March 2017 – EbbSpark

Education’s place within Society

This could go a number of ways. So far in talking about education I’ve sketched out some challenges (Education, Society & the Individual), and then taken a broader philosophical view (Writings on Education); which leads me here.

I could take the perspective of how education arose and progressed toward the form we now know; looking at industrialisation, welfare, and the changing nature of a system seeking to extricate learning from its religious trappings, redress inequality, and build a stable and “successful” society. In that light, possibly looking at the increasing power of market forces; attempts at social engineering; or a systemic model that seems to subsume education into the balance sheet of social economics as a whole.

Alternatively, I could focus on the perception of education and the status it holds within society: the social value we place on learning, knowledge, self-development, independence, and understanding. The esteem in which educators are held and the respect accorded them by legislators, parents, or the young. Maybe asking what social attitudes are developing towards the privilege of education and the creative responsibility of both knowledge and power; and to what extent we are using these precious resources wisely, reverently, respectfully.

Without knowledge of the path humanity has taken, of the fierce physical or intellectual battles fought for the bodies of understanding we hold, on what ground does society stand? Are we happy to detach ourselves self-assuredly from what’s gone before, looking only to our own economic opportunities and various illusions of security? What is the right way to relate ourselves to life, unfold our capacities, and rightly assess the world we are walking into and those we find around us?

Of course, education fits within society and our collective sense of what’s important; and in facing up to the myriad developments of recent history, we undoubtedly face challenges and consequences.

To offer my perspective, I wish education could be freer; for example, from external influences such as economics or government policy. Because, for me, the knowledge and understanding spoken of above is a neutral asset. I don’t see education as merely funnelling new people into existing social and economic systems; but as equipping them to fully understand, appreciate, critique, and reshape that society. Without that degree of freedom, independence, and responsibility I’m unsure society can be truly resilient or responsive.

It seems we must recreate the basis for society with each generation, else face losing the threads that inform and sustain our way of life. As explored in “Education’s End”, we exist at the end of a chain of reasoning; the resultant ideas having formed society. Our systems aren’t perfect, and paths taken have often been flawed and beset with unforeseen implications; all this is simply the best attempts of the past at shaping reality in line with our ideals.

Education, to my mind, stands in relation to a society that must constantly evolve while remaining aware of its past; with this comes the immense responsibility of understanding, accepting, and confidently moving forward.

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Mirrors we offer one other

In looking to conceptualise self, identity and human relationship, I tend to fall back on the idea of mirrors: that we reflect what we see in others; seeing what we have come to know through experience, education or culture.

I suppose we ourselves are formed by such social interactions; by internalising ideas as to what is best, how to be in the world, and what it all means. Surely family, culture, life experiences, friendships and interests inform our sense of personal meaning and value, either in the positive or the negative. Then it seems we view the world accordingly, seeing what’s familiar or what we’re able to understand.

As explored in Writings on Education, society in its various guises can be seen to offer us a set of reference points which we adopt in understanding the world around us physically, socially, emotionally, historically and so on. So we think with the ideas imparted to us, finding our place in the world – an essential frame we might hold strongly, react against, or seek to expand.

In a way, it seems we think with the self, shaped by what we’ve become and met in the world. Leading on from that, I imagine this relates to self-worth: that our sense of value or status rests in the moral or social estimations we measured ourselves against. It often seems we judge or perceive others by our internalised standards and the meaning we assign to their actions (see, for example, Relating to cultural benchmarks or How many aren’t well represented?).

This has veered off into slightly more philosophical territory than intended, but my essential point is that it seems we go through life with this sense of self that forms a foundation for our understanding, relating others to what we know in ourselves, and reflecting back to them our level of understanding and sense of valuation.

Put another way, our perspective seems to reside within this inner landscape of meaning; a space peopled by what we’ve encountered and made our own. What we know well expands that view, but less familiar things we may find harder to understand or appreciate.

In the past, with its more limited palette of the known and the unknown, I imagine this all served to maintain the framework of society: you knew “your place” and the meaning of things, so could relate fairly confidently to those around you (as in Community – what it was, what we lost). Now that our societies are so wonderfully diverse, the sense of meaning is surely much more diffuse and our shared experiences necessarily fewer. So the same process may be becoming a source of division or conflict; a significant obstacle to communication.

This is an idea I’ll come back to at some stage, as it connects with many other areas; my intent here was merely to explore this notion of a reciprocal relationship between the individual and society, wondering where it may lead in terms of how we live and relate to one another.

