Let me just say this much about the "Elect" before I get to my actual concerns for today: it's always easier not having to earn what you have. I know, I know, the wealthy elitists today like us to think they work hard, but they don't. The vast majority of the fabulously wealthy inherited their wealth, they didn't work for it. So when their lackeys and mouthpieces start moralizing about working hard and getting ahead, I can only sigh and get on with my life: they condemn themselves by their own mouths. No, I'm more concerned about why we've come to think these days that we can do without knowledge and why Wisdom is for all intents and purposes -- at least in public life -- reviled. Don't you find that odd? I do.
What I was alluding to toward the end of my post last week first struck me when I first came to Germany and realized what a big deal most Germans make of the distinction between "studying" (studieren) and "learning" (lernen). Most English-speakers use the words interchangeably, yet considering their differences can be an enlightening exercise. Americans have been so taken in by (and I'm guessing unconsciously revolted by) Pavlovian "operational" and Skinnerian "behavioral conditioning -- you know, getting dogs to salivate even though they won't be fed or getting rats to run mazes in ever shorter times -- that is, the whole system of positive and negative rewards for desired behavior) that they simply take this type of "learning" for granted. That's just how it's done. Gold stars, trophies, medals, ribbons, graduation stoles, certificates of achievement, special ceremonies and lots of cheers and applause are just a few of the tools of the conditioning trade. So, when we see little Emma or Noah in their rooms memorizing all the information their teachers are throwing at them so they can get good grades, we like to say they're studying, but they're not, they're learning.
The Germans, we should note, are just as short-sighted about all of this, even if it was their language that got me thinking about this. In common parlance a person learns as trade but goes off to university to study. If you look real hard at what's going on behind the scenes, you'll see that apprentices are learning, primarily through hands-on practice and endless repetitions of the same things. They are given specific tasks and jobs and they practice and practice getting it right till one day, at least here in Germany, the folks from the Chambers of Trade and Industry show up and watch them do them so they can get their journeyman's certificates. If you look at the average college student these days, they spend a lot of time memorizing (these days, Powerpoint slides or clearly defined algorithms, etc.) so that come exam time, they "get it right".
There was a time when things were quite different at university. One of the most readable and insightful accounts of how it was "back then" (and here we're talking about the early years of the 20th century), can be found in R.G. Collingwood's delightfully entertaining An Autobiography. Eventually going to take a degree in Ancient History and Philosophy, he found himself in his first few terms having to find some topic in Ancient Greek literature that would be worth exploring and then working up papers on that topic (based on original sources, it was understood) that he would have to present in person to his tutor. The book reveals the travails of a bright, young man trying to find his way in his new world, on the one hand, but it also reveals how a university-degree program was organized in those days: the student spent a lot of time figuring out what s/he wanted to know, and had to spend even more time trying to figure out to find, process, and assimilate what s/he needed to gain that knowledge. When I hear the word "studying" (in whichever language or conjugated form) that's what's going on in my head.
Two things are particularly worth noting here: first, there were a lot of basics needed for Mr. Collingwood to be able to go about his work (he had learned Greek in secondary school obviously) and this no doubt entailed a lot of rote work, practice, and memorization), but, in contrast to what we too often find today, those activities were part of the overall educational process, not its end; and second, while Mr. Collingwood was doing most of his work in his head, studying, in the sense presented here, is certainly not restricted solely to abstract or purely intellectual pursuits.
If you've ever encountered a master craftsperson, you know exactly what I'm talking about. There are cabinetmakers, just to name one trade, who can make furniture that can bring tears to your eyes: the aesthetics of the design, the interplay of light, shades and hues in the finishing, the sensuous feel of a particular combination of textures, the precision of the joining and assembly, all let you know that here is a person who "knows" wood and "knows" what s/he's doing.
