I'm being brainwashed. 不可抗力

What follows is a shocking expose of the powerful forces at play in the Japanese education system! (In a few half assed sentences)

I've always taken a practical approach to the language, and have stuck with whatever works. That meant half-hearted uni classes at first, then Heisig, then cram books for the JLPT, and now, it's cram books for the kanji kentei. Because of this pragmatic approach, I've always sort of mistrusted those archaic and old fashioned words that pop up on banners and the sides of black vans playing the marshal beats of the 30's and 40's.
Since I've started to cram for level 4 of the kanji kentei though, I've had to stand toe to toe with those 4 character beasts that agrammatically express some piece of traditional wisdom. And it feels like they're winning. They're cheesy. They're trite. and I have come to respect them.
Like a really clever bit of marketing from the "old values" PAC, they have found a peripheral, but important niche in the kanji education system. So I have to memorize them, and their definitions (which are standardized across dictionaries!). I have to read these things to myself over and over, inexorably absorbing a 300(0) year old system of justice and value. I can't help it. I'm entranced by phrases like 不言実行, 一意専心, and 油断大敵. (Just like I probably was by the spectre over europe, or the labor theory of value a decade or so ago.)

and I'm a damned fool if I think it's gonna get me a sniff of anything I really want.