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Mindfulness, antidote to life or way of being

In Spirituality since the 80s I spoke of belief within a meaningless world, and how trends such as meditation could be seen as an escape or a means of offsetting modern living. But can these practices offer more than merely a convenient repackaging of ancient wisdom in a form that assuages yet sustains our way of life?

Essentially, we’re talking about a strengthening of the awareness behind thinking, and the capacity to detach somewhat from the thoughts or feelings that often occupy our waking mind. The practice of mindfulness seems to have arisen from Buddhism (or possibly within other spiritual traditions), and recently been revived in its capacity to support or rebalance aspects of modern life. Whether within the context of mental health concerns or more broadly within mainstream culture, this has found a place among the tools at our disposal for managing our lives.

As discussed with regard to The ideas of Eckhart Tolle, it seems the value lies in suggesting a different pace of being or another way of relating to existence. Tolle’s writings – as those of Krishnamurti – model alternative ways of thinking about thinking, and seek to break the hold current thought patterns have over us. Whether this is through meditation, techniques for redirecting our thoughts, or practices such as walking and colouring; the essence seems to be in calming the mind and letting certain things simply pass us by.

What intrigues me most is how spiritual ideas have stepped into this role of mitigating the strains of society; often becoming something we adopt ad hoc rather than as an end in themselves. As mentioned in Happiness and modern life, there seems to be a sense that our way of living requires certain mental adjustments on a human level.

In How many things are cycles (we could break) I reflected on ways modern civilisation seems to depend on certain patterns of thought or consumption; and if there’s any real interest in breaking these. It seems to me sometimes that society undermines our worth: telling us we need more; that our personal or social standing rests on many things outside of ourselves.

What is this system we exist within? Schumacher spoke in “Small is Beautiful” about how maybe our society doesn’t truly want balance and peace. Within a predominantly economic system, it seems there’s little call to resolve problems so much as to offer a temporary remedy (see Values and the economic). Are the solutions we say we’re seeking possible within such a society?

One of the unspoken questions arising from the post on cycles was, What would it mean to break them? And my thoughts on Tolle led in a way to asking, What would it mean to be awake? So here, What might mindfulness offer us as a completely different way of being? Spiritual practices seem to re-emerge at times as these convenient offerings to serve our way of life; but could they be part of something larger, that might not require such checks and balances?

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How many things are cycles (we could break)

It seems in modern life that we live in strange relationship to the world around us. We spend vast amounts on makeup to ‘look our best’, then need to spend almost the same again on cleansing or beauty regimes to redress the damage. Or we indulge in food or wine ‘because we’ve earned it’, but then need to work that off through suffering, deprivation or the endurance of a fitness regime. Is this imbalance – and the cyclical way of life that ensues – simply how things are or could it change?

With consumption, it seems many of these things cancel one another out. This could be seen as part of a larger pattern of creating problems we then need to solve, but it seems to work out well economically. As in Values and the economic, this lifestyle seems sensible in terms of making money; in that light, reinforcing cycles work better than a life of harmonious balance. If the ways we live become mutually dependent – the demand for one thing creating the need for another – then culture can work hand in hand with capitalism (see Relating to cultural benchmarks and How many aren’t well represented?).

In a way, this is one of the fundamental patterns of life. Looking to religion, we find Shiva, the Hindu god linked with both creation and destruction. Or there’s the Taoist concept of yin and yang: the balance of opposites that makes life possible; the complex relationship between chaos and harmony. Maybe these cycles are inherent to life or, more specifically, to material existence.

But what does it mean for us? We’re not eating to excess in order to support the fitness industry; we’re trying to live a meaningful life, to find our place in human society, to feel good about ourselves. I don’t feel that human beings seek imbalance or the psychology that often accompanies the need for much of this. I think we seek meaning, belonging, harmony, wholeness. Perhaps we also seek differentiation: to be better than others, to stand out. It seems it’s this that is being capitalised upon, rather than the fulfilment of genuine human needs.

While on a natural level such cycles are part of life, as indicated in ancient teachings, I wonder to what extent they’re suited to human existence. Our cycles of behaviour or consumption often seem linked with the psyche: with the social need to belong and hold meaning in the eyes of others. I’m just unsure these cycles of modern living are in our best interests or those of the environment (see Living the dream, Waste and consumer choices, or “Small is Beautiful”).

Essentially, what I’m saying is that maybe we’re worth more than we’re being told; and that our value as humans need not be linked to things, to these patterns of indulgence, avoidance, suffering and judgement. Our culture could uplift us, rather than bringing us to compare or to criticise. Are there other ways to co-exist on this earth, should we choose our values differently?

