Rationales preclude analysis

Many students have a dismal attitude, resulting from a long history of constricting and negative influences. Critical awareness is minimal and honest appraisal of what education is all about is dextrously avoided. The development of such an attitude is ably assisted by the ideological slants of the subjects that are taught. Many subjects simply discourage critical appraisal of their own particular reason for existence. From sociology to chemistry to business administration, underlying rationales preclude a true critical analysis.

Most subjects are grounded in a firm belief in the virtues of empiricism, of a supposedly value-free study of simply "what is". If what exists around the student is to be studied, and the scope for this type of superficial study is endless, then to accommodate it all and continue studying it, almost unavoidably leads the student to a position of assent, to an unquestioning acceptance of the status quo. Challenges posed to this orthodox method are treated in a totally cursory fashion, because alternatives cannot be studied by such methods.

Take, by way of example, the study of dialectics. The theory involves the resolution of contradictory and opposing forces, and yet it is studied with methods embedded in theories involving equilibrium theory which involves ideas totally inappropriate for the study of the conflicts of dialectics. The study of radical alternatives therefore becomes mere tokenism, and the supposedly liberal arts in reality are as narrow and accepting as commerce and science subjects, because all are reducible to a common denominator of ideological mystification.