Submitted by M Tovey (United States), Aug 24, 2020 at 23:12
Elsewhere in this post of the folly of intellectualism, the reader expressed how the earlier attempts of inculcating the reasons why the American way seemed to break the mold in how empires tried to influence their various people in thinking that the 'fearless leader' had the plan for their lives, only to take away those lives that did not fit the mold.
Higher education was given a brief, howbeit very brief audience to explain the benefits of socialistic ideas (did not read Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals,' some how missed that on the reading list); all of it too no avail after reading the 'Handbook for Soviet Officers,' somehow found in an American library as translated into English. The professor of the class was initially elated that I had found the volume, only to later express contempt in a less than satisfactory grade on the paper I wrote outlining what I considered the true salient features of the indoctrination being the central focus of its revelation of model Soviet attitudes cherished by the former Soviet military. Actually it made for fascinating reading, but lacked true authoritative evident that the Soviet military model was any better than that found in the American versions for the United States military; Navy; Army; or Air Force. The main distinctive was found in what was worth defending. My knowledge of my forebears in America had the historical advantage; the fight was for the truth.
In reading from schooling prior to the higher academics, the issues of the heights and depths that America was forced through, ideal of social equality during the American Civil War, the Spanish America War, World Wars One and Two found my ancestors being tested for loyalty to the cause of the revolution that my earlier ancestors sacrificed so much for; and yet, there was much to be dubious of. Not that any of my ancestors fought without honor, but that the objectives were sometime blurred in the background political motives in each of the eras America has endured.
This was never more contrasted so starkly than that in the War of my era; Viet Nam. Socialist tendencies were already the fashion in the political motive inherited from the previous generation, all of which this observer now traces in the historical sabotage that is Marxism, the bane of the modern intellectual track on the way to decadence and the eventual decline of Western civilization due to the apostate attitude of totalitarianism and the heretic secularistic socialist agenda foisted upon history by Marx.
Intellectualism is actually a disease of the mind, not its enhancement. The culture wars spoken of elsewhere in this post and forum are the symptoms and with all appearances of no one really knowing how to extricate humanity from its grip, the forecasts of destiny are not looking all that good.
Issues of the mind cannot be exorcised by any really good arguments, disciples of either side offering good arguments after good arguments, yet neither side conceding nor offering quarter.
What they all forget; it is the heart that brings the peace; all the rest bring destruction, something the intellectual has a hard time understanding. That is what the professors did not convey; instead they harped on how smart they were in being the erudite intellectual they were; and everyone should obey their minds to the destruction of what the hearts were saying otherwise. That's the lesson this reader learned away from higher education.
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