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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cosmicforce who wrote (497712)

8/28/2022 12:11:10 PM

From: koan

Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 542233

I think there are two primary dynamics at work in education.

The first has to do with general development of the mind and here I have two specific milestones for measurement.

1) is the advances in a humanitarian society made possible by public education making us smart enough to understand concepts like democracy and civil rights, clearly.

2) is what motivates individuals and here it seems to be once again two primary dynamics; 1) is the fact the more one knows the more one wants to, and can, learn more.

E.g. say two people are locked in a Chinese library and one can read Mandarin and the other cannot. The one who can, can read the books and not be so bored, while the other will be bored.

I.e. learning begets more learning. As one learns how the world works, they often become curious as they "understand" the subject matter.

And 2) has to do with individual curiosity I think!!? And trying to untwine those two, natural curiosity and learning, is like trying to untwine nature and nurture.

Last, my main point has always been what differentiates the great thinkers from the rest of us is primarily how much they study.

The great writers like Somerset Maugham spend hours every day studying and writing. In Maugham's case he wrote four hours every day and did not want to be disturbed.

My old friend Richard K Nelson was the same, he spent three hours every morning between 9 and noon and did not want anyone to disturb him.

The more one studies the smarter they get and is primarily what differentiates smart people from the rest of us, not innate intelligence.

If it was innate intelligence we would not have spent 15,000 years as barbarians!

That is an equation.

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Logic and intuition can be at severe odds.

We live in a time where many more people actively participate in defining the kind of world we have. It's egalitarian but ... there is clearly a loss of direction when millions vote on policy rather than for public-spirited philosopher politicians who are supposed to create this policy using expert opinion within a sound moral framework. Religious affiliation does not does not equate to having morals or moral opinions. It can but not necessarily so.

Elroy Jetson has the same observations I do. My children will ask questions they should be able to answer themselves with a minute on Google. Breadth in knowledge happens because there is a drive to do this every day. There appears to be few dopamine rewards for finding things out that are tangential to one's immediate life and interests.

But that was always the case - I assumed it was parenting but I didn't get what I modeled. Most of the kids as I grew up I met were not budding philosophers or scientists in spirit. My own are amongst them.