The Cure For Our Semi-Dark Ages

Democracy keeps slowly rotting away while the primacy of rationality has seemingly become nothing much but a vague memory. There is not only a cause for such a sweeping and wasting disease of our societies, but as well a potential cure - if we commit ourselves with courage, diligence and determination to apply it.

The cause: intellectual sloth. As I expounded previously:

On the one hand, intellectual sloth pushes any person who is afflicted by it to wallow in ignorance, finding security in absolute ideologies, philosophies of thoughts, tenets of faith, various dogmas or views of the world, without seeking to understand them fully or even less to question them. In turn, ignorance festers fear which, as we know all-too-well, acts as a powerful motor in driving irrational thinking and actions. Furthermore, a person afflicted with intellectual sloth refuses to accept any fact of reality which confronts, rattles, or even invalidates, the comfort of one's “convictions”. To this effect, such a person will be often deluded by intellectual vanity, being arrogant, if not contemptuous, towards anything and anyone that confronts his/her ignorance generated by intellectual sloth.

On the other hand, a person afflicted with intellectual sloth is continually in search of the quick-and-easy and of instant gratification - in fact, he/she craves such things. Incidentally, a person afflicted with intellectual sloth is egocentric, selfish, greedy and covetous, even paranoid, in his/her immature search for facility and instant gratification. Consequently, intellectual sloth-driven people invariably become slaves of expediency. That is also why such persons will all too often want (consciously or not) to be serviced an opinion, like being served fast food, rather than to make the effort of actually forging an informed one for themselves - they search for easy and absolute answers.

In short, intellectual sloth transforms a supposedly adult (and thus mature) person into an irresponsible, reactionary, judgement-impaired, and comfort-craving child or adolescent, who lives only in the “now” while remaining blind to “yesterday” and “tomorrow".

Therefore, intellectual sloth renders those afflicted by it incompetents - as thinking, reasoning human beings, as well as in dealing/composing with reality (or at least in trying to understand it).

One direct consequence of the prevalence of intellectual sloth is not only voter indifference and apathy, but as well the complacent acceptance of the "dumbing down" (and disinformation) of the news and of the political discourse - after all, journalists and politicians are from the same culture as the voters's ... thus our current tabloid journalism and politics (Assault on Reason, anyone?).

Consequently, we are faced with a highly metastizing cancer on the body democratic, and it is called intellectual sloth. In fact, such a cancer has spread throughout the whole body society.

This has resulted in what I like to call the Semi-Dark Ages that we are currently living in.

The cure: education. As I rambled on previously:

So then, what to do to keep intellectual sloth in check? I offer only one word as an answer to this question: education.

Yes, it is through education that the character flaw which is intellectual sloth can be countered. Now, it goes without saying that I am not promulgating the transformation of our societies as purely scientific ones - let's be serious, after all. Free choice is a basic human right and such free choice includes, of course, the choice of work, of profession and of career. Individuality - read: diversity - cannot be circumvented, if only for the continued well-being of not only our societies, but of our species as well. However, the inculcation, beginning in childhood and throughout the educational process, of the need for questioning, for reasoning, for discerning, for gathering information, for contextualizing, for criticizing, for evaluating/re-evaluating, for thinking - in short, for the need of intellectual activity - constitutes the best vaccine against intellectual sloth.

(...) we must inculcate intellectual activity as soon as possible in children. Let us not wait until college or university to do so like we have always done so far, for by then it is visibly too late and intellectual sloth has already set in too many students - not mentioning all those who dropped out or ended their education after high school.

Inculcating intellectual activity in our schools as it should be, i.e. without encouraging intellectual sloth in any way whatsoever, is a matter that holds the very future of our modern societies at stake, including that of our cultures and our democratic values and institutions as well. It is by countering intellectual sloth that we will eventually allow the emergence of future leaders who will make better use of reason in establishing the application of true and durable solutions to the problems facing our societies and humanity as a whole.

Or, to put it more succinctly (emphasis mine):

The schools' job needs to remain primarily the nurturing of intellectual development, the passing on of the history and language of our society, the science of our Earth and understanding of the cultures we share on the planet. Schools should be in the business of raising intelligent, thinking citizens.

