Concerns about the end of education

This is a time of ends. For years we've been talking about the end of just about everything, but the word itself has two very distinct meanings, and which one is meant in any given phrase in which it is used. Ah yes, there's always a bit of twist in just about everything we say and do.

The word "end" has to primary meanings, namely the stopping point of a temporal experience or event (as in Judgment Day is what many believe will be the end of the world.), or the goal or purpose of something (as in The ends should justify the means.) So, which one am I talking about here? And is so often the case, the answer is, "well, both, sort of."

If a person can learn things, acquire skills and develop competences without having to go through a formal process to do so; if a person will most like do these things more often than not outside of formal educational systems or processes, the we have to ask ourselves just what good is a school, in this case a vocational-training institution? Are they needed at all? If a person can get recognition elsewhere for what s/he can do or is capable of, then it doesn't take much more thinking to realize that the school, as we generally understand it, becomes rather superfluous rather quickly. In a sense, then, this is the end of education (in the first sense of the word).

Of course, if this is the end of the institution, then we have to ask ourselves if the institution serves any purpose, any end (in the second sense of the word), if it has any reason for existing at all. We would be justified, it would seem, in raising the question of the real end of education, as we now understand it. If I can get what I need elsewhere, why do I have to support a large apparatus that is providing no real value? This is a legitimate (though short-sighted question) and it is one which an increasing number of people are thinking maybe we don't.

The Late Enlightenment and Early Industrial Age thought that an educated public was crucial to the success of a functioning democracy. Citizens who could read newspapers, think for themselves, form opinions and express them were considered a necessary, if sometimes uncomfortable, element of a democratic society. It was generally agreed that each and every person should have the opportunity to learn to read, write, and reckon (the 3 R's), and it later turned out that having a basic understanding of literature, science and mathematics would help everyone get along better in the modern world. In other words, society decided that everyone would be better off if everyone knew more. The school of the Late Enlightenment, of course, looked very different from the school of the Industrial Age, and with the current rapid development of technology, especially information technology, we realize that our current notion of school may be at its end, because the end it has to serve needs to be redefined.

What we have seen in the last few posts is that there is shift of thinking taking place from the "old style", (for us) traditional forms of education which was input oriented (e.g. subject-centered ... so many hours of math, science, literature, phys. ed., etc.) to one that is output oriented. This reorientation brings with it the obsolesence of large portions of the education undertaking, and it is time for us to start thinking about what the education for tomorrow should look like. It should also be clear by now, that the mere requirements of business, the demands of capital, the specifications of employers cannot be the answer: too much of what they want can be gotten outside the structure of formal education. But, if we are to preserve our societies, then we need to think hard about what education means and what it will look like in the future.

I hate to say it so tritely, but our entire future depends on it.

More concerns about non-formal and informal learning

Our little exercise from last time brought up a point that many of you had probably not thought of before: experience. Just how much of what you do are you able to do simply because you have gathered enough experience to do it well (or even, to do it at all)? I think we all agree on the answer: a lot.

All of us have had that experience of sitting in a classroom and suddenly realizing that what the teacher is talking about is actually the solution to another problem that has been plaguing you: maybe it was how to deal with your girl/boy friend while in literature class, maybe it was some insight to your hobby that appeared in science class. It doesn't matter, but all of us have had the experience of being in a learning situation (classroom, lab, etc.) and learning something that has absolutely nothing to do with the actual subject at hand. This common experience has a name: non-formal learning. A lot of our learning happens this way.

Even more learning occurs outside the classroom, in the "college of hard-knocks" as the Americans like to call it. This is the real venue for "live and learn". Building a soap-box racer, a model rocket, sewing clothes for a doll, building a float for the homecoming parade ... the list is endless: no matter what we do, as humans, we learn something just from doing it. We have all kinds of useful knowledge, not so useful knowledge (e.g. trivia), handy skills, and the ability to do something that others you know can't do, and all of this has come from the fact that you have survived as long as you have. Imagine now, you could get some kind of "school credit" for that. This is what is known in the (education) trade as "informal learning".

Common sense tells us that a lot of what we know and are capable of doing has come from activities that weren't necessarily intended to achieve those results. If it were possible to somehow "document" that learning, then there would be a whole lot more we could put on our resumes that might be applicable to the job we are seeking. Given the fact that talk's cheap and too many people are simply willing to lie to get what they want, having these knowledge, skills, and abilities documented by a competent authority, that is, officially, would solve that problem. This is what we also know in the trade as "accreditation of prior learning" (APL). And this is a program that the European Commission has been rightfully pursuing as well.

