A group of Internet acquaintances and I were discussing the problem of education in our society. The discussion progressed, through much debate, to a point in which one individual admitted that, there were some out there who did not want to learn, and that intelligence was disappearing in our society; others agreed, as do I.
They all demanded a logical solution to this problem One man admitted that he would write an essay on the subject.
This is my response:
P.s. Much of the logic I use was founded by the Philosopher, Ayn Rand. If I'm not mistaken, all of the points are hers, the conclusions are my own.
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The problem is that you want to education people, in a society that does not allow for that process to be completed…. Try and follow this logical syllogism:
I will begin with to axiomatic definitions:
• Knowledge” is . . . a mental grasp of a fact(s) of reality, reached either by perceptual observation or by a process of reason based on perceptual observation.
• Reason is a faculty that man has to exercise by choice. Thinking is not an automatic function. In any hour and issue of his life, man is free to think or to evade that effort. Therefore, Man’s essential characteristic is his rational faculty. Ergo, Man’s mind is his basic means of survival—his only means of gaining knowledge . . . .
1. The only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his life—by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality. The training he needs is theoretical, i.e., conceptual. He has to be taught to think, to understand, to integrate, to prove. He has to be taught the essentials of the knowledge discovered in the past—and he has to be equipped to acquire further knowledge by his own effort.
Conclusion: Education is aimed at arming a student with the essentials he needs in order to grasp knowledge. Knowledge is impossible to grasp without the application of Reason. And Reason is impossible to have without volitional cognitive thought i.e. reason is impossible without people choosing to think……
This is where your problem occurs: “How do we get people to think?” “To want to know things?”.. . . . This is the question you are asking now…. The answer is to free man’s mind: By restoring intelligence and intellect to our society:
2. In order to sustain its life, every living species has to follow a certain course of action required by its nature. The action required to sustain human life is primarily intellectual: everything man needs has to be discovered by his mind and produced by his effort. Production is the application of reason to the problem of survival.
Humans survive by means of man-made products, and . . . the source of man-made products is man’s intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to grasp the facts of reality and to deal with them long-range (i.e., conceptually).
Conclusion: In order to survive, to produce, and to educate people, intellect must be present, but today it isn’t! Right now your saying, “Jason, we already knew this, what’s your point? My point is Intelligence is impossible to spread in today’s society:
3. Intelligence is the ability to deal with a broad range of abstractions. Whatever a child’s natural endowment, the use of intelligence is an acquired skill. It has to be acquired by a child’s own effort and automatized by his own mind, but adults can help or hinder him in this crucial process.
However, Intelligence is not an exclusive monopoly of genius; it is an attribute of all men, and the differences are only a matter of degree. If conditions of existence are destructive to genius, they are destructive to every man, each in proportion to his intelligence. If genius is penalized, so is the faculty of intelligence in every other man. There is only this difference: the average man does not possess the genius’s power of self-confident resistance, and will break much faster; he will give up his mind, in hopeless bewilderment, under the first touch of pressure.
On the axiom of the primacy of existence, intelligence is man’s most precious attribute. But it has no place in a society ruled by the primacy of consciousness: it (intelligence) is such a society’s deadliest enemy, and is therefore sought out and destroyed.
Conclusion: We life in such a society ruled by the primacy of consciousness; this initiates a criterion of morality that is destructive to mans mind: and therefore intellect is destroyed. How is mans mind being destroyed? Through force:
4. Whatever may be open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that may not, the act that no man may commit against others and no man may sanction or forgive. So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate—do you hear me? no man may start—the use of physical force against others.
To interpose the threat of physical destruction between a man and his perception of reality, is to negate and paralyze his means of survival; to force him to act against his own judgment, is like forcing him to act against his own sight. Whoever, to whatever purpose or extent, initiates the use of force, is a killer acting on the premise of death in a manner wider than murder: the premise of destroying man’s capacity to live.
Do not open your mouth to tell me that your mind has convinced you of your right to force my mind. Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins. When you declare that men are irrational animals and propose to treat them as such, you define thereby your own character and can no longer claim the sanction of reason—as no advocate of contradictions can claim it. There can be no “right” to destroy the source of rights, the only means of judging right and wrong: the mind.
To force a man to drop his own mind and to accept your will as a substitute, with a gun in place of a syllogism, with terror in place of proof, and death as the final argument—is to attempt to exist in defiance of reality. Reality demands of man that he act for his own rational interest; your gun demands of him that he act against it. Reality threatens man with death if he does not act on his rational judgment; you threaten him with death if he does. You place him in a world where the price of his life is the surrender of all the virtues required by life—and death by a process of gradual destruction is all that you and your system will achieve, when death is made to be the ruling power, the winning argument in a society of men.
Be it a highwayman who confronts a traveler with the ultimatum: “Your money or your life,” or a politician who confronts a country with the ultimatum: “Your children’s education or your life,” the meaning of that ultimatum is: “Your mind or your life”—and neither is possible to man without the other.
