“History is a set of lies agreed upon.” These were the words of the infamous French dictator and military strategist Napoleon Bonaparte.
It is a well-known concept that history is often written by the victor—that when two cultures or ideologies clash, the one that prevails and gains more power and influence is the one whose side of the story the record favors. Yet, despite this being a fairly common idiom, it is often overlooked just how profoundly it shapes our understanding of the present—or, more aptly, our misunderstandings.
Many still fail to grasp that the history they cling to so fervently—often as a cornerstone of political or national identity—is a carefully curated fable, designed to secure their allegiance through misbelief. Likewise, few recognize how the formalized education system of the early 20th century was deliberately shaped by the robber barons of the predator class, particularly Rockefeller and Carnegie, not as institutions of higher learning, but as tools for controlling the public and molding the minds of the masses to serve their interests.
Reverend Frederick T. Gates, the business advisor to John D. Rockefeller Sr. who helped him found the General Education Board in 1902, elaborated their vision in his book The Country School Of Tomorrow —
“In our dream we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or of science. We are not to raise up among them authors, orators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply.
For the task we set before ourselves is very simple as well as a very beautiful one, to train these people as we find them to a perfectly ideal life just where they are.”
In the context of modern American society, much of the mythology that makes up the concept of “American exceptionalism” is in fact a fabrication in line with this agenda, creating the docile public of Rockefeller’s vision.
Hellbound and Down 