Yes, the two ideas I've been talking about in the last two posts constitute what could be called a "revolution" in education and training. What?! A revolution! Yes. For as harmless as they appear, these two concepts have the potential to change the (education) world as we know it. Why? For the simple reason that I mentioned at the beginning of these ponderings from Prague: they appear like good ideas on the surface ... but think them through to the end.

That's where we are headed next time.

Concerning non-formal and informal learning

My friend's misadventure with the semiconductor company took place a while ago, which only indicates to me that this is a problem that's been around for quite some time. Naturally, he ended up taking a very different career path, and though he was very fortunate in how his life progressed, others have been just as unfortunate in what came after such an experience. Not everyone is as lucky as everyone else, and we have a responsibility to think about them.

Someone has been ... in fact, a lot of people have been, and as a result, two key concepts have taken on a very deep significance in European education policy: learning outcomes and accreditation of prior learning (which I'll call APL for short; it goes under a variety of names, but this one is as easy as any to recognize).

The traditional approach to education has been, whether you were aware of it or not, input-driven, and content-centered. We all went to school to learn those things that someone somewhere at some time decided were necessary for us to learn. Nobody ever asked any of us if we wanted to take physics or college algebra or world lit. We did it because it was on the schedule. End of story. That sums up, by the way, the education of 99% of all the people who have ever gone to school even a day in their lives.

Whether justified or not, the EU educational-policy people took industry seriously and said to themselves, "Well, if that's what the prospective employee is supposed to look like in the end, then let's focus on the outcomes and redesign our curriculum and training programs to ensure that this is what comes out in the end." They turned the whole process around and started working from the outcomes, back to what a learner would have to know, do and how well in order to perform as expected. It all seemed so innocent in the beginning, for the simple reason that it makes so much sense.

Believe me, this has kept training people and educators busy for years. When you think how old most of our school systems are and how long they have been input-oriented, well, you can easily imagine how hard it is to break hundred-years' old habits. Only now (and I've been involved in this for over a decade) are we starting to see some headway. It's not easy, believe me. In fact, try this little exercise to get an idea of what we are dealing with:

Think about the job you do: what would one have to learn/study to do your job? what knowledge (general and specific) is required? which skills are essential? which competences are required? And, once you have that sorted out in your mind, imagine what it would mean to document that so that anyone anywhere, if s/he followed that program of learning/training would be able to replace you. Right. It's not an easy task, but that's what an outcome-oriented approach attempts to do.

Next time, we'll take this a step further.

Concerning education (and training)

It would seem that a sound part of current educational policy, then, is what we call "employability". Anyone who knows me knows as well that I'm a staunch opponent of the concept (cf. here, here, here, here, here, and here). Letting industry into education, be it general, vocational or higher, is like inviting the fox to guard the hen house. It will simply be bloody in the end. Considering what is happening to labor worldwide, I don't think it's too radical to accuse them of wanting little more than obedient wage-slaves. (There are exceptions, I am sure, but I don't care at the moment: if there are, they are too few; if there are more than I think, they're not making themselves visible enough.) It cannot be that we -- who are supposed to know something about education and training -- simply roll over and let the least qualified among us (let's be truthful: what qualifies an employer in regard to the needs of education?) tell us what needs to be done. Well, that's really what industry thinks, and oddly enough, that's pretty much what education and politics are doing.

We saw last time that the so-called skills shortage is little more than a red herring. There are, I would bet, more than enough qualified people to fill all those allegedly unfilled jobs. So what's the problem? Well, if industry can't snow us with the unrealistic-compensation-expectations argument, they can always fall back on the doesn't-have-the-right-piece-of-paper argument. I'm sure many of you have experienced that.

I know a guy who once interviewed with a major semiconductor company, and when I say major, I mean major. He had a degree in chemical engineering from a nationally well-respected university and since semiconductors weren't exactly his thing, he spent a good deal of time prepping for the interview by boning up on semiconductor production. The interview went spectacularly: the interviewer and my friend hit it off from the start; technically, according to the interviewer, my friend was top-shelf, remarking in fact that he'd never met any interviewee who knew as much about semiconductor production as he did. But ... it will come as no surprise ... my buddy didn't get the job. The reason: well, without some kind of documentation ... you know, a course or two in electrical engineering, a minor in computer science, well, something ... he could never justify the hire. So there was my friend with great paper, but not the right paper; in-depth knowledge but not documented knowledge. And, without the paper, no job.

