Inspired (and slightly alarmed) by my recent forays into rediscovering childhood literature, and the insidious programming that lurked within the seemingly innocent pages, I decided to take a further perambulation down memory lane, by rediscovering the tomes of my teenage years.
That's very good, one of your best, it's a treatise level document. I was a prolific reader brought up on novels around WW2 exploits, they led me into "the hero's journey" of hedonism and rebellion https://www.supporthealth.com.au/clinic/about/bio-brief/ My eldest daughter was a prolific reader also, I always thought she was alright but her life is a catastrophe of entrapment in raising a vaccine injured child and all the programming that led her into it. No doubt many of your readers will see their own reflection too. Behind your insight is so much sadness.
Thank you, Hugh, that's really interesting and I look forward to reading your biography.
I'm very sorry to hear about your daughter, and it does seem likely that prolific childhood readers are more susceptible to programming, because they become more reliant on absorbing the opinions of others rather than going with their own instincts. When I started to question vaccines, it coincided with my suddenly becoming dramatically less interested in reading, which happened around the age of 16-17. When I was in upper sixth (age 17-18) and the nurse came in to give everyone the meningitis vaccine, claiming it was necessary for university, I was the only one who didn't get it. I stayed home that day, because I just had this strong instinctive sense that there was something wrong with vaccines. This wasn't because of anything I'd read on a conspiracy forum (it was long before I got into all that), but it's as if when I stopped constantly bombarding my brain with other people's opinions via books, I started to tune into my own intuition (inner tutor) instead.
You've made me realise that I "stopped reading" one day in my early 30s. People look at me like I'm an idiot when I say I haven't read a book for 20years. I just couldn't see the point in immersing myself in other people's drama. I did continue to be a disciple of scientism sadly, devouring non fiction. Not all pointless but mostly.
My experience today and what I see trending is, reading is being dismantled in the USA. Apparently kids are reading at a 4th grade level in many areas. So, it appears reading may no longer be considered a reliable controller tool when 24/7 video, virtual programming and AI! (That will research and write everything for you!) is available. Think about it. If you can read (and write), you might be exposed to (or share) "wrong ideas" by subversively searching for information. You might stumble upon mother lodes of suppressed information the controllers are busy stomping out. You could exercise independence!! Escape the maw!!! Note that much is being rewritten, censored and buried now, along with words and language. After all, "men can be women". Nah. Reading is being dismantled. By design. Nothing happens in the realm on a mass level that's not carefully thought and planned out. It's taken decades to get to this point. All of the training materials I get these days offer video training, which I won't do as it's too time consuming and boring. But the young adults will most likely pick the video since they lack attention span and most likely can't stay focused for very long. Aside from reading, the kids can barely write. They aren't taught cursive anymore because it enhances brain activity. Truth is, the controllers plan is to replace us, so they don't need us to read or write at all anymore. We're training our replacement, AI. Reading used to be a feature. Now it's a bug.
Many years ago, when I worked in Houston, Texas, there was a huge 24-hour bookstore in a converted cinema where the tiers of seating were removed and bookcases installed. It was a great place to browse on a sleepless night.
For me, reading a book that captures my interest is one of life's great pleasures. Recently though, there have been several reports of schools introducing subjects such as transgenderism, climate alarmism, diversity and inclusion and white privilege to young children, sometimes with guest readings by drag queens.
Brock Chisholm, the first Director-General of the World Health Organization is claimed to have said: "To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism, and religious dogmas." -And now even our gender.
"Note that no government school or free state programme teaches children hot to grow food, make clothes, build houses, construct furniture, or start a business. They don’t teach how to hunt or fish or sew. They don’t teach how to change a plug, fix a car, or mend a bike."
We weren't taught how our government works - how you could speak to local representatives, how to start a petition, how to vote, etc. Nor were we taught anything at all about managing finances and other necessary life skills.
I wanted to do 'manual training' but that was only for boys. But we were rewarded for being polite and obedient (to the teachers)!
Great point about the lack of civics education. I've made that point when people tell me voting and being involved in local politics is a sham and just what the overlords want etc. If it's just what they want, I ask, why don't they teach it in their schools? People come out of schools completely clueless about how the electoral process works, how parliament functions, how laws are made, and certainly how to stand as a political candidate themselves, and this is all by design to keep ordinary people out of politics.
Funny thing, I actually thought you were a boy! Funny how we unconsciously gender people with unisex user names. On the subject of "being rewarded for being polite and obedient", please see the brilliant works of veteran teacher John Taylor Gatto on what the real purpose of schooling is https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Schooling/dp/0865714487
Very thought provoking. I had a couple of favourite teachers, one was English Literature who introduced me to the work of W.H.Davies (Autobiography of a Supertramp). The poem "What is this life if full of care we have no time to stand and stare" has stayed with me for my entire life. The other was a maths teacher who actually made geometry and algebra fun, how strange! As a teenager I discovered a local market book stall where the erotic fantasies of teenage boys could be found, wow!
