Article #2 >>>>> The Origins and Consequences of Wretched Public Education Throughout the United States

Failure to Develop a Knowledgeable Citizenry Across Race and Class Has Maintained the Contradictions of Our Dual Reality

The dual reality of United States society has persisted since the nation gained international recognition in the aftermath of the 1783 Treaty of Paris;  the behavioral antecedents were present in the British Atlantic colonies.

Thomas Jefferson personified the contradictions inherent in the dual identity.  Jefferson was the foremost synthesizer of the ideas of John Locke, the Marquis de Montesquieu, and Jean Jacques Rousseau, as evident in The Declaration of Independence.  His writings powerfully assert the Natural Rights to which all human beings are entitled, and he promulgated a doctrine that considered all citizens equal before the law.   

But in the course of his life, Jefferson owned 600 slaves, 500 more than did his friend and main author if the United States Constitution, fellow Virginian James Madison.  Jefferson conveyed in his writings a sense that slavery was an immoral institution that would be terminated in the decades to come.  But those writings could be tortuously inconsistent on the subject and on the intellectual and social equality of those of European, African, and indigenous ancestry. 

Thus, the contradictions pertinent to the dual reality were personified by Jefferson and manifest in the leadership and society during the late 18th century and early 19th century founding and nascent life of the nation. 

But in the noblest ideals of Jefferson, and in the magnificent document generated by Madison, there was a basis for early resolution of the contradictions in the dual reality so that our national life could proceed on the basis of a fully democratic and equitable polity.  

Contributing heavily to the failure to resolve the contradictions in favor of the better component of the dual reality was inadequate development of a key Jeffersonian prerequisite for participatory government in which the citizenry is the moving force   >>>>>

>>>>>   public education, for the development of knowledgeable and enlightened citizenry.

Never in the history of the United States have we had public education capable of developing knowledgeable citizens across race and class.

And thus, in the context of wretched public education, we dwell in cognitive dissonance as the land of democratic opportunity, land of stark inequity.