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America Inc.: the Rise and Fall of a Civil Democracy Georgia Southern University Digital Commons@Georgia Southern Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies, Jack N. Averitt College of Spring 2009 America Inc.: The Rise and Fall of a Civil Democracy Keith W. Edmonds Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd Recommended Citation Edmonds, Keith W., "America Inc.: The Rise and Fall of a Civil Democracy" (2009). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 459. https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/459 This dissertation (open access) is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies, Jack N. Averitt College of at Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1 America Inc. – The Rise and Fall of a Civil Democracy by Keith W. Edmonds (Under the Direction of John Weaver) ABSTRACT The field of Curriculum Studies has thoroughly outlined the detrimental effects of corporate ideology on education in terms of curricular mandates, the corporatization of higher education, rampant privatization, and globalization. Educational mandates have created an atmosphere of control in which students are methodically deprived of exploration and creativity through strict adherence to a prescribed curriculum. This results in the de-skilling of teachers and the loss of Self as students are forced to memorize facts based on educational mandates, with teachers having to constantly redirect outlets for creativity in order to “teach to the test.” As a result of this study, it is evident that educational mandates are the first step in preparing children to become the unknowing participants in a consumer culture. In addition to curriculum mandates, children are also controlled by a system that advocates the use of psychiatric diagnoses and subsequent medication as a means to suppress disruptive forms of behavior that are deemed to be abnormal, such as a child’s propensity to play and normal forms of adolescent rebellion. I propose that a culture of defiance is rising out of the attempts to suppress normal behavior as children and adolescents rebel against the system. I also propose that the Self is methodically detached from its creative core and that Object- Relations Theory plays an integral role in understanding the behavior of postmodern consumers. INDEX WORDS: Education, Curriculum, Ideology, Object-relations 2 America Inc. – The Rise and Fall of a Civil Democracy by Keith W. Edmonds Bachelor of Arts, Augusta College, 1991 Masters of Education, Augusta State University, 2001 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Georgia Southern University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF EDUCATION STATESBORO, GA. 2009 3 © 2009 Keith W. Edmonds All Rights Reserved 4 America Inc. – The Rise and Fall of a Civil Democracy by Keith W. Edmonds Major Professor: John Weaver Committee: Julie Webber Marla Morris Dan Chapman Electronic Version Approved: May 2009 5 Dedication To my two boys: Dylan and Hunter 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to acknowledge my father for continuously reinforcing the value of education and his words of encouragement during each step of the process. He has been an inspiration in terms of his educational and career achievements as well as his utter tenacity in battling cancer. I would also like to acknowledge my mother and step-father for their support and feedback during this process. The interesting - sometimes boisterous – conversations on political and social issues have certainly challenged my critical thinking skills as well as my temperance (on certain occasions), but most importantly, I have learned the value of proactively engaging the problems we face on both a national and global level. I also wish to acknowledge my committee members for their help during each stage of this process. John Weaver, Marla Morris, Dan Chapman, and Julie Webber have been invaluable in their knowledge of Curriculum Studies and the variety of disciplines that play an integral role in the educational process. Dr. Morris’ seminars on the psychoanalytic facets of curriculum not only challenged my clinical and analytic skills, but also formed the basis for my approach to this dissertation. Finally, this would not be complete without the acknowledgement of my two children, Dylan and Hunter. Their unconditional love and uninhibited playfulness constantly reminds me of the ultimate goal that we face as curriculum theorists, which is to establish a mode of education that allows children to actively engage in education through creative outlets and the natural curiosity that is vital to the development of critical thinking skills. 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………..