Article #9 in a Series >>>>> Concise Observations on Existence and Education

Consequence of Abysmal Education for the Individual >>>>>  An Earthly Sojourn Lived in Abject Ignorance (Part One)

The typical individual lives out her or his one earthly sojourn in abject ignorance.

The beauty and intricacy of mathematics remains a mystery.  With foundations ill-established by math-phobic K-5 teachers, for many people fractions remain perceptibly higher mathematics, decimals are dimly comprehended, percentages are vaguely grasped, and long division is a lost art.  Ill-prepared for advance even to algebra or geometry, the typical  individual never enters the splendor of higher order reasoning developed through experience with advanced statistics, trigonometry, calculus, differential equations, and beyond.  The typical individual makes all manner of ill-considered decisions in the course of a lifetime left ignorant as to mathematical probability and higher order reasoning.

The typical individual has little understanding of biology, chemistry, or physics.  She or he has the barest grasp of human anatomy, physiology, diet, nutrition, and physical training.  The typical individual has little sense of the age of the universe, evolution of life, the nature of the cosmos, the scientific principles that undergird existence.  Such an individual proceeds on the basis of supposition and superstition, a world of ignorant conjecture rather than factual analysis.

An individual going forth from wretched K-12 education has no comprehension of the sequence of world and American events over time;  any detailed knowledge of political theory or practical governance; the geographical fundamentals of the globe on which she or he dwells;    international economic systems, macro and micro economics, monetary and fiscal policy, the Federal Reserve or World Bank or International Monetary Fund;  the psychological principles that predict, determine, and as ongoing reality govern the individual life. 

The typical person reads at a grade 7 level, has little knowledge of musical composition, dim appreciation for musical genres, no ability to play a musical instrument, is bereft of knowledge and appreciation for the  literature, painting, and sculpture produced in magnificent diversity across civilizations.

The individual of most common encounter is inept at manual tasks and the fundamentals of skills practiced in vocational trades, unable even to ask intelligent questions or to follow rudimentary explanations.  

The typical person knows little of any language not of her or his nativity, more likely to resent or fear an unfamiliar language than to assuage her or his ignorance.  

The typical individual is more likely to cling to crude, ego-aggrandizing forms of religion and to live without a consistent moral code than to grasp the transcendent concepts and ethical precepts of world religious and humanistic traditions.   

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Such an individual lives out her or his one earthly sojourn bereft of knowledge, skill, analytical reasoning, higher culture, and morality.  Such a person is ever susceptible to  manipulation by demagogues and to her or his own irrationality and immorality. 

And because such individuals dominate the earth, we bear the consequences--- despite the presence of counterexample in the lives and achievement of those who have ascended to intellectual and cultural heights---  of the resulting  violence, cruelty, and debased avocations observable across a world in which most people go to their graves never remotely aware of the ascendant potential of the great gift of 

Life.