Divergence between assumptions and reality

From George C. Marshall's introduction to Infantry in Battle by Charles Trueman Lanham.

There is much evidence to show that officers who have received the best peacetime training available find themselves surprised and confused by the difference between conditions as pictured by map problems and those they encounter in campaign. This is largely because our peacetime training in tactics tends to become increasingly theoretical. In our schools we generally assume that organizations are well-trained and at full strength, that subordinates are competent, that supply arrangements function, that communications work, that orders are carried out. In war, many or all of these conditions may be absent. The veteran knows that this is normal and his mental processes are not paralyzed by it. He knows that he must carry on in spite of seemingly insurmountable difficulties and regardless of the fact that the tools with which he has to work may be imperfect and worn. Moreover, he knows how to go about it.

Any human system, (health, education, military, commercial, economic, etc.) which has not been subject to rigorous stressors will degrade for a variety of reasons but primarily because of a widening gap between reality and assumed reality. If you are rich and prosperous as a nation, enterprise, or person, you can go a long time without having to reconcile the divergence. Money shields you from reality. You do not have to adjust your behaviors to reality, you don't have to acknowledge reality. Only when you consciously seek it out (pursuit of truth) or when your money or time runs out do you have to deal with reality as it is. The longer it has been, the harder is the reconciliation between reality and assumed reality. As Rudyard Kipling said in Gods of the Copybook Headings, sooner or later,

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

I think this is a source of concern for parents in particular but in general for anyone watching what is happening on our university campuses and even in our K-12 schools. The creeping infection of postmodernist critical theory is fostering all sorts of conditions that are clearly divergent from reality: pursuit of diversity as an end in itself, identity politics, obsession with inequality, safe spaces, hate speech, micro-aggressions, over-valuing one's own self-esteem and devaluing anyone with whom you disagree, cultivation of personal fulfillment over work ethic, seeking alleviation of distress through government agency rather than one's own initiative, etc. are all pathologies grounded in an abstract and unrealistic comprehension of how the world works.

We are deliberately creating an increasing divergence between reality and assumed reality. Where the marketplace assigns value based on your ability to meet the needs of others. Where people are free to think and say what they wish regardless of your feelings. Where people affiliate based on their own values and needs and not on a quota system. Where incivility can get you fired. Where hard work is more rewarding than fulfillment. Those can be some pretty large gulfs to cross between reality and the postmodernist critical theory assumed reality.

We need a George C. Marshall of education. And we need to quit deceiving our children.