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The ideas of Eckhart Tolle

Following on from my sketching out of Spirituality since the 80s, I will talk here about the phenomenon of Eckhart Tolle and how that relates to modern spiritual literature and trends of spiritual practice.

Tolle’s writing has clearly been astoundingly popular and successful, which is interesting in itself given the nature of modern society. It seems there’s still a market for those seeking to explore meaning, inner life, and alternatives to traditional forms of belief or spiritual existence. For me, the value of his writing is largely in how it consistently embodies a different perspective on self and the mind; articulating this through written style and everyday example.

It’s essentially a single message: the separation of consciousness from thought; of identity from thinking; of meaning from perception. He’s speaking of consciousness, the aware presence behind thought. As if he had this profound experience of personal suffering that led him to fully appreciate that distinction, and be in a position to articulate it clearly and consistently in a variety of ways.

Some criticise his writings as repetitive and without substance, but to me that’s the point: he’s saying the same thing, describing all the ways in which we identify with our thinking, encouraging us to detach from the relentlessly spinning mind. Maybe it’s something that needs saying over and over. Simple as it may be, this is clearly still a message our civilisation struggles with; the thinking mind resists it. Our society is so interwoven with logical thought that his ideas still stand as a powerful challenge; pointing out the illusion of clinging, as the teachings of the East traditionally have.

With any spiritual writing, there seems to be the difficulty of matching expectations to what’s possible with a book. Tolle seems to do a wonderful job of articulating a certain perspective; but where does it go from there? I’m not sure spirituality is something you can download into a passive mind, hence the idea of spiritual practices: that we must apply ideas to reach a personal growth and understanding. So it seems books such as these aren’t an end in themselves, but offer a state of awareness that you then have to decide what to do with. Tolle himself talks of this awareness then experiencing a deepening, which possibly then changes how we choose to participate in life.

What do you do once you no longer identify with your thoughts and ideas about life? As explored in Writings on Education and “Towards a New World View”, our lives in a sense hold around this invisible centre of our beliefs. So how do you live once you see the ways in which we hold to stories about self, life, meaning, security? Can any writings fully answer that question and encapsulate a recipe of living; and, if they did, would we accept one? If writers such as Eckhart Tolle are reminding us to “wake up”, maybe the next step is simply to be awake and to find out what that means.

Reference: “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle, (Hodder and Stoughton, London), 1999. “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle (Penguin Books, London), 2005.

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Nature tells a story, about society

My starting point for today is the enclosure of agricultural land in England in and around the eighteenth century. Not a topic that usually springs into my mind, but having studied it in some depth it’s clearly nestled someplace in there. It was quite dry as history goes, but actually pretty interesting now I come to think of it again: these decisions shaped our notions of ownership, social structure, and economic reasoning; leading towards the ways we live now and ideas we may no longer question.

Getting back to the point, what struck me most was how this visually altered the landscape: that these social decisions changed the face of nature; and how the arrangement of the arable and urban environment displays our thinking, values, and priorities (linking into Values and the economic).

Stepping away from the relative obscurity of agricultural history, the same also applies within the local environment. As mentioned in Natural World and Living the dream, I tend to look to nature in its capacity to offer wisdom about how we live. It seems to me that the image of nature can be read in terms of intentions, forethought, neglect, patience, timeliness, perseverance, and faith in the future.

On a simple level, front gardens describe our priorities: do we value convenience, low costs and little maintenance; or do we look to the value these spaces offer natural ecosystems or local environment, and the aesthetic joy they contain? Do we keep a beautiful old tree because it offers a sign of longevity and an intriguing form, while depicting the passing seasons; or do we grow tired of the burden of sweeping its falling leaves?

Many gardens and public spaces tell a tale of neglect, of spaces once held with clear intentions that are no longer present. I wonder at times if there are people able to ‘read’ these spaces and discern at what point an older person was no longer able to tend it; the number of seasons that had passed under the dubious custodianship of a rental agreement; or the degree of horticultural foresight applied to the establishment of newly built shared accommodation.

I find that becoming custodian of a neglected space can be demoralising: an often thankless task of redressing and eradicating past oversights to restore a clearer vision. For me, there’s true value in it though; in reclaiming land through intention and effort, recreating something that can speak volumes and provide a breath of fresh air in its testament to humanity.

Coming back to enclosures and social change, this reminds me of Community – what it was, what we lost in that how we organise and relate to the space around us may belie our attitudes to life and one another. Historical events, be they large or small, shape our ideas as well as our realities (something explored within Writings on Education). For me, this highlights the importance of knowing our path, reading our environment, and being able to respond purposefully to what we find there.

