The importance of reading and the purpose of an education

[Marooned]

We are living in an age characterized by what the literary critic Harold Bloom has called the "tyranny of the visual," where we now have an overabundance of information and cheap, accessible forms of entertainment coming at us from all directions: The internet, video games, television, cinema. In this deluge of data, with no framework to guide us, we have become lost in a sea of trivia and in the process have forsaken the treasured resource we have heretofore relied upon for guidance and self-discovery: Books. We now read very infrequently, and what we do read is often without lasting import. To make matters worse, many students these days see little value in the humanities and are keen to lay derision on those who study subjects that seem to have little practical value or that cannot be readily monetized. "What are you going to do with a degree in literature?" they sneer. We have been led to believe that if what one chooses to study does not lead to a remunerative career, it is studied in vain.

As a result of this widespread shift in values, most of our universities have become institutions not for imparting wisdom, but for training students for future employment. The focus has shifted from the development of the mind to job prospects, tests, and the collection of grades and credentials, and all of the worries and anxieties that attend such a shift have become recurrent topics of discussion on this forum and elsewhere. The pressure for students to succeed in this type of environment is immense and arguably detrimental to our well-being. The purpose of this thread is to counteract some of these influences and try to provide a new perspective on what it means to be educated, as well as to open a dialogue. Included are excerpts of interviews from two well-known thinkers here in the US, the linguist and activist Noam Chomsky and the aforementioned literary critic and humanities professor Harold Bloom, interspersed with my own summarization and comments.

So why should we bother to sit down and read great works of the past? One ultimately reads for self-discovery; to have all of those vague, unarticulated concepts, notions, and feelings swirling around in our heads filled out and elucidated by men and women who had similar ideas and feelings and the skill to put them into words for our benefit; to learn of the events and ideas that have shaped the world we live in today so that we may avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and better cope with the realities of the present; to understand the human condition and how we fit into the world; to conduct an internal dialogue with the great minds of antiquity; and most importantly to learn how to think. Harold Bloom:

"You can't think at all clearly or well without memory, and it matters a great deal what you remember, and if what you remember is mediocre stuff, you're not going to be able to think very well."

"I think that unless you read deeply and in your own interest, unless you explore what is most profound in what has come before you, then you never will get down to the recesses of your own self, you'll never learn what Ralph Waldo Emerson rightly called self-trust and self-reliance, and most deeply perhaps, you never will heal the self. I think that in a culture which has all of the peculiar difficulties and complexities of the one currently developing around us, there is nothing more profoundly healing than the act of solitary reading provided that what is being read is indeed permanent, deep, lasting work: Work that calls for all of your faculties in response; work that calls you out of your own deep, as it were; work that transforms you."

"Reading is in the end a solitary activity. You're not really learning, I believe, how to speak to other people when you are deeply engaged in reading Shakespeare or deeply engaged in reading Dante or deeply engaged even in reading Cervantes. You're fundamentally learning how to speak to yourself. You're learning how to listen to yourself. You're learning the discipline of yourself. You are indeed in the act of discovering yourself."

"But can we not achieve the same results simply by surfing the internet? Surely with the advent of Wikipedia, there is no need to return to these dusty old tomes," some will protest. The internet is a fabulous resource for discovery, but in order for it to be used for that purpose, one must have a preexisting understanding of things in order to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. With its many hyperlinks, advertisements, pictures, and other distractions, it is a medium which also encourages a superficial understanding of what is being read. Noam Chomsky:

"You have to know what you're looking for. If you're flooded with a mass of information and you sort of try to wade through it, you're totally paralyzed. You have to know what to look for. You have to have a framework of understanding, some background conception of what's going on. The framework can't be rigid; you have to be willing to let it be modified, but it's indispensable. If you don't have it, you're just flooded with meaningless information."

Where does one go to obtain this framework? If one has the opportunity, he or she studies the humanities in the classroom. But ultimately it comes from the reading of books, the sustained and uninterrupted narrative on the page, and the internalization of the ideas contained therein. This is where the memory that Mr. Bloom believes is so crucial to thought is formed. The internet can serve as a fine supplement in the process, but it cannot replace the book entirely. Until this framework is achieved, its use should be minimized, for, as Bloom warns, we only have so much time:

"[We] cannot just as it were surf endlessly forever. None of us live forever. There is only so much time in the end to read.... If we all basically lived let us say not 80 years...but 160, if in fact we could look forward to lifetimes twice our current length...I would say there would be world enough and time in which people will find what is most worth finding, but time is limited. We read against the clock. We read ultimately in the shadow of mortality, and I think it does matter immensely what you read and how you read it."

