Enabling the Big Lies and Myths

Like a blight on burgeoning brains
       the pervasive  unmentioned suppression
                     of unbridled inquiry and honest reflection

       together  with the just as extensive  incessant stifling
                     of uncensored discourse and healthy dissent

flourish   beneath the shielding artifice of scholastic virtue
that cloaks   the unspoken program that seeks to prevent
                                          genuine  erudition and wisdom;
thrive  behind the righteous sacrosanct front
              of an ostensibly enlightened  curricular system

       that peerless indoctrination agent
                                   masquerading as education
              with its dedication to teaching
                                          what to think instead of how;

       that go-to tool for inculcating rules
                            and instilling conditioned submission
       as young minds are drilled in gov-approved schools

       where the ingestion of unquestioned information
                            and conformity-fostering social control
              are the primary goals of so much robotic
                                   orthodoxy-propping  regurgitation;

in schools   where lip service is unfailingly paid
              to uncurbed curiosity and unprodded thought
while the fact is  that in practice these are seen
                                          chiefly as signs of defiance

       as the penned-in sheep are routinely taught
              the enormous rewards of blind compliance
       in tandem  with the steeper-still price  of deviance
                     from belief in the big lies and myths
                                   that serve  to legitimize state crime

--- the lesson of lessons being the blessings of obedience
       and the curse that awaits  those who think out of line.

This article was posted on Sunday, September 19th, 2021 at 8:03am and is filed under Poetry.