This entire question of “the kind of education we have had” is a red herring. There is an immense difference between our social production and theirs. “Same education” applies only to the “same class of people.” And when I say rote I am not speaking of a student resorting to it as a quick way to do well on an exam. I am speaking of a scandal in the global South. In the schools of middle-class children and above, the felicitous primary use of a page of language is to understand it. In the schools for the poor, it is to spell and memorize so that you do not understand what you are reading. That, too, is called literacy. I know this especially since I am involved in New York. I know that the actual class difference in educational standards exists everywhere. I am not interested in playing comparative victimage. The dollar income private sector in the countries of the south are comfortable about presenting themselves as national identities, and, when they settle abroad, as victims of exilic sorrow. I will leave that alone. The second group often writes well, with clever self-irony. The folks I’m talking about don’t complain about education. The problem is precisely that they think this is normal. They think this is education. They do not even say, “But Sister, you live abroad.” The children certainly, and even their teachers, don’t know what America is. Is it possible to think that these people vote as citizens, in the so-called largest democracy in the world? They think (and this is an intelligent analysis) that parliamentary democracy is like a competitive sport. Their votes are bought, of course. The party that promises most, pays best, and performs least wins. This is an intelligent analysis and, mutatis mutandis, applies de facto to the US. Anything else would be counterintuitive. Trying to explain the principles of parliamentary democracy is absolutely useless there. What we are talking about is the development of the reflexes of democracy, mental habit rather than words. “Teaching democracy” as mere self-interest of the poor leads to fascism.