Yes, something is terribly wrong with this picture, but it's anything but an isolated incident, and many, many of you will know for yourselves. So, how do we get past this barrier? We'll look at one possibility next time.

Concerning skills shortages

The EU has set education as an exceptionally high priority. Youth unemployment, particularly in Southern Europe has reached pandemic proportions. It is growing elsewhere. Industry and politics are crying for highly trained, qualified candidates to fill much-needed high-skilled jobs. We're in the midst of a crisis. The problem is, it's not the crisis that politics and industry are wringing their hands about.

You hear similar tones in much of the American political debate, if they can ever get away from defense, healthcare, or gun ownership. Everybody's got their priorities, even if they're all screwed up. Still, we have to ask ourselves what is this crisis all about -- really? If industry's not hiring, it is easy to say they'd love to if they could only find the right people for the job, and politics, believing them, runs off and starts pushing vocational education and training (VET) or higher education, or whoever it is that they think they can push around to solve the problem. The problem is, if there's a problem, it's not that problem, it is another one, and it's a much bigger one, too.

At a recent conference in Brussels, in regard to this crisis only in the IT sector, industry made the case that there were five reasons why they couldn't find qualified personnel. Among the usual suspects of low levels of practical and job-related skills, interpersonal competences and the like, there was #5, which stood out like a sore thumb: unrealistic compensation expectations. Yes, you have to let that roll across the tongue. I'm dying for help, you could help, but you want to be paid too much to do it. That's the nice way to put it. I once learned there was such a thing as supply-and-demand: when supply decreases, demand increases, prices rise. Apparently that does apply in real economies. The solution? Hire Far- and Southern Eastern help at a fraction of the cost. Bingo! Immigration reform is a sudden priority.

If that's not bad enough, it gets worse: even though the so-called "law" of supply-and-demand has been somehow nullified, because even if the domestic candidate is willing to be underpaid for what s/he is going to do, it still isn't low enough to compete. These worthless hand-out-wanters apparently don't know a good deal when they see one. They will have trouble making ends meet on what they earn, they will most likely have to seek some kind of government assistance to help them keep their heads above water, but we've got an unsolvable skills-shortage problem. And industry keeps beating up politics to get them to do something about it. The problem is, the only thing politics can do is flail around, but it's a good distraction from the real machinations of industry which is purely and simply more profit.

No the real problem is not a skills shortage, it's a profit shortage.

But, it gets worse ... more next time.

Post-Prague concerns

Oh yes, why was I in Prague to begin with? It is only fair. You deserve an answer.

As I implied last time, I was there on business. CEDEFOP, the EU's organization overseeing vocational education and training (or VET, as it is commonly known in these parts), held their annual ECVET Forum. (And since most of you don't know: ECVET is the European Credit System for VET, and its premise is quite simple and noble: you learn a trade or occupation and what you learn should be creditable and acceptable wherever you go in Europe; the system wants to make the acceptance of things learned elsewhere and elsewhen easier all across the Union.) As are most annual conferences, this one was also about getting interested stakeholders together, exchanging ideas and simply making known how far everyones' efforts have brought the program. As conferences go, yes, very standard fare. So, why should I mention it at all.

Every once in a while we come up with new and exciting ideas that promise to make the world a better place. These are very well-intended ideas, to be sure, but we all know where the road paved with good intentions leads. Sometimes it helps to slow down and think some thoughts through to their end. Let me start, though, with the smaller issues and work my way up to the deeper, more profound ones.

I think most of us would agree that it makes a lot of sense to accept that, say, a machinist or an automotive mechatronics technician, or a logistics dispatcher, who was trained and has professional experience in Place A should not have too many difficulties being recognized in Place B as a trained and experienced professional. That, however, is the case. Too often, a young trades- or craftsperson from one country moves to another and hiring companies in the new country are hesitant to recognize those qualifications, simply because they're from somewhere else. As is too often the case, citizens of one country like to think that their qualifications are simply de facto better than those from other countries. Chauvinism takes on many forms. Now we have an unemployed immigrant on our hands. And, yes, you are right: now we have a problem.

For my American readers, you have to understand that the EU consists of 27 countries that speak 25 different languages, that have over 50 different histories (depending where you were when), and 25 different general and vocational educational systems. We should also keep in mind that education is something that is very deeply rooted in every culture. There are simply a lot of pre-set barriers that have to be overcome. That is the idea behind ECVET.

