Education: Learning and Thinking
by
Matt Giwer (c) 1995 <4/11>

      After literally years of day in and day out discussions on the networks I have observed different types of people who engage in the discussion of ideas. It is worth discussing the types. It is instructive.
      People from all walks of life are on the networks. The only basic talent they share is the ability to use a computer well enough to participate. Many have been helped and claim they can do no more than turn it on but at least they have gotten that far. That is the only baseline.
      In the old days it was said that everyone would support motherhood, apple pie and the flag. Today, motherhood is connected with abortion, the flag with the Vietnam War and apple pie is fattening. Such is the debate on the networks, it reflects the spectrum of opinion on current matters in the country and the world.
      Interesting discussions do occur when people with differing opinions express the reasons they hold those opinions. Acrimonious discussions occur when only opinions are expressed without the reasons they are held. Frustrating exchanges occur when one person gives the supporting reasons for their opinions and the other person does not do so.
      The means by which their reasons are not given are myriad, from personal attack upon the other, to saying some third party agrees with him, that his opinions are self evident, or that it is not worthy of response. There are other ways a person can give their excuse for not giving their reasons. But they are covering up something.
      A person giving that type of response has no basis for their opinion. They are educated but they do not think. They have learned the opinions of others but they can not think for themselves. At some time in their life they came to believe that memorizing the opinions of others was the same as education. They never realized that knowing the opinions of others was no more meritorious or useful than knowing in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
      The thinking person has considered the facts to the best of his ability and has come to in independent conclusion based upon the tools of reason. The tools of reason are most easily described by what they are not. They are avoiding logical fallacies that so plague human thought.
      The most common fallacy used by those who have learned only facts and not to think is that of appeal to authority. It does not matter if George Washington, George Carlin or Jesus Christ said some words. A person quoting them without understanding them and being able to express the reasons for them is not thinking. It is a fallacy. Citing an authority does not mean that a person can think or is rationally responding.
      Some people act as though being able to cite what another person has said is sufficient to prove a point. But they fail to ask how that person arrived at their position. Why did he come to that opinion and why is it worth quoting or even knowing?
      What is it that convinced these people that the simple recitation of facts and opinions constitutes education? Where would new ideas ever come from were this all there were to education? I have a lot more questions; here are some answers.
      The education system we have was designed and planned to convince them that the mere knowledge of facts is education. A knowledge of history is defined by the knowledge of a thousand dates and the ideas of others. One is educated in religion if one has memorized the bible. One understands economics if one can recite the ideas of others.
      Education is thinking or reasoning or having thoughts that are at least original to the person having them. Education is learning to think. Do you disagree?
      Of what value is education if it is only to deal with the past? If the future is going to be different what is a knowledge of the past? Even with the idea that history repeats, if people can not critically analyze the past and the future for the similarities then of what value the knowledge it does repeat?
      [History does not repeat. People have a tendency to fit disparate and vaguely related facts into similar story lines. What is seen as repetition is merely fitting the facts into the same story line.]
      What is this idea that a child needs to learn the basics first? From thinking will come a learning of the basics. By rational refutation and teaching reason itself there is time for a thousand errors along the way from childhood to entering the world. But our system is not geared to that.
      Our system of education is designed to prevent independent thought by rewarding rote memorization. It drills into children that life is a set of limited choices in yes/no tests and multiple choice tests.
      The obvious alternative is questions with essay answers but our "teachers" say they can not evaluate them. That we have such incompetents as teachers that can not evaluate the writings of children is telling in itself.
      But back to the point. We have had this system of education for so long that adults who can at least turn on a computer can not think for themselves. When a supposed adult responds "everyone knows" it is obvious they have never learned to think for themselves. When they cite authority you know they have never learned to think for themselves. When they give a quotation without being able to defend it they obviously can not think for themselves.
      And the networks are a spectrum of the rest of the world. We see our politicians, the best we have for social leaders, even some pretending to analysts and commentators giving entire public addresses based upon nothing of rational substance.
      And yet some will criticize them yet not be able to say why, only being able to digress into a form of name calling or fallacy. In fact these are so incapable of reason that when they are given reason and rationale in return they can not recognize it as such and truly believe reason and rationale is the same parroting they do.
      That is the state of intellectual inquiry and the ability to reason in this country and apparently in the western world. Were it not so pervasive it would be laughable. Unfortunately they are in the majority. It is a strange world we have created when that excuse for not thinking has become our ideal.