Indoktrinaatio ja demokratia

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Indoktrinaatio ja demokratia

Tämän tekstin tarkoituksena on vahvistaa demokratiaa. Haluan vahvistaa lukijan tahtoa ja taitoa kyseenalaistaa. Teksti auttaa ymmärtämään, miksi ja miten eurokriisiä ja monikulttuurillisuutta käsitellään uskonnon kaltaisina ideologioina.

Tekstin ymmärtäminen on arvokasta niille, jotka ovat kiinnostuneita yleisen mielipiteen muodostumisesta ja demokratian edellytyksistä. Kirjoitus koostuu kolmen filosofin tekstin lyhennelmistä ja Wikipediasta poimituista käsitteiden määrittelyistä. Käsitteiden määrittelyt ovat lopussa.

Wikipedia: "Indoctrination is the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology. It is often distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned."

Noam Chomsky: "For those who stubbornly seek freedom around the world, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination."

Propaganda, American-style, Noam Chomsky
Alla oleva on lyhennelmä. Jaon kappaleita pienemmiksi, jotta yksittäiset ajatukset nousevat paremmin esiin. Merkintä "..." tarkoittaa, että jotain on jätetty pois alkuperäisestä tekstistä.

In 1921, the famous American journalist Walter Lippmann said that the art of democracy requires what he called the "manufacture of consent." This phrase is an Orwellian euphemism for thought control. The idea is that in a state such as the U.S. where the government can't control the people by force, it had better control what they think..

The Soviet Union is at the opposite end of the spectrum from us in its domestic freedoms. It's essentially a country run by the bludgeon. It's very easy to determine what propaganda is in the USSR: what the state produces is propaganda.

...

In totalitarian societies where there's a Ministry of Truth, propaganda doesn't really try to control your thoughts. It just gives you the party line. It says, "Here's the official doctrine; don't disobey and you won't get in trouble. What you think is not of great importance to anyone. If you get out of line we'll do something to you because we have force."

Democratic societies can't work like that, because the state is much more limited in its capacity to control behavior by force. Since the voice of the people is allowed to speak out, those in power better control what that voice says--in other words, control what people think. One of the ways to do this is to create political debate that appears to embrace many opinions, but actually stays within very narrow margins.

You have to make sure that both sides in the debate accept certain assumptions--and that those assumptions are the basis of the propaganda system. As long as everyone accepts the propaganda system, the debate is permissible.

...

During the Vietnam War, the U.S. propaganda system did its job partially but not entirely. Among educated people it worked very well. Studies show that among the more educated parts of the population, the government's propaganda about the war is now accepted unquestioningly.

One reason that propaganda often works better on the educated than on the uneducated is that educated people read more, so they receive more propaganda.

Another is that they have jobs in management, media, and academia and therefore work in some capacity as agents of the propaganda system--and they believe what the system expects them to believe. By and large, they're part of the privileged elite, and share the interests and perceptions of those in power.

...

On the other hand, the government had problems in controlling the opinions of the general population. According to some of the latest polls, over 70 percent of Americans still thought the war was, to quote the Gallup Poll, "fundamentally wrong and immoral, not a mistake."

Due to the widespread opposition to the Vietnam War, the propaganda system lost its grip on the beliefs of many Americans. They grew skeptical about what they were told. In this case there's even a name for the erosion of belief. It's called the "Vietnam Syndrome," a grave disease in the eyes of America's elites because people understand too much.

...

All this falls under Walter Lippmann's notion of "the manufacture of consent."

Democracy permits the voice of the people to be heard, and it is the task of the intellectual to ensure that this voice endorses what leaders perceive to be the right course. Propaganda is to democracy what violence is to totalitarianism.

The techniques have been honed to a high art in the U.S. and elsewhere, far beyond anything that Orwell dreamed of. The device of feigned dissent (as practiced by the Vietnam- era "doves," who criticized the war on the grounds of effectiveness and not principle) is one of the more subtle means, though simple lying and suppressing fact and other crude techniques are also highly effective.

...

For those who stubbornly seek freedom around the world, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the propaganda system to which we are subjected and in which all too often we serve as unwilling or unwitting instruments.

Separating Truth and Belief, Dissent Magazine, André Glucksmann, 2006
This distinction between fact and belief is at the heart of Western thought. Aristotle distinguished between indicative discourse on the one hand, which could be use to reach an affirmation or a negation, and prayer on the other. Prayers are not a matter for discussion, because they do not state: they implore, promise, vow and declare. They do not relate information, they perform an act. When the Islamist fanatic affirms that Europeans practise the 'religion of the Shoah' while he practises that of Muhammad, he abolishes the distinction between fact and belief. For him there are only beliefs, and so it follows that Europe will favour its own.

