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Welcome to the Math Project Archive:
The Math Project: minting knowledge
--- the new coin of the realm,
to illume the minds of men.
Table of Contents:
1 February 12, 1991 Senator Nunn
2
January 8, 1991 Senator Gore
3 December 30, 1990 Senator Kerry
4 December 28, 1990 Notes on Mark Shields
5 December 15, 1990 Senator Sarbanes
6 December 7, 1990
Senator Biden
7 December 7, 1990
Senator Mitchell
8 November 22, 1990
U. S. Senator Moynihan
9 November 12 1990
Senator Bradley
10 October 12, 1990 John Sununu,
The White House
11 September 12, 1990 George Bush,
President USA
12 July 19, 1990 Senator Cranston
13 June
6, 1990 Senator
Mitchell
14 April 27, 1990 Second Letter Senate and
White House
15
Undated, First Letter, Senate and
White
House
16 Notes
The
Math
Project: minting knowledge
--- the new coin of the realm,
to illume the minds of men.
February 12, 1991
Senator Nunn
U. S. Senate
Washington, D. C. 20510
Peter [deletion]
[deletion] East Ave.
Hayward, California
945[deletion]
"Are not the satisfactions of being a good man amongst our common men
great enough to sustain us anymore?"
The Big Chill
Dear Senator Nunn;
From the confirmation hearing
of Lamar Alexander I see that there is some interest in the technological expansion of educational opportunities, and in particular
the use of laser disks. I take it that the powers that be will now advance our cause.
I noted that Senator Kennedy spoke
of using technology to help the "two or three exceptional students" in the "rural" areas of his State, have access to a course
in physics. One can only hope that Senator Kennedy will some day come to understand that all of our students are "exceptional."
His comments reminded me of John Sununu's comments at a recent Conference of Governors. Mr. Sununu likened educational
testing to "quality control" in an "auto factory." Personally, speaking as one of the "defectives" I, of course, can not gladly
agree with the prospect of being shoved off the "assembly line," by Mr. Sununu. ["Why does the sausage reject the meat grinder?"
--- Robert Kennedy. ]
"I haven't met that many happy people in my life. How do they act?"
"Um-hun." The Big Chill
None the less we can conclude this Project with the closing remarks of the Doctor Professor at Waldzell College: [Senator Moynihan please pay attention.]
The seminar concludes
with a review of the various graphs that have been discussed during the lectures. There are now ten spider graphs on the screen
behind the lecturer, labeled 'Russia,' 'U. S. A.,' 'China,' 'Germany,' etc.
The Doctor Professor looks up from his
notes and says, "Thus we have seen that democratic societies have out preformed the totalitarian societies; that free market
economies out perform controlled economies.
"Is there an underlying principle at work? Please reflect on your studies
of ecosystems. [Footnotes appear on the screen referring the viewer to courses in the Life Sciences Matrix.] There, you will
recall, that complex ecosystems were found to be more stable than simple ecosystems.
"In military affairs, cybernetics,
and in education . . . [more footnotes appear on the screen] . . . we have seen this same pattern: complex, yes, even chaotic
systems have shown a robustness that allows them to grow and survive, yes even thrive, despite the error rates we have observed.
Why should this be so? Does it tell us something about the universe?
"I
direct your attention to your course in Quantum Mechanics. You will recall Dr. Heisenberg’s Principle. [A footnote refers
the student to lecture number 11, frame number 2,263 , course number 45 of the Federal Math Matrix.]
"Dr. Heisenberg
stated that if the observer wanted to know the direction of the electron he could not know the position of the electron. And
if one knew the electron's position then he could not know its direction. This 'uncertainty,' this quanta, is not the result
of a technical difficulty in the construction of an experimental apparatus but results from the fundamental nature of reality
and human knowledge in this our Universe.
"As with photons of light, they are both waves and particles --- this is
a reality which goes beyond the 'channeled quickness' of the human mind. [A footnote refers the student to Dr. Wilson's lectures
in Sociobiology.]
The uncertainty principle is not a problem of formulation. For example, from this principle of uncertainty
Dr. Stephen Hawking has explained black holes. Rather it is a fundamental principle of the universe, and of our existence
as well.
"The most recondite problem of quantum mechanics is simple mathematics when compared to the matchless complexity
of even the most simple human 'problems.' "
Thus Albert Einstein's observation, at the time of the detonation of the
atomic bomb, that physics had developed to the point that it could give man the power to destroy the world but that there
had not been a corresponding advance in man's knowledge of himself, is, by this analysis, quite understandable.
"Dr.
Heisenberg’s "uncertainty principle," appears to apply to philosophy, as much as to the electron or photon.
"Thus,
Hume has written, in On Human Nature : 'For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, .... I never can
catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception .... nothing but a bundle
or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux
and movement.'
"The California philosopher, Alan Watts commented on this: 'Now this is just what we fear --- the loss
of human identity and integrity in a transient stream of atoms. [Death] . . . Having seen the fiction of the separate ego-substance,
he [Hume] failed to see the fiction of separate things or perceptions which the ego, as a mode of awareness, abstracts from
nature. . . . The stream of human experience would then be ordered neither by a transcendental ego nor by a transcendental
God but by itself.' Nature, Man and Woman. It is the small mind that seeks to abstract and simplify the world. Life can not
be simplified ! Democracy excels because it is complex !
"Thus, we can conclude, that when you encounter a person
who insists on certainty, understand their suffering. For the search for certainty in this universe of uncertainty must always
lead to suffering. The recognition of this suffering implies compassion. Compassion implies charity. Charity implies love."
The Doctor Professor picked up his lecture notes and abruptly exited the hall.
"Good bye, Hello."
Kurt Vonnegut,
Slaughterhouse
Aloha. (A-lo-ha: Greetings, Farewell, Love.)
Very truly yours;
Peter
[deletion]
cc Dr. Richard T. La Pointe Christopher T. Cross
Director, U. S. Dept. of Education Assistant Secretary,
U. S. Dept of Education
Lamar Alexander Dr. Alvin Trivelpiece
Secretary, U. S. Dept. of Education Oak Ridge National
Labratory
John Sununu George Bush
Chief of Staff,the White House President, United States of America
Senator Biden
Senator Bond Senator Bradley Senator Byrd
Senator Cochran Senator Cranston Senator Danforth Senator Dole Senator Domenici
Senator Garn Rep. Gingrich Senator Glenn Senator Gore Senator Grassley Senator Harkin Senator Hatch Senator Heflin Senator
Helms Senator Kassebaum Senator Kennedy Senator J.Kerry Rep. Leach Senator Levin Senator Lott Senator Lugar Senator McCain
Senator Metzenbaum Senator Mitchell Senator Moynihan Senator Nunn Senator Pryor Senator Sarbanes Senator Sasser Senator Seymour
Senator Simon Senator Simpson Senator Specter Senator Thurmond Senator Wallop Senator Warner Govern. Wilson
January 8, 1991
Senator Gore
U. S. Senate
Washington, D. C. 20510
Peter
[deletion]
[deletion] East Ave.
Hayward, California
945[deletion]
"We have come to far, we have sacrificed
too much, to disdain the future now." John Fitzgerald Kennedy
"The President shall, be Commander in Chief of the Army
and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United
States; (Except that he shall not exercise this authority to involve their forces in hostilities unless Congress having first
issued a Declaration of War or made some other Acceptable Authorization;) . . .
The U. S. Constitution as Amended by
The
Intellectually Inbred East Coast Establishment
Dear Senator Gore;
Why has no one discovered this passage before?
What do you think, should we look at the Constitution and see what it says happens if there is a Declaration of War?
It will come as a surprise to many to learn that a Declaration of War does not alter the Executive's powers to conduct
foreign affairs or command the armed forces; it neither adds nor detracts from these Executive Constitutional powers. What
a Declaration of War does do, is to increase the domestic ! powers of the Executives. (Plural because it increases States'
Executive powers as well as the Federal Executive's power to control domestic affairs.)
Because the founders feared
that certain rights might prevent the defense of these United States in the event of war, a Declaration of War, (like a Declaration
of a state of Siege), was included in the Constitution to expand the powers of the Executives, and reduce the powers of the
Congress, and reduce the rights of the people.
For example, the rights secured by the Fifth Amendment are in part
waived by a Declaration of War. The right secured by the Third Amendment is taken back at the time of the passage of a Declaration
of War. Also for example, the limitations on the States, Article I, section 10, are waived if there is such a Declaration.
(A portion of Article I, section 9, is waived, with or without a Declaration of War, if there is in fact a war.) Finally,
and to my thinking most importantly, the crime of Treason is given full force by such a Declaration. This is a crime from
which Senators and Representatives are specifically not "privileged from Arrest." (So be ware !)
So sweeping are these
grants of power to the Executive, the founders thought it prudent to vest in the Congress the power to make such a Declaration.
Note that there is no mention of greater powers to the Executive to conduct the foreign affairs of these United States, or
their armed forces, in the event of such a Declaration. For such powers already existed prior to such a Declaration. The Executive
could with out such a Declaration command the military; Congress could, raise money, call the Militia (without a Declaration);
but if the emergency should become so extreme the Constitution provides that the Republic can cast off certain rights in order
to protect itself, by a Declaration of War.
This is, I know, a point of law hard for Liberals and Counterfeit Conservatives
to grasp. It is hard for our feel good, summer time Opinion Leaders (in media and Government), to contemplate a reduction
in liberty in order to save Liberty. For they do not understand that our now sainted founders were, as the Irish say, "hard
men." Our flabby, intellectually inbred, best and brightest are unaccustomed to taking responsibility.
Congress has the
power to raise and support Armies, maintain a Navy, to make rules for their Government and Regulation; and call, organize,
and discipline the Militia; construct Fortifications and Magazines. But of all this the President is Commander in Chief. Hence
the reluctance over many centuries to maintain "standing armies." Naval forces could be maintained since they were thought
not to pose a threat to the civil peace. At most a Navy could embroil these United States in "foreign entanglements," but
armies were thought more dangerous to them.
You may feel, as does apparently George Mitchell, that this is an out
dated view. You may feel that "standing armies" are essential for our Republic which has been at almost constant war for the
last century. You may find our present Constitution "inconvenient" and that some new provisions should be included. You may
feel that the Executive should have some curb on its power of Commander in Chief besides the power of the purse, the power
to call, Regulate etc., powers which are now all held by Congress. In other words you may want another constitution. But I
remind you, Sir, that you have taken an oath to this Constitution.
Jefferson wrote to Madison, (12-20-1787), ". .
. There are other good things of less moment. I will now add what I do not like. [about the Constitution] . . . the omission
of a . . . protection against standing armies . . . the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws . . ." For
Jefferson realized that the maintenance of a standing army would give the Executive, as Commander in Chief, power, with or
without a Declaration of War. But Jefferson did not get what he wanted.
His reference to habeas corpus is a reference
to the suspension of habeas corpus in the event of Rebellion or Invasion, and as noted above, such suspension can take place
only if there is an "Invasion . . ." with or with out a Declaration of War. (Article I Section 9) This was a compromise.
The
founders agreed that standing armies could be kept; not required, as is the Navy, but could be kept, this despite Jefferson's
advice and objection. The founders agreed that habeas corpus could be suspended if necessary, with or with out a Declaration
of war. They recognized two points: one, rights are not independent of circumstances, and two, circumstances may require the
suspension of these rights because of war whether there was or was not a Declaration of War.
What if there is a Declaration?
The Fifth Amendment requires "a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury. . ." which is a valuable protection. Yet
the founders recognized again that this right was not to be considered independently of circumstance. If "in time of War,"
a crime arose in the armed forces this right could be waived. In fact this right can be waived even with out a Declaration
if there is in fact a "public danger." Again note that the founders recognized that not every "public danger" would also be
the subject of a Declaration.
Article I Section 10 subordinates the several States to the Congress with respect to their
military. Again another valuable protection for the people and not incidentally a valuable protection for the central government.
However, this control on the military of the several States applies only when? ". . . in time of Peace." Upon a Declaration
of War they can "keep Troops, or Ships of War," without the Consent of Congress. A Declaration of War allows the States to
mobilize independently of Congress. With out a Declaration of War Congress would have to give its Consent, with such Declaration
the States immediately obtain this right.
Again note that the founders were willing to increase the power of the State
Executives in an emergency; but Congress would have to make the Declaration first, "unless (the States were) actually invaded,
or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay." Just as habeas corpus could be suspended upon invasion so can the
prohibition on individual States making war be suspended, upon Invasion or Danger. The States can only keep troops but not
make war upon a Declaration of War. We are reviewing here a series of fine distinctions in rights, each carefully considered
with respect to the possible circumstances. It is a strange result that the Executive of the States can wage war based on
"imminent Danger" with out a Declaration but the Federal Executive, as Commander in Chief, a power that is not contingent
on Danger but absolute, can not.
In these United States the crime of Treason, so often used by tyrants in the past to
suppress, does not obtain unless one actually is "levying War against them." (Thus Burr appeared before Marshall.) In these
United States we are protected from the abuse of power, the abuse of the charge Treason, unless we actually take up arms against
them. However, if there is a Declaration of War by these United States then the crime of Treason can obtain for "adhering
to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." Absent such a Declaration, and absent participation in a levy against them,
how would one know who were their Enemies? For example was China our Enemy during our Vietnam "experience"? If one gave China
aid and comfort would one be a traitor? May be yes may be no. You may say, but clearly Vietnam was our Enemy. Yet without
a Declaration how will one know? Thus Jane Fonda, Pat Buchanan, Tom Haden, Evans and Novak all can plead that they did not
know they were giving aid and comfort to the Enemy, because there was no Declaration, saying who was the Enemy.
So
you disagree? You find my analysis wanting? Sir, you have no one to blame but yourself. I want to take a Constitutional Law
course. But how can I? Our Liberal Academic Establishment has contrived to keep your people from knowledge because they have
claimed we do not "measure up."
The members of the U. S. Senate proudly lord their superior "intelligence" over us,
they claim special knowledge of the Constitution. Yet they deny us access to the courses of instruction by which we might
learn.
Would an informed electorate not be a good thing in a democratic Republic? Here, Sir, can you and I not at
least agree on this? Would it not be a useful thing for the Senate to cause courses on our Constitution to be distributed
to our people? Surly Goodmen can agree on something?!!
