ABSTRACT
The Enlightenment revolution submitted, what is known and believed collectively, to doubt, dethroning traditional authority as the privileged arbiter of knowledge. The neoconservatives concluded only “the rare theoretical men” should pursue enlightenment while providing the common people with something to believe in as a basis for self-improvement. The architecture to shape collective learning works simultaneously at individual, family, community, national and global levels to present a world where individuals are alone, competing to maximise their interests in rigged markets and can do nothing to change these ‘realities’. Rather than free collective learning, the masses had to be taught to recognise their superiors and defer to their knowledge. Collective learning as an enterprise managed by stealth has a long history in the mainstream popular media promoting right-wing views on trade unions, social class, gender, immigration, enemies of the state, and the traditional values underpinning national identity that excludes the languages, faiths, beliefs and practices of newcomers.