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Art, collaboration & commodification

I spoke of the commodification of artistic creativity briefly in The value of art in society, and it’s a question I want to look into further – the compromise to the artist’s voice when it’s drawn into more economic systems.

For me, art is something that brings forms and images into new relationships so that by taking them in we may come to think differently about life, perception, reality or meaning. Artists can then serve society well by leading us to reflect upon life through their own well-executed observations and concerns. I suppose art itself shows us what’s important to a society, what matters or preoccupies our minds.

Historically I suppose that at some point this activity faced the challenge of how to find a home within an increasingly economic reality, leading artists into various relationships with those able or motivated to support them in what they do. And I imagine this then influenced the nature of the art produced, a development that tells interesting stories about modern civilisation and the course we’ve taken. Art in a way walks a path alongside society, religion, nature, our explorations of the world, and our perceived place within it.

Which leads to this question of the place of art within our society: is its essential function somewhat compromised by the roles it’s come to hold? I mean, if art offers this deeper level of meaning and understanding through how it works with realities, then what does it mean if it’s bought for certain ends? Can an artist be free in what they offer if their survival hinges on pleasing the public or those offering payment?

From a slightly different perspective, what does it mean to work with others creatively? Working ‘with’ others often seems to mean working ‘for’ them: lending your voice to another’s ends. Artistry often seems placed in the service of other agendas or products; whether that’s in lending an artistic eye to serve as a lens in entertainment or consumerism, or packaging a certain style into a branding opportunity.

In creative collaborations I find myself wondering to what extent either voice truly says what it would like to – there must always be compromises and conflicting intentions or perspectives. Outcomes may be interesting in what they do end up articulating, but it seems to me it’s likely a watering down of what the separate individuals involved would say; especially when one party holds the purse strings.

It’s interesting, because we also seem to want authenticity and integrity from artists; there’s often a demand that artists be free of external obligations, and a sense of ‘selling out’ when commercial concerns step in. It’s a fascinating contradiction, as within modern life it seems the role of the artist must be to stand somewhat against the systems of our times; so the fact they’re often dependent upon those systems for their livelihood is a challenge. How can you make a living without compromising your freedom? What can you lend a voice to without undermining yourself?

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Does truth speak for itself?

Continuing on from Why seek a single truth? and How arguments avoid issues this post turns to the idea of truth.

There’s clearly a lot of talk lately about issues of truth, post-truth, lies, and reality. It seems we’re somewhat lost at sea in terms of what’s real, in that we all have our own experiences and interpretations of modern realities. And I wonder to what extent this may be largely a question of communication, as we’re often educated to argue for our perspective which leaves little room for accommodating divergent ideas about reality.

These are concerns raised in the above posts and also within Writings on Education and Globalised society finding its feet, where I’ve attempted to explore why we tend to argue in defence of personal ideas and seek to defeat those who view things otherwise.

Honestly, it’s an approach that leaves me mystified, as I’m generally not at all interested in arguments: if you feel the need to convince and make me wrong, then you seem to be on the side of yourself rather than the side of truth and mutual understanding. In most cases each side contains grains of truth at least, so both will likely need to adjust for a new, third truth to emerge.

To my mind there’s little need to convince, preach or persuade as truth stands for itself and needs no argument. Admittedly there may be different estimations of the facts, different interpretations of what can be observed, but for me these lie in the realm of opinion rather than truth. We may hold different opinions or understandings of what’s happening, but the path toward truth then seems to be through listening rather than attempting to win over. If my ideas and yours sit within reality, then a notion of truth must contain both and would be truer for doing so.

If we can just speak and explain our understanding as clearly as we can then if it’s true, it’s true and if it’s not then our ideas can be compassionately expanded through a broader experience of reality. As discussed in Communication and the process of change, it seems important from a human perspective that we respect the other and leave space for ideas to evolve without any sense of personal defeat.

When someone isn’t genuinely interested in listening or finding truth, then it becomes this gesture of battle rather than dialogue. And I’m simply not sure the battleground of the argument ever leads to a true victory, as you might win the argument but often at the cost of disregarding the other or derailing the truth of the issue to force a defeat.

For me, the mindset of the argument seems to really limit our ability to explore complex realities. A dialogue such as I’m sketching here might not be simple or as easily resolved; but unless we seek to truly understand our differences, truth itself rarely seems to win and without that I’m unsure what kind of system we’re building.