I think many were taught how to grow and make things at a secondary school level (not grammar school). This was at a time when factory fodder and simple labour was needed, not sure when this was phased out. I learned gardening from my father and woodwork and metalwork from evening classes. In many ways I feel priviledged but I love to read your missives to remind me to think. Thank you.
Thank you, Richard, very interesting. I do think schooling was more wide-ranging in past generations, and taught more practical skills, but by the 1990s when there was an all-consuming obsession with all children going to university, skills like growing and building were seen as "lowly" and so were not taught. Instead of growing food, we had Triple Science, instead of woodwork, a second foreign language, and so on. This elitism and snobbery still pervades across schools ,meaning thousands of students are unnecessarily funnelled into university for a useless degree, when they could be doing an apprenticeship, working and earning in a real trade, but I do think the tide is finally starting to turn on this and the university bubble is about to burst, which would be a rare positive societal development!
A very good essay with lots to think about. I still have a bookshelf full of my childhood books, I have also read Lucy... when I was in my 40s.
The Little House on the Prairie series of books did show case a lot of everyday survival skills (very good book https://prairiefiresbook.com/ is the biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder and tells the adult side of the story.)
We were told at college that the point of teaching the workers to read was so that they could read ON and OFF switches and so not damage the machinery...
Fascinating, Miri! I loved reading this piece. I love questioning something I have absolutely held to be sacred and good - no matter what, and at any dosage. It also makes me a feel a lot better about my oldest child, nearly 10, who has only just started reading (very slowly), and who would much rather be outside playing.
Do you have an opinion on the excessive focus on mathematics in school? Your joke about “double math” (ugh!!! I had forgotten about that!) made me think about it. Is mathematics a good and healthy thing for developing children’s brains to learn and understand? I have assumed so, but it does seem odd that there is such a focus on just four things in school these days: reading (tool of mind control), science (denial of the spiritual), social studies (pushing official histories/stories), and mathematics (??). I home school but have to report on these four subjects (and only these four) to my children’s charter school. So what is mathematics’ purpose in school? Is it benign or is there something more to it? Is it as simple as taking up the whole school day with these more left brain subjects in order to make sure the natural creativity and imagination is thoroughly dead? (No music, art, theater, dance, sewing, pottery, woodwork, gardening, cooking, practical skills, etc.) Would love to hear your thoughts if you have an opinion! Thank you, Miri.
Thank you, Skye, and I'm so pleased to hear my piece has made you feel better about your (I sexist-ly presume!) son. Outside playing is exactly where a 10-year-old should be, there is plenty of time to read later on, or he may never become a big reader and that's fine too. As Marta's comment above alluded to, the reality is that the world is moving away from the written word and it will become far more common to communicate by and receive information from video and audio.
I certainly do have an opinion on mathematics in schools, which I vigorously hated! I was awful at it and failed my GCSE (the exams we take at the end of mandatory schooling at 16). I got an 'E' and didn't manage to scrape a passing C until I was 31. This is not an uncommon story, especially for girls, and so it is a valid question as to why they force so many years of the subject on people who clearly cannot grasp it and are never going to practice it to any meaningful degree in their adult life. Maths struggles seem to create a lot of trauma, and even highly educated people with strings of postgraduate qualifications and successful careers often still shudder when you mention "maths GCSE". I'm sure that many people's teenage years would be so much happier if they could just drop maths. Which is probably exactly why schools don't let them...
It's funny you mention theatre ('drama' as it is in England) as I wanted to take that as one of my GCSE options. But I was told I wasn't allowed to because I was good at English! In my school, you could only take drama if you were in bottom set English. If you were in the top set, as I was, you had to take a second foreign language instead. Equally, you were only allowed to take 'Food Tech' (cooking) if you were in bottom set science! Fortunately (!), I was, so I was permitted to take that... It tells you everything you need to know about schools and the value they place on real skills.
"the world is moving away from the written word", seems we are reverting back to symbols - e.g. company logos, icons, emojis. No need for correct spelling (computer does this), grammar or punctuation.
Very thought provoking Miri, as usual. I am similar in that I always enjoyed reading as a kid. You raise a number of important ideas. First, the targeting and influencing of a key demographic. As you lay it out, it is clear how these themes would influence young minds. In my view, I would alter the perspective slightly, `I would say that it wasn't necessarily the young who were targeted, rather young women (hence Chick Lit). And Friends, whilst it was a gender split, I think all of the characters were written with women in mind. I can well see how adolescent girls would be vulnerable to this sort of programming, I am not sure though (but I may be wrong!) that young boys are equally as susceptible to seeing the world through the emotional part of the brain in the same way. And in fact, whilst some of our dear leaders seem to have been killed in the stampede to influence young women, young men have by comparison been positively ignored (hence incel culture). this would play into the sinister divide and rule strategy they have been using. it's interesting though, in the 60s and 70s they weren't outside young women's balconies courting them, it was the working class that the leaders wanted to influence. hence loads of flattering films and songs and programs about being a chippy working class bloke. In the early 70s he was the hero of the day. But at some point the penny seems to have dropped that the working class were never going to rise up in the way they wanted, and so they moved on to a much more profitable demographic, via feminism. And you can see how they switched horses by the start of the 80s, suddenly we had shows like the Gentle Touch, and Juliet Bravo. And the men weren't the heroes, they were suddenly on the wrong end of unfriendly questions like 'Have you been drinking?'
