Commonly Cored Standards

Where would the “Powers-That-Wanna-Be” be without a set of standards to inflict upon all others?

From the conformist perversions that turned Gautama’s painfully-earned insights into the rigid religiosity of institutionalized Buddhism, to the conformist perversions of entrenched bureaucrats who converted K’ung Fu-tzu’s insights into the rigidly hierarchical rules of mainstream Confucianism, to the paranoid delusions of Catholic fanatics who murdered their Gnostic brethren and burned their libraries, to the narrow-minded herd-mentality of fascist crowds who slavishly support the stupider of corporate-sponsored autocrats, the story is tragically the same.

To paraphrase a great Roman, in seeking stability, standardizers institute a creative desert and call it order. All womankind, their menfolk, and other long-enduring species suffer unfolding catastrophes from such foolish behavior.

Here—for what little it’s worth—are the Common Core Standards, which despite their many flaws are a surprisingly positive step in the right direction when we consider the dumbed-down, working-class (“At least I have a job!”) form of indoctrination perpetrated by previous North American “educational” standardizers.