{"id":235044,"date":"2023-05-08T12:00:27","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T11:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=235044"},"modified":"2023-05-08T10:45:53","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T09:45:53","slug":"risen-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/05\/risen-word\/","title":{"rendered":"Risen Word"},"content":{"rendered":"

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7 May 2023 – <\/em>A divide between elites and the populace is a recurrent feature of every large, organized society. That has been true without exception since the abundance generated by the mastery of agriculture\/husbandry encouraged the growth and elaboration of early Neolithic bands. There are no known exceptions; but there are variations and modalities. A key to elite dominance always was the superior group\u2019s monopoly \u2013 or quasi monopoly \u2013 of crucial knowledge. Before the introduction of writing, it took oral form. The subjects covered matters temporal as well as sacred. In those cultures, like Hinduism, where most practical matters were sacrilized, access to religious materials \u2013 the mythic eschatology, prayers, rituals \u2013 was crucial to consolidating the power of a priesthood in alliance with warrior castes. That alliance, overt or tacit, has been the foundation stone of elite rulership and economic control throughout history. Only over the past 250 years has it been challenged by the radiating influence of the Western Enlightenment.<\/p>\n

Once sacred knowledge, supplemented by crucial profane knowledge, e.g. hydraulics, elementary mechanics, basic commercial accounting, was written down \u2013 first in hieroglyphs and then, about 1,800 BCE, in alphabetized languages \u2013\u00a0literacy became the principal instrument by which to consolidate elite power and privilege.\u00a0<\/em>Education aimed at expanding the number of citizens with the ability to access foundational materials never served the interests of the elites. On the contrary, they made systematic efforts to restrict it.\u00a0\u00a0Anthropologists and historians believe that literacy rates in ancient states was somewhere around 2%. In Greece of antiquity and parts of the Roman Empire it may have risen higher in the single digits \u2013 plus, perhaps, a few other \u2018semi-literate\u2019 persons possessing just a rudimentary knowledge and an inability to compose written communications. Scribes and town criers filled the gaps. In some cultures that remained the case right into the 20th<\/sup>\u00a0century.<\/p>\n

In India, Brahmins strove to reserve access to the holy texts exclusively to themselves. Mass ignorance of what they said, their stipulations and justifications, was a powerful tool of social direction and social control.\u00a0\u00a0Until very recently, education was therefore the key to social advancement \u2013 which in Hindu India was almost always collectively by caste redesignation. The way it worked was that a low-ranked caste would use the knowledge \u2013 profane and sacred mixed \u2013 acquired by a critical mass of literate young to reshape their practices and self-presentation to conform to the standards of higher castes \u2013 and thereby to provide the religious\u00a0cum<\/em>\u00a0(contrived) historical justifications for the new, preferred status. In effect, striving to get reassigned within the cast hierarchy rather than escaping caste identity. In a paradoxical inversion of the process, after independence incentives were created for marginal castes at the boundary of low Shudra and Untouchable to accept the latter status since the constitution incorporated \u2018affirmative action\u201d principles that reserved places in universities and government employment for persons from the qualifying \u201cScheduled castes.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Dalits of India Unite! You have Nothing to Lose But Your Schedules.<\/em><\/p>\n

The British Raj saw advantage in perpetuating the traditional system of mass illiteracy. They rightly believed that an illiterate populace was easier to manipulate and to control. In cynical fashion, they restricted education to the slim cadre of natives they needed to administer the Raj, to secure it, and to perform supportive economic functions. In 1900, Viceroy Lord Curzon gave a state of the Raj speech in which he estimated literacy at 3% (1% in English). In 1947, it was only 11%. The Rajas and Nizams who ruled the native states saw their own interest in the same parsimonious approach to education. In other words, the part of the population with access to written knowledge under the Raj circa 1900 was roughly the same as it had been in the time of the Mauryas or Guptas two millennia earlier and lower than it had been in Ctesiphon or Antioch or Taxila. British strategy for holding India\u2019s vast masses under their thumb was simplicity itself: keep them dumb and divided.\u00a0\u00a0Playing caste against caste, sect against sect, has been the trump card of Indian rulers since time immemorial \u2013 continuing right until today under Mr. Modi who is a master of the game.<\/p>\n

In the end, their fatal error was to underestimate the ability of a politically astute, prideful few to arouse the inert masses.<\/p>\n