In Knoxville Tennessee, this is your State, a company is manufacturing
machines that can provide four hours of lectures and-or 2,167 books on a single laser disk, (copy of article enclosed). Sir,
Please! I say your own State! Sir. Here is a means of correcting my mistaken views on the Constitution. Sir, please let me
learn and know my errors.
"We went out for a walk again. 'Daddy," he asked, 'Daddy, the rich are stronger than anybody
else in the world, aren't they?' 'Yes,' I said, 'there are no people in the world stronger than the rich.' . . . Then after
a pause he said, his lips still trembling as before: 'Daddy,' he said, 'what a horrid town this is, Daddy!' " Dostoyevsky,
The Brothers Karamazov
Sir, I know you to be a rich man's son. I am not envious of you not envious of you at all.
For the rich must be pampered even in school. They require tutors and the best minds, the best lecturers available. They must
go to the Great Universities and spend long years of their lives in reading and discussing our world. What a terrible disadvantage
to be rich! The poor require only a library card and they can learn all !
Let us not make courses available to all on
laser disks. When the Leaders of our Great Universities appear before your Committee and tell us that with optical fiber cables
students in Iowa can attend M. I. T. let us not ask them, 'if this is so why have they not already used the presently available
technologies?' This would be rude. No let us continue to pour billions into the existing system. Why make knowledge available
to all? The people are "flawed" they can never understand. They are animals feed them fodder.
Why am I so spiteful?
Because the East Coast Intellectuals say they want to have an open debate but instead, as soon as they are challenged, they
run off the screen and hide. They hide behind platitudes, e.g. "this is not a quota bill, see it says right here: 'this is
not a quota bill.'" No discussion is required of them, no explanation, for they are Liberal.
Very truly yours;
Peter
[deletion]
p.s. And I think Saddam Hussein should be destroyed.
cc Dr. Richard T. La Pointe Christopher T.
Cross
Director, U. S. Dept. of Education Assistant Secretary, U. S. Dept of Education
Lamar Alexander John Sununu
Secretary, U. S. Dept. of Education Chief of Staff, the White House George Bush President, United States of AmericaSenator
Biden Senator Bond Senator Bradley Senator ByrdSenator Cranston Senator Danforth Senator Dole Senator Domenici Senator Garn
Rep. Gingrich Senator Glenn Senator Gore Senator Grassley Senator Harkin Senator Hatch Senator Heflin Senator Helms Senator
Kassebaum Senator Kennedy Senator J.Kerry Rep. Leach Senator Levin Senator Lott Senator Lugar Senator McCain Senator Metzenbaum
Senator Mitchell Senator Moynihan Senator Nunn Senator Pryor Senator Sarbanes Senator Sasser Senator Seymour Senator Simon
Senator Simpson Senator Specter Senator Thurmond Senator Wallop Senator Warner Govern. Wilson
The Math Project: minting knowledge
--- the new coin of the realm,
to illume the minds of men.
December 30, 1990
Senator J. Kerry
U. S. Senate
Washington, D. C. 20510
Peter [deletion]
[deletion] East Ave.
Hayward, California
945[deletion]
"Diagnosis is only the first step in the process.
The process is incomplete unless it leads to a cure. Do you agree?" Arthur C. Clark, Space Odyssey II
"If to do were
as easy as to know what were good to do,
chapels had been churches and poor men's cottages
princes' palaces. It is
a good divine that follows his own
instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good
to be done, than be one
of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.
---Portia, The Merchant of Venice, Act I, Sc. ii 13
"A wise man leaves
no one behind."
Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching
Dear Senator John Kerry;
The Math Project's third year of the siege
of Washington now begins. Happy New Year to you Sir !
I believe the new year finds us some what closer to our object.
This as much despite the exhortations of the undersigned as because of this wild and erratic course of letter writing.
This
year's campaign began with your Party raising me up high on their shoulders, (a man of the people!), challenging the President,
deriding the Education bureaucracy, calling for a visionary change. I suspected that the interest might have been that my
complaints were directed towards the unkept promises of the Republican Administration, but what of it. I was lonely and in
need of friends. And unkept promises are the worst form of promises; which should rightly anger all men. If only Democrats
still possessed the honor and virtue to recognize an injustice then so much the worse for the Republicans.
Then the Assistant
Secretary of Education, Mr. Cross, issued a second promise: The Administration promised a review and recommendation on the
Math Project proposal in August. Oh, August ! What an aptly named month !
I reported to the Majority Leader on June 6:
I sincerely apologize if I have offended.
I think all Goodmen will see that by criticisms were well meaning enough
to be overlooked; but as for the idea . . . I have hope and faith that this will be fairly considered.
We can, together,
do great things.
Every time the professional educators give up on a student we will be there. Every time a student asks
"Why?" and is told "we don't have time for that" we will be there. When a parent has difficulty explaining a denominator or
a differential equation, we will be there. For the High School student who wants to study physics, (half of our High Schools
do not offer a class in physics), we will be there. Where ever there are students who want to learn, from the hollows of Appalachia
to the slums of Zambia, the Federal Math Matrix will be there.
Then came disappointment again. The laws of the universe
had not been changed; autumn's cold still overtakes the hope of summer! I, sorrow again. [Just where does Darman get off talking
about soap operas?]
Senators Simon and Glenn stopped acknowledging their faithful corespondent. Senator Voltaire turned
on us on the floor of the U. S. Senate, in front of God and everyone. I "describe warm friends cooling."
"When
I learnt that he was standing up to his whole class and challenging them all by himself, that he'd become embittered and that
his heart was full of resentment, I was frightened for him. We went out for a walk again. 'Daddy," he asked, 'Daddy, the rich
are stronger than anybody else in the world, aren't they?' 'Yes,' I said, 'there are no people in the world stronger than
the rich.' . . . Then after a pause he said, his lips still trembling as before: 'Daddy,' he said, 'what a horrid town this
is, Daddy!' 'Yes, darling,' I said, 'it isn't a very nice town.' Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
"What shall
be the manner of the order of the child, and what shall be his work ? " Judges, XIII, 12
"What shall we do, and, how shall
we arrange our lives?" Tolstoy
Very truly yours;
Peter [deletion]
p.s. And I think Saddam
Hussein should be destroyed.
cc Dr. Richard T. La Pointe Christopher T. Cross
Director, U. S. Dept. of
Education Assistant Secretary, U. S. Dept of Education
Lamar Alexander John Sununu
Secretary, U. S. Dept. of Education
Chief of Staff, the White House
George Bush
President, United States of America
Senator Biden Senator Bond Senator
Bradley Senator Byrd
Senator Cranston Senator Danforth Senator Dole Senator Domenici Senator Garn Rep. Gingrich Senator
Glenn Senator Gore Senator Grassley Senator Harkin Senator Hatch Senator Heflin Senator Helms Senator Kassebaum Senator Kennedy
Senator J.Kerry
Rep. Leach Senator Levin Senator Lott Senator Lugar Senator McCain Senator Metzenbaum Senator Mitchell
Senator Moynihan Senator Nunn Senator Pryor Senator Sarbanes Senator Sasser Senator Simon Senator Simpson Senator Specter
Senator Thurmond Senator Wallop Senator Warner Govern. Wilson
"The primary task of a useful teacher is to
teach his students to recognize 'inconvenient' facts - I mean facts that are inconvenient for their party opinions. And for
every party opinion there are facts that are extremely inconvenient, for my own opinion no less than for others. I believe
the teacher accomplishes more than a mere intellectual task if he compels his audience to accustom itself to the existence
of such facts. I would be so immodest as even to apply the expression 'moral achievement,' though perhaps this may sound too
grandiose for something that should go without saying."
------ Max Weber, Science As A Vocation
Response to Mr. Shields M. & L. N. H.
12-28-90:
And while we are on the subject let us get this straight too: Shields does not tell us what is going down, we
tell him. Washington, you do not know even the most basic facts about what is going down.
Your ignorance is exposing Americans
to risk. We do not like it. Do you understand?
If the average graduation rate from High School is 71% then how can "3
out of 5" be in "college?" [Where are the other 29%(?), have we misplaced them? What % of the 71% are even ready for "college"
work? All most all? 85%? Get serious ! ]
If I said up, Shields would say down; left - right; black - white. This is not
a public policy debate it is Shields' ego. OK Mark, everything you believe in is right. OK, we will not change anything. But,
no matter what you say, our people are still "at risk". . .
Your ideology can carry us only so far.
The Math Project: minting knowledge --- the new coin of the realm, to illume the minds of men. December
15, 1990
Senator Sarbanes
U.
S. Senate
Washington, D. C. 20510
Peter [deletion]
[deletion] East Ave.
Hayward, California
945[deletion]
"In the absence of a system of hereditary ranks and titles, without a tradition of honors conferred by a monarch,
and with no well known status ladder even of high class regiments to confer various degrees of cachet, Americans have had
to depend for their mechanism of snobbery far more than other peoples on their college and university hierarchy. In this country,
just about all that's finally available as a fount of honor is the institution of the higher learning. Or at least its topmost
reaches. I once heard a man with a B. A., and M. A., and a Ph. D. designated as inestimably fine with the words 'He's Yale
all the way.' Granted, it's not much on which to base a scheme of invidious distinction, but in the long run it's virtually
all we have." Paul Fussell, Class
Dear Senator Sarbanes;
Greetings. The Math Projects Selection Committee
is pleased to inform you that your application for admission has been accepted. Congratulations!
The Burden of
Proof
Every proposal for change carries with it an implicit criticism of the present way things are organized. And
if of the present, then an implicit criticism of the Leaders who preside.
Given that no one gladly receives such criticism
the inclination is to reject the proposal. This is Marris' "conservative impulse." This is a deep rooted "conservatism" which
liberals share with conservatives. The paradox is that the better one shows the need, the more one offends.
If one is
skillful one finesses the issue and saves the egos of those thus confronted. If one is an oaf one stumbles along with one's
argument, bowing apologetically every few stanzas.
What is the Problem?
When you look deeply into a problem
do you not see that it is the interconnection of a series of solutions?
When you are caught in traffic do you not reflect
that land use decisions, highway planning, economic development, etc., all were "solved" in a series of rational conclusions
each maximizing the possible benefits? If you say that then "the problem" is the failure to coordinate these diverse decisions,
can it not be said that this decision, the deliberate decision to distribute decision making authority to separate authorities,
public and private, was itself a solution to the fundamental issue of the distribution of power?
Saddam Hussein's most
recent invasion, for example, was made possible because of the absence of deterrents; was this the problem? But our series
of diplomats to Iraq, our continued efforts to befriend him and draw him into the community of nations was our solution to
the problem of how to control him. His neighbors solved the difficult international and domestic "problems" by trying to work
with him rather than allowing U. S. or U. N.
military bases on their territory. Now our past efforts to negotiate with him are seen as the problem.
Generally we can
say that when the tanks start rolling, negotiations can fairly be described as having been adjourned pending the outcome of
other events. [Some say that Saddam is himself the problem, an idea with which I do not disagree. Yet even psychosis, as R.
D. Lang has argued, is a "solution" to the problems faced by the "insane." Because his "solutions" are entirely contained
with in Saddam's mind, a possible solution for the rest of us suggests itself.]
Or for example, the homeless; is homelessness
the problem or the solution society has arrived at in order to avoid the troubling issues posed by mental illness, drug abuse,
and unsociable attitudes towards "normal" behavior; to our legal concept of "human freedom?" This belief that every individual
should be free to live their life as they see fit is itself a solution to other fundamental issues. (Even the "worthy" poor
who are homeless, a minority, are homeless because of the social solution to the problem of how to keep people from depending
on government; a cruel and often self defeating goad to individual responsibility. For example, (as a purely technical matter),
they could be organized into communities, but our value of human freedom prevents the exercise of such "control." Even such
nonspecific proposals as curfews are prohibited, except in the suburbs where they exist de facto.)
From what has been
said we can conclude that the advocate who problematizes some aspect of this world of solutions is not so much defining a
"problem" as calling into question those "solutions" that make up the fabric of our lives. There are no accidents.
The
Problems of Education
It follows that education reflects a host of solutions, of values, some deeply held some mere
vanities, which combine to form the various problems so much in discussion today.
The development of a comprehensive self
paced, mass produced education program; based on virtually indestructible laser disks, is resisted because it challenges some
values and virtually all the vanities associated with education in America today.
Imagine Senator: What if the computer
and technology companies of California were to join with our well established communications (entertainment) industry;
and together with our vast education establishment, began production of the new courseware. Courseware on every subject imaginable,
mass produced and mass distributed; translated into all the languages of the world !
Think of it Senator: the whole planet
educated by Californians! It gives one a pause of wonder, does it not?
But seriously: Control then is one value which
is at issue.
Educators and politicians have a peculiar interest in the power to monopolize education. The education establishment
and government are closely allied in their desire to control education, and thereby define reality; the ultimate source of
all power.
The desire to establish "standards of excellence," to "guarantee" "quality" in education are commendable values.
These are not at issue. Only the attempt to control and exclude the "unworthy" is challenged.
Already admitted into evidence
is the true nature of the education establishment's function: "At the lower levels, the purpose of science courses at many
institutions is less to educate or inspire than it is to weed out. 'They function as gatekeepers,' says Joan Straumanis, dean
of the faculty at Rollins College. 'In the science and mathematics sequences we sometimes content ourselves with 'discovering'
the talented students and frightening off the other.'
"The result is the increasingly rapid spiral of decline: shrinking
numbers of American students who are in turn replaced by foreign students who become T. A.s, who in turn manage to frustrate
and discourage even more undergraduates from pursuing a career in the sciences. (Foreign students account for 40 to 60 percent
of the doctoral candidates in several crucial areas . . .)" Charles Sykes, Prof Scam. [Testimony at a hearing of the House
Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Technology.]
Oafishly I ask you to consider your contribution to the "problem."
Does pride, elitism, snobbery, not contribute to your value of "excellence," and hinder the advance of technology into education?
Does your own self satisfaction with your superior "intelligence" (your word), your own mental abilities, not cause you to
regard self paced instruction as something less than adequate?
