"We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control"
About this Quote
A double negative never sounded so intentional. Pink Floyd’s “We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control” isn’t a literal manifesto against learning; it’s a spit-take aimed at schooling as a factory line for obedience. The grammar is part of the protest: crude, blunt, almost childlike, as if the speaker is throwing the system’s own condescension back in its face. It’s not “we reject knowledge,” it’s “we reject your version of knowledge, the one that trains us to behave.”
The subtext is about power. “Education” here means institutional authority deciding what counts as truth, what’s worth remembering, what kinds of minds are acceptable. “Thought control” makes the critique explicit: the classroom becomes a rehearsal space for compliance, where curiosity gets punished and uniformity gets rewarded. The line lands because it’s both a chant and an accusation; it invites listeners to join in, but it also indicts anyone who’s ever enforced rules for the sake of rules.
Context sharpens the bite. “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” sits inside The Wall, a concept album about alienation and self-protection, with school presented as an early trauma that teaches the narrator to build emotional defenses. Released in 1979, it hit at a moment when distrust in institutions was high and youth culture was fluent in anti-authoritarian spectacle. The genius is that it turns a stadium-sized hook into a critique of mass conditioning: a protest song that sounds like the very crowd it warns you about.
The subtext is about power. “Education” here means institutional authority deciding what counts as truth, what’s worth remembering, what kinds of minds are acceptable. “Thought control” makes the critique explicit: the classroom becomes a rehearsal space for compliance, where curiosity gets punished and uniformity gets rewarded. The line lands because it’s both a chant and an accusation; it invites listeners to join in, but it also indicts anyone who’s ever enforced rules for the sake of rules.
Context sharpens the bite. “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” sits inside The Wall, a concept album about alienation and self-protection, with school presented as an early trauma that teaches the narrator to build emotional defenses. Released in 1979, it hit at a moment when distrust in institutions was high and youth culture was fluent in anti-authoritarian spectacle. The genius is that it turns a stadium-sized hook into a critique of mass conditioning: a protest song that sounds like the very crowd it warns you about.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning |
|---|---|
| Source | "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" — Pink Floyd, 1979, from the album The Wall; lyrics by Roger Waters; includes the lines "We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control." |
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