What student Collingwood was doing in his head, our master cabinetmaker was doing with her hands. And end product is conceived, the required conditions analyzed, appropriate methods, techniques and procedures were identified, and the knowledge of appropriate resources and tools were applied when and however necessary to reach the desired end. What these two examples have further in common, we should note, is that though each already "knows" a lot going in, at every step along the way they are gaining knowledge, improving and refining skills (perhaps even acquiring new ones) and gaining in experience and becoming more competent at what they "do". They're certain not merely acquiring information. Put perhaps a bit more metaphorically, their hearts -- not just their heads and hands, if you will -- are in what they are doing. There's one helluva lot of emotion involved. They are passionate about what they do. Just how many of our young people today have a passion for school?
It was the Enlightenment that raised Reason to the non plus ultra of human existence. Even the short-lived counteraction of the Romantics (Goethe, Beethoven, Delacroix, Blake, Wordsworth, Keats, etc.) couldn't stem the rise to dominance of reason. By suppressing all that even smacked of "feeling" or emotion, the Industrial Revolution (and all its consequent ravages and destruction) was made possible. We were made to feel as gods but without all that effeminate claptrap about "others" and "values" and such. We were masters of our fates and the progress brought on by technology would cause a tide of prosperity that would lift all boats ... or so the reasoning goes. Unfortunately, although many strides have been made, the reality hobbles along pitifully behind the vision. The reasons for this of course, is that we let our subjectivity and our feelings get in the way. Yes, we've got all the information we need to make a better world, but we can't somehow. What could possibly be wrong?
Young Collingwood and our competent cabinetmaker, as we have seen, add a healthy portion of passion to their work. The work primarily for the thrill of the chase, for the increase of knowledge that comes from their doing, for the satisfaction you get when you know you've done something well. They know as well that at the end of the day, there is no amount of money that would (or could) compensate them for what they have actually put into their projects. They work for something that money, for example, can never compensate. The knowledge they have and gain is literally and truly priceless.
It's the feelings, the passion that drives them to do a "good" job, for what is "good" is not determined by something or someone external to the process, it is an intimate and essential part of it. That standard of "good" will vary from scholar to scholar, craftsperson to craftsperson, but they will recognize the "goodness" of the other nevertheless. They speak similar languages of knowledge and skill, not necessarily the same cultural language. They recognize their peers by their fruits, not by their words alone.
What our examples do writ large is accomplished by untold individuals in all walks of life, each in his or her own way. Maybe its the hobby gardener next door, the shade-tree mechanic down the street, or the alto in the local barbershop quartet or the hobby cook whose zucchini casseroles should be featured on TV. There is more knowledge "out there" than the current state of the world would have us believe, but it is too often overlooked, if not simply ignored, because you really can't make a lot of money from knowledge. (Some people do, no doubt about it, but they don't do what they do for the money, that's for sure, and I'd be willing to bet a considerable sum of money that they'd be the first to tell which lucky break (not their own hard work) that got them the money-making opportunity. In the end, exceptions always confirm the rules.)
That dimension of feeling and passion, that longing for "good" overflow both easily and readily into everyday life. A fundamental notion of "good" easily changes and develops into notions of what is right and proper and what is not. Before you know it, we find it is the knowledgeable or are reflecting morally while the informed go about business as usual. The link between knowledge and wisdom is most likely just as strong as the one we saw between data and information. This is certainly not to say that you can only get to wisdom via knowledge, but that there's been a good healthy dose of feelings, emotions, and experience involved.
In the end, it would seem that the old, oft-neglected, if not forgotten, adage is true after all: our feelings tell us what to think. You can combine, categorize, reorganize and shift, sift, sort and shake data and information without having to suffer the "irrationality" of emotions, and this is why computers are the ultimate information-processors. Whether anything good or bad, worthwhile or worthless, or beneficial or harmless comes of it ... well, that's only something a knowledgeable person might know. A wise person, of course, would know for sure. There are not objective criteria for any of those pairs. There's more than a mere cost-benefit analysis or risk-reward calculation or an arbitrarily determined utilitarian output involved.
If a bridge across the abyss is to be built, it would seem that knowledge has to build it.
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