I think that a conscious decision was made by the American establishment at the close of the 1960s, and what they said to themselves was, “This idea of universal education, and an educated citizenry, this, we don’t like. We see now what happens when you educate your citizens: they figure out the game, and they come to you with their plans for reform, and how to make it better.” So I was, at least at the University of California, I was among the last people to go through that university where the goal was to inform you about the nature of the enterprise called “Western Civilization.” And after that, what they got into was this MBA, data entry, all this stuff. The universities became trade schools, and what they give you is video games. They give you TV, video games, and they give you a skill. They say, “You’re a level three data enterer. We’re gonna give you $35,000 dollars a year, and please shut up about it. That’s it. You’ve been brought inside. But we’re not interested in your opinions. We’re giving you a life, we’re giving you a trade, and we’ll be giving you some orders downstream, and by God you better snap to when the moment comes.” This has nothing to do with democracy. This is fascism, is what it is….Everything is commoditized. People these days want to be secure. I don’t really understand that. You need a certain critical mass to give that up. It’s great when you and all your friends agree you don’t care whether you starve or not because you’re going to have so much fun doing it, but it’s hard to reach that place by yourself, because it’s not very much fun. There is a problem in that we are manipulated, and we are not empowered, and those who are empowered, it wouldn’t be so bad if they had a plan. But their plan is, you know, another house, another Mercedes, a deeper swimming pool. This is no plan. And so it’s up to the creativity of ordinary people.
Terence McKenna
Leave a Reply