But, as you can well imagine, progress is slow. Old habits die hard. Not-invented-here and if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it syndromes abound. Bureaucracy too easily gets in the way. These are all significant challenges. The upside is that Europe is willing to take them on. It's a good fight, for a good cause ... at least on the surface.

Next time, we dig a little deeper.

A post from Prague

Traveling is fine if that's your purpose ... you know, going somewhere to see something you think might be nice, but traveling for business leaves a lot to be desired: there's all the dead time in train stations and airports; those silly, senseless security checks; sleeping in strange beds; a steady diet of hotel and restaurant food ... and more, of course. The worst part of business travel is that though you go to exciting and exotic locations (or that's how your co-workers see it), you never really get to see anything. If you're lucky, you arrive or depart during daylight hours and maybe see some of the countryside from through the bus window on the way to the airport, or perhaps the conference organizers have a dinner planned somewhere other than the conference hotel, and you see a small part of the city by night. But, you're anything but a tourist, that's for sure.

No, business travel is simply going to a lot of places you've never been.

Due to an unexpected flight cancellation by my provider airline, I was forced to leave earlier than usual for my last trip. After wrestling with my laptop on the plane and in the hotel lobby till I could check into my room, I managed to have a couple of hours of daylight and even though I had had to get up at 3:30 that morning, I was determined to at least have seen something before I left. And I'm glad I did.

Prague, it turns out, is one of the most absolutely beautiful cities I have ever seen. Oh sure, there are the ugly suburbs, old high-rise apartment complexes in need of a replastering ... the usual. But the old city, which is much larger than many old cities in other places, is still fairly large, and there is no place like Prague if you have even the slightest interest in architecture. I know for many of you the idea of a drop-dead gorgeous building is a bit of a reach, but if you want to experience it, Prague's the place to be.

The old city has a wonderful medieval feel to it. There are narrow winding alleyways, expansive plazas, and all of it is covered in cobblestone. This is nowhere to go if you are unsure of foot. The Charles Bridge, one of the city's most famous landmarks, can only be crossed on foot, but with its double row of statues, impressive view of the palace, and intimate connection to the Vltava will simply hold you fast. It's a long walk over a rather short bridge.

From capital of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire (Charles IV, 14th century) to capital of the Hapsburg Empire (Rudolf II, 16th century), many notable personalities have been born or lived in Prague: native sons include Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Kafka, Vlaclav Havel; Tycho Brache and Johannes Kepler held positions there, Albert Einstein was professor in the German portion of the Charles University for a short period; and of course, Mozart had some of his greatest successes during his time in Prague. The city simply oozes with culture, learning, and inspiration. I know now why Kafka said the city has claws and keeps drawing you back. I know I'd like to go back ... especially with a little more time on my hands.

Wandering and wondering

Some people think I'm a pretty smart cookie. There are others, however, who think I'm pretty much of a jerk, idiot, know-it-all, and loud-mouth. I can't help but think that the latter group is being more emotional than rational, but, hey, as my friend Julius Caesar used to say, de gustibus non disputandum. You can't please all the people all of the time, so you have to settle for maybe pleasing anyone at any time. I'm not always successful, but I'm still trying.

What gets me -- and it's been getting me for I can't tell you how long -- is how little progress we are making as a species. I'm actually very impressed by the intelligence of some people, by their brightness, their insight, their understanding, the scope and depth of their knowledge ... well, you know what I mean. Of course, I only have to turn on the news any evening to be reminded how foul, ignorant, simple-minded, self-centered, cruel, and inhumane we, as a species again, can be as well.

Oh, sure, we've accomplished a lot, I suppose. We've come a long way since the control of fire and the wheel, and most of our so-called advances have been in technical areas. We can create all kinds of new materials and applications, and scientifically, we know a lot more than we once did. We've penetrated into the secrets of matter and we can cure diseases and provide healthcare in ways that our forebears couldn't even imagine. But, in spite of all of this, I can't see that we've really come all that far in two primary areas: interpersonal relationships and war.

That's an odd couple, to be sure, but let's face it. Just about every technical and scientific advancement we have ever made, we have made because it made killing more efficient. No, I'm serious, give it some serious thought. Even great thinkers like Leonardo da Vinci -- whose art is at times downright inspiring -- spent a lot of time thinking up war machines as well. A contradiction, or simply a fact of human nature? Personally, I think it is the former. As for interpersonal relationships, there is no species on earth that can hate like humans. And, it's frightening to think of how often we do it. The slightest bit of difference can set it off, too. It doesn't have to be a different culture, a different religion ... no a different skin color can still do it for lots of folks, and when you get right down to it, simply rooting for another sports team can do the trick for others.

