ensure that those capable of higher learning are promoted into the right state schools and universities for their talent set, building a committed and competent workforce that knows how to apply education in a practical way to the betterment of the State.

For what it's worth, the last 300 years (if they've taught us anything at all) have taught us that making something illegal is the worst possible way to control something. Prohibition in the US and Australia only led to criminals getting rich off a completely unregulated industry. The prohibition on Marijuana and harder drugs has largely done the same thing, whether you believe it's the right thing to do or not. The reason why Australia adopted such strong plain packaging laws and restricted how cigarettes could be displayed or sold instead of simply outlawing them was because this way they can control the flow of them, rather than just creating another vector for organised crime to exploit.

Even slavers took advantage of Lincoln outlawing slavery in the early days by cramming as many new slaves onto boats as they could. The lot of a new slave being transported from Africa was actually far worse after it was banned than before, when there were regulations in place about food, medical care, treatment et al. Early post-ban slaves were FAR more likely to die on the boat across than they were pre-ban for that every reason.

So too would it be with education. Banning something like education will only remove your ability to control it at the State level, and that's a fundamentally silly move. Better you actually make it compulsory, and then flavour it with the bias you want to set in your culture.

Ultimately, the best way to hide something is in plain sight. In this case, by putting education high on your list of priorities, the dystopian aspects of your regime are out there for everyone to see, but they aren't noticed because you've trained your citizens in a manner that directs their attentions elsewhere.

Put simply, your dystopian society (if it wants to last) wouldn't even be asking this question because they'd be too busy designing the curriculum for the next generation.

In addition - it's very useful for a totalitarian government (actually, for any kind of government) to be able to boast in the high quality education their people receive - both for internal propaganda and for international relations. This doesn't mean they have to actually provide high quality education, but if they do that anyway, than they'll definitely publicize this as a another proof that theirs is the right way of doing things, and of their superiority over their neighbors. — 11 hours ago

RonJohn 10k12650 · Answer 3 · 2018-08-05 02:46:39Z

IIRC from your other question regarding this Alternate Universe, it's in competition with the "Eastern Block". Are there any non-aligned nations, or nations on the periphery of the Eastern Block that could be swayed into the UFS by the UFS being technologically and economically superior?

Because -- just like in the real Cold War -- places like the USSR and GDR (German Democratic Republic) emphasized education:

because citizens educated in STEM make the economy better, and

those governments believed in the superiority of Communism, and so did not fear education.

Of course, what they taught in History and what American high schools call "Social Science" isn't exactly what was taught in American high schools. It was all about Communist indoctrination and how bad the West was.

The UFS will teach their students similar things for similar reasons.

score 5 · Answer 4 · 2018-08-05 16:26:35Z

Education is a powerful thing. Imagine what a country could do if nearly 100% of citizens could read by the age of 15. Imagine if they could get 11 years of mandatory education and then may go on to attend a four year university. That could be an astonishing force of innovation and freedom of thought.

Right?

If we feel like keeping track, the statistics I just gave are the statistics for the North Korean school system. I think we can choose to make our assumptions regarding how much freedom of thought exists under that regime.

"Education" is a word that we toss around gently in the Western world. We assume that it is a thing you get if you go to school enough. But when we look at it closer, the part that school system focuses on is indoctrination. It is by the virtue that we appreciate the particular indoctrinations that our school system provides that we assign a positive moral value to it.

Yes, there is more to schooling than just indoctrination. Our teachers have an enormous influence on the next generation, and we should respect that. But if we focus just on the school system, the system is one built on indoctrination, just as it has been since the first schoolrooms were built thousands of years ago.

The key to "education" (put in scare quotes in this case) is to control the knowledge put into the heads of the next generation. Why would a totalitarian dystopia like the one in your novel not want to have that kind of control? It'd certainly be an oversight.

If they did have to deal with "freedom of thought," what better place to have it occur than under the watchful eyes of the teachers and other students? It would be easier to identify the troublesome individuals if they were to demonstrate their troublesome tendencies in school!

