The Noble Lie

We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teacher leave those kids alone
All in all, we’re just another brick in the wall
All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall

Pink Floyd, “Brick in the Wall Pt. 2″

The people who create cultures, who raise up and knock down empires, refer to themselves as builders. Their metaphors permeate society, and are used everywhere in the models and institutions that they build.

They talk about building societies the way that architects talk about building structures. We are given rules by a ruler, who measures us and hangs us in the balance (Libra/Liberty/Justice holding her scales, or Osiris holding his) and deals with us accordingly. We revere our founding fathers and the system of checks/cheques and balances (referring to the checkerboard floors and scales of the Knights Templars) that they created. Every community has a small club of upstanding, philanthropic gentlemen who are the pillars of the community. Today, major social movements are bankrolled by the super wealthy tax-free foundations of Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie. Business also has rules and guidelines, and they usually come from your board of directors. Some decision making is done by standing committees or ad-hoc panels. Line staff know well to obey and toe the line, just ask Human Resources (yes, WE are the renewable resource). In school, we compete for good grades so that we may move up to the next grade and hopefully get our degree. You can go all the way up the degrees with enough time, discipline and money. The level of our degree, of course, determines our level of standing in society.

They are also the good shepherds. We all start as kids, but a good shepherd can cull the goats from the sheep. They keep us, the flock, occupied in our fields of busy-ness (business), and divided in our cultures like bacteria on a petri dish. Still, being a flock is better than being a crop, like in Kinder-garten (child garden).

However you figure it, we are but the raw material, the rough ashlar, and we are meant to be shaped on the potter’s wheel, given form by the sculptor, or forged in the crucible. Off to school, to become squares in our little square graduation caps, and then off to work we go!