Can one go directly to the books and forgo the classroom? My own experience suggests that while this is possible, it is not at all optimal. The classroom provides a structured environment where what is most important is presented up front, without the need for any guesswork on the part of the student, and where one can benefit from the feedback and discussion with a professor knowledgeable in the subject. Not having these things I have found to be a significant disadvantage, and if I were to return to school today, I would seek out a more rigorous grounding in the humanities.

(continued below)

[Marooned]

So what is the true purpose of an education? Is it merely to secure a well-paying job, or is it to foster the development of an independent mind? Chomsky argues that the former, the one most of us now believe to be the purpose of our schools, is a method of indoctrination, where students are prepared for their roles as cogs in a machine but not for critical thought or creative inquiry (key points in bold):

"We can ask ourselves what the purpose of an educational system is, and of course there are sharp differences on this matter. There is the traditional interpretation that comes from the Enlightenment, which holds that the highest goal in life is to inquire and create, to search the riches of the past, try to internalize the parts of them that are significant to you, that carry that quest for understanding further in your own way. The purpose of education from that point of view is just to help people determine how to learn on their own. It is you, the learner, who is going to achieve in the course of education, and it is really up to you what you'll master, where you'll go, how you'll use it, how you'll go on to produce something new and exciting for yourself, maybe for others. That's one concept of education.

"The other concept is essentially indoctrination. People have the idea that from childhood, young people have to be placed into a framework in which they'll follow orders, accept existing frameworks, and not challenge and so on, and this is often quite explicit. So for example, after the activism of the 1960s, there was great concern across much of the educated spectrum that young people were just getting too free and independent, that the country was becoming too democratic and so on, and in fact, there is an important study on what's called the crisis of democracy, too much democracy, claiming that there are certain institutions that are responsible for the indoctrination of the young and they are not doing their job properly, that is schools, universities, churches. We have to change them so that they carry out the job of indoctrination and control more effectively. That's actually coming from the liberal internationalist end of the spectrum of educated opinion, and in fact, since that time, there have been many measures taken to try to turn the educational system towards more control, more indoctrination, more vocational training, imposing a debt which traps students, young people, into a life of conformity and so on. That's the exact opposite of what I referred to as traditionally what comes out of the Enlightenment, and there is a constant struggle between those, in the colleges, in the schools. In the schools, do you train for passing tests or do you train for creative inquiry, pursuing interests that are aroused by material that is presented and that you want to pursue either on your own or in cooperation with others? And this goes all the way through up to graduate school and research. It's just two different ways of looking at the world."

Some are quite content to go through college in order to secure a career and never have to open another book again. They are letting the most valuable treasure we have go to waste, but I will not try to deny them their opinion, no matter how misguided I may think it to be. But for those who find themselves questioning why they are in school or struggling with matters of grades, loans, tests, future employment, or criticism from family and friends for their chosen field of study, I hope this discussion will lead to some reflection and perhaps another look at the values we hold as a society.

The interviews from which the above excerpts were taken can be found below.

Harold Bloom: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/3607
Noam Chomsky: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdNAUJWJN08

If you're convinced of the value of the humanities and want to begin or extend your journey into the great literature of the past, Harold Bloom's Western Canon serves as a good reference:

http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtbloom.html

[catcharay]

My view is a bit of both. Of course, I do strive to get good grades in an education system to get a good job. And educational values that shift from imparting wisdom to training students for future employment does make sense to me. What is the relevance of learning something that does not assist your professional life?

The essence of prepping uni grads is to help them transition from their studies to the workforce, whereupon they will apply their knowledge in a practical context. Getting a job is a measure of the skills and knowledge being learned at uni.

If you perform badly at work, it means your methods of learning and memorization in an education setting is not effective. It is dependent on the individuals attitude of studies in general to figure out how best to learn whether it be reasons for a good job or not.

In the end, taking up education implies that we want to be educated. For what reason, it differs. To remain mentally active? To get a job in a particular field? To improve an area of knowledge? If the education sector did not affiliate with employers for feedback about what can be improved in graduates, the economy could be affected.

The view of education as a tool to help people determine how to learn on their own and the view of going to uni to get a good job can be both applicable. We also have to be independent in our learning - and in an educational system it is expected that we find an effective way to learn instead of being taught how to do this.