But how do we know that the DPRKs statistics are even true. IsnÃ¢Â€Â™t it plausible that they embellish — 20 hours ago
@robertpaul of course they embellish. That is to be expected. But they see value in educating their citizen, and that is to my point. I am sure there is value in having a citizenry that can read the illustrious written works of their dear leader. — 20 hours ago

o.m. 52k571173 · Answer 5 · 2018-08-05 12:32:21Z

Because they need the parents in the workforce.

If education starts at age 4 or earlier, and if it includes lessons or other activities in the afternoon, then both parents and not just the father can contribute to the workforce. That will be important, considering how much economic friction and waste a fascist system creates.

There was a bleak joke in Nazi Germany -- "One third in the camps, one third guarding the camps, one third in the army, of course there is no more unemployment."

Because they believe they are right and want to tell it.

Good fictional villains don't act the way they do for the sake of evil. Not all of them will be stupid, either. The rest will have built a complex theoretical construct to justify what they do. If they recognize shortcomings of the dystopia, they'll tell themselves that those are necessary side effects for the greater good.

Civics will play a large role, justifying the current system and demonizing all others.

Racism can be cloaked in the mantle of science.

All other subjects can be used to frame the worldview.

Because common schooling builds a common society.

Fascism is about us vs. them. It is important that the oppressed workers believe that they belong to the same group as their oppressors, so they won't rebel. For that it helps if the child of the worker and the child of the mid-level party functionary went to the same preschool.

When they are a bit older the right students can be sent to schools more suitable for them.

L.Dutchâ™¦ 56.2k13136264 · Answer 6 · 2018-08-05 03:30:13Z

Freedom of thought and the attitude of challenging any statement coming from anybody has to be learned.

Dogmatism and the attitude of accepting any statement coming from an authority has also to be learned.

If you control the educational system, you can easily decide which of the two you can teach to your students. Plus you can add the daily dose of adulation toward the great leader and all the achievement the government has made.

Once you have settled that, you can afford to educate people, as they will contribute to the nation more as educated and trained mass than as uneducated and untrained.

gbjbaanb 1,480310 · Answer 7 · 2018-08-05 14:44:04Z

It depends - do you mean education, or the kind of indoctrination we see today?

For example. In many countries there are some religious schools that require their students to memorise a certain holy book and prophetic teachings. As far as they are concerned, other forms of education is for the non-believers (who are considered worthless anyway) and thus they think they are providing the kids with a valuable (nay, essential) education in what is correct and true and authorised. They do this because they were similarly indoctrinated and actually believe that nonsense. This can be very useful to some forms of government, as this kind of education can even persuade people to perform acts of suicide terrorism. A dystopian government can replace one holy book for another - I think we use John Maynard Keyne's "holy" book today, any one will do as long as it forms the backbone of the government's ideology.

But if you want a true education, where kids are taught to think for themselves then it becomes more tricky - the problem is that the kids will see that the dystopian government is dystopian and fix it from within as they become older and work within it, unless...

One solution to this situation is to either make them clever enough to understand that any government is dystopian (ie there is no utopia, only the naive and stupid believe that) so the current form is as good as any other - and replacing it would mean massive amounts of social disruption, so best keep it chugging along and make the best of it.

Another would be for the elites to be treated differently to the peasants and even though they know its a bad situation, they don't care - they get all the benefits while the peasantry work for their benefit. This is a more feudal government, education amongst the nobles was as good as it could be. Education for the peasants though, would be reduced or restricted - possibly with the excuse that not everyone is academically gifted and so all those non-elites have to have education tailored to their ability and focused on practical education. You could also modify this to a egalitarian elitism, where those kids who do have the academic gifts are promoted to the elite and then given everything they ever wanted (or be sent to the salt mines as dissidents)

There is the technocratic form, where education is the best is can be so workers can do much more for the state, whilst not giving them any form of political power - a stratified system of government, where some work, some govern and some fight (a bit like Plato's Golds and Silvers, who form the ruling and defending bodies while the majority just get on with their lives without oppression, except for that where they have no say in government policy)

jamesqf 7,86011430 · Answer 8 · 2018-08-05 17:10:36Z

The question can be answered in two words, by example: Mainland China.