The Christian Church<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0went one step further. In the West, the Vatican for 1,500 years kept the Holy Scripture sealed in a language that only a handful of the Faithful could understand \u2013 much less read.\u00a0\u00a0(Economists these days achieve a similar purpose by writing in unintelligible Algebra).\u00a0It served the proselytizing and institution-building goals of the early Church leaders to minimize actual reading of the Gospels. After all, there is no mention of the Trinity, of Purgatory, a celibate priesthood, or an organized church of any kind. Nor the misogyny that was inserted by calculating forgers- e.g. the entirety of Timothy I and late accretions to Corinthians 14. Women deacons are not referenced. The Gospel writers go so far as to offer divergent accounts of the Resurrection and two actually \u2018overlook\u2019 the Virgin Birth. Much of this dogma was propagated because early believers, including Paul, wrongly expected the Second Coming to be imminent. When the Day of Judgement didn\u2019t arrive as anticipated by the Apostles (all of whom were illiterate as probably was Jesus), the master builders (all literate) took over to lay the foundation for an elaborate religious structure. How inconvenient if literate masses could notice all these awkward truths of the Gospel texts \u2013 while lacking the necessary training in exegesis to finesse them. Even more inconvenient were they to realize that Church leaders showed very little inclination to observe the teachings of Jesus in their own conduct.*<\/em><\/p>\n

Organized religion\u2019s sustaining logic broke down slowly in the West with the introduction of the printing press<\/em>. Literacy spread with increasing rapidity over the next three and a half centuries. Technological, economic, demographic developments forced the pace. The United States was the pacesetter. By the Civil War, illiteracy was the exception rather than the norm, only approximately 10% of the white population could not read and write. Of course, subsequent waves of immigrants knew only their native language \u2013 and some were illiterate even in it. The former condition was compensated by newspapers in foreign languages that had a substantial readership right into the early post-war era. Today, Chinese and Spanish language papers are readily available in all large cities. It also is noteworthy that literacy was provided by secular, civic schools \u2013 a principle ignored by the current misguided Charter School movement.<\/p>\n

Neuroscience in recent years has uncovered an intriguing new aspect of illiteracy.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0It appears that the mental process of acquiring literacy actually reconfigures elements of the brain\u2019s neurological networks. Physiologically, the brain of a literate person is different from that of an illiterate. An important corollary effect of this transformation is to markedly enhance the mind\u2019s analytical capabilities. In short, a literate person is more discerning of others\u2019 behavior and intentions \u2013 potentially more skeptical. Hence, the interest of elites in keeping the masses not only ignorant but more inclined to conform to ritualized group norms. Something they have sensed instinctively. Later, they perfected indoctrination as the counter to the disrupting effects of literacy.<\/p>\n

In the post-modern societies of the \u2018West<\/strong>,\u2019 the potential for social control through indoctrination seems unlimited. How else do you explain the behavior of millions who act voluntarily in ways that harm their well-being? On a routine basis, we observe phenomena of this sort that set new marks for credulity and illogically. The most glaring example is provided by the 73 million Americans who voted for the odious, mentally disturbed Donald Trump who had shown pronounced Fascist tendencies over the 4 previous years. That\u2019s 48% of the electorate. By contrast, the Nazi Party never scored more than 33%; Mussolini\u2019s Fascists never participated in a fair and open election. In Spain, in the crucial 1936 election, the far Right represented by the anti-Republic\u00a0Confederaci\u00f3n Espa\u00f1ola de Derechas Aut\u00f3nomas (CEDA)<\/strong>,\u00a0which was the precursor for Franco\u2019s Falangists, gained 34%.\u00a0\u00a0In Austria, the last free election of 1930 gave the proto-Fascist parties (loosely defined) about 21% of the vote. In Romania, the Fascist Iron Guard, under the label of the Legion Party at the\u00a01937 parliamentary elections<\/a>,\u00a0came in third with 15.5% of the vote. What all those countries experienced was\u00a0Triumph of the Fascist Will<\/strong>. Let\u2019s also bear in mind the turbulence of the times \u2013 two decades of economic distress, the destruction and dislocation of WW I, post-war grievances over Versailles, irredentism, Communists, etc. as compared to trauma-free United States circa 2020. Perhaps, the future film version of our times should be titled \u201cWackos Without Cause.\u201d<\/em>2<\/em><\/p>\n

The susceptibility of the literate to indoctrination is even more evident in the financial\/commercial sphere. Consider the ease with which business plants an appetite for products which the buyers don\u2019t need, desired only yesterday, and whose very existence they learned of last week \u2013 like the latest electronic gadget \u2018upgraded\u2019 every year or so. The godfather to the refinement of modern advertising\/public relations techniques was Freud\u2019s nephew Bernays who, settled in New York, drew on the insights regarding group psychology of his uncle. (The main elements of Bernays\u2019 strategic philosophy are conveyed in this short video:<\/p>\n