Sir, every human being is unique. Your desire to segregate
them into a ranked order, to force them into classes, to constrain them into doctrinal, ideological groups; to select out
your "equals" is more vanity than ethic.
The value that places education "above" the market place, that monopolizes education,
is less reverence for excellence, than indifferent elitism. Less than 25% of our finest graduate from college. The other 75%
are shut out for life. 25% never graduate from High School. They are all cut down in their prime.
The Aftermath
A
man of your intelligence (your word), always looking several moves ahead, will want to know what follows after the initial
technological breakthrough.
We seek not so much to tear down the old as to build the new.
To raise our national income
in the future we will have to improve our handling of our "human capital." This will require the recognition of the individual
needs of that "capital." Self paced instruction will gradually grow in dominance. The institutions of education will remain
centers for gatherings of scholars, research, and as resource centers directing and stimulating learning.
With the removal
of the egoistic limiting factors knowledge will spread, humanity will be benefited.
Intelligence
"It is a
matter of intelligence." (Your phrase) You amaze me Sir. Oh, would that it were just a matter of intelligence. But egotism,
ideology, and true commitment to sadly misguided interpretations of "truth" all have their part to play. [Let us hear no more
apologies from you about not meaning to get "so worked up." We here at the Math Project well understand the occasional lapse
into emotions. It is, of course, contrary to our theory and doctrine, but alas, we too are human.]
The intelligent thing
to do would be to support the Math Project. To set aside my taunting words and challenges to one's ego and vote to fund the
creation of the Federal Math Matrix.
I have taken on the burden of proof; yet I would leave you the presumption of innocence.
For the presumption of innocence stands as the juridical equivalent of God's love, which never shifts, but constantly remains
with the good. Sir, do not disavow the Math Project because of this lowly oaf's challenges.
Do not count yourself among
the insolent and indifferent.
The Categorization of Life
Please note that we are now discussing the ingratitude
of princes (and princesses); the insolence of power. For example, it is perfectly proper for those on high to hurl down their
epithetical opinions of we lowlys. Our opinion leaders can fairly categorize our views with insipid sociological descriptions.
Our views only reflect our gender, race, income, "intelligence," (your word), etc.
But when the tables are turned; when
we fire back a similar salvo at the opinion makers on the other side of the screen; we become pariah. If we should rise up
on our hind legs and catalogue the views coming at us based on the gender, race, income of the opinion leaders; we have crossed
the boundary of good taste; we are beyond the pale and exiled to Connaught. How dare we attempt the same high level of discourse
as our Leaders.
Our views only reflect our gender, race, income, "intelligence;" but our aristocrats of "intelligence"
(your word) in government, media, and academe; they have a special conduit to the truth which comes to them undistorted by
their gender, race, income. Their's is a more ethereal truth; incomprehensible to us earth grovelers.
Oh, to be high and
mighty and be conversant with the truth, with "intelligence," (your word) directly. [God made the lowly to humble the mighty.]
It is now that the Sam Donaldsons of the liberal media world rear their [adjective deleted] heads and cry out "sexism!"
("Let's not be sexist . . . we may yet.") We see here male liberalism at its finest: the masculine defense of scientific feminism.
The fact that the lady in question had previously felt pleased to blandly "explain" the Duke phenomena as the "white male
vote" is beside the point. We lowlys ought not answer our betters, the high priests and priestesses of "journalism," tit for
tat. For when Ms. Roberts speaks of Louisiana; (Ms. Roberts formerly of Louisiana, formerly of Athens, Greece, presently of
Mt. Olympus, Washington, District of Columbia); and passes over the issue of quotas in favor of this precise sociological
description she attains the plane of scientific feminist objectivism.
Did Duke tap a growing aquaphore of impatience with
quotas? Did Duke pick up on the justified resentment towards the injustice of quotas? Do the proles grow restless with the
scientific feminist reconstruction of society, based on the genitalia of the individual? These are irrelevancies when compared
to the pure sweet reason of her sociological description: "white male vote," which1 can be substituted for reason, discussion,
understanding. How impertinent to similarly describe her.
So we start to see the elements of a general rule: When one
is talking about others, about whom one knows nothing, sociological abstractions appear on this canvas of ignorance, to be
meaningful. But when these abstractions are applied to someone one knows, as we say "personally," then these descriptive terms
not only seem intellectually meaningless, but actually offensive. Yeah even "sexist."
Now my Leaders; imagine how we your
people feel when we daily hear you so describe us. Imagine the offense taken at your casual vulgar references to us. And you
wonder why we are not interested in your discussions, your "intelligence." (Your word)
[Yes, I was unjust when I spoke
of "blond haired women network reporter commentators with six figure incomes." Yes, exactly. This is just my point.]
Life
is a singular event.
Very truly yours;
Peter [deletion]
p.s. And I think Saddam Hussein should be
destroyed. cc
Dr. Richard T. La Pointe Christopher T. Cross Director, U. S. Dept. of Education Assistant Secretary, U. S. Dept of Education
Lauro Cavazos John Sununu Secretary, U. S. Dept. of Education Chief of Staff, the White House George Bush President,
United States of America Senator Biden Senator Bond Senator Bradley Senator Byrd Senator Cranston Senator Danforth
Senator Dole Senator Domenici Senator Garn Rep. Gingrich Senator Glen Senator Gore Senator Grassley Senator Harkin Senator
Hatch Senator Heflin Senator Helms Senator Kassebaum Senator Kennedy Senator J.Kerry Rep. Leach Senator Levin Senator
Lott Senator Lugar Senator McCain Senator Metzenbaum Senator Mitchell Senator Moynihan Senator Nunn Senator Pryor Senator
Sasser Senator Simon Senator Simpson Senator Specter Senator Thurmond Senator Wallop Senator Warner Govern. Wilson
The Math Project: minting knowledge
--- the new coin of the realm,
to illume the minds of men.
December
7, 1990
Senator
Biden
U. S. Senate
Washington, D. C. 20510
Peter [deletion]
[deletion] East Ave.
Hayward, California
945[deletion]
"Let the river run, let all the dreamers wake the nation, come the new Jerusalem . . ." Carly Simon,
Working Girl
Dear Senator Biden;
I was watching Mark Shields come to your aid on the M & L
News Hour last night. He was saying some policy or another was "flawed." He was not clear what policy was "flawed" or how
it was "flawed" but he seemed very sure something was "flawed." The fact that he was speaking on the very day the President
announced he would meet with the Iraqi representatives would argue that he was not speaking of the President's policy; but
who knows, perhaps he was. Or perhaps he had a script written for him before hand and couldn't change it to meet the changed
circumstance of the President's announcement.
Mr. Mark Shields is a man of great sensitivity and deep emotions. I know
this because he is always telling us that he is. He is an emotional kind of guy. Very deep. But I get this feeling from him:
if you were to tell him that the Labor Party position, (I mean the Democrat Party's position), was that all left handed people
should be given two votes, he would be on the M & L News Hour the next week saying it was simple justice. And Mr. Lehrer
would be saying, "I hear ya, I hear ya."
The "government" of Iraq has said it has "mined" the Kuwait oil fields. What could this mean? Do you have any idea?
Lisa
Myers, NBC, was promoting her own self interest; she is telling me that opposition to quotas is "racial prejudice." She explains
to Mr. Utley that only people "too young to remember the civil rights movement" are opposed to quotas. (So, what is she 50,
55?) She explains to Mr. Utley, the Republicans are using "racial prejudice" because "it works in hard economic times." Mr.
Utley looks away sheepishly. Cokie Roberts, explains David Duke's success as the "white male" vote; conveniently overlooking
that blacks and yes females, voted for him. It does no good now to remind our friends that political reaction against quotas
had been predicted; as was the fact that this reaction would not proceed "pleasantly." We have warned so many times.
In
Iraq 56, 4" diameter canisters, 18 feet long, are being removed from
bunkers and loaded onto trucks. The soldiers look over their shoulders now and again at technicians who are dressed in silver
colored full body suits. But the soldiers are poorly educated, having only had a state controlled education, and do not know
why the technicians are dressed in these strange suits. They do not know why the canisters are warm to the touch.
In
Washington Senator Dixon is interrupting the technical adviser who has started
to answer his question. Senator Dixon
does not like the answer, but has to be reminded that it is still the custom of the Senate to let the witness answer the question.
The Carter National Security adviser says anyone who disagrees with him is "ridiculous." Elanor Clifton is saying that anyone
who opposes quotas is prejudiced. Jack Germond says anyone who disagrees with him is a "chinless wonder." The Reagan Defense
Secretary says anyone who disagrees with him is an "idiot." And the distinguished Boston columnist, Tom Oliphant, with the pained highly intelligent expression, says anyone
who disagrees with him is a "weirdo." (Yes,I was right, a High School boy.) And Gordon Peterson looks into the camera and
says "no more Vietnams." And it is emerging as a consensus among the blond haired women network reporter-commentators that white males are
pretty much the problem. Mr. Lehrer says, "I hear ya, I hear ya."
And the blond haired reporter commentator asks Buckley
"Does it bother you to sound like John Kennedy?"
Five hours later the trucks start arriving at the well heads throughout
the geologic formation called Kuwait. [ Why is it acceptable for "our boys" to come home in "body bags" from the defense of Saudi geologic
formations? Location, Location, Location. If you are just a critic, and if you never come up with any idea of your own, you
never have to reason through things for yourself. Logical inconsistency is no problem for those who are just critics and have
no ideas of their own. ]
The oil workers find the canisters too hot to hold so they take off their shirts and rap these
around the canisters and carry them to the well derricks. The technicians with heavy rubber gloves attach the spooled cable
to the canister terminals; the two blue leads to the blue terminals and the red lead to the red terminal. The large Krupp
Wireworks cable spool is lifted by the Toyota back loader with spool forks attachment and the canister is lowered into the plugged well column, 300 meters. The
Krupp spool slowly unwinding in the desert silence under a starry sky.
After the last of the canisters has been installed,
the oil workers watch the technicians hose down each other and meticulously scrub down their suits. The workers never took
a laser disk course on physics, never studied radiation, or history, or anything else, except what was given out by the state
controlled system of education. They do not know why the technicians are there, or what was in the canisters, but they wonder.
Back in Washington Senator Dixon has interrupted the witness a second time as he attempts to answer another of the
Senator's questions and is reminded a second time that it is still the custom in the U. S. Senate to allow the witness to
answer. This is a holdover from when Senate hearings were a way of gathering information not manipulating opinion. And Cokie,
Elanor, and Elizabeth all agree that women have a special identification with the poor and oppressed of the world. And Lisa
Meyers also agrees; why not, wouldn't you if you could draw a 6 figure income from the scam? Now Cokie, Elanor, Elizabeth
and Lisa have never advocated laser disks in education so the people of the world can have access to education, but they "identify"
with the oppressed. Women "identify" with the oppressed - - that is important, at least in Washington.
A very intelligent professor is speaking to a Washington group on C-span and a questioner is asking if he thinks an alternative view is
wrong? The very intelligent professor gets this big grin on his face and leans into the microphone and says, "Not only do
I think it is wrong, it is dyslexic." Does the audience condemn him? No. It murmurs its approval with a pleasant peal of laughter.
How witty! How very intelligent. But of course no one has "raised consciousness" about dyslexia. But for the needs of female
reporter-commentators with 6 figure incomes, who "identify" with the poor and oppressed; for them, consciousness has been
raised.
And some commentator is talking about the "slow learners." There is no one to say, "better slow than never, pal."
And Senator Dixon is really upset now. He says, "Well I'm going to call the President and tell him he had better start bombing
China tomorrow!"
Senator Dreyfus, fresh from the dock where he
stands accused of "selling his office," is saying that "they" are "searching for a mission." Hundreds of thousand killed in
wars of aggression; a reign of terror, torture, and assassination; poison gas attacks on civilians and soldiers; the taking
of hostages; the murder of children as they kneel in front of their mothers: this is not a mission? Senator Dreyfus' situation
is made all the more problematic because he is unwilling to do more than issue a press release proclaiming his innocence for
fear of antagonizing his party. He willingly participates in his own false condemnation so as to ensnare his fellow Senator,
brother officer, Senator McCain.
Elanor and Lisa say opposition to quotas is "prejudice." Jack says "chinless wonder."
The distinguished Boston columnist, with the pained highly intelligent expression, says
anyone who disagrees with him is a "weirdo." The professor says, "Not only do I think it is wrong, it is dyslexic." Mr. Lehrer
says, "I hear ya, I hear ya."
And the blond haired reporter commentator asks Buckley "Does it bother you to sound like
John Kennedy?"
"The winds were blowing from the north, and later shifted to north northeast. The radioactive cloud
engulfed all the oil fields . . . Driven by an ever stronger wind, a few hours later the radioactive dust began falling on
Kuwait. . .
"The King of Kings had won his empire. But now it lay
under a cloud of lethal radioactivity . . . Not only had American nuclear experts gone to the Middle East, but those from a dozen different countries of Western Europe. Their conclusions were unanimous: That madman, ( Saddam Hussein ) , had inexplicably
used cobalt as the contamination agent . . . " Paul Erdman, The Crash of '79.
The "mining of wells" with radioactive contaminates
would cause only a "little" up blast of radiation back out of the wells using conventional explosives. Most of the radioactive
materials would be dispersed into the geologic formations. The radiation would be quite small by volume but would tend to
migrate across the field. The political - economic affects would be much greater. How much of a discount will it take to sell
radioactive oil? As a practical matter oil could be used by ships at sea, for example, where the exhaust would add very little
to the natural back ground radiation. The problem would be that its repeated use would irradiate the fuel tanks and engines
of the machines that burned it. There is little point in having a ship that no one will allow to enter their ports. Then again
radiation would also tend to build up in the refineries, pipes and tanks of any country that tried to use it.
Elanor
and Lisa say opposition to quotas is "prejudice." Jack says "chinless wonder." The distinguished Boston columnist, with the pained highly intelligent expression, says anyone who disagrees
with him is a "weirdo." The professor says, "Not only do I think it is wrong, it is dyslexic." Mr. Lehrer says, "I hear ya,
I hear ya."
And the blond haired reporter commentator asks Buckley "Does it bother you to sound like John Kennedy?
Mr.
Shields parrots the Party line: "Flawed." "Flawed."
And no one wants to talk about laser disks in education. Do you have
your priorities straight? Do you know what has to be done?