I agree also they seem to go to enormous lengths to try and get the audience to sympathise and like people who behave obnoxiously during this period. I remember watching My Best Friends Wedding, where the protagonist spends the whole film behaving like a psychopath but cos it was Julia Roberts she carried the audience with her (just). It takes so long for the penny to drop, that the people wanting to influence society, are wanting to do it in a malevolent way. but at this point it's indisputable.
Thanks Kevin, that's really interesting and what you say is absolutely true. Your point about Friends is completely accurate, the characters were all designed to appeal to girls. Girls wanted to be pretty, popular Rachel, and have BFFs like Monica and Phoebe. Chandler was the wisecracking "gay best friend" (even though the character was straight, it was an ongoing joke how everyone thought he was gay), Joey was the dreamboat "hunk" and Ross was the geeky but protective older brother who would look out for you. It was a dream fantasy sequence of the kind of social bonds a young female would like to have. Not much there to appeal to boys. Teenage boys from my recollection were into either sport or music, not really sitcoms, soap operas, or books, and as you say, there seems to have been a much more intensive effort to propagandise and programme girls over boys.
I'm sure it is right that the female teenage brain is more susceptible to propaganda than the teenage male brain, because of girls typically being far more interested in emotions and relationships than boys. Indeed, the subversive architects of feminism have admitted that they targeted females with feminism - and not males with 'meninism' - as females, especially young ones, are typically easier to manipulate (although males were also manipulated by things like Playboy into turning their backs on marriage and family and pursuing more "independent" lives etc).
And it is sadly so true that all the creators of dominant social programming have deeply malevolent intentions.
thanks Miri, yes they really did think it through on Friends, and it's still going down a storm 30 years later!
On an unrelated matter I think you will be interested if you haven't already seen it in the function on Google called Google Trends, which shows what searches were made in particular countries over a time period, say 5 years. I chose 'Israel' entirely by chance, and ran through the names of some of the 'killers' only to find someone had name checked them in google searches before their spectacular. this was the case for Manchester Synagogue, Southport, Thomas Matthew Crooks, Charlie Kirk (which is how this function got publicised ), even Nicola Bulley pops up before she should. Only thing is we don't know if it's a deliberate false trail for conspiracy nuts.
Thanks for sharing your early experiences. Something that many are reluctant to do publicly. I did not take to books until late teens and it was westerns and science fiction. Novels were almost totally out. My diet was also the Evening Standard and the Radio Times. Along with a few others at secondary school we devoured everything about 'flying saucers' that we could get hold of. (Called UAP's now). There is much more I could say about that subject, few know the dangerous reality, frequently dismissed as hoax, fantasy and worse still ET's. It is actually inter dimensional entities. Off topic here. I happen to believe that this enquiring nature has served me well. Why don't people think?
Thank you, John - and I completely agree with you about "flying saucers". There is no such thing as aliens, these 'entities' are demons (I do also think some are holographic hoaxes, aka Project Bluebeam).
Thanks for your response. I had to leave looking at the UFO's/UAP's for some years as it was getting in the way of other spiritual matters which may have led me astray. I have renewed my interest for many years now and I believe it will become more obvious as time goes on what they are. They are not our space brothers!! The most popular man in the field is Dr Steven Grier who I believe is genuinely deceived.
There is a difference between fallen angels and demons IMO, which is O/T for the present discussion.
It goes to your previous post about online anonymity when I say I immediately fondly recognised that book title for I too read it at leat twice.
I read almost everything from the same author until about a decade ago when I tried to read (or reread?) one of her books and Just. Could. Not. …I thought it was me.
And your piece also vindicates my chucking my girl’s Harry Potter books in the literal tip a few months ago.
You are my defence against the dark arts (😉) (😂) and I thank you.
Thanks Johan, that's really interesting. It is astonishing how differently we can react to the same tomes when we come back to them later. I've read about five Marian Keyes in total and when I was writing this piece, I checked out the first few pages of a couple of others (Last Chance Saloon and Rachel's Holiday) and I was shocked at how dark and depressing they were, despite the "jolly" style.
Very wise move regarding HP! As it was such a sensation, I tried reading the first one a few years ago, but as with Bridget Jones, found I couldn't get past the first few pages. From what I understand, however, it is about inducting children into the occult - and JK Rowling seems like a very dark artist indeed (whose backstory about being a struggling single mum writing HP on napkins in a cafe I don't believe, and indeed would be entirely unsurprised if she didn't write the books at all).
Ah, I wondered if someone was going to mention HP...
