as I have noted before, one of the primary needs of
a human being is education…
now, we “moderns” have misunderstood exactly what it means
in terms of being educated…
Our education begins the very day we are born……
we begin to learn that very first day…
we experience things, such as cold and soft and hard…
but we don’t have the words to label it as such……
childhood is about labeling things…
this is hot, when referring to something hot…
this is cold, when referring to something cold,
this is hard and this is soft and this is mom and this is dad……
education in our very early years is simply learning to name things…
this is a dog, this is a cat, this is a tree, this is a stove…stay away from
the stove because it is hot…this is a TV… this is the floor, this is a door…
our childhood is spend learning the names of things…
another goal of education is to indoctrinate children…
as I have gone over time and again, we indoctrinate children
with our beliefs… America the great is an indoctrination…
going to church is an indoctrination…prayer is an indoctrination…
the third goal of education in America is to train children to
become workers…
we have removed some basic educational methods by
removing such educational ideals as Art, history, social science…
we have kept that which a child can make a living from…
in other words, if we train children to become factory lite workers
like me, they don’t need to know art or history or social science…
factory lite workers only need to have a moderate understanding
of math and counting and enough social skills to keep customers
happy…that’s it… if monkeys could count out change, I would
be out of a job…
but I maintain that we fail our children when we only educate
them to become workers……
we must education children to become human beings…….
what does it mean to be human? now the Arts and literature
and history become important… to what end are we educating
children?
what is needed?
what we need is a new “Enlightenment”…
not one that tries to attack the old ways, the old isms
and ideologies…
no, that isn’t what enlightenment means…
the very term of enlightenment means coming to a realization
of what it means to be human…
it is a positive, coming to understand something, not to deny
something that was the original intention of the enlightenment of
Voltaire…
the original enlightenment was about attacking the old forms
of oppression, the church and the state……
but and this is important, the actual engagement of enlightenment
is about some understanding of what it means to be human…
this new enlightenment is our understanding that we are in a journey
from animal, to animal/human to becoming, fully human…
we can give children the tools they need to engage with enlightenment
but we cannot actually create any sort of enlightenment within them…
that process is within us, individual and separate, apart from other
engagements with what it means to be enlighten…
I can walk the horse to the water, but I can’t make him drink…
and the same can be said about enlightenment…
we can walk the child all the way to the water (enlightenment)
but we can’t make them drink…
the new path of enlightenment is not about some agenda against
something but a path toward something…
the goal is no longer to train children to become workers…
but to lead children to become human beings……
and the entire Raison d’etre of the modern world,
creating workers and consumers…
that is no longer is the reason/goal for what it means to be human…….
we are not meant to be workers, but we are meant to be human beings…
so let us act upon that goal… how do we become human, fully human?
we must change the entire point/goal of education if we are to
achieve our goal of creating human beings, ones that are not
animal/human, but fully human……
to become human, we must return to the Arts, to poetry, to
literature, to painting, to the many manner of creation that
exists…to path to becoming human lies in our act of creation…
of ART and the only way we can reach this new goal is to
create a new enlightenment… in which we no longer hold
to the old paradigm that we find our true nature in work…
that work is uplifting and work is noble and work defines who
we are…the new enlightenment rejects these notions that work
is anything more then a means to lower us to animals…
enlightenment means we discover the path to becoming…
human… all too human…
Kropotkin