== et re

MAD HATTER PAGE 6

 

to measure what a person "knows about,"
we may be tempted to reduce all "educa-
tion" to a "training" level. But we may
be unhappy with the results. We may pro-
duce people who are well trained but poor-
ly educated. Adolf Eichmann was an ex-
treme example. He received high marks in
ethics at the University of Konigsburg,
yet his later performance suggests that
his level of ethical understanding and
comprehension did not rise above that of
an idiot. His high marks at the univer-
Sity indicate that Eichmann learned
"ethics" mechanically; he learned a pat-
tern of academic responses to convention-
al ethical questions. He had been tested,
evaluated and certified as "ethical." But
he did not "know about" ethics, at least
not in the only realm in which it matters
...daily human interaction.

At a more mundane level, I'm not alarmed
when a young voter does not know how to
Operate a voting machine, but I am alarm-
ed when he or she doesn't know one cand-
idate from another, one issue from anoth-
er , one alternative from another. We
can train a child "to do" almost anything,
for good or ill, but who is going to help
that child learn what is good to do?

In an age in which the Zettgerst of the
marketplace tempts us all, it seems to
me that we should resist the temptation
to translate "knowing about" into a mar-
ketable skill or cash crop. The desire
to make what we "know about" immediately
"useful" or "marketable" ar "operational"
is vulgar.
Knowing my way around in the world of
ideas may not be inmediately useful. Al-
though I cannot convert what I know into
dollars and cents, my knowledge has, on
occasion, made me feel quietly wealthy.
And for those who ask, "How much educa-
tion does a bricklayer need to lay
bricks?"...of course the answer is, "Not
much insofar as he or she only lays
bricks." But as a human being, that
bricklayer is entitled to know everything
he or she is capable of knowing.

 

Testing the level of skill development is
relatively simple. But knowledge is not

a skill, It is more than the manipulation
of ideas within a code, more than mere
cognitive and linguistic sophistication.
"Knowing" requires emotional engagement
and refinement and commitment. Erich
Framm argues that "knowledge is only as
strong as the emotional matrix in which
it is rooted." If what I claim to "know"
does not engage me emotionally, it doesn't
qualify as knowledge. Such "knowledge" is
mere "information." If I could recite
Hamlet verbatim yet felt no emotional in-
volvement with the play or its characters,
I would not "know about" Hamlet. Such
"knowing" is the knowing of a tape recorder
or a computer, and who will argue that a
tape recorder knows anything?

The outcame of "training" is mindlessness:
the outcome of "education" is mindfulness.
If we can develop a skill to the point at
which we no longer have to think about it,
to the point at which it's done automatic-
ally, perfectly, it is a skill that we can
do "mindlessly." Education, on the other
hand, seeks the opposite outcome; namely,

mindful, probing, critical questionning.

Ore last point. There has been a lot ot'
loose talk recently about a "knowledge
explosion." It seems to me that those who
use that expression have failed to select
their words carefully. There has been no
knowledge explosion; even more certainly
there has been no wisdom explosion.

Our media technologies, which permit the
rapid transmission and diffusion of infor-
mation to a mass public, have generated the
illusion of an explosion of knowlege. But
before information (disconnected bits of
data) becomes "knowledge," a human mind must!
ingest and digest it, structure it, relate
it to prior knowledge. I see no evidence
that we have turned our glut of information
into fabulous new knowledge. Thomas
Jefferson knew at least as much about pol-
itics as Richard Nixon knows. I would ar-
gue that Jefferson knew infinitely more