To expand on this, education allows people to create things. This might be a strong economy, which allows your Union to out-compete the economies of other states. Or it might be new weapons systems, which keep those other states from attacking you.

I'm dubious about education leading to freedom of thought. Certainly we have plenty of counter-examples: "faith-based" Christian schools in the US, Islamic madrassas, the almost slavish adherence to socialism & political correctness in university liberal arts programs...

BentNielsen 32219 · Answer 9 · 2018-08-05 17:35:03Z

If you teach children things that aren't correct, things that they are taught that are correct are taught in a very hard manner, you will end up with children and later adults with very little knowledge and with little selfesteem.

In other words a good workforce of model citizens.

Teach the children that they are not worth much, that they cannot do anything other than what they are told to do.

Software_Programineer 1642 · Answer 10 · 2018-08-05 18:31:18Z

Subliminal messaging taught to children early makes for a compliant populace. As well as, knowledge is power, therefore an intelligent populace makes a stronger nation.

It could be that simple and doesn't need to be more than that. To control the minds of the populace by teaching them exactly what they want, and nothing more. Teaching them how to think, how to react, how to be complacent, and how to not stand up to the government.

The facilities as we know it would be different entirely. From what you describe I would expect it to be a military facility with dormitories for each age group, where they are cleansed into the perfect citizen through education.

The government could even take it a step further and using schooling and its testing to isolate the best of the best while they are still young. Then implement those few into super soldier programs, or scientist programs to bolster their power, or even to add to the loyal secret police force.

user53871 1 · Answer 11 · 2018-08-05 21:30:37Z

What if the truth of the world is something better left unknown? Like for instance if the OG Fascists, the Nazis, we're correct? What if the Aryan race really were superior to all other races of the world? The natural state of the world is Dystopian, and they're just making sure everyone knows this.

Questions are not answers. Unless you reform them into statements, your answer risks down votes or deletion as "not answering the question". — 3 hours ago
This does not provide an answer to the question. Once you have sufficient reputation you will be able to comment on any post; instead, provide answers that don't require clarification from the asker. - From Review — 2 hours ago

Fermi paradox 272312 · Answer 12 · 2018-08-05 17:57:54Z

Well they wouldn't want them to be "educated" in the classical sense, but they would want them to be "schooled" in the 20th-century sense.

Taking children away from their parents and making them sit in classrooms with same-age cohorts for all of their most formative years does a lot for your totalitarian government:

it weakens the family (the naturally strongest building block of society, hence the biggest threat to your government)

it breaks down independent spirits and creative thinking

it accustoms children to the idea that truth and validation all comes from the judgments ("grades") of authority figures they didn't elect for themselves.

Certainly the teachers will all be loyal party members, or true believers in the official ideology, so it's a way to reward the party's supporters with jobs and to reinforce party ideology as part of the curriculum. Also, it makes a lot of the victims/students grow to hate learning, so by age 18 they're ready to never read another book.

Uh... wait a minute...

Yup! Look up the history of the North American school system. It's descended directly from the Prussian system intended to prepare people for life in the assembly line at the beginning of the industrial age. — 22 hours ago
Actually, as bad as you guys think you have it, you'll have to go into way more controlled school systems to get some contrast. Try working in China's system. There is a reason people pump huge amount of money to sent their children to school overseas; people know their education system is messed up. — 11 hours ago
As an excellent illustration of how this works in supposedly free societies, see Erica GoldsonÃ¢Â€Â™s graduation speech. — 10 hours ago
Wrong. For one thing, the "family" is only the strongest unit of societies which insist on imposing paternalistic religions on people. — 8 hours ago
@jamesqf what led you to this assumption? I thought strong family bonds make school indoctrination less effective since it requires propaganda on 2 consecutive generations instead of 1. — 7 hours ago

Tim B II 16.8k23779 · Answer 13 · 2018-08-05 02:57:05Z