I feel I am looking at a foreign country; Washington.
Which
of us is flawed? Come again?
Very truly yours;
Peter [deletion]
p.s. And I think Saddam Hussein
should be destroyed.
cc Dr. Richard T. La Pointe
Director, U. S. Department of Education
Christopher T. Cross
Assistant Secretary,
U. S. Department of Education
Lauro Cavazos
Secretary, U. S. Department of Education
John Sununu
Chief of
Staff, the White House
George Bush
President, United States of America
Senator Biden Senator Bond Senator Bradley
SenatorByrd
Senator Cranston Senator Danforth Senator Dixon SenatorDole Senator Domenici Senator Garn Rep. Gingrich Senator
Glen Senator Gore Senator Grassley Senator Harkin SenatorHatch Senator Heflin Senator Helms Senator Kassebaum SenatorKennedy
Senator J.Kerry Rep. Leach Senator Levin SenatorLott
Senator Lugar Senator McCain Senator Metzenbaum Senator Mitchell
Senator Moynihan Senator Nunn Senator Pryor SenatorSasser Senator Simon Senator Simpson Senator Specter SenatorThurmond Senator
Wallop Senator Warner Govern. Wilson
"History bears witness to the vital part that the 'prophets' have played in human
progress - which is evidence of the ultimate practical value of expressing unreservedly the truth as one sees it. Yet it also
becomes clear that the acceptance and spreading of their vision has always depended on another class of men - 'leaders' who
had to be philosophical strategists, striking a compromise between truth and men's receptivity to it. Their effect has often
depended as much on their own limitations in perceiving the truth as on their practical wisdom in proclaiming it.
"The
prophets must be stoned; that is their lot, and the test of their self-fulfilment. But a leader who is stoned may merely prove
that he has failed in his function through a deficiency of wisdom, or through confusing his function with that of a prophet.
Time alone can tell whether the effect of such a sacrifice redeems the apparent failure as a leader that does honour (sic)
to him as a man. At the least, he avoids the more common fault of leaders - that of sacrificing the truth to expediency without
ultimate advantage to the cause. For whoever habitually suppresses the truth in the interests of tact will produce a deformity
from the womb of his thought.
"Is there a practical way of combining progress toward the attainment of truth with progress
towards its accepatance? A possible solution of the problem is suggested by reflection on strategic principles - which point
to the importance of maintaining an object consistently and, also, of pursuing it in a way adapted to circumstances. Opposition
to the truth is inevitable, especially if it takes the form of a new idea, but the degree of resistance can be diminished
- by giving thought not only to the aim but to the method of approach. Avoid a frontal attack on a long established position,
instead, seek to turn it by flank movement, so that a more penetrable side is exposed to the thrust of truth. But, in any
such indirect approach, take care not to diverge from the truth - for nothing is more fatal to its real advancement than to
lapse into untruth." B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy
The Math Project: minting knowledge
--- the new coin of the realm,
to illume the minds of men.
December 7, 1990
Senator Mitchell
U. S. Senate
Washington, D. C. 20510
Peter [deletion]
[deletion] East Ave.
Hayward, California
945[deletion]
"Let the river run, let all the dreamers wake the nation, come the new Jerusalem . . ." Carly Simon, Working
Girl
Dear Senator Mitchell;
The last time I wrote to you I apologized for my rudeness to the President.
I now write to you to apologize to you and your colleagues, especially to those I have personally offended. It seems
I fell into the trap you had warned me against: cynicism.
I have been unkind, unfair, and unjust. Mainly I have been spiteful. You can, far better than I, judge why I am so
spiteful. I have not shown the charity that I have advised others to have. I have been the tinkling cymbal.
I would continue on in this line except that I do not want to add pride of humility to my already extensive inventory
of sins.
I, once again, sincerely apologize.
(Please, do not let me see you anymore without your smile. Your graciousness shames me. When I do not see your smile
it reminds me of my spitefulness.)
The Inner tension.
My life with John Kennedy has been the relationship between the narrator of the book Magister Ludi and its central character,
Joseph Knecht, the Master. It is the relationship of the inept narrator trying to understand and describe the life of a man
whose life was immeasurably greater and more complete than his own.
You will recall the time when we took the oath to never forget.
The meaning of a life is not found in the superficial results but in the allegiance of the soul to the principle.
Whether you and your colleagues agree to fund the Federal Math Matrix and there by revolutionize education and greatly
expand educational opportunities is important. But for me, of far greater importance is that I have confronted you with this
possibility and made complete the oath taken so long ago.
I like to think that if Robert Kennedy were alive to day, he would say to you and your colleagues: "Well, it is
a good idear. Whad do we care if he's a little Republican prick."
The Living Memorial.
I propose not a pile of marble, or a half buried obelisk; but a living memorial. I ask you to consider the bright
eyes of children who find that they can understand algebra, when it is taught at their pace. Is this not a fitting memorial?
Sir, I tell you that knowledge does not belong solely to the swift, but to we long distance runners also.
That the resistance to this innovation comes not from one side of the aisle of the Senate only, will not surprise you.
For a man of your experience can not have failed to note that egotism, indifference, elitism are not monopolized by any party.
[Q.E.D.]
I heard a commentator on TV make a reference to "slow learners." There was no one to say, "better
slow than never, pal."
I saw a very intelligent professor speaking to a Washington group on C-span. A questioner asked if he thought an alternative
view, to that of the speaker, was wrong? The very intelligent professor got this big grin on his face and leaned into the
microphone and said, "Not only do I think it is wrong, it is dyslexic." Did the audience condemn him? No. It
murmured its approval with a pleasant peal of laughter. How very intelligent.
I wish I could say that I immediately grasped what I should do, but there was at least the recognition that these people
failed to see themselves. A blind spot that was preventing the speaker and his audience from understanding themselves and
their world.
I Recant Nothing.
Injustice sickens me. But the failure to recognize injustice sickens me more.
Can you not recognize the injustice in the words of one of your colleagues, in discussing the nuclear threat posed by
Saddam Hussein, when he said, "I think we are searching for a mission."
Hundreds of thousand killed in wars of aggression; a reign of terror, torture, and assassination; poison gas attacks
on civilians and soldiers; the taking of hostages; the murder of children as they kneel in front of their mothers: this
is not a mission? If this is not a mission what is? We don't need to search; this one is coming right at us.
From the undisputed facts presently on the public record, (I say the undisputed facts), I can only conclude that Mr.
Hussein has the means to inflict grievous harm on our people and the world. I would only refer you again to your technical
advisers for hows and means. Every days delay adds to this danger.
Or for example, Lisa Myers of NBC, was using her position as reporter - commentator to promote her own self interest
the other night. She is telling me that opposition to quotas is "racial prejudice." She explains to Mr. Utley
that only people "too young to remember the civil rights movement" are opposed to quotas. (So, what is she 50,
55?) She explains to Mr. Utley, the Republicans are using "racial prejudice" because "it works in hard economic
times." Mr. Utley looks away sheepishly.
Sir, I tell you that talk like this is a deliberate affront. It does no good now to remind our friends that political
reaction against quotas had been predicted; as was the fact that this reaction would not proceed "pleasantly," as
for example David Duke. One extreme creates its opposite. We have warned so many times.
It is emerging as a consensus amongst the blond haired women network reporter-commentators, (and Lisa), with 6 figure
incomes, that white males are pretty much the problem.
Mr. Shields parrots the Party line: "Flawed." "Flawed."
And no one wants to talk about laser disks in education. Do we have your priorities straight? Do we know what has to
be done?
I feel I am looking at a foreign country; Washington.
So We Disagree.
Can we not at least agree that we will not be unjust to one another? That when we are, (to error is human), we will
admit it and try to correct our mistakes.
I ask only that you separate the Math Project from this inept advocate, and imagine it as it might appear if those great
men who no longer can, were to serve as its advocates.
Very truly yours;
Peter [deletion]
p.s. And I think Saddam Hussein should be destroyed.
cc Dr. Richard T. La Pointe
Director, U. S. Department of Education
Christopher T. Cross
Assistant Secretary, U. S. Department of Education
Lauro Cavazos
Secretary, U. S. Department of Education
John Sununu
Chief of Staff, the White House
George Bush
President, United States of America
Senator Biden Senator Bond Senator Bradley Senator Byrd
Senator Cranston Senator Danforth Senator Dole Senator Domenici Senator Garn Rep. Gingrich Senator Glen Senator
Gore Senator Grassley Senator Harkin Senator Hatch Senator Heflin Senator Helms Senator Kassebaum Senator Kennedy Senator
J.Kerry
Rep. Leach Senator Levin Senator Lott Senator Lugar Senator McCain Senator Metzenbaum Senator Moynihan Senator Nunn
Senator Pryor Senator Sasser Senator Simon Senator Simpson Senator Specter Senator Thurmond Senator Wallop Senator
Warner Govern. Wilson
"History bears witness to the vital part that the 'prophets' have played in human progress - which is evidence of
the ultimate practical value of expressing unreservedly the truth as one sees it. Yet it also becomes clear that the acceptance
and spreading of their vision has always depended on another class of men - 'leaders' who had to be philosophical strategists,
striking a compromise between truth and men's receptivity to it. Their effect has often depended as much on their own limitations
in perceiving the truth as on their practical wisdom in proclaiming it.
"The prophets must be stoned; that is their lot, and the test of their self-fulfilment. But a leader who is stoned
may merely prove that he has failed in his function through a deficiency of wisdom, or through confusing his function with
that of a prophet. Time alone can tell whether the effect of such a sacrifice redeems the apparent failure as a leader that
does honour (sic) to him as a man. At the least, he avoids the more common fault of leaders - that of sacrificing the truth
to expediency without ultimate advantage to the cause. For whoever habitually suppresses the truth in the interests of tact
will produce a deformity from the womb of his thought.
"Is there a practical way of combining progress toward the attainment of truth with progress towards its acceptance?
A possible solution of the problem is suggested by reflection on strategic principles - which point to the importance of
maintaining an object consistently and, also, of pursuing it in a way adapted to circumstances. Opposition to the truth is
inevitable, especially if it takes the form of a new idea, but the degree of resistance can be diminished - by giving thought
not only to the aim but to the method of approach. Avoid a frontal attack on a long established position, instead, seek to
turn it by flank movement, so that a more penetrable side is exposed to the thrust of truth. But, in any such indirect approach,
take care not to diverge from the truth - for nothing is more fatal to its real advancement than to lapse into untruth."
B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy
The Math Project: minting knowledge --- the new coin of the realm, to illume the minds of men. November
22, 1990
Senator Moynihan
U.
S. Senate
Washington, D. C. 20510
Peter [deletion]
[deletion] East Ave.
Hayward,
California
945[deletion]
"I think we have to have a way to jump start (the political
process); to show the people that something really happens - - something right now! Not just enrich the curriculum and your
grandchildren will be smarter than you. " ---- Senator Voltaire
(From a debate on the floor of the United States Senate
as transcribed and corrected by Peter Spear on October 9, 1990.)
"It made me realize with unsparing clarity that I
was not one of your comrades, not seeking the same goals, not a Castalian, not a person of importance, but a nuisance, a fool
trying to ingratiate himself, an uncultivated foreigner. And the fact that all this was conveyed to me with such politeness
and good manner, that the disappointment and impatience were so impeccably masked, actually seemed to me the worst of it.
"
- - - Plinio Designori
Dear Senator Voltaire;
"This is what I know:"
Of all the things we can do to
make this a better world, education is preeminent.
With in this theater, the single most important thing we can do, is
bring technology to bear.
Of all the technologies that we have, the laser disk is the most powerful.
The institution
best placed to implement this policy is the United States of America.
With Tolstoy we now ask: Why is it that men organize for evil purposes with such greater speed and
ease than for the good?
Where are the dispatches from the left flank?
"I looked across at them and their busy,
self-satisfied doings like a prisoner watching through bars, or the way the poor, hungry, and oppressed eye the wealthy and
aristocratic, the handsome, cultivated, untroubled, well-bred, well-rested members of an upper class with their clean faces
and manicured hands." - - - Plinio Designori
How much of the liberal concern for the poor is social haughtiness disguised
as liberal benevolence? How much of the liberal ethos is simply another way to lay abed and sleep in good conscience? An intellectual
conceit? These are not my slums, oil spills, nuclear bombs in the hands of a mad man, I am a liberal! All that is evil and
wicked in the world is someone else's fault, I am a liberal. I am not responsible, not I the Liberal.
Every conservative
plaint from the people is dismissed with a rueful reference to "career disappointment" of "the embittered," or the failure
of the "pay packets" to keep up. You perhaps recall your Dickensian phrase: "pay packets?" Is it not possible that we cry
out not for more of the same but for something new?
We listen in vain for direction and vision and new ideas from our
friends on the left. For with out movement on our left, with out support from our friends on our left, I fear the Math Project,
far advanced as it is on the right, in a kind of salient, will be vulnerable. This is the point of maximum danger in any maneuver.
Where we have advanced the question of laser disks in education; at personal cost, imagine my chagrin; [ Yes! We have
our "flaws" but at least we do not plagiarize, not that flaw. ] ; we pause and look to our left to see if there is movement,
an advance, an attempt to cover our leftward flank and we see former Harvard Dons, our Rhodes Scholars, our best and brightest;
lulling about their encampments !
This can not be, we say. The smirks, the bemused expressions, these are not the faces
of the party of Wilson, Roosevelt, and Kennedy. I say this.
I expected more from you, good men.
Alamo
or Bastogne?
"I don't know whether my life has been useless and merely a misunderstanding,
or whether it has a meaning. If it does have a meaning, I should say it would be this: . . . I have tried and failed. . .
.I wanted to conquer the world, you see, to understand it, to force it to understand me. I wanted to affirm it and if possible
renew and reform it. In my own person I wanted to bring Castalia and the world together, to reconcile them. . . The world
was stronger than I was; it slowly overwhelmed and devoured me." - - - Plinio Designori
At our center we thought we
saw a relief column. We are seeing interviews on television on CNN and NBC. Reporters are interviewing "experts" in education
who allow that laser disks are good as a kind of electronic slide show, an electronic show and tell: "This is our environment.