What's important to keep in mind, though, is that we know -- all of us know -- that it doesn't have to be this way. There is nothing that compels us to hate. There is nothing that compels us to wage war. (And for those of you who get all irate about self-defense, ask yourself how often this was really justified since WW2.) No, the more I think about it, the more it seems clear to me that we, as a species, are simply not living up to our potential. We're not being all that we can be. But, I can't figure out why.

It simply boggles the mind at how little human progress we have made.

Upping the ante

For anyone who has been or is paying attention, it should be patently obvious by now that we live in neither a just nor a moral nor humane society. This is, as I never tire of saying, certainly not an American problem. It is a worldwide problem, and it is being aggravated by those who should know better: the so-called 1st World. That they are only #1 in their own minds is clear to anyone who takes the time to seriously look at what they say and do.

It's not easy. Nothing is easy these days. We're face every day with challenges, problems, issues, concerns, family, friends, our bosses ... Lord, knows what else, and I am the first to admit that the desire to simply be left alone, to not have to think about it all, to just have a break, to catch one's breath is, well, almost overwhelming in and of itself. The other side of the coin, though, is that if we don't do anything about anything, it all just gets all that much worse.

Still, I know there are some of you who take the days lighter and less stressful. You don't have to work anymore, you've got at least the boss of your back, the kids are grown and on their own, you've got a grandchild or two (and we all know that at the end of the day, we can simply give them back to their rightful owners), you can afford to take a more relaxed view of the world ... or can you, really?

You see, for as much as we would like to think that we've got our own ship safely into harbor, that we've done our part and now someone else is responsible, that we've earned the right to simply be left alone ... well, I hate to disappoint you, but there's no such thing. As long as you're a denizen of this misguided planet of ours, you're on duty. Anything and everything happens is just as much a concern to you as it is to everyone else. There is -- in a word -- no getting off the hook. Too bad, so sad.

You see, as long as you're alive, you carry part of the responsibility for what the world is like, how things are running ... in your own little corner, of course, but also in the larger scale of things. What you do, and how you act, in small, has a direct influence on how things are in general. If you are mean, stingy, harsh, or harmful in your own little world, well, at a minimum, the world has a nasty spot that simply won't get better on its own. What surprises me, however, is how many people I know think that what they do, how they feel, and what they say has absolutely no impact on the world at large. Nothing could be further from the truth.

If you harbor bad thoughts toward your neighbor, or if you don't get involved when your neighbor is getting a raw deal; if you think everyone else is at fault, or if you don't want to admit that you might be contributing to the fault; if you look down on others and refuse to help where you can, or if you think it's none of your concern how anyone else is doing, well, you're just part of the problem, no more and certainly no less.

Think about it: if you are kinder, gentler, less likely to get riled; if you are more concerned, thoughtful, and willing to give (even if it is only to those you know or who are close to you in some way); if you are more aware, more reflective, more critical of whatever is being shoved at you out of the TV, well, you stand a chance of simply becoming a better person and of making the world just a slight bit better. It doesn't cost anything, and the rewards just might be more abundant than you ever imagined.

What can it hurt? Give it a try.

A change of mind II

The second event that is contributing to my hopefulness comes, as I said, from the domain of religion, but it was to be found in a very unlikely place: the op-ed pages of the New York Times. On May 30, Stanford anthropology professor, T.M. Luhrmann wrote an editorial entitled "Belief is the Least Part of Faith" (which is related to his recently published book, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God).

The good professor had spent years studying, visiting and talking to people in evangelical churches. He wanted to know why they went. He starts out making clear that (a) questions like "Does God exist?" or "What is the evidence that there is an invisible agent who has a real impact on our lives?" are abstract, intellectual questions, not questions of faith; and (b) not everyone showing up for church every Sunday is necessarily even sure God does exist, but, what is more, it doesn't really matter. These are unexpected statements in this context, to be sure, but they reflect a change in thinking that has taken and is continuing to take place in the minds of many people these days.

In consonance with the classic anthropologist Émile Durheim's insight that religion arose as a way for social groups to experience themselves as groups, Luhrmann found that people don't go to church because they believe in God; rather, they believe in God because they go to church. As he put it himself, "I saw that people went to church to experience joy and to learn how to have more of it. These days I find that it is more helpful to think about faith as the questions people choose to focus on, rather than the propositions observers think they must hold."