The skill of learning and knowledge is important and enriches us not just for employment but also throughout life. We can place values on a bit of both.

[Marooned]

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I agree that wisdom and employment need not be mutually exclusive aims. Indeed, in the best of our schools, these two tend to be one and the same, as Chomsky notes when he uses his own MIT as an example (although arguably there has been much that has come out of MIT that has been inimical to humanity, so perhaps its alumni aren't the best examples of wise men and women). In these places, one learns for the sake of learning, cultivating the independence of mind that leads to creative, satisfying, and meaningful work. Most often this entails an expansive study that includes both the humanities and sciences, not a narrow and preplanned course in one area. Students go into things without a fixed notion of what it is they are after and come out with a broad base of knowledge on which to build their future lives.

This is in sharp contrast to most of our universities, where, from the outset, the importance of employment predominates over the attainment of wisdom; all is viewed through the prism of dollars and cents, of immediate utility. Those courses that do not fit in with our rigid notions of "success" are deemed unworthy of study. The environment is one suffused with the corporate ethos, an ethos antithetical to the one characterized by inquiry and open-mindedness that our schools are meant to be instilling. Recruiters and marketers set up shop on campus (see here for a most egregious example). Most who graduate from these schools will go on to find gainful employment, often in fields that aren't very satisfying and that minimally benefit, or, inasmuch as they perpetuate the injustices inherent in our current way of doing things, actually harm, humankind. Too often they come out with little more than what they went in with, having developed no appreciation for lifelong learning, having been exposed to very little of the material that would both challenge their preconceptions about the world and enrich their lives as human beings. This is why Chomsky refers to it as a model of indoctrination.

The problem is that there is no longer a balance between the two considerations: Employment on the one hand and mental enrichment on the other. The weight of what we value has been greatly stacked on the side of the practical in recent decades, much to our detriment, both collectively and as individuals. Certain parts of your reply reflect this skew: The relevance to our professional lives; the effects on the economy. Where you say that this is an acceptable change is where I disagree with you.

What is the relevance of reading the classics or of studying something that does not conform to our career interests? That is the question I endeavored to answer in starting this thread. The relevance may not be readily apparent, but it is there, hidden behind the shadows of myopic materialism. The relevance lies in an open mind, an understanding of the world and the self that enables one to better pursue his or her interests, whatever they may be. Without this insight, we greatly limit our potential. If you haven't done so already, I urge you to watch the full interview with Harold Bloom linked to above, in which he talks about what is to be gained in going beyond what we believe is needed to satisfy our frequently misguided ideas about success. He is sometimes mischaracterized as a pompous and curmudgeonly old man (his dismissal of the immensely popular Harry Potter series as "slop" certainly didn't win him any fans), but there is much in the way of truth in what he says.

I very much like that you end on a positive note. "We can place values on a bit of both." We can. Unfortunately, we aren't. Some will argue that this is just a pie-in-the-sky, idealistic view of education; that not all of us can or should aspire to wisdom but should be content with a good job; that, after all, the world needs ditch diggers too. I counter this cynicism with the belief that what is to be gained from study is something available to all of us; that it requires no innate talent to enjoy and benefit from great literature; that the decision to open our minds need not have a bearing on how we choose to support ourselves in this society, though this often be the motivating factor. Working from these assumptions, to deny any individual the opportunity for enlightenment, which our collective acceptance of this shift in attention away from the mind to the wallet has done by discouraging its pursuit, is something that can never be justified. If the society we have created does not fit with this view, then we must look to the model of society as being in error. We must ask what it is about the way we have chosen to organize ourselves that prevents large numbers of individuals from realizing their potential. The answers to that question are very plain, but they are part of another discussion best left to another time and place.

[Remnant of Dawn]

I agree with what you're saying to a point - a college education shouldn't simply be preparing for a job. It should help you become a more intelligent, self-thinking, and individual person.

However, going too far in this direction can be negative. If you want to major in literature, fine. But then you have no right to complain when you're being consumed by debt with no job prospects - it is your own fault; what job were you seriously planning on getting in the future with a degree in literature?

Education shouldn't be all about preparing for a job, certainly, but being prepared for a job should definitely be at least one result of attending a college. Personally, I feel like I've taken enough history and English classes in high school, and I'm looking for the college that will let me take the most advanced math and science courses available.