This is the sea. See the ducks in the sea. Oil could hurt them." But the experts say "This will never replace the live instructor."
Does the reporter probe? No. Business executives are challenged, politicians are too; but educators never. For they are
the "experts," objective. ("I accuse." (E.Z.)) But what if there is no "the live instructor"? What about all those on whom
institutions of education have given up? What are we to do? What of the world's billions, what is to become of them?
To
the aristocratic intelligentsia that runs our country, with their neat well ordered liberal minds; upon whom culture has been
anointed, to whom understanding has come with the effortlessness of angels; ostracism, depravation, education by act of will
alone, these are unknown. They horde their knowledge like loot, plundered from the ancient libraries of the world.
"Why
share our knowledge? If they were any good, like us, they would be here with us. They are not, so they must be very stupid."
And this from our left, the land of "the People."
We are hearing our friends on the left saying that "it is not a panacea."
Panacea? In the name of Christ ! . . . in the name of Christ, what kind of men are you?
Are conservatives then alone
left to challenge authority?
The order of battle.
On the right we have advanced this far:
There is
no answer for four decades of obstruction and delay in the application of technology. There is no other way of answering the
demand for more time in school, individualized instruction, expanded curriculum, and opportunity for all, (including the third
world, yes, and including the dyslexic). This is why we need technology, you see. This is what this crusade is all about,
you see. Mass produced, self paced instruction. Are you starting to make out the general contours of this front, Generals?
The arsenals stocked with "care for the poor and oppressed" have been seized and exposed as a farce. As Charles Murray
has demonstrated the poor are worse off because of, and more oppressed by, the state system of education than by any other
of our failed institutions.
On the issue of "fairness:" No one any longer maintains the fiction that "public" means equal
schools. The rear guard actions have been put down by lawsuits across the Nation demanding equalization of educational opportunities.
The educational establishment is trapped now that it can no longer offer community schools with unequal advantages in resources;
it no longer commands loyalty.
The sympathy of the liberals for the utopian dream of a homogenized "new public man" devoid
of the reactionary spiritual values of the past, now lay on the field, behind our lines. They cling by the slimiest of margins
to the belief in "the power" of "the state" to "mold minds." Their deserters now swell our ranks:
"The problems of
education are merely reflections of the deepest problems of our age. They cannot be solved by organisations (sic), administration,
or the expenditure of money, even though the importance of all these is not denied. We are suffering from a metaphysical disease,
and the cure must therefore be metaphysical. Education which fails to clarify our central convictions is mere training or
indulgence. For it is our central convictions that are in disorder, and as long as the present anti-metaphysical temper persists,
the disorder will grow worse." E. F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful.
This implies does it not that the entrenched position
of the non sectarian school must give way?
On the right we have also encircled and laid siege to their Great Universities.
They are unwilling to defend the forced collectivization policy of public schools. Inside their walls they herd hundreds of
first and second year students into "classes" and therefore are compromised. They dare not answer the question of technology
by defending their position. At the back of a 300 student "class," students watch the front of the hall on televisions; they
receive no discount on tuition. Choice is emerging as a consensus like a white flag over a besieged city.
But finally,
and, most importantly, their morale is broken. They have lost their air, their cover, of superiority. Even the radicals concede
their eventual fall: "To this day, the educational barriers to the professions serve as much to exclude as to educate." Barbara
Ehrenreich, Fear of Falling They will fall!
Never too late to lose.
Despite these successes defeat can still
be achieved.
All that is required is for the good men on our left to continue to do nothing. Carp, complain, ridicule,
but do nothing.
Allow the world to go on as it is. The strategy is to do nothing. The politics of single minded commitment
feeds off despair and failure. Why join hands with your brothers on the right?
No, this is a failure to take account of
the world, to adopt the strategy appropriate to the times. ["Gentlemen do not assassinate other gentlemen." But he is not
a gentleman!]
For example, the graduated response "strategy" of our Vietnam "experience" had often been studied in military
science before Vietnam; but never so much studied as strategy as it was rather understood before Vietnam as the absence of
strategy, the failure to make decisive decisions, uncertainty, and irresolution.
It is instructive to note that thirty
years later, President Bush attempts to maintain relations with China and is criticized. Does no one recall that our Vietnam
policy was based on a fear of China's involvement? This is serious is it not? Over 50,000 Americans, dead, unknown millions
of Southeast Asians, dead, because of the absence of diplomatic contacts and understandings with China. China was not Vietnam's
natural ally as their subsequent war demonstrates. I say only that foolish policies make them selves known faster in war not
that the lessons are learned or remembered by all.
Why is it that when we ask young men to sacrifice for the Nation we
call them our "finest" but when we are called on to educate them they are just "youths?" Our young men can sacrifice on our
battlefields for as long as they like, but algebra, this they must study strictly by the clock: 50 minutes per class and not
a minute longer. And what amazes me even now as I write these words is that they believe us. Those good children; they believe
us. And we make them feel stupid. Made them to feel stupid. My God.
You must not think me disloyal, for example, to your
just cause of National Health "Insurance" when I question if again there is not a similar mismatch as in our above noted mistaken
policies. Should I really think that our fellow citizens will gladly pay for pacemakers for men whom they now will suffer
to sit out on the streets in the cold? What kind of policy will cure the pneumonia of those we abandoned to the street but
will not cause them to learn to read and write and learn mathematics? There is a confusion of values here, (like Vietnam,
there is both concern and reluctance to get "too" involved), the strategy will therefore also be confused. Failure will result.
I am not disloyal to you or your cause. I share your concern for this suffering. It is just at times of high emotion that
strategy requires calmness and insight.
Does anyone really think that cocaine babies can be prevented by an increase in
pre-natal education funding? The truth is that either you are willing to intervene or you are not willing to intervene in
the lives of women you can scarcely understand. This is a fact that must be confronted. A decision will have to be made, eventually.
This is called a "central fact;" it therefore must be a strategic consideration. It can not be avoided.
And if money alone
would solve these problems . . . But the strategy is wrong or rather absent. Emotions are not enough, sympathy is not enough,
just being liberal is not enough. There must be strategy. In all policy there must be strategy.
How many has Washington
caused to be slaughtered because you, (I mean you my "leaders"), would not clarify your views and coordinate your values?
There are some central questions which must be resolved.
Washington has pursued race and gender conscious policies on
the theory that you could construct greater amity and benevolence in society. If these policies have been based on theory
and not ideology let us stop and reflect on your success and examine the theory in light of its results. This would be the
scientific thing to do would it not?
We repeatedly are confronted with the fact that race relations have not improved,
and every where the question is asked what accounts for the worsening race relations. The divorce rate; does it concur with
the theory? And the increase in the formation of single individual households, is this the result of greater amity in society
or less?
You have had a theory which you have followed for twenty years. Are you closer to your goal or are you further
away from your goal? Such analysis allows one to improve one's theory. This is the science of policy. If on the other hand
these policies have been followed because of ideology then practical results are of less importance; they here serve as a
goad to even more group conscious acts.
This is the spiral of failure, the internal logic that drives folly.
What
waste. What unparalleled waste.
Very truly yours; Peter [deletion] ps "The President," the boy gasped for breath
after the furious ride home from school, "The President, he is assinated!" "Oh! Yes, assassinated," she said. "He
is assassinated, is he dead?" "My, and on your birthday!" The boy saw the angst expression on his mother's face and
fearing he had done something wrong said defiantly, "So?" cc Dr. Richard T. La Pointe Director,
U. S. Department of Education Christopher T. Cross Assistant Secretary, U. S. Department of Education Lauro Cavazos
Secretary, U. S. Department of Education John Sununu Chief of Staff, the White House George Bush President,
United States of America Senator Biden Senator Bond Senator Bradley Senator Byrd Senator Cranston Senator Danforth
Senator Dole Senator Domenici Senator Garn Rep. Gingrich Senator Glen Senator Gore Senator Grassley Senator Harkin Senator
Hatch Senator Heflin Senator Helms Senator Kassebaum Senator Kennedy Senator J.Kerry Rep. Leach Senator Levin Senator
Lott Senator Lugar Senator McCain Senator Metzenbaum Senator Mitchell SenatorNunn Senator Pryor Senator Sasser Senator Simon
Senator Simpson Senator Specter Senator Thurmond Senator Wallop SenatorWarner Govern. Wilson
The Glass Bead Game: minting
knowledge
--- the new coin of the realm,
to illume the minds of men.
November 12, 1990 (corrected)
Senator
Bradley
U. S. Senate
Gopher Prairie, D. C. 20510
Plinio Designori
[deletion] East Ave.
Hayward, Castalia
945[deletion]
"Maybe that guy's got the right
dope, but what's the use of looking on the dark side of things all the time? New ideas are first-rate, but not all this criticism.
Enough trouble in life without looking for it!" --- Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.
Dear Senator Bradley;
The Administration promised a response
to the Math Project proposal three months ago. They have not shown even the courtesy of a reply to my inquires.
A
Posed Question
Will the distinguished Senator not agree with me that it is most unfortunate that the White House staff
repeatedly fails to take advantage of opportunities when these opportunities present themselves?
NO? Sir, you surprise
me. I never thought of you as an obstructionist. You remind me of my old rhetoric teacher, William Buckley. If I heard the
great man say it once I heard him say it a hundred times: "As long as our Government remains incompetent our liberty remains
secure."
Personally I always found this the most troubling aspect of Buckley's philosophy. But perhaps you find in this
thought some special insight.
Please let me congratulate you on your win. I do not know what all the fuss is about. A
one vote margin is all that is required. As my grandfather, Admiral Sprague, use to say: "A miss is as good as a mile !"
The
Future
We are about to begin a new century. We will be saying good by to the bloodiest most despicable hundred years
in history and beginning, what?
Sir, in the future deserts will bloom into rich savanna under zebra striped skies softening
the sun's rays; the old will grow young in genetic "baths" of synthetic DNA; hurricanes will be calmed
out at sea; and the truth will be experienced not taught.
The Malthusian intellectuals tell you that the world's population
is expanding too fast; that the third world will not be able to keep up with this explosion. "There are not enough bricks
in the third world to build all the schools that this growing population will require!" they will say. We have in our possession
the means right now, this very instant, the power to educate everyone.
"Not just enrich the curriculum and our grandchildren
will be smarter," but right now Sir. (1) Let us not be content with doubling the number of schools in thirty years just to
keep up with world population. No, let us increase the number of schools not by a factor of 10 but by a factor of a 1,000,000
and not in thirty years but in ten!
A President once called on us to "bear any burden" one cold long ago new year's morning.
But rhetoric is for the provinces, right? The natives of Gopher Prairie, D. C. are more interested in gossip than truth, more
interested in their own careers and pleasures than our Nation's future. This future depends on how well you in our Nation's
capital perceive and communicate this future. We fear that you in our capital have lost the ability to even discuss our Nation's
future.
Of all the possible rhetorics Washingtonians seem to have hit upon just the wrong rhetoric to discuss our National
Policy.
A war of words and the retreat of the intellect.
The truth tests of a rhetoric is what kind of world
does it make possible?
When some Washingtonians said the choice for the American people is to tax the rich or cut the
Medicare program they used just the wrong rhetoric because it presents just the wrong choice of futures. (2)
It is universally
acknowledged that a people grown accustomed to depending on others to care for them will in adversity falter, and at the first
set back collapse. We find freedom in individual responsibility not in the mayhem of Paris and St. Petersburg. It is to the free city states defended by massed pikes, not to the walled towns defended by royal knights that we
trace our linage of liberty. Tyrants are our natural enemy. The art of our rhetoric Sir is to make politically possible that
which is strategically necessary.
Look at the way sophisticated Washingtonians discuss the great issue of war and peace.
"That's absurd . . . ," "hysterical," "That's ridiculous . . . ", "blood thirsty," "chinless wonders . . .," "Idiot . . .,"
and these are the sounds of the "doves!" These are not just the words of televised journalists: but those also of a Carter
National Security Adviser and a Reagan Defense Secretary. They might be High School boys out to prove their manliness. It
gives one pause to contemplate the advice given in private. Shudder to think that men's lives will be decided, may have already
been decided, by thoughts formed in such a rhetoric.
Those who have become accustomed to postponing decisions lack the
self confidence to assess the future and act today based on that assessment.
A crooked game.
In domestic politics
our rhetoric conceals the malevolent liberal social policy and Orwell appears to us clairvoyant as those who argue for race
neutral policies are called "racists" and those who argue for explicitly race conscious policies are called . . . well . .
. liberal. This is truly inside out rhetoric. Those who make choices based on gender are "for equal rights" and those who
say gender discrimination is wrong are "sexist."
Of course, how could one carry out a racist, sexist policy except with
a rhetoric that allowed one to defend these pogroms by accusing one's critics of being racists and sexists? Or for example
those who are quiet and do not object are labeled "passive aggressives" just as those who do not subsidize art are said to
be censoring it.
With Dostoyevsky we can ask: "Do you despise or do you respect mankind, you - its future saviours?"
An
old Rhetoric for a New Day.
In 1919, Max Weber gave several speeches in Munich about politics
and science as vocations. He argued for a rhetoric of "wertfreiheit": "ethical neutrality" or the ethic of responsibility.
He contrasted wertfriheit with "gesinnungspolitik" or the "politics of single-minded conviction," (3) true believers. (4)
"Every action, especially political action" he said "must let itself be disturbed by science through value discussion and
must let itself be corrected by inconvenient facts." (5) The rhetoric must be neutral so that contending values can be addressed.
If the rhetoric has been politicized then important values and ideas will literally be unspeakable because the words will
not exist to express the ideas.
"The two ethics, (the ethic of responsibility and the ethic of single minded commitment),
he argued, differed exactly in the manner in which they evaluated know-how and feasibility. Whereas the believer in an ethic
of responsibility considers the instrumental value and hence the chances for success as well as the consequences, the believer
in an ethic of conviction is concerned with commitment for its own sake, independent of any calculation of success." (6)
"The
ethic of conviction cannot recognize that in politics, in particular, which employs force as its specific means, good can
create evil and vice versa. In a specific sense this ethic is blind to reality." (7)
I submit for your consideration that
those societies that have established a rhetoric that allows dispassionate, analytic discourse develop superior (value judgment?)
social policy. Superior demonstrably because better discussed and therefore better understood. If social policy depends on
dissembling it may appear to achieve faster results but it always fails. Slow change means permanent change.