What struck me about this is the de-emphasizing of what one says one believes, but rather that it emphasizes one's experience, what one feels, and ultimately, what one does. That is where the focus has shifted to. It's not what you say, but what you do that matters in the end. Yes, ultimately, actions speak louder than words.

It would seem, then, that there may a shift away from the static nature of noun-based or noun-centered view of the world (i.e., God as entity) to a more process-based, action-centered understanding of reality (i.e., "God" - the Good); that is as a friend of mine put it, "the process of the flow of loving-kindness itself". We shouldn't underestimate the significance of this shift, and we certainly shouldn't be so arrogant to know where this shift is going to lead us. I may be hopeful at the moment, but I'm not an unbridled optimist. We humans are capable of great glories, but we are also capable of screwing up the simplest of things.

The reason for my hopefulness, however, comes from the fact that a shift from noun-thinking, if you will, to verb-thinking, to put it in simplest terms, is a change of mind, and it is precisely the kind of change of mind that I have been referring to so often. Verb-thinking is a fundamentally different kind of thinking than noun-thinking.

Still, the fact that actions, what we do, what others experience of what we do ... the entire complex of human interaction and relations ... speak louder than words is the take-away here. Given that this is the case, I can only admonish all of you to be more careful about what it is you do. In the end, all the world is watching.

A change of mind I

Isn't this all really a personal matter? I mean, how can anyone expect anyone else to see to it that others become less hypocritical. We all acknowledge that the issue has been around for a long time, so maybe it's just a matter of human nature. You know, something that just can't be changed. Maybe it's something we just have to learn to live with.

Well, as I've noted from time to time, we humans are not like the rest of the species on this planet. In contrast to our plant friends and animal relatives, we have a history of changing what and how we think. We have the ability -- much underdeveloped, I will admit -- of changing ourselves, our behavior and our minds. It's not easy, but it can be done. This has been proven over and over and over again. Two recent events have given me reason to hope. Oddly enough, both of these come from the domain of religion, but what good is religion if it can't instill in us some hope? Regardless ... consider this:

Just over two weeks ago, the new pope, Francis, stirred up a hornet's nest in the Vatican by suggesting ... well, saying ... that even atheists could be redeemed if they led a good life. Despite all the clarifications and interpretations and revisions and who knows what-not have been streaming out of the Catholic (and wider Christian) community, I really don't know what all the uproar is about. The only open issue, perhaps is what "good" means, but Pope Francis didn't say anything that can't found in Christian scripture. In the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 25, verses 34-40, Jesus tells a parable about the Judgment of Nations in which he specified the six things that one must do in order to be considered righteous; that is, redeemed and eligible for God's Kingdom, and these are

1. to feed the hungry
2. to give drink to the thirsty
3. to clothe the naked
4. to shelter the homeless
5. to visit the sick
6. to ransom captives (or visit those in prison)

Later, the Catholic church added a seventh item -- "to bury the dead" (which is from the Book of Tobit) -- and together these comprise what is known in Church doctrine as the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy. This is really a very common-sensible list (which many Bible-thumping politicians would do well to revisit), and it surprises me there should be an uproar over something that is this straightforward.

No, the uproar is, at least in my mind, due to the fact that Pope Francis made clear that actions speak louder than words. Those who do these things are righteous, not those who have the list, think they own the list, or tell others that they need to follow the list. None of that matters. What matters is what you do, and this is what is so new about the pope's statements.

The next time, I'll speak about the other event which contributed to my current hopefulness.

A cure for hypocrisy?

There is no way to know completely just how sick any other person may be. We can only know how sick we are ourselves, but only if we are willing to take a serious look at ourselves. If we think we aren't hypocritical at all, then I would suggest that that is the very first indication of a very deep-seated hypocrisy. You need help. I did say that others cannot cure you, but I didn't say that they couldn't help you cure yourself. Of course, if you don't want help, you won't get any. Some things in life are actually very simple.

By the same token, I think it is useful and helpful for all of us to know to recognize a hypocrite when we see one. It is apparently very easy to become infected, and we may want to regulate our behavior if and when we may be dealing with them. How do we do this? Very simply: take others seriously; that's the first step, and then, all you need to do is assess whether what they think and say and say and do are in harmony with each other. The closer the match, the less infected they are. We actually do it every single day, but most of us only do in with others. We also have to do it with ourselves. Do we say what we mean and mean what we say? Do we behave according to what we say we mean? Any mismatch along the way should start raising flags.

