I’m not any fun! How do I know this? Because I’ve been told this many times. I’ve been told this by my family, by my friends, and, most especially, by my students. They all say the same thing: I’m no fun.
Now why do they say this? I think I know. Because I refuse to believe in the fad of the moment. What excites others, leaves me filled with skepticism, boredom, and ennui. For example, one of my students will come into class with something from the San Francisco Chronicle or the National Enquirer -sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference- about astrology. Since I teach astronomy, they want to know what I think of that subject. How can I tell them in the 30 seconds they’ll give me that I think astrology is fraud and nonsense so that they’ll listen and understand without hating me. I sigh resignedly, my shoulders drooping, and end up saying something like “well, I’m a Pisces, and Pisces don’t believe in astrology”. “Well then”, they will ask me, “what about the TV specials of all those stories, with pictures too, about UFO’s?” I see nothing in all those “reports” but the fraudulent fantasies of dull and unimaginative “trekkies” – TV children who have never grown up. I also do not believe in levitation; in ghosts; in ESP; in channelers; in reincarnation; or in angels. And, even in my own profession, education, where the latest buzz-fad is called “distance learning” -you know, TV classes and computer network colleges – … I take a dim view of that too. Why is that? Well … as I told you, I’m no fun. No fun at all!
How did I get this way? I think I know that too. You see, it’s because I have the burden of being educated (and, as I said, “educated people aren’t any fun”). Now, when I say “educated people”, and when I say education, I mean it in a certain way. I mean education as it is found in Ecclesiastes. There we read:
One should acquire wisdom before the inevitable, … Before the silver cord loosens or the golden bowl is broken.”
..that is, before we die. Note that it says wisdom. It does not say knowledge. Nor technique. Nor cunning. Wisdom! And what is wisdom? Wisdom is the ability to discern the difference between truth and nonsense, between the genuine and the sham. We live in a world of disinformation and sham. We see it in the internet, in TV programs, in politics, in business, … and even in education. We are surrounded by entertainment masquerading as truth. So it seems to me that the key to success -or even mere survival- in such a world is to be able to know the difference between the genuine and the phony, …and to respect and desire the genuine. The key to success, then, is wisdom. Real wisdom. And that means real education.
You know, I used to teach a class called “Critical Thinking”. At least that’s the way the college catalog listed it. But I always thought of it as, “An Introduction to Crap Detection”. How can we determine, for ourselves, the truths of this world from the crap? (Surely, that is a useful skill to have, and one which will be of some use if you want to succeed in a changing world.) How indeed. Well, it takes courage. The late Carl Sagan defines critical thinking as the ability to recognize a fraudulent argument or false claim, and -and this is most important- the courage to accept the result even if you don’t like it!
Courage. Another word might be integrity. That’s the ability to know the difference between right and wrong, truth from falsehood, the genuine from the fake – and to stand on the side of right, truth, and genuine. And never to sell out for the glitter or the fad of the moment.
Integrity. It sounds easy. It isn’t. To do that means that you have to know about the world, and to know yourself. Who are you? What do you stand for? What are your standards? Why do you have these standards? To know the answers to these questions you would need what I called “wisdom” before – in short, to have integrity you would need an education -and in the fullest meaning of that word. Well, education today is in a process of change. Most people think of education as the accumulation of course credits in various subjects, until, 4 years later, voilá, you are educated. In short, most people think of education as a degree -a piece of paper. But if that is all there is to it, you could enroll in one of those so-called colleges that advertise on TV or in magazines, where they set out all the requirements for a degree, and then cross them off by “life experience”, “weekend semesters”, “TV credits”. Or, to avoid doing even that, you could send your money to a place where they will print your name on a degree from any school you wish -with no classes needed at all. Better yet, why don’t we simply staple the degree to your birth certificate and be done with it. Why not? Why not indeed. Of course, the answer is that wouldn’t be education. That isn’t what we had in mind when we built our schools of higher learning. That wouldn’t be integrity.
You see, to have integrity means to make judgements. We seem to be living in a time when people think it is wrong to be judgmental … -that everyone’s opinion is as good as everyone elses. Well, that’s a good way of not getting involved with knowing about anything. Because if you don’t know about anything then no judgement would, or could, be made. To judge means that you first have to know, to understand, to weigh and evaluate, and to reach a conclusion. How can you do this if you are not educated -and if you don’t know the genuine from the sham? And, on the other hand, how can you be educated without having opinions and judgements? And that brings me back to why educated people aren’t any fun. Because educated people make judgements, do critical thinking, have courage, and, most of all, have integrity.
Now you know why I don’t believe in UFO’s and all the rest. For the same reason I don’t believe in the Tooth Fairy -and for the same reasons you don’t either. Because to believe in the Tooth Fairy is to think and talk like a child. But we are not children; we are adults. And we can’t go back -and should not want to go back- to being children either. We must be adults, and that means we are called upon to make judgements, and judgements that are based, not on prejudice and ignorance, but upon knowledge and wisdom. That is the purpose for education, when you come right down to it: you are educated so you can have the option of growing up and becoming an adult. But this education -this adulthood- also means that you have responsibilities: to know the right thing and to stand by it.
In 1933, Albert Einstein was delivering the commencement address at Cal Tech. Einstein was here from a Germany about to explode with the murderous madness of Hitler and the Nazi mentality. He told that graduating class that,
“The concern for mankind and its destiny must always be uppermost in your minds. Never forget that amidst your diagrams and equations.”
The Holocaust which followed reminds us forevermore that knowledge divorced from integrity and human values can only serve to deepen the human nightmare – that a head without a heart is not humanity – and that knowledge without wisdom is a nightmare in the making.
We must remember Einstein’s words. We must be critical in our thinking. We must bring wisdom to our lives. We must learn to judge and judge well. And, above all, we must always have integrity. That is what our education is for. Not to teach us how to make a living, but, rather, how to live.