Education, its insights invaluable in our world’s situation

Published 1:30 am Saturday, April 2, 2022

When I was serving on a U.S. Navy warship back in the early 1980s my executive officer told me his father was a Russian Othodox priest. He then said, ” I hope you don’t like me less because of my background.” I told him that I seldom conflated the virtues, or lack thereof, of certain peoples based on the behavior of their respective governments. I said, ” The Russians are a people. The Soviet Union is a thing.” I had taken Russian history as part of my high school’s honors history program. As part of that I read several books by different authors that each had their own perspective.

A recent study found that those who were less educated and had lower cognitive ability were more likely to vote for a person like Donald Trump, whose own level of language was below high school level. While the warlike atmosphere of the world is heating up, let us not take our eye off the value of a good education.

Were we to put as much money into our educational systems as we do into our military industrial complex we might be doing more to prevent wars and violent insurrections, as well as preventing deprivation and crime. Teach a person to think and they might be less likely to strike out physically, or to take up arms. “Defunding” the police may be a bad idea, but voting against school funding is an even worse idea.

Thomas J. Munyon

Marysville