I enjoyed reading the books back in the day, but I have rather mixed feelings about the series these days, and almost nothing would surprise me now.
Fairly early on (in 2000, between HP3 and HP4), the wife of the vicar of the church I went to as a child gained something of a profile after warning pupils "against reading the Harry Potter books because they go against the Bible’s teachings". Her surname, Rookwood, then featured in subsequent books as the name of a Death Eater. I remember people speculating that those two things were linked, but there was apparently an Ambrose Rookwood who was part of the Gunpowder Plot conspiracy...
If I read the books again now, I think I'd view them somewhat differently. I'd be interested to know if there are any good articles out there which consider the series from the perspective of our "invisible governors".
Miri, you've only gone and stripped away the last piece of joy I get from my job! Teaching children to read. :-( But I think you are into something. As always. Maybe it wasn't necessary to be able to read in the last? Maybe learnt by "doing" by telepathy even (we know our brains are poisoned with chemicals and spell casting). My daughters in secondary school study topics such as "modern fairy tales" in English: think of the horror of little red riding hood couched in modern terms. I wrote the English department in shock and disgust but to no avail. In "classics" they read about the public sexual humiliation of men who committed adultery - radishes inserted into anuses - rhaphanidosis. I kid you not. Look it up. State education is criminal.
Ah, I'm sorry Mary! But I do think it's good to possess the ability to read, the issue is what is being read and how much time is spent doing it... However, I also agree with you that reading (too much of it anyway) can 'clutter' the brain and block other information pathways as you suggest (see my reply to Hugh).
That's horrendous about your daughter's school, but sadly not surprising, as state schooling is indeed becoming more and more obscene and deranged. You're probably familiar with the work of John Taylor Gatto (veteran teacher who vigorously rejected the concept of state schooling), and he was writing 30 years ago. Things have got indescribably worse since.
Thank you, Leo! Definitely worth a re-read (Box of Delights is on my list too - I'm sure there are many clues in the book left out of the TV series) - and welcome back :)
It was about 25+ years ago that I read a biography of a multi-talented writer, Francis Brabazon, who went to India as instructed by his master, Meher Baba, with whom he traveled around during a series of gatherings (darshan programs) attended by many hundreds of thousands who were drawn to be in the company of Meher Baba. The most memorable part of the whole book for me was FB's comment on being in the company of many ILLITERATE folks, which was that reading is overrated and singing and dancing is underrated. Along with that insight was that the ability to read in itself is only as useful or important as one is able to discern what is worthwhile reading and what is not.
Thanks Ron, and I completely agree with this. Literacy has been grossly overrated at the expense of many other valuable - and crucially, much more communal - activities. The Amish, who I greatly admire, have recognised this. Although they are literate and do teach children how to read, there is little emphasis placed on sitting alone in a room with a book, and much more on communal recreation such as singing. The Amish believe that anything that disconnects people from each other and requires lots of time sitting alone to master, is not ultimately a good thing for people (especially young people) to be doing, and I think they are absolutely right.
I loved Enid Blighton's books as a child. Then her books were banned! Still not sure what this was about. This was before we had a TV, and I also loved comics - the Phantom, Mandrake (early gender training?), and all the Disney comics (oh dear).
Thanks for this article Miri. As usual, you give us something new to think about and to become more aware as a result.
Thank you, C3A, and yes, I recall hearing Enid Blighton's books were once banned! I know Judy Blume's have been extensively as well. I suspect she is a subversive state agent, her enormous fame would seem to suggest that, and banning her books of course gave them a huge publicity boost and made more youngsters than ever want to read them.
As long as the world of books is pretty open to you I don't think reading a book such as the Lucy Sullivan one is really a problem. My mother worked in a library for a time and I used to pull out a number of "age inappropriate" books ... but my reading diet simply because of the variety of different ages, different classes, different nationalities, etc meant that I don't think I was at risk of being propagandised in a damaging way - and surely you, Miri, read a reasonable variety of books in your youth. I can't think of something I remember learning from a book when I was younger that I realised when I became mature was false ... although funnily enough I just read on Substack in the last few days that Rachel Carson, whose book, Silent Spring, had a very big effect on me at age 15, told lies - or words to that effect. Don't remember where I saw it but here's a post saying she was wrong about DDT. No doubt people will argue that she wasn't wrong about DDT, however, for the sake of hypothesis, let's say she was. https://substack.com/home/post/p-73391345. How very many things have we discovered are untrue that we have learnt one way or another although I'd say most of the things I've discovered are untrue weren't things I learnt in books!
I miss the joy I used to have in reading, novels especially, I really do. Books were like friends to me but I've just lost interest and I really miss it.
That's very good, one of your best, it's a treatise level document. I was a prolific reader brought up on novels around WW2 exploits, they led me into "the hero's journey" of hedonism and rebellion https://www.supporthealth.com.au/clinic/about/bio-brief/ My eldest daughter was a prolific reader also, I always thought she was alright but her life is a catastrophe of entrapment in raising a vaccine injured child and all the programming that led her into it. No doubt many of your readers will see their own reflection too. Behind your insight is so much sadness.
