“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. As I write, the number-one videocassette rental in America is the movie Dumb and Dumber. “Beavis and Butthead” remain popular (and influential) with young TV viewers. The plain lesson is that study and learning—not just of science, but of anything—are avoidable, even undesirable.” ― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, 1995
Yes, they did, and they created a special education and teaching tool, the Great Seal of the United States of America, to educate all the population on thinking systems. It is printed today on the dollar bill. Alas, we entirely stopped teaching the meaning in schools about 100 years ago and we are paying the price since year 2013.
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“Esoteric spirit that moved not only the people who drew that [Great] Seal, but the entire philosophy the early republic was based upon. And how utterly deplorable and regrettable and terrible it is that all of this has been virtually totally forgotten by our days. And that we have held, The American People, have held in their very hands, handed to them by people like Franklin and Jefferson and all kinds of others… One of the most splendid treasures of spiritual philosophy - applicable to all manner of human purposes. And we have discarded it. And we are running around like beggars, the world over, picking up crumbs from every kind of anarchists, Marxists, this thing, fascists, this thing that thing, all over the world. All of which, put together, could never come close to the psychological spiritual wisdom that was given to us to begin with… and that we have simply forgotten about and thrown away. And how incredibly unfortunate and terrible this is. And, I know for a fact, that Joseph Campbell feels this very very keenly.” - Dr. Stephan A. Hoeller, 1987 lecture