“Lifelong Learners” – What Does That Mean?
According to UNESCO:
“[E]ducation should aim not so much at acquisition of knowledge. . . [today] there is less need to know the content of information. . . . [There should be a] transformation of life in totality . . . [a] profound commitment to social tasks. . . . Achievement of socialist countries . . . have laid the foundation of a way of life which makes everyone understand its [sic] individual relevance. . . [whereas capitalism] lays the foundation of rivalry and aggression and encourages exaggerated consumption, [making] man a slave of ambition and social status symbols. . . [Lifelong learning promotes] equality of end result, and not merely of opportunity . . . [and] fosters equality in terms of opinions, aspirations, motivation, and so on. . . . There is a dilemma — if lifelong education were to be based on the aim of increasing the yield of business enterprises and economic growth, it would merely serve to establish a totalitarian, one-dimension society.”
— Foundations of Lifelong Education, a UNESCO publication in 1976.
Interesting to note:
Sir Julian Huxley, UNESCO: its Purpose and its Philosophy:
“Political unification in some sort of world government will be required… Even though… any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable.” In the early 1950′s, former Communist Joseph Z. Kornfeder expressed the opinion that UNESCO was comparable to a Communist Party agitation and propaganda department. He stated that such a party apparatus ‘handles the strategy and method of getting at the public mind, young and old.’ Huxley would lard the agency with a motley collection of Communists and fellow travelers.”