Pervert’s Progress

Nothing exemplifies this more than social-emotional learning (SEL). The spell of SEL is equal parts New Age and Marxist. As I explained earlier, SEL derives from the two Fs—Fetzer, who is the New Age part, and Freire, the Marxist half. With the proper social and emotional training, the thinking goes, we can end poverty, unite people and planet into one, thereby transforming our world into a utopia. That is the goal of the new magic, and just like the old magic of the alchemist, the project is doomed from the start. To command nature is still the impulse behind the scheme, but the new technique is to use the souls of the young to do so, instead of magic spells that proved ineffective at altering physical reality. But the only thing that stands to be conquered here is the human soul itself. Upon a fuller look, the CASEL wheel turns out to be a new witch’s wheel. It’s guided not by the Natural Law but by the few like Fetzer, Freire, and their present-day acolytes who have been granted the esoteric insight. We still haven’t learned the lesson from Thomas More’s sixteenth-century satirical tale Utopia (ou = no, topos = place). There is no utopia to be found on the other end of the “transformation” because utopia is literally “no place.” With the alchemist, the base metals weren’t transformed into gold; rather, they were tarnished or destroyed by the chemical reaction. Under the new method of “transformation,” the object to be acted upon isn’t some inanimate object, some base metal; it is a human soul. And thus, the object to be tarnished or destroyed this time around is one of far greater worth.

In saying this, I’m not supposing that those teaching and promoting SEL have malicious intent. The five SEL competencies sound like good things. It is this sense of goodness that makes SEL so attractive, and I suspect the vast majority of those participating in it truly believe themselves to be taking part in something beneficent. Even the expert few who are orchestrating the whole affair may think that they are carrying out a great good for humanity. But good intent doesn’t transform a destructive idea into a constructive one, and the truth that we must confront is that SEL is destructive, even if its advocates mean otherwise. To not be oriented by the Natural Law inevitably requires that there be a new moral law to take its place, and the only option available is made by men. What confidence should we have that those claiming to do good to us or make us good in the twenty-first century will result in something different than those from the twentieth century who made the same claim?

Don’t mistake what I’m getting at. I don’t suppose the expert’s science will be like that of the wicked witch or the dark wizard. Nor do I suppose that the new magic will have any direct effect on the physical world. But here, I need to speak carefully. Just because the spell doesn’t produce any direct physical effect does not therefore mean that the spell of SEL won’t cause effects by corrupting the souls of children. The soul (anima) animates the body; it guides it in its thoughts, words, and actions. There is no doubt that a soul oriented to produce some particular effect is a far more powerful technique than the effete techniques of the alchemists. I’m not picturing a return of evil sorcerers conjuring spells in the woods. The new sorcery doesn’t bear such obvious signs. The form it takes is that of the esoteric expert telling us what is best for us all, and they will do so in the name of science. “You too can become a boy,” the “expert” tells the young girl. And just like Hansel and Gretel, she may be lured through the witch’s door. Caring and sharing is the new humanizing motto of NICEness.[1] It is the very niceness of this picture that makes it far more dangerous than Macbeth’switches of the woods. But then again, not all fairy tales portray the witch as evil and ugly, and sometimes the best swindlers appear as experts in their craft. Perhaps we have more to learn from these children’s stories than at first meets the eye.

[1] You’ll find “caring and sharing” in Fetzer’s 1989 Founder’s Statement, and Klaus Schwab talks of his planned economy as one of “caring and sharing.” This same concept is called “humanistic” by Paulo Freire, which you can see in chapter 9 of Freire’s The Politics of Education. As for my capitalizing NICE, see That Hideous Strength, a dystopia that tops Brave New World for the spot of most prophetic dystopic novel.