What price? (Bernstein)

Indeed, from a corporate point of view, having too many people in the workforce who think too much may be detrimental if they find themselves in dead-end jobs that require little thought. Such ideas are fundamentally antidemocratic of course; they are a breeding ground for a passive and mal-informed citizenry that is unable to make sense of the complex issues that confront the nation. What price do we have to pay for an informed citizenry, one that can understand the complex multiplicity of American culture, can read into events, not simply register them as a series of fated accomplishments?...Will we spend billions for defense while begrudging any money spent on what we are defending?

Charles Bernstein, Attack of the Difficult Poems: Essays and Inventions