Our rhetoric
is controlled by the Great Universities and it suffers from their prejudices. We can not say in English that the free market
should, to give a specific example, be used to prevent pollution as has been recently suggested in the National Toxic Waste
Deposit Fund proposal presented at Waldzell College, Heidelberg University. (Yes Germany, "But Waldzell breeds
the skillful Glass Bead Game players.")
The laser disk gap.
I was recently sent a set of three laser disks
that were created from the Heidelberg University symposium: "Pollution: the Market Solution." Germany has moved far ahead of the United
States in this new technology which
in German is called "laser pedagogy." There are now over 85 University courses available on laser disks prepared by Germany's leading universities. I have a catalogue of some 300 Gymnasium courses. ["vocational" is a poor translation; see
how our rhetoric limits us?] Most disks have consecutive translations in English, Russian, and Arabic. The future dominance
of German arts, letters, and sciences on world culture can not be doubted.
France, for another example, has 34 laser disk
courses and it is estimated another 100 courses are now under development. We are losing the laser disk race.
The
German laser disks.
Let me describe one of the lectures in the symposium as an example of how new ideas require a
special more detached rhetoric and to provide a demonstration of this technology.
Looking down from a camera angle like
that of the U. S. Senate we see a small lecture theater at Waldzell College. Around the lectern steeply rise ranks of semi-circular desks darkly glowing in polished mahogany. Some 40 students
sit scattered among the desks with books, papers, and portable computers in front of them. At one desk a man and a woman sit
almost cheek to cheek staring at their intertwined hands.
In strides the Doctor Professor, a young man wearing an open
collar shirt, a black robe draped over his shoulders and billowing behind him. He stands at the lectern and nods to the students
to be seated. As he begins the lecture two graphs appear on the screen behind him. On the left a seven axis spider graph shows
multiple relationships. It is a type of graph virtually unknown in America
where we have difficulty keeping in mind more than one variable.
The Doctor Professor describes the cost benefit relationships
of business, government, consumers, technical developments, etc. as illustrated by the graphs. He says, "the National Toxic
Waste Deposit Fund is an example of this market driven environmental regulation." As the lecture proceeds footnotes appear
on the screen with options for the student to review the course materials or refer to other lectures and commentaries.
"Apart
from any purely moral considerations," the Doctor Professor is saying, "pollution is everywhere and always a cost avoidance
behavior. A rhetoric that focuses exclusively or mainly on the moral with out reference to this system of economies, that
we have here been describing, will concentrate on punishment instead of changing the system of economies to which the polluter
is simply responding.
"Obviously in order to redeem the deposits the toxic material must be properly deposited in certified
sites. Thus the well run and law abiding firm is not put at a competitive disadvantage as against its midnight dumping unscrupulous competitor. A great social benefit is achieved by selectively encouraging those firms that maintain
control of and documentation on their hazardous materials.
"Then again as the costs of the administration is more than
covered by the interest earned on these deposits no additional costs accrue to government and as the incentive for illegal
dumping is removed and is actually punished by forfeiture of deposits paid a net savings is experienced by government while
tending to increase total savings in the National economy. Administration is further eased by collection of the deposits at
the point of manufacture or extraction of these hazardous materials as defined.
"The emotion of moral outrage can
thus be seen as misplaced. It hampers an orderly correction. The pollution is now corrected by the normal market forces as
defined."
A sense of responsibility and a critique.
The Doctor Professor pauses at the end of the lecture;
the camera starts to zoom in on him, the silver threads in his turquoise shirt glistening in the spotlight of this magic theater.
He looks up from his lecture notes and removes his glasses. "Here we pause and consider the issue of ultimate ends and the
selected technical means to achieve them.
"Beyond any calculations of possible outcomes we must consider the ends to be
achieved and the means selected.
"As Germans we have a special duty in this regard. No other people has done greater harm
to the quest for technical solutions than we.
"It is our special responsibility to address the disrepute into which technology
and the search for technical solutions has fallen. Is it any wonder given our history, in which," his voice begins to rise,
"this nation attempted to change the very course of history by technical means; by the application of planes, tanks, and rocketry."
His voice drops to a whisper, "Yes and by gas chambers and mobile gas chambers, and," now again in a cry that seems to echo
back from the ceiling, "factories of death! Factories!" the woman in the front row flinches as he falls back to a speaking
voice ". . . of death.
"Our terrible search for final solutions. . . " he repeats in a whisper, "final solutions." The
hall is silent.
"And yet here I stand I can do none other. The mere fact of our existence impels us on this voyage of
technical discovery on an empirical sea of experience.
"Because of these crimes, this our criminal history, we who seek
technical solutions have this special burden of history to bear. This is a burden we all share, all of us who design an engine,
erect a building, develop a process in all the countries of the world. We Germans, Russians, Americans, we face together this
issue of ultimate ends, it is our special concern as the guilt is especially ours.
"For you to fully assume this obligation,
this debt owed by all in every technical enterprise, you must understand that this human universe allows, permits, the non
linear transmission of guilt.
"This guilt, this individual responsibility which singles us out from all other people,
is transmitted to us not by our acts alone, not even by the acts of the national fathers alone; but is communicated to us
across time and space in a strange non linear way as by God himself. The universe is a unitary whole and its linear deconstruction
is Maya, an illusion of the mind; ends and means are one! The application of logic, the attempt to rationalize in a linear
sequence of reasoning, is at the core of the guilt which we therefore can never expurgate. This special guilt is ours in perpetuity,
it can not be altered it must simply be accepted as is the fact of our existence.
"We share, in particular we share, the
guilt of Raskolnikov, that would be Napoleon; of Hitler, that killer of Jews."
" [other options available: literature,
history, biography, philosophy. see index. ] " appeared at the bottom of the screen.
Death and a beginning.
Why,
Washingtonians, do I continue the Math Project crusade? I was born on the 22nd of November. When I became eleven a great man
was murdered.
"Oh! he thought in grief and horror, now I am guilty of his death. And only now, when there was no longer
need to save his pride or offer resistance, he felt, in shock and sorrow, how dear this man had already become to him. And
since in spite of all rational objections he felt responsible for the Master's death, there came over him, with a premonitory
shudder of awe, a sense that this guilt would utterly change him and his life, and would demand much greater things of him
than he had ever before demanded of himself." Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi. (1943)
With Holmes we can say that in
our youth our hearts, also, were touched by fire.
The Glass Bead Game: minting knowledge
--- the new coin of the realm,
to illume the minds of men.
November 12, 1990 (corrected)
Senator Bradley
U. S. Senate
Gopher Prairie, D. C. 20510
Plinio Designori
[deletion] East Ave.
Hayward, Castalia
945[deletion]
"Maybe that guy's got the right dope, but what's the use of looking on the dark side of things all the time? New
ideas are first-rate, but not all this criticism. Enough trouble in life without looking for it!" --- Sinclair Lewis,
Main Street.
Dear Senator Bradley;
The Administration promised a response to the Math Project proposal three months ago. They have not shown even the courtesy
of a reply to my inquires.
A Posed Question
Will the distinguished Senator not agree with me that it is most unfortunate that the White House staff repeatedly fails
to take advantage of opportunities when these opportunities present themselves?
NO? Sir, you surprise me. I never thought of you as an obstructionist. You remind me of my old rhetoric teacher,
William Buckley. If I heard the great man say it once I heard him say it a hundred times: "As long as our Government
remains incompetent our liberty remains secure."
Personally I always found this the most troubling aspect of Buckley's philosophy. But perhaps you find in this thought
some special insight.
Please let me congratulate you on your win. I do not know what all the fuss is about. A one vote margin is all that
is required. As my grandfather, Admiral Sprague, use to say: "A miss is as good as a mile !"
The Future
We are about to begin a new century. We will be saying good by to the bloodiest most despicable hundred years in history
and beginning, what?
Sir, in the future deserts will bloom into rich savanna under zebra striped skies softening the sun's rays; the old
will grow young in genetic "baths" of synthetic DNA; hurricanes will be calmed out at sea; and the truth will
be experienced not taught.
The Malthusian intellectuals tell you that the world's population is expanding too fast; that the third world will not
be able to keep up with this explosion. "There are not enough bricks in the third world to build all the schools that
this growing population will require!" they will say. We have in our possession the means right now, this very instant,
the power to educate everyone.
"Not just enrich the curriculum and our grandchildren will be smarter," but right now Sir. (1) Let us not
be content with doubling the number of schools in thirty years just to keep up with world population. No, let us increase
the number of schools not by a factor of 10 but by a factor of a 1,000,000 and not in thirty years but in ten!
A President once called on us to "bear any burden" one cold long ago new year's morning. But rhetoric is
for the provinces, right? The natives of Gopher Prairie, D. C. are more interested in gossip than truth, more interested
in their own careers and pleasures than our Nation's future. This future depends on how well you in our Nation's capital
perceive and communicate this future. We fear that you in our capital have lost the ability to even discuss our Nation's
future.
Of all the possible rhetorics Washingtonians seem to have hit upon just the wrong rhetoric to discuss our National Policy.
A war of words and the retreat of the intellect.
The truth tests of a rhetoric is what kind of world does it make possible?
When some Washingtonians said the choice for the American people is to tax the rich or cut the medicare program they
used just the wrong rhetoric because it presents just the wrong choice of futures. (2)
It is universally acknowledged that a people grown accustomed to depending on others to care for them will in adversity
falter, and at the first set back collapse. We find freedom in individual responsibility not in the mayhem of Paris and St.
Petersburg. It is to the free city states defended by massed pikes, not to the walled towns defended by royal knights that
we trace our linage of liberty. Tyrants are our natural enemy. The art of our rhetoric Sir is to make politically possible
that which is strategically necessary.
Look at the way sophisticated Washingtonians discuss the great issue of war and peace. "That's absurd . . . ,"
"hysterical," "That's ridiculous . . . ", "blood thirsty," "chinless wonders . . .,"
"Idiot . . .," and these are the sounds of the "doves!" These are not just the words of televised
journalists: but those also of a Carter National Security Adviser and a Reagan Defence Secretary. They might be High School
boys out to prove their manliness. It gives one pause to contemplate the advice given in private. Shudder to think that
men's lives will be decided, may have already been decided, by thoughts formed in such a rhetoric.
Those who have become accustomed to postponing decisions lack the self confidence to assess the future and act today
based on that assessment.
A crooked game.
In domestic politics our rhetoric conceals the malevolent liberal social policy and Orwell appears to us clairvoyant
as those who argue for race neutral policies are called "racists" and those who argue for explicitly race conscious
policies are called . . . well . . . liberal. This is truly inside out rhetoric. Those who make choices based on gender
are "for equal rights" and those who say gender discrimination is wrong are "sexist."
Of course, how could one carry out a racist, sexist policy except with a rhetoric that allowed one to defend these pogroms
by accusing one's critics of being racists and sexists? Or for example those who are quiet and do not object are labeled
"passive aggressives" just as those who do not subsidize art are said to be censoring it.
With Dostoyevsky we can ask: "Do you despise or do you respect mankind, you - its future saviours?"
An old Rhetoric for a New Day.
In 1919, Max Weber gave several speeches in Munich about politics and science as vocations. He argued for a rhetoric
of "wertfreiheit": "ethical neutrality" or the ethic of responsibility. He contrasted wertfriheit with
"gesinnungspolitik" or the "politics of single-minded conviction," (3) true believers. (4) "Every
action, especially political action" he said "must let itself be disturbed by science through value discussion
and must let itself be corrected by inconvenient facts." (5) The rhetoric must be neutral so that contending values
can be addressed. If the rhetoric has been politicized then important values and ideas will literally be unspeakable because
the words will not exist to express the ideas.
"The two ethics, (the ethic of responsibility and the ethic of single minded commitment), he argued, differed exactly
in the manner in which they evaluated know-how and feasibility. Whereas the believer in an ethic of responsibility considers
the instrumental value and hence the chances for success as well as the consequences, the believer in an ethic of conviction
is concerned with commitment for its own sake, independent of any calculation of success." (6)
"The ethic of conviction cannot recognize that in politics, in particular, which employs force as its specific means,
good can create evil and vice versa. In a specific sense this ethic is blind to reality." (7)
I submit for your consideration that those societies that have established a rhetoric that allows dispassionate, analytic
discourse develop superior (value judgement?) social policy. Superior demonstrably because better discussed and therefore
better understood. If social policy depends on dissembling it may appear to achieve faster results but it always fails.
Slow change means permanent change.
Our rhetoric is controlled by the Great Universities and it suffers from their prejudices. We can not say in English
that the free market should, to give a specific example, be used to prevent pollution as has been recently suggested in the
National Toxic Waste Deposit Fund proposal presented at Waldzell College, Heidelberg University. (Yes Germany, "But
Waldzell breeds the skillful Glass Bead Game players.")
The laser disk gap.
I was recently sent a set of three laser disks that were created from the Heidelberg University symposium: "Pollution:
the Market Solution." Germany has moved far ahead of the United States in this new technology which in German is called
"laser pedagogy." There are now over 85 University courses available on laser disks prepared by Germany's leading
universities. I have a catalogue of some 300 Gymnasium courses. ["vocational" is a poor translation; see how our
rhetoric limits us?] Most disks have consecutive translations in English, Russian, and Arabic. The future dominance of German
arts, letters, and sciences on world culture can not be doubted.
France, for another example, has 34 laser disk courses and it is estimated another 100 courses are now under development.
We are losing the laser disk race.
The German laser disks.
Let me describe one of the lectures in the symposium as an example of how new ideas require a special more detached rhetoric
and to provide a demonstration of this technology.
Looking down from a camera angle like that of the U. S. Senate we see a small lecture theater at Waldzell College. Around
the lectern steeply rise ranks of semi-circular desks darkly glowing in polished mahogany. Some 40 students sit scattered
among the desks with books, papers, and portable computers in front of them. At one desk a man and a woman sit almost cheek
to cheek staring at their intertwined hands.
In strides the Doctor Professor, a young man wearing an open collar shirt, a black robe draped over his shoulders and
billowing behind him. He stands at the lectern and nods to the students to be seated. As he begins the lecture two graphs
appear on the screen behind him. On the left a seven axis spider graph shows multiple relationships. It is a type of graph
virtually unknown in America where we have difficulty keeping in mind more than one variable.