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How arguments avoid issues

Building upon Why seek a single truth?, it occurs to me that people often seem happy to derail discussions to win a point and feel that slight personal satisfaction. However, in doing so, truth and understanding are often lost. This raises the question of what we’re aiming for in communicating: is this a battle of personal ego or one seeking greater truth?

As discussed before, we’re often trained to use argument, rhetoric and debating in how we communicate; the Western tradition becoming this battleground of ideas where we employ words as weapons for personal victory. Of course, taking a broader perspective, all communication is essentially the use of language for a purpose; so it makes sense that we learn how to persuade, inform, entertain, captivate, and so on. To my mind though, training in the use of language is training in the nature of thought and in how we employ that to relate to others and the world around us (ideas touched on in Writings on Education and “Education’s End”).

The question then becomes: how do we determine our purposes? Is every conversation to be an argument, where we attempt to convince others our views are right? Does our sense of what’s right then lie in the hands of those best able to employ language for their own ends and undermine their opponent? Are we sure that path leads to wisdom, rather than laying us open to the misuse of the power of language for personal satisfaction?

In other words, are we communicating for our sense of self or for a deeper sense of truth and mutual understanding? The format of “the argument” often seems to lead to this terrain where those skilled at arguing overshadow others who may be seeking something more. The question of personal motivations and objectives seems an important one.

Looking to the wisdom of language itself, “communication” comes back to the idea of being “shared”; so, the ways we are able to bring our experience and understanding into this space of common knowledge. I see it as this opportunity for diverse people to share their perspectives and for others to suspend their own ideas to live through the eyes of the other, to see another side of our shared reality and obtain a fuller picture. Conversation then becomes a place where a larger understanding of reality can emerge as we gain insight into how others are affected by it. All of this is lost when we focus instead on opportunities for taking out an opponent.

Lately though I’ve noticed some people voicing the desire for dialogue: articulating how conversations are simply descending into conflict and issues being lost in the fray; people seeking ways of relating that overcome these limitations and allow us to meet one another and tackle the issues at stake. Having been so caught up in the mechanics of the argument however, it seems we lack the tradition of dialogue – this may be a new way of being we must now create.

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“Education’s End”

Revisiting a text touched on only briefly in Writings on Education, this post considers “Education’s End” by Anthony Kronman. A book concerned with the place of the humanities within American universities, impacts of the research ideal and trends of political correctness, and challenges arising from this in terms of the extent to which humanities can offer a strong voice of meaning we seem to be lacking.

One idea I find interesting is the ‘conversation’ of civilisation and the value of knowledge being rooted in an ongoing sense of meaning. How “the conversation of the West invites a free and critical response to the inheritance it conveys. It insists that the past be studied and given the weight it deserves, but demands that one struggle to reimagine its claims in fresh and better ways, in a conversation that is permanently open”. Kronman argues there’s value in the constraint of being situated within a flow of thought and relating yourself to what’s gone before; the alternative being “to cut oneself off from the responsibilities that come with an inheritance and the duty, as a steward, to conserve and improve it”. This disconnection from the chain of reasoning – living with the resultant ideas and realities without fully seeing the need to understand how we got here or keeping our place in that conversation – seems a plausible description of modern life; but if we lack that level of meta knowledge, what degree of control or freedom do we have to adjust our course?

There’s also an interesting argument around the pre-eminence of technology and how, in seeking to overcome “the existing limits on our powers”, it sets itself against us as “our powers have meaning for us only within the limits of human life”. That tech “encourages a partial knowledge of humanity and invites us to think that this is all there is worth knowing”; conclusions similar to in “Response Ability” by Frank Fisher. In response, Kronman highlights the appeal of religion as “it is the love of man that needs to be restored” and “without the humanities we lose the only perspective from which the demon of meaninglessness can be met”. Essentially, that we need some form of meaning and appreciation of ourselves – a “commitment to the human spirit”.

Running alongside is the idea of ‘secular humanism’; and while I have little time for a humanism that seeks to conquer religious faith, as I said in Why seek a single truth?, a non-confrontational approach able to contain both belief and non-belief within an inclusive dialogue seems something we’re lacking. “Secular humanism recalls us to the mortal facts. It helps us remember who we are. But it does this by sowing doubts where certainties exist and by putting into question the answers our scientific civilisation invites us to take for granted”, converting “certainties to doubts and convictions to questions. It would bring the moral and political beliefs that condition our lives into view and give us the chance to inspect them”.

This seems a valuable read for anyone looking to understand the path of Western thought into our times; and the ideas above may also offer a path towards new dialogue within modern life.

Reference: “Education’s End. Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life” by Anthony T. Kronman, (Yale University Press), 2007.

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