The real key, however, is to pay attention to what people do. The old saying that actions speak louder than words is not just a saying. It's a little bit of wisdom that is very easy to put into practice. Of course there are some areas of life in which it is easier to practice than in others. The family, if you have one around, is good place to start, provided you enjoy a modicum of familiarity, familyness and openness. If you're always at each other's throats about whose turn it is to host Thanksgiving dinner or who gets what from Uncle Al's estate, well, you may have tougher time there than you thought. Another possibility is to work together with friends. This presupposes that they are actually friends, and not those of the fair-weather variety or really just acquaintances. In our modern world that works overtime to keep us all separated and thinking only as isolated individuals, there may be some preparatory work that you have to do before you can really get down to business.

You see, when we say one thing and do another, we really need someone to tell us that we did. We may know it in our hearts or conscience, but having someone tell you reminds you that it is apparent to others how you are behaving. By the same token, when someone we know says one things and does something else, we need to bring it to their attention, not to let them know what jerks they are, but so they become aware of the discrepancy and can start working to change that.

Yes, yes, I hear some of you now: but what if they don't want to hear about it? We all know people who don't. For one, we need to rethink our own relationship to these people if that is the case. You really have to ask yourself just who it is you want to chill with, just who or what you wish to be associated with. No one said it would be easy, and it won't be, that's for sure, but if you don't want to continue living in such an unjust world, well, you have to start somewhere, don't you?

Justice and hypocrisy

For those who have been following along (and even more so for those who haven't been), the last few posts ... well, the last several posts have been about one core topic: justice. I have been arguing that what is just is more important and more relevant than what is merely legal. Justice, as I have been describing and discussing it, is always ethical and morally sound, whereas what is legal is not. There is such a thing as unjust laws.

The matter is not one of simple intellectual fascination, rather it is a matter of very practical importance. My admonition at the end of the previous post -- to change your mind -- is a very serious one. What is means practically is that while we may (and many often do) think one thing and say another, it is much more difficult to think one thing and do another. This is the root of the old, and very wise, saying that actions speak louder than words. Yes, once again, I'm not breaking new ground; I'm merely pointing at things that too many seem to have forgotten.

Thinking one thing and saying another or saying one thing and doing another has a name: hypocrisy. It's a much more serious matter than we think. For those of you who have read the Christian gospels, you will be acutely aware of the fact that Jesus' problem with the local powers-that-be, the Scribes and Pharisees, was quite straightforward: he accused them of being hypocrites, which they were. I only mention this because we have the same situation today, regardless of the fact that we neither have Jesus nor Scribes or Pharisees running around. Instead, we have politicians and pundits, and in many regards, they are simply much worse. Congress can speak of fiscal responsibility and getting government spending under control so they cut federal programs that would help the needy, but it doesn't stop them from giving themselves a raise or increasing defense spending. Lots of people speak of freedom, but advocate harsher punishments for protestors, more force to suppress them, or simply passing laws to restrict those freedoms themselves. All of this is hypocritical to the greatest extent. It's not an American phenomenon, by the way, it is a universal one, and modern one in this form (the ancient world had the problem in simply another form).

The real problem with hypocrisy, though, is that it is the poisoner of justice. Where you have hypocrisy, you cannot have justice. Where you have no justice, you have unneeded suffering. Where you have unneeded suffering, you have destruction and death. Where you have destruction and death, you have no real life. No, hypocrisy is a serious problem, and it is like a disease or disability or worse, because, at bottom, it is a mental illness. Hypocrisy has to do with how we think in relation to how we act.

When I challenged everyone to change their minds, what I was primarily doing was asking everyone to take another look and see whether you may not have become infected by the hypocrisy "virus". Do you think you are entitled to certain things that others are not entitled to? Do you believe you deserve more than others? Do you believe that you are solely responsible for your own success but that others are personally responsible for their own failures? Do you clamor for law and order, yet park where you're not supposed to or drive over the legal speed limit? Are there simply some laws that are more applicable to others than to yourself? Do you support certain issues (say, for example, nuclear power or dirty energy) but are against them if you are affected directly (say, having a nuclear power plant built next door or being forced out of your home because a leaky pipeline is being put through)? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, or if you hesitated even a bit before you answered, you may be suffering from some form of the disease.

The downside is that there is no one you can turn to who can cure you. The upside is that you can cure yourself.

Re-thinking is necessary

We grow old, we become lax, we get lazy. We get sick, we get tired, we become sick and tired of fighting. I know. I feel it, I see it every day. Nobody said it was going to be easy, but everyone of my generation knows that we were led to believe that it wouldn't have to be this way. Our parents wanted us to be better off than them, but that hasn't happened. My father, rest his soul, was able to live on his retirement. I won't be able to live on mine. My children will most likely not have one to worry about ever having one. Neither did my great-grandparents. Sometimes I wonder in which direction we're really headed.

