Contempt for the Natural

School's Teaching of Contempt for the Natural

No matter how stupid, illiterate, and ignorant the schools make us, the schooled nevertheless learn to hold those with less schooling in contempt: very much the way the Temple priests in the story of Jesus held Jesus in contempt. I'm just reading and enjoying John Grisham's new novel, The Appeal. We start with a verdict: a chemical company has knowingly polluted a rural area of Mississippi, made billions and billions, bought off both law and justice for decades ... Now their patch is a cancer cluster, so polluted that when the fire department used city water to hose a conflagration, the liquid actually quickened the fire: the "water" was combustible!

The jury awards one victim, bereft of health and family, $3 million plus $38 million in punitive damages, the jury knowing that the sum represents one month's profits for the company. Grisham switches to the reaction of the principal owner of the company on hearing the verdict. He vows that his "ignorant" victims will not receive one penny of "his" hard-earned profits!

Kleptocrats deny the humanity of their victims by attributing to them some denigrating attribute: "ignorance" comes handily to mind among the schooled. If only there were an objective correlative, a God, to Judge between the abuser and the abused. I want to see who's "ignorant" at Judgment.

I trust you recognize that the above is all very "Illich." I'll add details another time, if I live.