The Doctor Professor describes the cost benefit relationships of business, government, consumers, technical developments,
etc. as illustrated by the graphs. He says, "the National Toxic Waste Deposit Fund is an example of this market
driven environmental regulation." As the lecture proceeds footnotes appear on the screen with options for the student
to review the course materials or refer to other lectures and commentaries.
"Apart from any purely moral considerations," the Doctor Professor is saying, "pollution is everywhere
and always a cost avoidance behavior. A rhetoric that focuses exclusively or mainly on the moral with out reference to this
system of economies, that we have here been describing, will concentrate on punishment instead of changing the system of
economies to which the polluter is simply responding.
"Obviously in order to redeem the deposits the toxic material must be properly deposited in certified sites. Thus
the well run and law abiding firm is not put at a competitive disadvantage as against its midnight dumping unscrupulous competitor.
A great social benefit is achieved by selectively encouraging those firms that maintain control of and documentation on their
hazardous materials.
"Then again as the costs of the administration is more than covered by the interest earned on these deposits no
additional costs accrue to government and as the incentive for illegal dumping is removed and is actually punished by forfeiture
of deposits paid a net savings is experienced by government while tending to increase total savings in the National economy.
Administration is further eased by collection of the deposits at the point of manufacture or extraction of these hazardous
materials as defined.
"The emotion of moral outrage can thus be seen as misplaced. It hampers an orderly correction. The pollution
is now corrected by the normal market forces as defined."
A sense of responsibility and a critique.
The Doctor Professor pauses at the end of the lecture; the camera starts to zoom in on him, the silver threads in his
turquoise shirt glistening in the spotlight of this magic theater. He looks up from his lecture notes and removes his glasses.
"Here we pause and consider the issue of ultimate ends and the selected technical means to achieve them.
"Beyond any calculations of possible outcomes we must consider the ends to be achieved and the means selected.
"As Germans we have a special duty in this regard. No other people has done greater harm to the quest for technical
solutions than we.
"It is our special responsibility to address the disrepute into which technology and the search for technical solutions
has fallen. Is it any wonder given our history, in which," his voice begins to rise, "this nation attempted to
change the very course of history by technical means; by the application of planes, tanks, and rocketry." His voice
drops to a whisper, "Yes and by gas chambers and mobile gas chambers, and," now again in a cry that seems to echo
back from the ceiling, "factories of death! Factories!" the woman in the front row flinches as he falls back to
a speaking voice ". . . of death.
"Our terrible search for final solutions. . . " he repeats in a whisper, "final solutions." The
hall is silent.
"And yet here I stand I can do none other. The mere fact of our existence impels us on this voyage of technical
discovery on an empirical sea of experience.
"Because of these crimes, this our criminal history, we who seek technical solutions have this special burden of
history to bear. This is a burden we all share, all of us who design an engine, erect a building, develop a process in all
the countries of the world. We Germans, Russians, Americans, we face together this issue of ultimate ends, it is our special
concern as the guilt is especially ours.
"For you to fully assume this obligation, this debt owed by all in every technical enterprise, you must understand
that this human universe allows, permits, the non linear transmission of guilt.
"This guilt, this individual responsibility which singles us out from all other people, is transmitted to us not
by our acts alone, not even by the acts of the national fathers alone; but is communicated to us across time and space in
a strange non linear way as by God himself. The universe is a unitary whole and its linear deconstruction is Maya, an illusion
of the mind; ends and means are one! The application of logic, the attempt to rationalize in a linear sequence of reasoning,
is at the core of the guilt which we therefore can never expurgate. This special guilt is ours in perpetuity, it can not
be altered it must simply be accepted as is the fact of our existence.
"We share, in particular we share, the guilt of Raskolnikov, that would be Napoleon; of Hitler, that killer of
Jews."
" [other options available: literature, history, biography, philosophy. see index. ] " appeared at the bottom
of the screen.
Death and a beginning.
Why, Washingtonians, do I continue the Math Project crusade? I was born on the 22nd of November. When I became eleven
a great man was murdered.
"Oh! he thought in grief and horror, now I am guilty of his death. And only now, when there was no longer need
to save his pride or offer resistance, he felt, in shock and sorrow, how dear this man had already become to him. And since
in spite of all rational objections he felt responsible for the Master's death, there came over him, with a premonitory shudder
of awe, a sense that this guilt would utterly change him and his life, and would demand much greater things of him than he
had ever before demanded of himself." Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi. (1943)
With Holmes we can say that in our youth our hearts, also, were touched by fire.
Very truly yours;
Peter [deletion]
ps You seem to have quite a bit of influence with the White House. Could you help the Math Project?
cc Dr. Richard T. La Pointe
Director, U. S. Department of Education
Christopher T. Cross
Assistant Secretary, U. S. Department of Education
Lauro Cavazos
Secretary, U. S. Department of Education
John Sununu
Chief of Staff, the White House
George Bush
President, United States of America
Senator Biden Senator Bond Senator Byrd Senator Cranston Senator Danforth Senator Dole Senator Domenici Senator Garn
Rep. Gingrich Senator Glen Senator Gore Senator Grassley
Senator Harkin Senator Hatch Senator Heflin Senator Helms Senator Kassebaum Senator Kennedy Senator J.Kerry Rep. Leach
Senator Levin Senator Lott Senator Lugar Senator McCain Senator Metzenbaum Senator Mitchell Senator Moynihan Senator
Nunn Senator Pryor Senator Sasser Senator Simon Senator Simpson Senator Specter Senator Thurmond Senator Wallop Senator
Warner Govern. Wilson
footnotes:
(1) Senator Voltaire, from a debate on the floor of the United States Senate as transcribed on October 9, 1990.
(2) Senator Sasser, M & L News Hour.
(3) Max Weber's Vision of History, Ethics and Methods, By Guenther Roth and Wolfgang Schluchter, University of California
Press, 1979, page 68.
(4) Max Weber's Vision of History, Ethics and Methods, By Guenther Roth and Wolfgang Schluchter, University of California
Press, 1979, page 66.
(5) Max Weber's Vision of History, Ethics and Methods, By Guenther Roth and Wolfgang Schluchter, University of California
Press, 1979, page 84.
(6) Max Weber's Vision of History, Ethics and Methods, By Guenther Roth and Wolfgang Schluchter, University of California
Press, 1979, page 85.
(7) Max Weber's Vision of History, Ethics and Methods, By Guenther Roth and Wolfgang Schluchter, University of California
Press, 1979, page 88.
"Was it better to be with Tereza or remain alone?
"There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything
as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal of life is
life itself?"
----------Milan Kundera,
The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
The Math Project: minting knowledge
---the new coin of the realm,
to illume the minds of men.
October 12, 1990
John Sununu
Chief of Staff
the White
House
Washington, D. C. 20510
Peter [deletion]
[deletion] East Ave.
Hayward, Ca.
945[deletion]
Dear
John Sununu;
I am writing to you to get your advise on how I can win friends and influence people to support the Math
Project.
I have been trying for two years to get the Administration to keep the promises it has made regarding the
Federal Math Matrix. I can not believe the President would allow, if he knew, this bureaucratic intransigence and repeated
failures to keep the promises made in his name to continue. I wrote to the President a month ago to tell him about this problem;
someone must be keeping my letters from him.
The Federal Math Matrix is a series of 48 interrelated, self paced,
math courses, (from basic to advanced), recorded on laser disks in an interactive format. This would allow even small schools
to have a complete math department. More importantly it would allow students to proceed at their own pace as they master each
subject. The courses would be circulated by Junior High Schools, High Schools, Community Colleges, and Libraries. The initial
ten million dollar investment would be paid back to the Government. The project would be a joint Government - computer industry
venture.
The problem is that I fear I may have been too strident in my advocacy,
too overbearing. So I put it to you, Governor: Have I alienated the very people I have been trying to persuade? Was my questioning
of the distinguished Senator Alan Cranston too sharp? Did his Excellency President Bush find my references to Yale offensive?
The Senate, have I insulted all of them?
Have you noticed that men keep a close tally of all the minuses but
show a casual disregard for the pluses. So much depends on where one starts counting. Sir, I am an outsider inexperienced
in the ways of Washington; I seek your guidance, am I too aggressive?
Now, Senator Sasser says that the only reason the Democrats went
along with The Great Budget Compromise Of 1990, was because Sununu "literally held a gun to our heads." Wow! I thought, now
that's what I call the power of persuasion.
Or take the Honorable Gingrich. Now there, Governor, is a case of
persuasion. Do not be angry with your brother Newt. John, your Governorship, life is too short to hold grudges. Love Newt
as you love yourself, and forgive him as you would have others forgive you. Let's face it, warning against deficits and the
evils of governmental spending is what has won for the Republican party the proud claim to being the longest running minority
party in history. All budget politics now, post Reagan, is based on the strategy of letting some other poor dumb sucker carry
the bad news that there are limits to Uncle Sam's bank roll, no, (the bank roll is gone): that there are limits to Uncle Sam's
credit card.
This is what Reagan did for the Republicans, like Moses leading the
Jews from bondage. Reagan said to a century of good Republican deficit control: let my people go. Behold, the waters parted;
Republicans could again win with Land Slides. Gingrich is saying why not let our friends carry the burden for the next century?
Or to use the fashionable academic metaphor: the relationship between Democrats and Republicans is that of addict and co-dependent.
When Reagan changed the rules of the relationship the binge began --- the addict was unable to change with out the old support
of the co-dependent. We have been "playing chicken" for some time.
This is what President Bush is saying on taxes. We
are not going to play that same old game, the President is saying, where the Democrats buy the government programs and the
Republicans get to demand a tax Bill increase. (Or, in the alternative, let us go to the people together and explain reality.)
What then is the difference between Republicans and Democrats? Philosophy.
Republicans use free market principles in social policy, that is to say experience. The Math Project is saying: you don't
have to spend money like a Democrat in order to have a big impact on education. (Adult education is the most cost effective
education. Individualized education is the most efficient. Technology eliminates bureaucracy—lowers costs.)
Look at the difference between us and our friends:
Two liberals
writing for the American Association for the Advancement of Science said: "Education today remains technologically underdeveloped.
The first question Americans ask about a new product of technology is: How can it be used to turn a profit? It is rare that
we initially ask, How can this new product be developed and designed so as to improve American education?
"The American pattern is clear. The educational exploitation of technologies
is always secondary to the prevalent market orientation and philosophy. Educational technologies always follow commercial
development, almost as an afterthought. . . . Technology for education simply is not viewed as a long-term investment in the
economy of the Nation."(1)
Did you note the liberal bias against the free market? Did you note
that the alternative explanation, that because the educational system is governmentally controlled technology has not been
used, is not even considered my these writers?
A Republican philosophy provides the explanation to the mystery:
Why in the most technologically advanced nation on the planet; the country where the electronic computer was developed; where
the greatest emphasis is placed on the opportunity of the individual to advance as far as his abilities will take him, why,
has the educational establishment not embraced technology?
Government bureaucrats do not innovate, they do not need technology.
Like the Ancient Chinese Mandarins our Mandarins, enthroned in the Great Universities, define the reality of Education, and
then control a vast administrative apparatus to impose their views. China's vast labor supply allowed its centralized power
structure to succeeded too well. There was no need to innovate. Just so, American Mandarins, atop their hierarchical structure,
pour vast amounts of money into a bloated bureaucracy. Technical innovation? Who cares?
Another explanation comes
from Diane Ravitch in The Troubled Crusade:
"With funds from foundations and government, school systems experimented
with the new (supposedly 'teacher-proof') curricula, new patterns of staffing and scheduling, new ways of training teachers,
and new technology. Admirers of behaviorist B. F. Skinner claimed that the teaching machine and programmed instruction would
revolutionize the classroom. Others, touting the virtues of television teaching, talking typewriters, computers, and multimedia
equipment, envisioned the advent of 'the automated classroom.' The new technology, it was believed, had made the traditional
. . . school obsolete . . .
"The expected pedagogical revolution in the schools was not to be,
however. It was swept aside by the onrush of the racial revolution, which presented a forceful challenge to the political,
social, and economic basis of American schools. . . .
"Before long, the pursuit of excellence was overshadowed by concerns
about the needs of the disadvantaged. . . . Such efforts were multiplied by congressional passage of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act in 1965, with its focus on educating poor children."(2)
I call this blaming the victim. If you really wanted to expand educational
opportunities how could you avoid education technology? The issue for Liberal educators was never how to meet the "needs of
the disadvantaged" but how to incorporate the new political forces into the beehive bureaucracy of state controlled education.
Their first concern was, and is, power.
Did you ever hear a Liberal educator complain that he had too much
funding and wanted some of it given to a poorer institution? They may have been Liberal but they were not that liberal. It
has taken court action to get the "professionals" to even consider equalizing the distribution of educational resources in
California, Texas, New Jersey, etc., etc.
And in all this; in all the teary eyed pleas for help, in all the
law suits, the shouting matches in school board chambers across America has there ever been anyone who thought to consider
what might be and ask why not?
Was there ever such a man?
["Birkin remembered how once Gerald had clutched his hand, with a
warm, momentaneous grip of final love. For one second - then let go again, let go forever. If he had kept true to that clasp,
death would not have mattered. Those who die, and dying still can love, still believe, do not die. They live still in the
beloved. Gerald might still have been living in the spirit with Birkin, even after death, He might have lived with his friend,
a further life."]
Very truly yours;
Peter [deletion]
ps Remember, when
you strike at a king kill him.
cc Dr. Richard T. La Pointe
Director, U. S. Department of Education
Christopher
T. Cross
Assistant Secretary, U. S. Department of Education
Lauro Cavazos
Secretary, U. S. Department of Education
George Bush
President, United States of America
Senator Biden Senator Bond Senator Bradley Senator Byrd
Senator
Cranston Senator Danforth Senator Dole Senator Domenici
Senator Garn Rep. Gingrich Senator Glen Senator Gore Senator Grassley
Senator Harkin Senator Hatch Senator Heflin
Senator Helms Senator Kassebaum Senator Kennedy Senator J.Kerry
Rep. Leach
Senator Levin Senator Lott Senator Lugar Senator McCain Senator Metzenbaum Senator Mitchell Senator Moynihan Senator Nunn
Senator Pryor Senator Sasser Senator Simon Senator Simpson Senator Specter Senator Thurmond Senator Wallop Senator Warner
Senator Wilson
1 Mathematics, Microelectronics, and American Education, by F. James Rutherford and Joseph M. Dasbach,
American Association for the Advancement of Science, National Institute of Education and National Science Foundation Conference
Proceedings 1981. page 13.
