Friday, May 2, 2014

Orwellian Titles and Huxleyian Delusion



Michael Ferry, the new Knowledge Officer, left Woonsocket because there was no opportunity for further advancement. RIDE to the rescue with a new position - Knowledge Officer - to provide Mr. Ferry with another rung on the ladder. He is probably a very nice fellow, but the zombification process is a certain outcome. He will be embalmed in RIDE's institutional mediocrity. I am sure Gist has chosen carefully and the Knowledge Officer will abdicate any thoughts that are not distilled dogma. He will become a true believer, and Knowledge will continue at RIDE, as in the mainstream culture, for that matter, to slither into the Orwellian sea of irony. I'm a bit ambivalent about this memo exemplifying Orwell's fear that truth will be denied to us. Rather, I think Huxley was closer to the mark when he wrote in Brave New World that the truth, facts, and knowledge will become irrelevant. We are a nation where passivity rules and higher levels of cognition are becoming a vestigial process. Ralph Nader tells a story about his father asking him about what he had learned in school. The conversation always ended with the old man asking young Ralph if he had learned to think or to believe. At RIDE, I'm certain the latter will be the optimal path for another rung on Ferry's ascent rarified stratosphere of education reform. I pledge allegiance to...

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