……….. ..6 PREFACE…………………………………………………………………………………………11 CHAPTERS 1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………..…………17 Always Already Defined……………………………………………………………..…...20 Loss of Creativity………………………………………………………………….....….27 The Chapters…………………………………………………………………………..….28 2 A New Order………………………………………………………………………………….45 The Rise of Civil Democracy…………..……...................................................................46 Dewey’s Legacy………………….……………………………………...…………...…..47 3 The Expanding Field of Curriculum……………………………………………………........79 Schooling – Corporate Style……………………………………...………………...........79 Culture of Defiance………………………….……………………………………..……..80 MisEducation………………………………………………………………………….…..84 Classic Image of Thought……………………………………………………….……..….86 4 A Softer, Gentler Capitalism……………………………………………………………….....93 Adam Smith…………………………………………………………………………...…..93 The Possibility of Manipulation……………………………………………………..……94 Selfish Desire vs. Inexhaustible Greed……………………………………………………96 A Critique – Economies of Desire…………………………………………………...… 103 John Adams…………………………………………………………………………...…108 8 The Death of a True Democracy……………………………………………………… 109 An Honorable Notion of Liberty………………………………………..……………….114 5 Hardball…………………………….……..……………………………………………….117 Uncle Miltie …………………………………………..………………………………...117 A Clean Slate ………………………………………..………………………….….…....121 The Chilean Experiment……………………………….……………………….………..122 The Corporate Agenda……….……………………………………………….…………130 The Tower of Control…………………………………………………………..………..136 6 Ignorant Bliss………………………………………………………………………………….142 The Regression Factor…….………….…………………………………………………..142 Dumb and Dumber…………….……………..…………………………………………...145 Creative Capitalism……………….………..……………………………………………..149 Screwed…………………………………..……………………………………………….154 The Drugging of America……….………………………………………………………..157 7 Conflict, Control, and Surveillance: Educational Mandates and Defiant Youth………....163 The Rising Tide………………………..………………………………………………….163 Public Pandemonium………………..……………………………………………………167 The Treatment of Normalcy………...…………………………………………………….172 Desiring Machines………………..………………………………………………………177 8 The Age of Fundamentalism: Religiosity, The Markets, and the Crisis in Education……..187 What is Private, Is Good………….………………………………………………………187 The Universal State.………………………………………………………………………190 God and Politics….……………….………………………………………………………193 9 The Death of the Intellectual…….………………………………………………………..196 A Proactive Stance………………………………………………………………………..198 9 Eco-Racism and Environmental Degradation……………………………………………….201 Corporate Insolence……………………………….…………………..………………….201 Toxic Town……...………………………………………………………………………..202 The Human Toll o Profit………….……………………………………………………...205 The Dispassionate Ideology………………………………………………………………212 The Hidden Curriculum………………………………………………………….……….215 Targeting the Defenseless…………………………………………….…………………..217 Desire in Control………………………………………………………………………….222 Thinking as a Replacement for Feeling…….…………………………………………….225 Awareness of What? ..........................................................................................................227 A New Pedagogy……………………………...…………………………………………..231 10 The Social Consequences of Greed, Addiction, and the Psychiatric Machine………………236 The Addict……………….……………………………………………………………….236 The Unscrupulous Profiteers………….…………………………………………………240 Escape…………………………………………………………………………………….246 Drugging America………………………………………………………………………..251 Psychiatric Debauchery and the Methods of Control…………………………………….253 Marketing Medication…………………………………………………………………….257 Becoming…………………………………………………………………………………261 11 Transformation – Reaching the Inner Core…………………………………………………..265 10 Melanie Klein……………………………………………………………….…………….267 Splitting…………………………………………………………………………………...268 The Barrier to Freedom…………………………………………………………………...271 The Indefinable Life……………………………………………………………………...274 The Unhealthy Drive for Sanity…………………………………………………………..277 Insight…………………………………………………………………………………….283 Pathologically Normal………….……………………………………………….………..288 Reparation……………………………………………………………………………...…294 Possibility…………………………………………………………………………………296 References…………………………………………………………………………………………300 11 PREFACE According to Freud (2005), “we shall never completely master nature… Our bodily organism, itself a part of that nature, will always remain a transient structure with a limited capacity for adaptation and achievement” (p. 37). As far back as the 1920’s, Freud could clearly see the difficulty of attempts to delineate nature as a product of human intervention, since we are inextricably linked within an intricate chain of interdependent, chaotic, and ubiquitous forces that resist attempts to overcome the natural processes
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