2 The Troubled Crusade: American Education 1945-1980, by Diane Ravitch, Basic Books, New York,
1983, page 233 - 234
The Math Project: minting knowledge
---the new coin of the realm
September 12, 1990
George
Bush
President, United States of America
The White House
Washington, D. C.
Peter [deletion]
[deletion]
East Ave.
Hayward, Ca.
945[deletion]
Dear Mr. President;
"All funds for mathematics programs supported
with fiscal year 1989 funds have been expended. We have not yet received our appropriation for fiscal year 1990. As soon as
the appropriation is determined, program priorities will be set and announcements will be made regarding the next round. .
. . We have placed your name on a list to receive both the announcement and the application package."
Bruno V. Manno,Acting
Assistant Secretary
September 15, 1989
"Thank you for your letters to President Bush, former Acting Assistant
Secretary Manno, and Secretary Cavazos regarding the status of your math application.
"We have submitted your outline for review under an unsolicited proposal process administered by the
F.I.R.S.T. Office. You should be contacted by a F.I.R.S.T. Staff member sometime in August regarding its status in the review
process."
--------Christopher T. Cross,
Assistant Secretary
May 15, 1990
I am, myself, my own best evidence of the sorry state of American
education. This is, I guess, why the Administration never keeps its word to me. Why should they? Promises made in May need
not be kept in August to a fool. Some advocate I am: I can not get the Administration to do what it has said, of its own free
will, it would do. (The Administration set the time.)
Last year I waited all through the long dark months of my humiliation; waiting for the promised contact
that never came. As an insurance adjuster I was busy inspecting the buildings damaged in the Great Earthquake of '89. December
and January passed and then I began to realize that the Department of Education was not going to contact me as they said they
would. The budget had not been settled but even when it was it dawned on me that no one was interested in the pipe dream of
an insurance adjuster in California. (Yes, Dr. La Pointe, California.) My hopes became like the buildings I was inspecting:
broken and ruined.
No one at the Department of Education needs to hear from me. They no doubt agree with the sentiments
of Senator Voltaire, who found in my letters only the grousing of one who has not had his "pay packet" increased in the last
30 years. They no doubt think: just another defective taking out his frustrations on the Administration. Who was I to think
differently?
If the Yale Divinity School had wanted to produce a course for the general public on say the Family
and the Meaning of Life, in the 1950's they could have produced the lectures on Long Playing records. If Harvard or U. C.
Berkeley had wanted to contribute to the general public's understanding of literature in the 1960's they could have produced
their courses on audio cassettes and distributed them to the Community Colleges and High Schools. (The late B. F. Skinner
invented the learning machine at Harvard.)
M. I. T. hardly needs to hear from me that it could have produced courses in science and technology
in the 1970's on video cassettes with tutorials on magnetic disks for computers. Half of our High Schools do not offer a course
in physics, for example, but there seems to be no substitute for "the live instructor" even when there is no instructor at
all. No, the Department of Education is right, why keep their word to me? Who did I think I was?
Why were laser disks allowed to collect dust in the 1980's? Given this history of failure to exploit
technology, the question should be why did I think I could change anything?
I had given up on the application from the Department of Education when on April 16, 1990 Senator Byrd
established the record for the most votes cast in the United States Senate. There was a small ceremony to recognize the achievement.
The Senator stood on the floor and gave a speech in which he said that we should help those who are trying to continue their
education. He went on to describe his own education and concluded by saying that "if there is anyone out there who is listening"
they should keep trying to help. I rushed off a letter to the Senate, the Administration, the Math Project participants.
Well
Senator Byrd I tried. I did not succeed. But I tried.
In the life of the world to come it will be hard for those future citizens to understand our failure
to use technology to advance education. They will think us small, narrow minded, and selfish. And they would be right. We
are a race headed for extinction because we did not care for our children as well as we cared for ourselves.
Our Nation is to become a colonial backwater for the great nations of this world. Our children will
consume what other nation's children invent. America will become a kind of giant farm to be slashed and burned and harvested,
but never cultivated. Oh yes, I tried, but now I know better.
The Department of Education has taught me a bitter lesson--- I can not change my world. Now I rejoice
in the all too short, narrow path of life. Every white hair on my head will be, like first snows of winter's approach, a reminder
that I am soon to lay my head down in my makers lap and sleep that final sleep. Now I can set aside the humiliation of the
Department's delay. Now I know what all have known, what a waste learning has been on me.
But what are we to do, Mr. President, the scorned and wretched of this world, who want to learn?
Very
truly yours;
Peter [deletion]
p.s. And I think Saddam Hussein should be destroyed.
cc Dr. Richard
T. La Pointe
Director, U. S. Department of Education
Christopher T. Cross
Assistant Secretary, U. S. Department
of Education
Lauro Cavazos
Secretary, U. S. Department of Education
John Sununu
Chief of Staff, the White
House
Senator Bond Senator Bradley Senator Byrd Senator Danforth Senator Dole Senator Garn Senator Glen Senator Gore Senator
Harkin Senator Hatch Senator Heflin Senator Helms Senator Kassebaum Senator Kennedy Senator J. Kerry Senator Levin Senator
Lugar Senator Mitchell Senator Moynihan Senator Nunn Senator Simon Senator Simpson Senator Thurmond Senator Wallop Senator
Warner Senator Wilson
How to protect the Flag with out Constitutional amendments:
I propose a Bill that would
define what the U. S. Flag's exact dimensions, proportions, and technic of manufacture shall be. The Bill would specify the
type of cloth, its chemical composition. For example the cloth could contain metal threads to allow easy identification even
if it has been burned.
The Bill would prohibit any manufacture of this flag save that the Government has issued a licence.
Others would be permitted to make flags similar, even very similar, as long as they did not exactly match the exact dimensions
and proportions and colors etc. as specified by the Bill. We grant our own patent.
This flag, the only genuine true Flag,
would not be sold but would be used solely by the Federal Government and by lessees. Lessees would be granted generous leases
of say 999 years. They would take possession but never ownership interest which would always remain with the United States.
The Bill would specify the punishment, civil and/or criminal, for any one who abused this true Flag of the Nation. The
chemical or metallic "markers" in its fabric would allow prosecutors to meet the "preponderance of the evidence" rule and
even the "beyond a reasonable doubt" rules of our courts.
Now, if someone wants to take some crayons and paper and set
it on fire they can be subject to local ordinances for unlawful demonstrations or having a fire with out a permit but the
Federal Government would have no interest as this bit of paper is not
the true Flag. Do what they will with bits of similar
cloth, but as for the one true Flag: Don't tread on me !
The Math Project: "minting knowledge"
July 19, 1990
Senator Cranston
United States Senate
Washington, D. C. 20510
Jude Fawley
[Deletion] East Ave.
Hayward, Ca. 945[deletion]
Dear Senator Cranston;
I bring you good news.
I believe that President George Bush will next month announce
the creation of the Federal Math Matrix on laser disk.
I believe that soon every student in America will be able to
study math at the pace that best suits them. I believe that President Bush will be remembered for centuries for establishing
knowledge as the new coin of the realm.
His laser disks will circulate around the world allowing millions
to learn and fulfill their abilities.
Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, Factorem coeli et terrae,
visibilium omnium et invisibilium. . . .
We are privileged to witness the union of crisis and leadership,
of political philosophy and technology, into a policy out of which will come a revolutionary breakthrough in American Education.
Soon, with in a few hundred hours after the first course is produced, students will be studying geometry from the Abraham
Lincoln Memorial Lectures in Elementary Geometry, and algebra in the John F. Kennedy Memorial Lectures in Elementary Algebra,
and numerical reasoning in the William McKinley Memorial Lectures in Numerical Reasoning, and statistic in the Allard Lowenstein
Memorial Lectures in Statistics III (Statistics for Political and Social Science).
It has taken a National crisis in education to prepare us for
this bold, visionary advance. As is said in the Tao Te Ching, "When the Nation is imperiled great men arise."
President Bush is about to create the first in a series of matrixes
that will bring as great a change in education as the introduction of moveable type. This will be a whole new college, an
electronic college. His free market philosophy, his policy initiatives of free choice in education, his political philosophy
of ever expanding opportunities for the individual, (what, after all, does the Republican Party stand for if it does not stand
for the individual?), have all prepared the way for this new beginning.
To this leader, in this historic crisis, has come the technology
of the laser disk. It is as if God himself has intervened in our behalf. This technology is powerful because it is interactive.
Now every student, by this technology, can enter into a dialogue with the teacher. The unresponsive technologies of the past,
e.g. the book, the audio and video technologies, are now superseded by the interactive power of the laser disk.
Such coalescence of leader, crisis, solution do not come often
in our lives; it is right that we should pause and consider this. What if more of the problems we face as a Nation could be
solved in such a happy manner?
. . . Crucifixus etiam pro nobis: sub Pontio Pilato passus,
et sepultus est. Et resurrexit tertia die, secundum Scripturas. . .
How often have we failed even to consider the technical solution
thinking that our problems were some how "in side" of us and not amenable to technical solutions? (This is the "malaise" theory
of Government and society so long ago rejected by our people.)
We forget that we are the Nation of Franklin, Edison, and The
Woz.
I submit that for every problem, the correct alignment of problem
formulation will allow for a technical solution. Wither the problem is education, the protection of the National Flag, or
global warming, what ever the problem, there is a technical solution. Americans will never be as homogeneous as the Japanese.
We will never be as studious as the Germans, or as self confident as the French.
America, your genius lies in the application of technology, particularly
the mass application of technology. America your genius lies in mass production.
Reject all formulations of problems that do not lend themselves
to technical solutions, and in the main mass production of "solutions." It is always and every where true that superior management
is always the result of superior strategy.
. . . Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem, qui ex
Patre Filioque procedit. Qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur. Qui locutus est per prophetas. . . .
Sir, while you and I are still in this warm bipartisan embrace,
let me ask you to please read my petition.
From the early years of the nineteenth century when Horace Mann
began his campaign for the establishment of "public schools" the history of education in the United States has been the history
of governmental involvement in education. In the United States this involvement has been imbued with a utopian spirit, and
as with all utopian movements, there has been a sameness to our schools.
Utopias are the creation of a single point of view and therefore
are self limited by definition. (If different points of view were allowed, there would be disagreement and thus they would
not be utopias.) The result is that American public schools show little inclination to innovate. The bureaucratic institutions
that control education are more interested in their self perpetuation than innovation.
Layered over these public schools are the elite schools whose
graduates control public policy. I am talking about people like you. I am not writing to Washington to speak to the good;
I am writing to Washington to speak to the wicked. Am I unfair? Let us see, just answer these questions: You are a Stanford
man I believe. You are proud of your school are you not? Tell me sir why is there only one Stanford? They have a "product"
that is in demand do they not? They yearly turn away "customers" do they not? Have they sought to expand their "market share,"
to "diversify?"
What business would operate like this? Why are you proud of this
school? Why do institutions of learning operate by one standard that is agreeable to you but which no where else in our society
would be commended? The situation of education in America to day is no accident. It is not the unintended consequence of class,
party, or what have you, it is the direct result of your system of values. The disparities you see all about you. The failed
lives.
All the children who have been branded failures by this system,
have grown up failures, because of an attitude towards education and technology held by you and your friends and colleagues.
These Stanfords, Harvards, (we will exempt Yale Mr. President, because of your anticipated breakthrough policy), are not institutions
of education, i.e. the communication of information from one generation to the next, they are institutions of power.
You can not have more than one of these places, you can not diversify,
open additional campuses and use other technologies, because the transmission of information is not really what is taking
place. Rather these institutions confer power. These places are bastilles of knowledge not citadels; knowledge is there imprisoned
not protected.
If the free market were allowed to work in education as in other
areas of human activity things would look very different. Tell me sir, what is being said at Stanford about Shakespeare that
can not be said to me?
I know I am unworthy but what would be lost if the lecture were
to be shown to me? Look at your values! Sir, look into your heart. What is there that causes you to so despise us, your inferiors?
Why will you not share your world of knowledge with us? Why will you not allow us to even stand out side the door of your
lecture halls? We do not ask to walk even on the same pavement as you Stanford men, we do not object when you "shoulder" us
out of your way. But tell me why are new technologies not adopted by educators? Are you not to blame? Truly?
Does your cloak of liberalism so completely protect you from
all responsibility?
"I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you:
yea, who knoweth not such things as these?" Job xii. 3.
Thus the schools and their graduates that are more interested
in power than communication effectively control our public schools as well. I would use this new technology to break up this
state monopoly. This is populist conservatism. But do not think me an ideologue.
Just being liberal is not enough. Public education as a state
monopoly was a good thing in its time but the world moves on, for God's sake life moves on. What was good policy then is bad
policy now. Can you not change? Can you not grow?
Et unam Catholicam et Apostolicam Ecclesiam. Confiteor unum Baptisma
in remisionem peccatorum. Et exspecto Resurrectionem mortuorum. Et vitam venturi saeculi.
The personal computer's ability to patiently carry out an individualized
program of instruction - starting at what ever level of understanding the student brings to the subject - and continue on
to any level of detail desired is the single greatest innovation since the application of movable type. The question is why
has this technology not been more fully integrated into the American system of education?
I submit that the failure of our Government to take advantage
of the computer in education is only the most recent example of a series of failures that result from the way our Government
formulates our National policy. How many billions have been spent on education?
What do you have to show for it? Is our work force the best educated?
Literacy, where do we rank?
What can I say to move you?
If you are men, call this new college: "Ruskin College."
Amen.
Very truly yours;
Peter [deletion]
p.s. "He regarded the statesmen in their various types, men of
firmer movement and less dreamy air; the scholar, the speaker, the plodder; the man whose mind grew with his growth in years,
and the man whose mind contracted with the same." --- Thomas Hardy.
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