Thank you, Hugh, that's really interesting and I look forward to reading your biography.
I'm very sorry to hear about your daughter, and it does seem likely that prolific childhood readers are more susceptible to programming, because they become more reliant on absorbing the opinions of others rather than going with their own instincts. When I started to question vaccines, it coincided with my suddenly becoming dramatically less interested in reading, which happened around the age of 16-17. When I was in upper sixth (age 17-18) and the nurse came in to give everyone the meningitis vaccine, claiming it was necessary for university, I was the only one who didn't get it. I stayed home that day, because I just had this strong instinctive sense that there was something wrong with vaccines. This wasn't because of anything I'd read on a conspiracy forum (it was long before I got into all that), but it's as if when I stopped constantly bombarding my brain with other people's opinions via books, I started to tune into my own intuition (inner tutor) instead.
You've made me realise that I "stopped reading" one day in my early 30s. People look at me like I'm an idiot when I say I haven't read a book for 20years. I just couldn't see the point in immersing myself in other people's drama. I did continue to be a disciple of scientism sadly, devouring non fiction. Not all pointless but mostly.
Incredible. Thanks for sharing.
Hugh that is very sad. We are programmed to poison our children then celebrate the damage as neurodoversity. It is truly cruel.
Interesting article. Thank you.
My experience today and what I see trending is, reading is being dismantled in the USA. Apparently kids are reading at a 4th grade level in many areas. So, it appears reading may no longer be considered a reliable controller tool when 24/7 video, virtual programming and AI! (That will research and write everything for you!) is available. Think about it. If you can read (and write), you might be exposed to (or share) "wrong ideas" by subversively searching for information. You might stumble upon mother lodes of suppressed information the controllers are busy stomping out. You could exercise independence!! Escape the maw!!! Note that much is being rewritten, censored and buried now, along with words and language. After all, "men can be women". Nah. Reading is being dismantled. By design. Nothing happens in the realm on a mass level that's not carefully thought and planned out. It's taken decades to get to this point. All of the training materials I get these days offer video training, which I won't do as it's too time consuming and boring. But the young adults will most likely pick the video since they lack attention span and most likely can't stay focused for very long. Aside from reading, the kids can barely write. They aren't taught cursive anymore because it enhances brain activity. Truth is, the controllers plan is to replace us, so they don't need us to read or write at all anymore. We're training our replacement, AI. Reading used to be a feature. Now it's a bug.
Thank you, Marta, and sadly I agree with you entirely.
Many years ago, when I worked in Houston, Texas, there was a huge 24-hour bookstore in a converted cinema where the tiers of seating were removed and bookcases installed. It was a great place to browse on a sleepless night.
For me, reading a book that captures my interest is one of life's great pleasures. Recently though, there have been several reports of schools introducing subjects such as transgenderism, climate alarmism, diversity and inclusion and white privilege to young children, sometimes with guest readings by drag queens.
Brock Chisholm, the first Director-General of the World Health Organization is claimed to have said: "To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism, and religious dogmas." -And now even our gender.
The big plan is in place and being executed.
https://x.com/rachelreevesmp/status/1972561597739737308
Wow - as you correctly deduced, no further caption necessary!
"Note that no government school or free state programme teaches children hot to grow food, make clothes, build houses, construct furniture, or start a business. They don’t teach how to hunt or fish or sew. They don’t teach how to change a plug, fix a car, or mend a bike."
This, and entirely this.
We weren't taught how our government works - how you could speak to local representatives, how to start a petition, how to vote, etc. Nor were we taught anything at all about managing finances and other necessary life skills.
I wanted to do 'manual training' but that was only for boys. But we were rewarded for being polite and obedient (to the teachers)!
Great point about the lack of civics education. I've made that point when people tell me voting and being involved in local politics is a sham and just what the overlords want etc. If it's just what they want, I ask, why don't they teach it in their schools? People come out of schools completely clueless about how the electoral process works, how parliament functions, how laws are made, and certainly how to stand as a political candidate themselves, and this is all by design to keep ordinary people out of politics.
Funny thing, I actually thought you were a boy! Funny how we unconsciously gender people with unisex user names. On the subject of "being rewarded for being polite and obedient", please see the brilliant works of veteran teacher John Taylor Gatto on what the real purpose of schooling is https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Schooling/dp/0865714487
Very thought provoking. I had a couple of favourite teachers, one was English Literature who introduced me to the work of W.H.Davies (Autobiography of a Supertramp). The poem "What is this life if full of care we have no time to stand and stare" has stayed with me for my entire life. The other was a maths teacher who actually made geometry and algebra fun, how strange! As a teenager I discovered a local market book stall where the erotic fantasies of teenage boys could be found, wow!
I think many were taught how to grow and make things at a secondary school level (not grammar school). This was at a time when factory fodder and simple labour was needed, not sure when this was phased out. I learned gardening from my father and woodwork and metalwork from evening classes. In many ways I feel priviledged but I love to read your missives to remind me to think. Thank you.
