In fact, of course, there is no secret knowledge; no one knows anything that can’t be found on a shelf in the public library. - Daniel Quinn

Mother Culture’s deception here is that schools exist to serve the needs of people. In fact, they exist to serve the needs of your economy. The schools turn out graduates who can’t live without jobs but who have no job skills, and this suits your economic needs perfectly. What you’re seeing at work in your schools isn’t a system defect, it’s a system requirement, and they meet that requirement with close to one hundred percent efficiency.

This may be totally wrong, I told him. This may just be the simple truth, but this is what I hear: 'sure, you can save the world, but you're really going to hate it. It's really going to be painful.'
"Why is it going to be painful?"
"Because of all the stuff we have to give up. But as I say, this may just be the simple truth."
"No, it's not the simple truth, Julie. It's Mother Culture's simple lie. Although Mother Culture is a metaphor, she really does behave uncannily like a real person sometimes. Why do you think she would tell this particular lie?"
"She wants to discourage us from changing, I guess."
"Of course. Her whole function is to preserve the status quo. This is not a peculiarity of your Mother Culture. In every culture, it's the function of Mother Culture to preserve the status quo."

Any culture will become an obscenity when blown up into a universal world culture to which all must belong.