Conclusion: Force is immoral, and it destroys mans mind.
5. As men continue to learn, and produce, in order to sustain their own lives… an all out war is being waged in hopes of destroying that process:
Today, our society deems it moral, or appropriate to punish success by taking from the rich and giving to the poor, to damn intellect by taxing overwhelmingly the successful, to destroy the men of the mind, by deeming it acceptable to initiate force upon the minds of men…. Thereby destroying the mind.
Conclusion: The mind is being destroyed by the initiation of Physical force upon individuals….
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Final Conclusion to the syllogism:
Mans mind is the key to reason, which gives way to knowledge, which grants intellect. Through the initiation of force upon individuals, mans mind is being destroyed; Thereby slowly destroying everything that follows.
Today, intelligence is neither recognized nor rewarded, but is being systematically extinguished in a growing flood of brazenly flaunted irrationality, of malicious force, and of irrational brutes. The freedom of mans mind has been compromised, and we are now feeling its disastrous consequences.
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*Solution to the original question: “How do we get people to think?” “To want to know things?”:
In this type of society i.e. the one we live in today, there is no solution to the problem: “How does one restore intelligence?” It is impossible to do so… The Question we should be asking is “How do we free mans mind?” Because only then can intelligence be saved.
In order to fix this, an entire philosophical renaissance is required... A return to Reason! To Freedom! To Life!
How can this be accomplished?......... Who is John Galt? [That was a Hint]
Read Atlas Shrugged! Begin to live a Rational life, and urge others to do so… Protect freedom and Capitalism… Protect mans mind! Only then will you be able to restore sanctity to the intellect that men deserve!
I admire your passion and largely agree with your conclusions, however, I would like to take issue with some of your bridges of logic which may not stand under intense pressure of scrutiny.
ReplyDeleteTake this as a friendly debate please, not as a sharp critique.
First, let us examine Rand's initial postulate: knowledge is the mental model of reality based on our direct observation, or based upon the philosophy of reason as grounded in direct observation. Again, largely I would agree, having been a fan of Rand's philosophy and writings for some time. However, human experience is completely unique for each individual. What I am driving at is that like the five blind men and the elephant we may all feel the elephant and describe exactly what we have observed and yet our description is woefully lacking because of our unique perspective.
How then can any two humans have a 'common' experience? We are every one of us tinted and flavored with the unique individual experiences of life, our 'knowledge' is only parallel not equivalent.
As an example: I know from my experiences that there are subjects which reason alone and physical proof will not encircle nor describe - being outside of the realm of physical or reasonable then they are to be discarded if reason and physical proof are the absolute lens by which we ascribe value.
Reason and physical proof are absolutely useful and valuable tools - but they are overemphasized in importance because they are easy to define and measure.
Drawing a parallel example from my own industry in film and animation: pixel resolution is often equated with image quality and it is definitely an important factor. However, those substituting pixel resolution for compression deficiencies, framerate issues and bandwidth are destined to be disappointed with the results.
What I am driving at is that the true reality behind our mental model is best described with a variety of techniques including but not exclusive to rational thought and observation. Like pixel resolution rational thought and observation are easier to describe and measure, but they do not completely encompass the whole of reality unless you choose to discard much of what we experience as humans and make it 'flat' and reduced in dimension.
I'll give you one example and you may look to other sources for other examples. Something that is told to us that we resonate with - that it 'rings true' is not rational nor observable, but it is real. I'll give one more bread crumb on this trail - the Tao that can be described is not the true Tao.
Initiation of force is a chicken and egg game. If an individual is determined to look for justifications to aggress against another the human mind creatively fills in the gap for him. The examples throughout history are legion. Step away from the initiation of force concept because it will burn you when you feel justified in responding with overwhelming aggressive defenses. What I'm getting at is that although it can be appropriate to respond with force to defend one's life, doing so on set triggers will eventually always disappoint.
Finally, yes, the system of education is broken, deliberately in my view. Those hungry for knowledge have never had such a smorgasbord of available sources before - we are literally over-saturated with sources of knowledge which are free for the taking to any who desire and pursue. The official streams of education are poisoned by men desiring power over their fellows, but only willing victims are their prey.
End the system of indoctrination and let each seek the amount and type of knowledge he will and our lives will be much more pleasant and productive.
Who is John Galt, indeed?
Your comments are duly noted... Thank you for your input... Your perspective makes perfect sense to me, on the basis of what you mean, but I don’t fully agree with your statements concerning perception of reality, and the ethics of the "force rule".
ReplyDeleteI could argue with you about philosophy, but I would guess that you have already been exposed to the arguments that I would present...
So I would as that you focus on my final conclusion, the most. It is my main point... as well as my solution.
But from what you said, I suppose we already agree on those two criteria.