I was not simply almost-bored by the Long Beach Aquarium, I was, more complexly, annoyed. What annoyed me was the political correctness of the aquarium's design and interpretation.
Everywhere one turned, the familiar icons of California political correctness instructed you. The urinals in the men's toilet were waterless. A small plaque explained that the advanced technology enabled saving hundreds of thousands of gallons of water annually. A large whale floats, suspended, over the large entry hall. On the second level of the pavilion, sound boxes enable visitors to select which sound of nature they wish to hear--whales, of course, prominent. I half expected, but did not find, a theater showing the Star Trek IV movie, "The Voyage Home", where humanity is rescued by the song of the whales. The exhibit interpretation labels were exercises in friendly, happy ecology: every animal has a lovely little niche just for it. That this adaptation ideology was the basis of early nineteenth century creationism did not, I am sure, occur to the designers of the exhibits, for whom understanding Darwinian adaptation would be a lagoon too wide to swim.
Topping off the strenuous good works of California political correctness, the aquarium was the setting for a convention of the California "Salt Water People"--native Americans who once, in archaelogical time, lived in a ecological niche along the Coast. There were native dancers, music, and readings. The theatrical space was flanked by a line of folding tables where native American representatives in aboriginal costume and organizations displayed literature and native goods.
The aquarium's display of politically correct iconography has nothing to do with education and everything to do with inducing acceptance of a political ideology in the visitors. If the purpose of education is to challenge students and elevate them to higher critical levels of knowledge and intellectual skill, the purpose of the political correctness doctrines on display at the aquarium is to deaden the visitor's mind, blunt critical analysis, and lower knowledge to an elementary school level of common ignorance where entrenched political power and ideas are safe from scrutiny.
The Long Beach Aquarium is a prime example of the totalitarian intellectual world that horrified twentieth century writers, such as Orwell and Huxley, a world where indoctrination replaces education, ideology replaces knowledge, recitation replaces analysis, and words never mean what they mean. Politically correct California is a world of masked inequality and disguised imprisonment.
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