[Marooned]

I would say the literature major has just cause for complaint. Do we find it acceptable that students must incur massive debt (a tool for enslaving and exacting conformity from our young people, as Chomsky notes) and starve for their choice of study? To place the fault with the individual for pursuing enlightenment rather than with the society for not accommodating all of its members, when it is more than capable of doing so, is misguided. Throughout history, the purpose of education has been to open the mind. It is only in relatively recent times that this end has been subjugated to the preparation of students for a lifetime of toil. The exaltation of money and material comfort has reached such heights that most students cannot even comprehend why anyone would wish to consider studying for knowledge. This is why I initially advocate a more balanced view, to get the pendulum moving in the opposite direction. Ultimately, I do not believe it is a perfect balance that we should strive for, but a subordination of all questions of employment and money, for these things matter very little if they must come at the cost of self-discovery.

The society we've created is plagued with gross injustices of every sort, and the only way to recognize and understand them to be able to work to change things is by reading, by taking those English and history classes, by seeing that there can be no concept of "enough" when it comes to learning. Explore the sciences, but do not believe that you've exhausted all there is to know in the humanities by taking a few courses in high school. It is when we believe that we have had enough that we turn to passivity and allow the mind to wither.

[Remnant of Dawn]

Originally Posted by Marooned

I would say the literature major has just cause for complaint. Do we find it acceptable that students must incur massive debt (a tool for enslaving and exacting conformity from our young people, as Chomsky notes) and starve for their choice of study? To place the fault with the individual for pursuing enlightenment rather than with the society for not accommodating all of its members, when it is more than capable of doing so, is misguided. Throughout history, the purpose of education has been to open the mind. It is only in relatively recent times that this end has been subjugated to the preparation of students for a lifetime of toil. The exaltation of money and material comfort has reached such heights that most students cannot even comprehend why anyone would wish to consider studying for knowledge. This is why I initially advocate a more balanced view, to get the pendulum moving in the opposite direction. Ultimately, I do not believe it is a perfect balance that we should strive for, but a subordination of all questions of employment and money, for these things matter very little if they must come at the cost of self-discovery.

The society we've created is plagued with gross injustices of every sort, and the only way to recognize and understand them to be able to work to change things is by reading, by taking those English and history classes, by seeing that there can be no concept of "enough" when it comes to learning. Explore the sciences, but do not believe that you've exhausted all there is to know in the humanities by taking a few courses in high school. It is when we believe that we have had enough that we turn to passivity and allow the mind to wither.

It's your opinion that literature and history are more important than material comfort; many may believe differently, and have a perfect right to do so. And while I do believe that people should have a right to study what they want without massive debt, this just doesn't seem practical. The professors and university have to get their money from somewhere, so if you want to study the liberal arts without debt, you're free to do so independently or using online software such as Coursera - it's not great and you won't get a degree, but since you're not exactly looking for a job, that shouldn't matter.

In my opinion, while the humanities are certainly not meaningless, I find the knowledge gained in math and science classes to be far more exciting. I can't see the enjoyment in studying arbitrary events throughout human history or guessing the answers to life's greatest questions when, rather, these questions can be tackled definitively through logic and physics.

Essentially, the main point that I disagree with was this: "I do not believe it is a perfect balance that we should strive for" I think a perfect balance would be ideal; if someone wishes to seek an education purely for practicality, so be it. If they wish to pursue a higher degree for the knowledge itself, this should also be acceptable (maybe the costs of such a degree could be made less severe). And also remember that not everyone seeking a degree in math and science is doing so purely to prepare themselves for the workforce - I personally would find it truly exciting to help discover the secrets of the universe.

[farmer1]

i believe most people spend to much time in school i know about a dozen people who dropped out of high school and are all self made millionares
i wish i would have quit school at around 13 most things you learn in school isnt useful in the working world

[Marooned]

Remnant of Dawn:

You make some very good points. Interests do vary, and each should be free to pursue his or her own passions. Indeed, this is essentially the first concept of education that Chomsky describes above. The trouble arises when the freedom to make these choices, to determine what it is that one is truly interested in, is squelched by considerations of money, by the immense pressure that is placed on students to succeed in the conventional sense. When it is a decision arrived at by coercion rather than by the free exploration of ideas, as it invariably is when viewed from this perspective, it cannot reasonably be called a decision of one's own making, or one that has been made in good judgment.