Thank you, Richard, very interesting. I do think schooling was more wide-ranging in past generations, and taught more practical skills, but by the 1990s when there was an all-consuming obsession with all children going to university, skills like growing and building were seen as "lowly" and so were not taught. Instead of growing food, we had Triple Science, instead of woodwork, a second foreign language, and so on. This elitism and snobbery still pervades across schools ,meaning thousands of students are unnecessarily funnelled into university for a useless degree, when they could be doing an apprenticeship, working and earning in a real trade, but I do think the tide is finally starting to turn on this and the university bubble is about to burst, which would be a rare positive societal development!
A very good essay with lots to think about. I still have a bookshelf full of my childhood books, I have also read Lucy... when I was in my 40s.
The Little House on the Prairie series of books did show case a lot of everyday survival skills (very good book https://prairiefiresbook.com/ is the biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder and tells the adult side of the story.)
We were told at college that the point of teaching the workers to read was so that they could read ON and OFF switches and so not damage the machinery...
Montaigne (recently read this book https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Live-Montaigne-question-attempts/dp/009948515X) apparently counselled to read everything and forget most of it.
Thank you, Emma, that's most interesting, and yes, the 'Prairie' series is great.
And yes, I'm sure that's right, that a big reason for teaching workers to read was when it became necessary post industrial revolution.
I think the advice from Montaigne is great... once your cerebral cortex has developed!
Fascinating, Miri! I loved reading this piece. I love questioning something I have absolutely held to be sacred and good - no matter what, and at any dosage. It also makes me a feel a lot better about my oldest child, nearly 10, who has only just started reading (very slowly), and who would much rather be outside playing.
Do you have an opinion on the excessive focus on mathematics in school? Your joke about “double math” (ugh!!! I had forgotten about that!) made me think about it. Is mathematics a good and healthy thing for developing children’s brains to learn and understand? I have assumed so, but it does seem odd that there is such a focus on just four things in school these days: reading (tool of mind control), science (denial of the spiritual), social studies (pushing official histories/stories), and mathematics (??). I home school but have to report on these four subjects (and only these four) to my children’s charter school. So what is mathematics’ purpose in school? Is it benign or is there something more to it? Is it as simple as taking up the whole school day with these more left brain subjects in order to make sure the natural creativity and imagination is thoroughly dead? (No music, art, theater, dance, sewing, pottery, woodwork, gardening, cooking, practical skills, etc.) Would love to hear your thoughts if you have an opinion! Thank you, Miri.
Thank you, Skye, and I'm so pleased to hear my piece has made you feel better about your (I sexist-ly presume!) son. Outside playing is exactly where a 10-year-old should be, there is plenty of time to read later on, or he may never become a big reader and that's fine too. As Marta's comment above alluded to, the reality is that the world is moving away from the written word and it will become far more common to communicate by and receive information from video and audio.
I certainly do have an opinion on mathematics in schools, which I vigorously hated! I was awful at it and failed my GCSE (the exams we take at the end of mandatory schooling at 16). I got an 'E' and didn't manage to scrape a passing C until I was 31. This is not an uncommon story, especially for girls, and so it is a valid question as to why they force so many years of the subject on people who clearly cannot grasp it and are never going to practice it to any meaningful degree in their adult life. Maths struggles seem to create a lot of trauma, and even highly educated people with strings of postgraduate qualifications and successful careers often still shudder when you mention "maths GCSE". I'm sure that many people's teenage years would be so much happier if they could just drop maths. Which is probably exactly why schools don't let them...
It's funny you mention theatre ('drama' as it is in England) as I wanted to take that as one of my GCSE options. But I was told I wasn't allowed to because I was good at English! In my school, you could only take drama if you were in bottom set English. If you were in the top set, as I was, you had to take a second foreign language instead. Equally, you were only allowed to take 'Food Tech' (cooking) if you were in bottom set science! Fortunately (!), I was, so I was permitted to take that... It tells you everything you need to know about schools and the value they place on real skills.
"the world is moving away from the written word", seems we are reverting back to symbols - e.g. company logos, icons, emojis. No need for correct spelling (computer does this), grammar or punctuation.
Very thought provoking Miri, as usual. I am similar in that I always enjoyed reading as a kid. You raise a number of important ideas. First, the targeting and influencing of a key demographic. As you lay it out, it is clear how these themes would influence young minds. In my view, I would alter the perspective slightly, `I would say that it wasn't necessarily the young who were targeted, rather young women (hence Chick Lit). And Friends, whilst it was a gender split, I think all of the characters were written with women in mind. I can well see how adolescent girls would be vulnerable to this sort of programming, I am not sure though (but I may be wrong!) that young boys are equally as susceptible to seeing the world through the emotional part of the brain in the same way. And in fact, whilst some of our dear leaders seem to have been killed in the stampede to influence young women, young men have by comparison been positively ignored (hence incel culture). this would play into the sinister divide and rule strategy they have been using. it's interesting though, in the 60s and 70s they weren't outside young women's balconies courting them, it was the working class that the leaders wanted to influence. hence loads of flattering films and songs and programs about being a chippy working class bloke. In the early 70s he was the hero of the day. But at some point the penny seems to have dropped that the working class were never going to rise up in the way they wanted, and so they moved on to a much more profitable demographic, via feminism. And you can see how they switched horses by the start of the 80s, suddenly we had shows like the Gentle Touch, and Juliet Bravo. And the men weren't the heroes, they were suddenly on the wrong end of unfriendly questions like 'Have you been drinking?'
