I have been fascinated by how the conservatives use austerity as a tool to react to and tear down whatever they don’t want to see in the world. Austerity creates the environment that conservatives want to obtain the eventual results they desire. It is difficult for people within communities, institutions, and even companies to make the right decision in an austere environment, especially a perpetually austere environment—everybody is stressed, on edge, worried, and in a general state of precocity. This is where conservatives want people. Suffering. Afraid.
Let me share an example. The argument that school teachers need ChatGPT in their classes because there are more students than the teacher can handle. Education institutions perpetually experience austerity, especially if they cater to underserved communities. Rather than addressing the sizes of classrooms and number of teachers, we are going to inject a commercial technology as a solution. There is no desire to address the need for smaller classrooms and more teachers (in poorer school districts), but there is endless energy for introducing technology. People say there isn’t money, but there is, there just isn’t the will to spend it on what matters, in the institutions that do not matter.
It is all just crazy theater. Nobody wants to talk about our priorities and that there is actually money for smaller classes and more teachers when there is money to be made selling schools the solution. To further tighten the screws in this fabricated austerity that exists in (some) classrooms, the technology wielding conservatives are looking to apply classic sales pressure to school administrators as well as teacher, reminding them that everything moves fast and we don’t want the kids to be left behind—elevating speed induced austerity, raising the stakes and increasing anxiety across the board until people succumb and give into what the conservatives want—a less educated population that is easier to control and feed misinformation to.