Humans are an innately inquisitive species, and a life of consumption and toil with minimal stimulation of the mind, the one that most of us now live, is one that is often not freely chosen but a consequence of the system we are brought up with and live under. There are many parties who have a direct interest in a docile, uneducated population, who exert their influences on the masses largely by way of the media, and to a lesser extent the schools. These influences culminate in a culture of anti-intellectualism, where students are taught not to explore the riches of human knowledge or how to think critically, but rather how to fulfill their roles as workers in the machinery of capitalism. Much of our compulsory educational system does an abysmal job of preparing students for intellectual pursuits and actively discourages any mode of thought that strays from the rigid framework of capital and industry. When individuals have never been taught the value of education and have had no meaningful exposure to the wonders and possibilities that lie therein, they are little more than the prisoners in Plato's allegorical cave.

My intent is not to try to restrict anyone from pursuing what interests them or to pit those who study the humanities against those who study the sciences, or to claim that the study of the sciences must be a purely practical pursuit. Anyone who is thrilled by the world of ideas, and I believe we all have the capacity to be, will not see these two areas of knowledge as being at odds but as being complements to one another, much like the great polymaths of antiquity did. With sufficient exposure, one quickly learns that all of human knowledge is inextricably linked to some degree and that the study of fields we may have little interest in actually enriches the mind in ways that benefit us immensely when we are studying those we truly love. The beauty of, say, pure mathematics is not so unlike the beauty to be found in the works of Shakespeare.

No, the intent is to free people from the fetters of capital, and to clear our minds of all the worries such confinement entails, so that we can make these decisions of our own accord, without regard for the expectations of others. This is why I believe that matters of employment should be subordinate to matters of learning. Subordinate but not entirely absent. For better or worse, we do live in a society that demands we submit to the dominion of the dollar in order to survive, but the way in which we do so is determined by how thoroughly we develop the mind. With an equal weighting, with job prospects looming just as large as the material we are trying to absorb, our critical faculties are diverted when they are most needed. There is time enough to consider what we are going to make of our lives, but that time is not while we are still in the process of laying the foundation upon which we are later to build.

The reason why I have focused on reading and the liberal arts is in part a response to their declining popularity, but more importantly because the role they play not only in formal education but in the fundamental experience of being a human is a significant one that I feel should not be overlooked or dismissed so casually. Whether one pursues them in the classroom or on one's own is not so important. I should also say that one of the aims of this thread, though perhaps not conveyed so well, was to share my enthusiasm for reading in the hopes of spreading it to those who would otherwise feel their time is best spent on other ways of entertaining themselves.

One last point I'd like to respond to is that regarding student debt. The idea that the large burdens being placed on students today is a matter of practicality and one that cannot be helped is simply without basis. There are many countries that provide their students with a college education free of charge. Tuition and the cost of books here in the US have skyrocketed over the years not out of necessity but out of pure greed. The total student-loan debt in this country has already surpassed the total credit-card debt and now exceeds one trillion dollars. This is not a sustainable picture.

With all that said, I want to thank you for taking the time to respond. I am very much enjoying this conversation.

[Remnant of Dawn]

Marooned:

I'd like to thank you as well, as your post may have changed my perspective on this topic to an extent. Yes, in an ideal society, people would not have to toil daily and would be able to pursue their intellectual interests freely. But the trouble is, as you've explained, the current state of our society is far from ideal. It is my feeling that it would be wonderful for everyone to study whatever field fascinates them without the concerns of future financial stability, but in the current state of the world, it is not advisable for an individual to do so. For example, if you go into college with an intent to major in something such as gender studies or literature - that's great, you are pursuing what interests you, but you have no right to complain when you cannot find a job after graduation. Such a person could blame society for their troubles, and it would be a legitimate complaint, but they were familiar with the current state of the world before selecting a major, and thus hold a good deal of responsibility for their own predicament.

That said, I'll agree with you about college debt. While it may not be practical to change our entire capitalist system to allow for more intellectual pursuits, it can certainly be within reason to help those who wish to take this path graduate without destroying themselves financially. I'll be applying to colleges this fall, so unfortunately I understand the absurd cost of getting an education - while I don't believe college should be free, you should certainly not be paying $40,000 a year for tuition.

And lastly, I'll also agree that reading is a great form of entertainment. Even if I only have to take one or two liberal arts classes during college (unlikely, but I can hope), I intend to continue reading on my own as much as possible. My taste in books can be a little...dark (at the moment I'm reading A Clockwork Orange and The Inferno), but I always enjoy reading Shakespeare and other classics as well. I'm hoping I never get too busy to enjoy reading in my spare time.