It's funny, but I know lots of folks who think that soldiers died for their well-being and their freedom. Maybe those in the Second World War, but since then, every war that's been fought has been questionable at best, criminal at worst. No, those who died for all you have were those unionizers, suffragettes and civil-rights workers who arrested, beaten, maimed, and killed so that rights that were promised to all became real. It's their blood that washed you clean.

When my great-grandparents were born, unbridled capitalism was raping the environment, pillaging the poor, and plundering government. Just like now. But there were strong, courageous, dedicated men and women who simply fought back. In spite of the odds, they formed unions, got women the vote and survived two attempts at European mass suicide. But for what? Those for whom they fought never appreciated what they had been given, and now it's as good as gone. If the young people want it, they're going to have to get it themselves, I suppose.

There are two primary reasons for and reactions to this. On the one hand, we've got those who have all they need, and they're not giving it up; that is, the selfish reason. On the other hand, we've got those who don't have enough, but are too old, sick or tired to do anything about anything; the sick reason. Neither of them are good reasons for anything.

It's simply wrong to leave the young people on their own. That's the first item that needs to be changed. In other words, every one of us who simply accepts things "as they are", have become complicit in the destruction of their future. No, most of us won't be able to save ourselves, but we could possibly save some of those who come after. If you're not at the top of the heap, whatever it is you think you have to leave to those behind you is a mere drop of water on a hot stone. In case you hadn't noticed -- and there's good reason to believe that few people have -- the haves are coming after whatever it is that the have-nots have left. It's only a matter of time till they get it, and we're not talking about a long time either.

Being old, being lax, being lazy, being sick and tired, feeling overwhelmed or helpless ... these are mere states of mind. Merely changing these is a step in the right direction. It's not all that hard, really: just think a bit more of someone other than yourself. That's a sound first step, and it's a much bigger than step than you think. You just have to do it.

Haves and have-nots IV

The difference between the property discussed by Locke (physical) and the property I discussed last time (intellectual) has not escaped me. It is nevertheless important to consider them in the same vein. You will recall that the Romans redefined "freedom" in terms of "property" and we've been following this line of reasoning ever since. Locke's contribution to the discussion was that what we work should be considered ours, but when this line of thought is pursed back to its roots, it becomes questionable at best (and it is why Proudhon so convincingly argued that property is ultimately theft, but that's another story). What I would like to have you think about is what it is that is actually "ours".

We know that physical property has its problems, but what about intellectual property? Why do we think that this is solely and completely our own? There are a couple of ways of approaching the issue. One -- a favorite today -- is financial (that is, money-based). Someone writes a song, it becomes popular and a naive teenager downloads it without permission. It would seem to me, and my experience with adolescents bears this out, that a simple "that's wrong, don't do it anymore" can be more effective than suing the parents for tens of thousands of dollars that they cannot ever pay. Or, what about so-called scientific publications? These are almost exclusively produced through public funding (i.e., grants). Why do the rights to these then reside with the authors or the publishers that arrange for their distribution? This seems highly questionable since the public has in essence paid for the results, so why does the public have to pay to obtain them? (If you think this is made up, search for "Aaron Schwartz" and ask yourself why he was facing 37 years in prison.) The reasoning that allows this absurdity to arise, of course, is Locke's. That's why the two kinds of property, at bottom, are really not all that different after all.

There was a time, and there was an attitude that most things were there for the common good. Granted, the nobility and aristocracy of all times tried to convince us otherwise, but with the dawning of a more democratic understanding of reality, it became clear that some old ideas needed to be thought through again. Maybe those who have gathered more than others now think that this entitles them to more as well. This would be erroneous. In a society, there may be richer and poorer citizens, but that should have nothing to do with their rights as citizens. If it does, something is fundamentally wrong. And if something is fundamentally wrong, it needs to be set right.

At the latest when we traded our society for a mere economy, we tacitly changed the way we view people. My guess it was unwittingly, but now that we are aware of what we have done, we need to think this all through again. Property is questionable, property rights even more so. What remains are human rights, and they need to be re-established to their proper position in our thinking. Human rights take precedence over property rights.

And, that's the first step. No more, no less. Once we get the order right, many things will change all by themselves, and we'll be at least headed in a more just, more humane direction. The first step isn't a revolution, it is a mere change of mind. Change your mind.