The chaos and societal destruction that we are currently seeing are the products of American society’s abandonment of the traditional values of Western Civilization, an expert on history says. “The whole Western world and civilization came from a mixture of Roman politics, Greek philosophy and Christianity,” Fred Markert, an expert on the decline of the preeminent civilizations in our world’s history, said in an interview with the Health Ranger Mike Adams, noting that while Greek and Roman philosophy and politics existed before Christianity, it was the latter’s values that enlivened the correct ideas of Roman politics and Greek philosophy.
“It gave life to them and that sparked the greatest civilization the world has ever seen,” Markert said during his appearance at Brighteon Conversations.
According to Markert, however, these principles and philosophies have become largely forgotten – a problem that has since become a factor in the decline of American society.
This abandonment of Western Civilization is not an accident, Markert points out, but rather, the result of an insidious conspiracy by Marxists who infiltrated several educational institutions during the 1930s as part of their plans for a takeover of the United States.
This strategy was hatched by adherents of the Frankfurt School – a branch of Communism that was highly critical of the orthodox and literal interpretation of Marxism – and was hinged on the idea that for Marxism to truly succeed in the industrialized nations, it must first gain substantial influence on culture and civilization.
“They developed a strategy and a plan for Marxist revolution and as Hitler was coming to power, the Frankfurt School fled to America, where they were embraced by prestigious American universities,” Markert said.
Over the course of the next year, in 1934, these Frankfurt School Marxists developed “The Long March to the High Places of the Culture,” a roadmap detailing the steps that Marxists must take in order to successfully drive their Communist agenda. Part of this agenda was gaining influence over the universities and the educational system, as well as television, movies and music. (Related: Academic hypocrisy: Stanford, liberal universities accepted funds from commie Beijing)
“They called it a long march because they knew it would be a hundred years or so before they could accomplish their goal,” Markert said, adding that we’re seeing today is just the fruit of something that began in America around 1933 and 1934. “Unhealthy” U.S. educational system pushing society to a new Dark Age
Compounding the issue is the American educational system’s misplaced focus on the idea of producing so-called “experts.”
“When our experts developed the nuclear bomb, which we used to stop the war, that began the American fascination with ‘experts,’” Markert said.
This unhealthy emphasis on gaining expertise in singular fields has caused people to get siloed in their knowledge, which, in the long run, has been proven to have detrimental effects not just on the educational system, but on society as a whole.
Part of this, Markert explained, is that “experts” – who are often asked to lead integral positions in society – know very little out of their respective silos.
In addition, the American fascination with “experts” has led to a false sense of elitism, which, in turn, has caused most of the population to denigrate people who specialize in trades, such as farmers and laborers.
“We also denigrated other trades such as those who work in agriculture, calling them deplorable. We sneer at those people rather than embrace those people,” Markert lamented.
Markert also noted that American society’s obsession with becoming experts has led to the idea that everybody must get a degree – including those who are really are not the best candidates for that.
This rat race has resulted in disastrous consequences, such as the staggering dropout rate in American college students.
“In most societies of the world, only about 20 to 30 percent of people ever get a degree, and what we’ve done, is because of our emphasis on experts and gaining expertise, we drive everyone to college to get a degree,” Markert explained, noting that this is in stark contrast to other Western nations, which have trade schools for people who do not wish to go to college.
“You know what they do in Germany? Fifty-nine percent aren’t going to get a degree so they have trade schools, they go to trade schools instead of college. They’re welders, plumbers, electricians, who make so much money, they do better than our college graduates, actually. We have a very sick educational system because of our reliance on these experts,” Markert explained.
Markert continued that those who do pursue college degrees often opt for the soft sciences instead of taking up courses in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.
This has since resulted in a lack of scientists and engineers in the United States.
“Why do we import so many East Indians and Chinese engineers? It’s because we’re not producing our own. China right now is number one in reading, science and math. It used to be that the USA was number one in reading, science and math — right now we’re 17th in reading, 27th in science, and 37th in math and those are the three skills needed to rebuild a complex society or even to maintain it,” he said.
This claim aligns with data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which notes that 21 percent of adults in the United States – a percentage that translates to about 43 million individuals – fall into the illiterate/functionally illiterate category.
According to Markert, this poor educational performance puts America in a dangerous position – a position not unlike that of Rome’s during the start of the Dark Ages.
“We used to read Plato, we used to read Aristotle, we used to read Shakespeare — which were all morality plays, right? — we used to read the great works, the foundational works, the foundational documents and every new generation of Americans would wrestle with these ideas for themselves, make these ideas their own, and because they were their own, we were able to replenish our institutions,” Markert stated, adding that the same cannot be said today.
“Now, we don’t teach any of these foundational documents, we’re no longer watering the roots of our civilization which was the Marxist strategy so that they were able to deconstruct our civilization,” Markert explained.
Markert further noted that the educational system has become engineered to ensure that students end up knowing just enough for them to be considered productive.
“They want people just barely smart enough to do Microsoft Word and run spreadsheets to keep the machinery going of civilization, but not have any critical reasoning abilities,” he explained.
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