“I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”
In 1869, a young Friedrich Nietzsche, only 24 years old, received an offer to become a professor of classical philology (ancient Greek and Roman teachings) and teach at the University of Basel. Nietzsche was considered a prodigy, destined to have a brilliant academic career ahead of him. However, as the years rolled by, a combination of Nietzsche's poor health and his growing hostility towards his fellow academics caused him to resign from his position at the University of Basel. The world that the universities claimed to want to build was not the world that Nietzsche saw being created.
“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”
Education should not just be a means to acquire knowledge for the sake of acquiring knowledge, for there is a difference between understanding and knowledge ― knowledge is just the paint on the palette, understanding is the brush and the artist itself. Understanding allows knowledge to be applied to areas beyond the domain of academia and for that that reason, one should see to not only to know but to understand. Through an honest reflection on schooling, It should become immediately apparent that schooling is far more concerned with knowing than understanding; as students, we're given the dates, told the formulas and the test paper, but rarely does our system allow us to stop and ponder the most critical question of all: Why?
The education system, by its nature, suppresses our individuality, our freedom of expression and our ability to think for ourselves. Students become mere vessels for information and teachers are reduced to mere conduits of some textbook publisher's material. Our students are being smothered, betrayed across all subject matters, but perhaps the greatest crime the education regime has committed are the crimes against the humanities.
I put on a smile every time I hear a colleague or classmate complain about their experiences in literature, history, or philosophy, saying how it's 'useless' or 'boring'. On the surface, I give the perception of casual indifference toward the subject matters ― but underneath I feel a crushing sadness... The system has somehow made a mockery of some of the most liberating and instructive subject matters in the world; it has somehow reduced literature, history, philosophy to dry academic exercises that seek to crush the thoughts of even the most curious individuals ― a tragedy that would've made Socrates reach for the hemlock.
To be human is to understand and acknowledge our own human condition. We live in a human world, our conscious thoughts are our greatest gifts; we are all confined to our common humanity, no matter what discipline we go down. The arts, the humanities, philosophy, literature are pieces of wisdom throughout the ages that have manifested from our most conscious thoughts, they provide great insight into our common human condition. It's time we use the arts and the humanities as what they were always intended to be: lessons for life ― a way for us to stop and ponder for ourselves.
“I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.” ― Richard Feynman