I agree also they seem to go to enormous lengths to try and get the audience to sympathise and like people who behave obnoxiously during this period. I remember watching My Best Friends Wedding, where the protagonist spends the whole film behaving like a psychopath but cos it was Julia Roberts she carried the audience with her (just). It takes so long for the penny to drop, that the people wanting to influence society, are wanting to do it in a malevolent way. but at this point it's indisputable.
Thanks Kevin, that's really interesting and what you say is absolutely true. Your point about Friends is completely accurate, the characters were all designed to appeal to girls. Girls wanted to be pretty, popular Rachel, and have BFFs like Monica and Phoebe. Chandler was the wisecracking "gay best friend" (even though the character was straight, it was an ongoing joke how everyone thought he was gay), Joey was the dreamboat "hunk" and Ross was the geeky but protective older brother who would look out for you. It was a dream fantasy sequence of the kind of social bonds a young female would like to have. Not much there to appeal to boys. Teenage boys from my recollection were into either sport or music, not really sitcoms, soap operas, or books, and as you say, there seems to have been a much more intensive effort to propagandise and programme girls over boys.
I'm sure it is right that the female teenage brain is more susceptible to propaganda than the teenage male brain, because of girls typically being far more interested in emotions and relationships than boys. Indeed, the subversive architects of feminism have admitted that they targeted females with feminism - and not males with 'meninism' - as females, especially young ones, are typically easier to manipulate (although males were also manipulated by things like Playboy into turning their backs on marriage and family and pursuing more "independent" lives etc).
And it is sadly so true that all the creators of dominant social programming have deeply malevolent intentions.
thanks Miri, yes they really did think it through on Friends, and it's still going down a storm 30 years later!
On an unrelated matter I think you will be interested if you haven't already seen it in the function on Google called Google Trends, which shows what searches were made in particular countries over a time period, say 5 years. I chose 'Israel' entirely by chance, and ran through the names of some of the 'killers' only to find someone had name checked them in google searches before their spectacular. this was the case for Manchester Synagogue, Southport, Thomas Matthew Crooks, Charlie Kirk (which is how this function got publicised ), even Nicola Bulley pops up before she should. Only thing is we don't know if it's a deliberate false trail for conspiracy nuts.
Thanks for sharing your early experiences. Something that many are reluctant to do publicly. I did not take to books until late teens and it was westerns and science fiction. Novels were almost totally out. My diet was also the Evening Standard and the Radio Times. Along with a few others at secondary school we devoured everything about 'flying saucers' that we could get hold of. (Called UAP's now). There is much more I could say about that subject, few know the dangerous reality, frequently dismissed as hoax, fantasy and worse still ET's. It is actually inter dimensional entities. Off topic here. I happen to believe that this enquiring nature has served me well. Why don't people think?
Thank you, John - and I completely agree with you about "flying saucers". There is no such thing as aliens, these 'entities' are demons (I do also think some are holographic hoaxes, aka Project Bluebeam).
Thanks for your response. I had to leave looking at the UFO's/UAP's for some years as it was getting in the way of other spiritual matters which may have led me astray. I have renewed my interest for many years now and I believe it will become more obvious as time goes on what they are. They are not our space brothers!! The most popular man in the field is Dr Steven Grier who I believe is genuinely deceived.
There is a difference between fallen angels and demons IMO, which is O/T for the present discussion.
It goes to your previous post about online anonymity when I say I immediately fondly recognised that book title for I too read it at leat twice.
I read almost everything from the same author until about a decade ago when I tried to read (or reread?) one of her books and Just. Could. Not. …I thought it was me.
And your piece also vindicates my chucking my girl’s Harry Potter books in the literal tip a few months ago.
You are my defence against the dark arts (😉) (😂) and I thank you.
Thanks Johan, that's really interesting. It is astonishing how differently we can react to the same tomes when we come back to them later. I've read about five Marian Keyes in total and when I was writing this piece, I checked out the first few pages of a couple of others (Last Chance Saloon and Rachel's Holiday) and I was shocked at how dark and depressing they were, despite the "jolly" style.
Very wise move regarding HP! As it was such a sensation, I tried reading the first one a few years ago, but as with Bridget Jones, found I couldn't get past the first few pages. From what I understand, however, it is about inducting children into the occult - and JK Rowling seems like a very dark artist indeed (whose backstory about being a struggling single mum writing HP on napkins in a cafe I don't believe, and indeed would be entirely unsurprised if she didn't write the books at all).