...

Civilised discourse analyses and defines scientific truths, historic truths and matters of fact relating to knowledge, not to faith. And it does this irrespective of race or confession. We may believe these facts are profane or undignified, yet they remain distinct from religious truths. Our planet is not in the grips of a clash of civilisations or cultures. It is the battleground of a decisive struggle between two ways of thinking. There are those who declare that there are no facts, but only interpretations – so many acts of faith. These either tend toward fanaticism ('I am the truth') or they fall into nihilism ('nothing is true, nothing is false'). Opposing them are those who advocate free discussion with a view to distinguishing between true and false, those for whom political and scientific matters – or simple judgement – can be settled on the basis of worldly facts, independently of arbitrary pre-established opinions.

A totalitarian way of thinking loathes to be gainsaid. It affirms dogmatically, and waves the little red, or black, or green book. It is obscurantist, blending politics and religion. Anti-totalitarian thinking, by contrast, takes facts for what they are and acknowledges even the most hideous of them, those one would prefer to keep hidden out of fear or for the sake of utility. Bringing the gulag to light made it possible to criticise and ultimately reject 'actually existing socialism.' Confronting the Nazi abominations and opening the extermination camps converted Europe
to democracy after 1945. Refusing to face the cruellest historical facts, on the other hand, heralds the return of cruelty. Whether the Islamists – who are far from representing all Muslims – like it or not, there is no common measure between negating known facts and criticising any one of the beliefs which every European has the right to practice or poke fun at.

...

It is high time that the democrats regained their spirit, and that the constitutional states remembered their principles. With solemnity and solidarity they must recall that one, two or three religions, four or five ideologies may in no way decide what citizens can do or think. What is at stake here is not only the freedom of the press, but also the permission to call a spade a spade and a gas chamber an abomination, regardless of our beliefs. What is at stake is the basis of all morality: here on earth the respect due to each individual starts with the recognition and rejection of the most flagrant examples of inhumanity.


Dissent Magazine
Dissent is a quarterly magazine of politics and culture edited by Michael Kazin and Michael Walzer. A magazine of the left, Dissent is also one of independent minds and strong opinions. "A pillar of leftist intellectual provocation," writes the New York Times, Dissent is "devoted to slaying orthodoxies on the right and on the left." Adds historian John Patrick Diggins, "Dissent is kind of an anomaly...a magazine that's all heart and good hope."

Dissent, Wikipedia

Ratkaisu

The Public and its Problems, John Dewey, (Wikipediasta)
The public is called into being when ordinary citizens experience the negative externalities (or consequences) of exchanges beyond their control (such as market or governmental activities). A public then is made up of citizens whose common interest is focused on alleviating these negative externalities through legislation; in fact, Dewey argues that a public does not actually exist until a negative externality calls it into being.

Dewey asserts that this occurs when people perceive how consequences of indirect actions affect them collectively: "Indirect, extensive, enduring and serious consequences of conjoint and interacting behavior call a public into existence having a common interest in controlling these consequences".[1] Hence, a public only develops when it has a reason and comes together around an issue of substantial or serious significance.

In the second half of The Public and its Problems, Dewey concedes to the arguments of adversaries of modern democracy (such as Walter Lippman) by describing all the powerful forces at work that eclipse the public and prevent it from articulating its needs. For example, Dewey explains how special interests, powerful corporate capital, numbing and distracting entertainment, general selfishness, and the vagaries of public communication make effective public deliberation difficult.

Käsitteitä wikipediasta

Indoktrinaatio, Wikipedia
Indoktrinaation (suom. iskostus) käsite viittaa kasvatusfilosofiassa sellaiseen opettamiseen, jossa oppilas tai opiskelija asetetaan opetuksen kohteeksi, johon annetut opetussisällöt vain siirretään. Voidaan puhua myös manipulatiivisesta tai tendenssimäisestä opetuksesta. Indoktrinatiivinen opetus kantilaisesti määriteltynä on oppilaan tarkoituksellista alaikäisenä pitämistä. Oppilas ei missään vaiheessa nouse tasolle, jossa hän voisi itsenäisesti arvioida opetussisältöjen pätevyyttä. Indoktrinaatio-termin sen kielteisessä merkityksessä kehitti kasvatusfilosofi William Heard Kilpatrick 1920-luvulla Yhdysvalloissa.


