By Elise DeYoung
Social engineering is hardly novel. Whether in totalitarian states like North Korea or dystopian novels such as George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm, this method of mass manipulation is widely recognized and feared throughout the free world as the silent killer of civilizations.
In his book, The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis articulates the aim of social engineering: “Traditional values are to be debunked,” he wrote, “and mankind cut out into some fresh shape at the will of some few lucky people in one lucky generation which has learned how to do it.”
Borrowing Lewis’s language, we can conclude that the aim of social engineering is to debunk traditional values in order to cut mankind into “some fresh shape” according to the will of the powerful. The frightening fact is that we are one of those “lucky generations” that has learned how to do it.
There are many plausible methods of social engineering that our generation has at its disposal. To name a few: the creation of a mass social contagion through the internet, fostering a forgetfulness of history, and state infiltration into education. An argument could be made that those “lucky people” with the power to engineer society are not allowing any of these methods to go to waste.
However, by examining the purpose of state education and the methods of academic manipulation used on children today, it will become clear which practice is most prominent in our modern age—social engineering through state education.
The Purpose of State Education
There is a looming debate over public education. What is its purpose? Is it to effectively educate America’s youth or to indoctrinate upcoming generations? We do not have to wonder for long because the proponents of public education have told us exactly what their intentions are.
“The purpose of a public education in a public school is not to teach kids only what parents want them to be taught. It is to teach them what society needs them to know. The client of the public school is not the parent, but the entire community, the public.”
The Michigan Democratic Party Facebook page
This quote might as well have been pulled from the dystopian novel The Giver. There can be no doubt—the purpose of state education is, and always has been, to create an institution where “some few lucky people” can cut the minds of the youngest generation “into some fresh shape” on the largest scale mankind has ever known.
The only question that remains is a practical one—how?
The Methods of Academic Manipulation
There are three practical methods of manipulation that are employed in our schools:
- Mass indoctrination
- Data mining
- Installation of Father Government
Mass Indoctrination
Cambridge Dictionary defines indoctrination as “the process of repeating an idea or belief to someone until they accept it without criticism or question.” It also involves banning certain ideas—those that are contradictory to the ideology of the indoctrinator—from the public square.
These two ideas combined—the forceful instillation of ideas and the banning of contrary thought and expression—make up the most essential tool of social engineering. To put it another way: in order to control a population, you must first control their thoughts.
In the 1963 case School District of Abington Township v. Schempp,[1] the Supreme Court ruled that Bible reading and prayer in public schools would be unconstitutional. By banning scripture and the expression of religion from schools (ideas that contradict progressive thought), the Court seemed to say, “Let the indoctrination begin.”
Since then, the religion of the Left has been unleashed and forcefully taught in all public schools around the country. DEI initiatives, books like Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe, and Critical Race Theory have all been introduced to the K-12 curriculum. This is what schools are really teaching our children.
What’s more, Students who reject these ideas are demonized, teachers who refuse to comply are fired, and parents who object are ignored or condemned as “domestic terrorists.”
Society, through state education, insists on indoctrinating children with the idea that boys can be girls and girls can be boys, white people are evil and black people oppressed, the weather is going to end the world, religion is bigoted and intolerant, capitalism is wicked and communism benevolent, America is systemically racist, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a Christian nationalist, MAGA, fascist extremist.
Our state schools are not places of wonder and free thought. Rather, they are prison cells designed to keep both truth and the will of parents locked away so that the minds of children will remain captive and submissive to what “society needs them to know.”
Data Mining
Commonly used to predict investment planning and to track internet analytics, data mining uses technology to sort through large quantities of data on a subject in order to determine patterns and characteristics. Although it seems like basic computer interaction, it is being used for much more than simply organizing numbers and symbols.
This powerful technology has been unleashed on every child in the public school system by the state to collect, organize, analyze, and micromanage their academic performance and personal information.
If your child is in the public schools, their grades, academic history, confidential information, address, family members, personal beliefs, strengths and weaknesses, social tendencies, extracurricular activities, and more are deeply known by the state.
Alex Newman, author of Indoctrinating Our Children to Death and co-author of Crimes of the Educators, details the depth of this dangerous method of child monitoring and explains how other countries, such as China and Sweden, have used this technology to exponentially advance social engineering and further corrupt education.
With this information, the powerful few who are pulling the strings of education will know exactly who your child is and how to shape them into a “creature of the state.”[2]
Father Government
In 1925, the Supreme Court ruled in Pierce vs Society Sisters that it is both the right and the duty of parents to direct the education and “destiny” of their children independent of the state.
“The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the state to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”[3]
This fundamental right of parents should be self-evident. However, in recent decades there has been a drastic shift in western civilization away from parent-controlled education towards state-controlled education.
The Michigan Democratic Party said, “Not sure where this ‘parents-should-control-what-is-taught-in-schools-because-they-are-our-kids’ is originating… The purpose of a public education in a public school is not to teach kids only what parents want them to be taught.”[4]
James Dwyer, a professor at the William & Mary School of Law, stated in an interview, “The state needs to be the ultimate guarantor of a child’s wellbeing.”
Even President Joe Biden said in a speech to public school teachers, “They aren’t someone else’s, they are all our children.”[5]
According to those with the power to engineer society, parents are no longer welcome to participate in their children’s upbringing, well-being, or education—that is the role of Father Government.
When powerful people tell you they intend to take your parental rights away, it is best to believe them.
This philosophy is the policy of the political Left in America. We see this in the way that homeschooling, which is the enemy of Father Government, has been heavily restricted and aggressively regulated across the states; teachers have begun to take the place of parents as the mentor and confidant of their students; and schools have shamelessly implemented teachings that contradict the beliefs of the majority of American parents.
Gradually, parents have been conditioned to believe that their job is simply to drop their children off at school. By accepting this lie, they invite Father Government to mold their children into “some fresh shape” until they are “a mere creature of the state.”
The Solution
The purpose of state education has always been to divorce parents from the upbringing and education of their children so that the state can “teach [children] what society needs them to know.” As parents or simply lovers of liberty, it is our duty to strongly oppose the dangerous methods of mass manipulations that millions of children in our country are subjected to daily.
Social engineering requires power and influence to manifest in a society. Currently, it has both. In order to evade the effects of engineering, we must recognize its deeply dangerous influence in state schools and, once again, educate ourselves and our children independently of Father Government. By doing this, those powerful few with the aim of controlling society will lose their power, and this lucky generation will remain free.
Elise DeYoung is a Public Relations and Communications Associate and Classical Conversations® graduate. With CC, she strives to know God and make Him known in all aspects of her life. Elise is a servant of Christ, an avid reader, and a professional nap-taker. Elise continues her journey towards the Celestial City with a determined resolve to gain wisdom and understanding. Soli Deo gloria!
[1] US Supreme Court (1963, June 17). Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963). Justia. Retrieved March 28, 2024, from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/374/203/
[2] U.S. Supreme Court (1925, June 1). Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925). Justia. Retrieved March 28, 2024, from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/268/510/
[3] U.S. Supreme Court (1925, June 1). Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925). Justia. Retrieved March 28, 2024, from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/268/510/
[4] Renk. “Michigan Democratic Party Questions Why Parents Think They Should Have a Say in Their Childs Education.” 95.3 WBCKFM, January 18, 2022. https://wbckfm.com/michigan-democratic-party-questions-why-parents-think-they-should-have-a-say-in-their-childs-education/.
[5] (2023, July 4). Biden. X. Retrieved April 15, 2024, from https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/status/1676284124527755266