Ah, I wondered if someone was going to mention HP...
I enjoyed reading the books back in the day, but I have rather mixed feelings about the series these days, and almost nothing would surprise me now.
Fairly early on (in 2000, between HP3 and HP4), the wife of the vicar of the church I went to as a child gained something of a profile after warning pupils "against reading the Harry Potter books because they go against the Bible’s teachings". Her surname, Rookwood, then featured in subsequent books as the name of a Death Eater. I remember people speculating that those two things were linked, but there was apparently an Ambrose Rookwood who was part of the Gunpowder Plot conspiracy...
If I read the books again now, I think I'd view them somewhat differently. I'd be interested to know if there are any good articles out there which consider the series from the perspective of our "invisible governors".
Miri, you've only gone and stripped away the last piece of joy I get from my job! Teaching children to read. :-( But I think you are into something. As always. Maybe it wasn't necessary to be able to read in the last? Maybe learnt by "doing" by telepathy even (we know our brains are poisoned with chemicals and spell casting). My daughters in secondary school study topics such as "modern fairy tales" in English: think of the horror of little red riding hood couched in modern terms. I wrote the English department in shock and disgust but to no avail. In "classics" they read about the public sexual humiliation of men who committed adultery - radishes inserted into anuses - rhaphanidosis. I kid you not. Look it up. State education is criminal.
Ah, I'm sorry Mary! But I do think it's good to possess the ability to read, the issue is what is being read and how much time is spent doing it... However, I also agree with you that reading (too much of it anyway) can 'clutter' the brain and block other information pathways as you suggest (see my reply to Hugh).
That's horrendous about your daughter's school, but sadly not surprising, as state schooling is indeed becoming more and more obscene and deranged. You're probably familiar with the work of John Taylor Gatto (veteran teacher who vigorously rejected the concept of state schooling), and he was writing 30 years ago. Things have got indescribably worse since.
Razor sharp insights as always and some important questions too Miri.
Since I'm back home I guess CS Lewis' chronicles of Narnia got bumped up the reading list!
Thank you, Leo! Definitely worth a re-read (Box of Delights is on my list too - I'm sure there are many clues in the book left out of the TV series) - and welcome back :)
It was about 25+ years ago that I read a biography of a multi-talented writer, Francis Brabazon, who went to India as instructed by his master, Meher Baba, with whom he traveled around during a series of gatherings (darshan programs) attended by many hundreds of thousands who were drawn to be in the company of Meher Baba. The most memorable part of the whole book for me was FB's comment on being in the company of many ILLITERATE folks, which was that reading is overrated and singing and dancing is underrated. Along with that insight was that the ability to read in itself is only as useful or important as one is able to discern what is worthwhile reading and what is not.
Thanks Ron, and I completely agree with this. Literacy has been grossly overrated at the expense of many other valuable - and crucially, much more communal - activities. The Amish, who I greatly admire, have recognised this. Although they are literate and do teach children how to read, there is little emphasis placed on sitting alone in a room with a book, and much more on communal recreation such as singing. The Amish believe that anything that disconnects people from each other and requires lots of time sitting alone to master, is not ultimately a good thing for people (especially young people) to be doing, and I think they are absolutely right.
I loved Enid Blighton's books as a child. Then her books were banned! Still not sure what this was about. This was before we had a TV, and I also loved comics - the Phantom, Mandrake (early gender training?), and all the Disney comics (oh dear).
Thanks for this article Miri. As usual, you give us something new to think about and to become more aware as a result.
Thank you, C3A, and yes, I recall hearing Enid Blighton's books were once banned! I know Judy Blume's have been extensively as well. I suspect she is a subversive state agent, her enormous fame would seem to suggest that, and banning her books of course gave them a huge publicity boost and made more youngsters than ever want to read them.
As long as the world of books is pretty open to you I don't think reading a book such as the Lucy Sullivan one is really a problem. My mother worked in a library for a time and I used to pull out a number of "age inappropriate" books ... but my reading diet simply because of the variety of different ages, different classes, different nationalities, etc meant that I don't think I was at risk of being propagandised in a damaging way - and surely you, Miri, read a reasonable variety of books in your youth. I can't think of something I remember learning from a book when I was younger that I realised when I became mature was false ... although funnily enough I just read on Substack in the last few days that Rachel Carson, whose book, Silent Spring, had a very big effect on me at age 15, told lies - or words to that effect. Don't remember where I saw it but here's a post saying she was wrong about DDT. No doubt people will argue that she wasn't wrong about DDT, however, for the sake of hypothesis, let's say she was. https://substack.com/home/post/p-73391345. How very many things have we discovered are untrue that we have learnt one way or another although I'd say most of the things I've discovered are untrue weren't things I learnt in books!
I miss the joy I used to have in reading, novels especially, I really do. Books were like friends to me but I've just lost interest and I really miss it.