Indoktrinaatiokeskustelussa on käytetty neljää kriteeriä indoktrinaation erottamiseksi opetuksesta:

1. Amerikkalaisessa keskustelussa erityisesti John Deweyn vaikutuksesta on pyritty liittämään indoktrinaatio tietynlaiseen opetusmenetelmään eli puhutaan metodikriteeristä. Tämän epäilyttävän opetusmenetelmän piirteiksi on mainittu seuraavia elementtejä:
  - opetus on autoritaarista,
  - opetussisältö ikään kuin tungetaan oppilaan päähän (drummed in, drilled),
  - opetuksessa käytetään hyväksi jonkinlaista uhkaa ja
  - vapaa keskustelu kielletään.
Monesti nämä seikat on lyhennetty epärationaaliseksi opetusmenetelmäksi.

2. Sisältökriteerin mukaan opetussisällöstä seuraa, onko kyseessä indoktrinaatio vai ei. Tämä käsitys lähtee itse indoktrinaatio-termin etymologiasta. Indoktrinaatio on doktriinin välittämistä. "Ei doktriineja; ei indoktrinaatiota".

3. Seurauskriteerissä lähdetään indoktrinoidun persoonan käsitteestä. Jean-Paul Sartrea mukaillen John Wilson toteaa, että indoktrinoitu ihminen elää itsepetoksessa. Hän on eräänlainen unissakävelijä. Hänen maailmankatsomuksensa perusteiden katsotaan tavalla tai toisella olevan kestämättömiä. Kasvatus on indoktrinaatiota silloin, kun sen seurauksena on indoktrinoitu epärationaalinen persoona.

4. Ensimmäinen intentiokriteerin käyttäjä oli negatiivisen indoktrinaatio- käsitteen kehittäjä William Heard Kilpatrick. Hän ei kiellä tahattoman indoktrinaation mahdollisuutta, mutta pitää intentiota kielteisessä merkityksessä käytetyn indoktrinaation käsitteen tärkeimpänä kriteerinä. John Whiten mukaan opettaja on indoktrinoija, jos hänen intentionaan on saada oppilas uskomaan P:hen (P=väite, uskomus, doktriini ja niin edelleen) sellaisella tavalla, jossa mikään ei horjuta tätä uskomusta




Indoctrination, Wikipedia
Indoctrination is the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology (see doctrine).[1] It is often distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned.[2] As such the term may be used pejoratively, often in the context of education, political opinions, theology or religious dogma. The term is closely linked to socialization; in common discourse, indoctrination is often associated with negative connotations, while socialization refers to cultural or educational learning.


Propaganda, Wikipedia
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. Propaganda is usually repeated and dispersed over a wide variety of media in order to create the chosen result in audience attitudes.


Lie, Wikipedia
To lie is to hold something which one knows is not the whole truth to be the whole truth, intentionally.


Totalitarianism, Wikipedia
Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible.[1] Totalitarian regimes stay in political power through an all-encompassing propaganda campaign, which is disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, a single party that is often marked by political repression, personality cultism, control over the economy, regulation and restriction of speech, mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror.


Democracy, Wikipedia
Democracy is an egalitarian form of government in which all the citizens of a nation together determine public policy, the laws and the actions of their state, requiring that all citizens (meeting certain qualifications) have an equal opportunity to express their opinion. In practice, "democracy" is the extent to which a given system approximates this ideal, and a given political system is referred to as "a democracy" if it allows a certain approximation to ideal democracy. Although no country has ever granted all its citizens (i.e. including minors) the vote, most countries today hold regular elections based on egalitarian principles, at least in theory.

[Nanfung]

Indoktrinaatio, Wikipedia
Indoktrinaation (suom. iskostus) käsite viittaa kasvatusfilosofiassa sellaiseen opettamiseen, jossa oppilas tai opiskelija asetetaan opetuksen kohteeksi, johon annetut opetussisällöt vain siirretään. Voidaan puhua myös manipulatiivisesta tai tendenssimäisestä opetuksesta. Indoktrinatiivinen opetus kantilaisesti määriteltynä on oppilaan tarkoituksellista alaikäisenä pitämistä. Oppilas ei missään vaiheessa nouse tasolle, jossa hän voisi itsenäisesti arvioida opetussisältöjen pätevyyttä.

Tässä muutama esimerkkitapaus kyseisen opetusmetodin tehokkuudesta? 

http://www.svenskanu.fi/pdfs/pdf_5_7