Nicholas Carr, my favorite writer on technology, has just written a deep article on post-secondary education’s blossoming movement to go digital, free, and ultra-convenient through the Internet — and how the magic of the classroom may be lost in the process.
Personally, I consider the school system to be the greatest evil in our civilization, while I believe the Internet to be one of our greatest goods. The idea of remodeling school to take advantage of the wonders of the web couldn’t be more exciting to me — if it wasn’t for the inevitability of its failure on every meaningful level. Carr focuses on the restrictive nature of programming code and the Internet, which are incapable of simulating the organic, “ineffable” spirit of the classroom, where professors often guide students towards unexpected conclusions and discussions are free to take any number of detours along the path to enlightenment. My own skepticism has nothing to do with the supposed magic of the classroom, and everything to do with the fundamental nature of the “education system” itself.
You see, when it comes to technological pitfalls, nobody is sharper than Carr, but when it comes to education, the man to listen to is John Taylor Gatto. What he has discovered — through decades of award-winning teaching in some of the worst neighborhoods in America — is that the “education system” is actually just a “school system”.
The hidden purpose of school is not to teach and empower, but to homogenize and sterilize. Controlling the population through curriculum, regimentation, and social conditioning from a young age, and for as long as possible, is the name of the game. By this standard the school system couldn’t be better, which is why it never changes, and never will. The magic of the classroom is a real thing, but it has nothing to do with enlightenment, and everything to do with institutionalization. As soon as you accept that there is a breed of experts who know better than you, your family, or the traditions of your culture — gatekeepers who’ve earned the right to close the door in your face after taking your money — your ability to think critically is destroyed, and the education system has served its true purpose.
The Internet defies such a narrow, authoritarian, and top-down mode of thinking by simply enabling you to thrive independently from the “System”. Who is an expert on the Internet? International news networks are routinely exposed for getting their facts wrong, while people who have their facts correct are exposed for missing the real point. We all contradict each other, and in the end, it’s up to you to take what you want from it. Believe who you will, what you will, and to the extent that you will. School does not operate like this. School says you get an “F” if you don’t repeat everything I told you. Oh, and if you hate being here so much that you can’t stand it anymore, here are some drugs to fix your obviously malfunctioning brain!
The Internet exposes the myth of schooling by empowering people without first grading their performance, checking their qualifications, or even bothering to keep track of when they come and go. You’re just here, and if you don’t want to be, you can go somewhere else. You can turn off your computer right now, and nobody will notice. What you take out of this is up to you, and the same goes for what you put in. Of course, this is how true “education” should be. Inventing the world’s most advanced, cloud-computed, AI managed, self-correcting online pedagogue is not just a technical nightmare, or a failure to appreciate the ineffable, but a tragic reinforcement of the myth of schooling, with its top-down, gatekeeper model of thought.
For another way of looking at life, learning, and fulfillment, we need to abandon our conditioning first. You don’t need to be a hippie or a zealot to reject materialism as the driving force of life, or a career as the source of satisfaction. These problems didn’t even exist for most cultures throughout history. What has schooling given us, really? That system, with its wonderful ability to dumb down generation after generation, is largely to thank for the decay of our minds and hearts, the loss of our priorities, and an obvious slide into distraction and decadence. More schooling is not the answer. Technology is not a virtue, either. We’re not progressing toward a utopia — we’re rapidly tumbling toward disaster, and we’re too blinded by the superficial symbols of progress to even notice. If you want to learn, start by learning the Underground History of American Education. It will restore your faith in humanity, expose many of the fallacies you didn’t even know you held, and teach you how to let go of things you didn’t even realize you were taught.
[Considering the amount of overlap this subject has with the themes of Metal Gear Solid 2, I might return to it again. You can contact me about the subject on Twitter by messaging @meta_gear or you can email me at metagearsolid@gmail.com]