However, our current system of education has much contributed, whether directly or indirectly, to the current prevalence of intellectual sloth:

The purpose of the educational reforms of the last 25-30 years in our modern societies will have had as the primary goal to make education less strict and authoritative, and rather more motivating, enriching and inclusive. That in itself is all well and good. Unfortunately, the reforms put in practice over these years will have brought us to the present situation whereby intellectual sloth is not only encouraged but, even more so, actually rewarded. Indeed, any effort that is slightly substantial is regarded as being incompatible with the cognitive development of a child (or of an adolescent) and, still worse, with the blooming of those who have “difficulties in learning” - in other words, our reforms will have lowered the bar to the lowest common denominator (...) we seek to motivate all children without requiring of them any truly significant effort: this amounts to seeking to motivate an employee into being willing to work with never ending promotions, while without requiring of him to perform his tasks decently. Ridiculous, no? But this is exactly how things are being done in our schools today.

In short, we are trying to teach knowledge while doing everything possible to make knowledge interesting and easily understandable, consequently lowering the bar by standardizing intellectual sloth. Moreover, we are at the point where we are actually making students practice important exams with the aim of improving their performances during these same examinations - what could be more ridiculous? And of course, each successive reform fails in its attempts to increase the motivation, to reduce the rates of failure, or to reverse the dropout rates. Why? Because at the base, all these reforms entrench in their new methods and teaching approaches the rewarding (direct or indirect) of intellectual sloth, as well as its by-products, the search for facility and for instant gratification. In other words, we perpetuate and accentuate the problem!

Or, to put it another way (emphasis mine):

(...) clearly the education system is indeed failing us; young people quite conversant with technological gadgets find themselves confused and ill-equipped when asked to evaluate the ideas in a simple piece of prose.

How can such people evaluate political positions and news reports on social issues to make the decisions required of members of a democratic society? What about numeracy skills? Cultural and historical awareness?

Another reason for the failure of our education system and those successive reforms enacted so far lies with all the "extra-curricular demands" imposed upon schools (emphasis mine):

Part of the problem with today's education system may lie elsewhere in the news: Discussions about childhood obesity lead directly to the idea of requiring the schools to provide adequate physical activities for the young people entrusted to their care.

There are only a few hours in each school day, five days a week, a few months of the year and a few short years out of a life: Not a lot of time to fit in the information and skills required to deal effectively with our complex world. Planning each day's program is already a Herculean task for the teacher trying to suit each child's intellectual capabilities and needs.

Yet each year more requirements are added to the mix: Social skills, nutrition, drug awareness, personal safety; whatever the need, just add it to the curriculum and the school will look after it!

Certainly, these concerns should not be avoided in school, and neither should exercise. But the school is not suited to being the sole provider of these needs, which are primarily a responsibility of the parents.

Indeed - much blame also lies often with the parents themselves:

Should one therefore be surprised by the preponderance of the promotion and exercise of leisures and hobbies, in the house as well as outside? As with everything, too much of a good thing is bad. If intellectual sloth is silently (or by negligence) encouraged by parents and at school, how can the children, and their own children, and so on, do anything else but perpetuate this vicious circle at all levels of society?

Again, to put it another way:

There is certainly an argument that some parents are too busy or perhaps ill-equipped to provide for their children's health and well-being, and that needs to be addressed separately - perhaps with heavy reliance on community centres, perhaps with a change in economic structure to provide more support for parents.

But simply adding to the burden of responsibility the teachers carry just invites social and intellectual disaster.

The disaster is already occuring, considering that we are indeed living in Semi-Dark Ages. The "devolution" of our educational system over the last 25-30 years has created a vicious circle whereby intellectual sloth and the search for instant gratification are de facto enabled, facilitated, or actually encouraged, in individuals who, when they become parents, simply pass it on as "values" to their children while pushing to enshrine/enforce such "values" within "new educational reforms", thus further perpetuating and accentuating the problem - from one generation onto the next.

This is what has been going on essentially since the late 70s-early 80s.

So - if true education constitutes the key to the cure of the metastizing cancer on our body democratic by its inherent virtue of being a vaccine against intellectual sloth, but considering that the vicious circle of intellectual sloth perpetuation that we are finding ourselves in is primarily caused by our current system of education, where therefore lies paramount?

We certainly can't change the parents (the "faulty" ones, for lack of a better term).

And we certainly can't change the harm already done to those students currently enrolled in high schools, colleges and/or universities.

Therefore, our only apparent choice is to start to enact the return of the actual business of the education system of "raising intelligent, thinking citizens" (i.e. inculcating intellectual activity in our schools as it should be, i.e. without encouraging intellectual sloth and the rewarding of instant gratification in any way whatsoever) as soon as possible with the 1st-4th graders in elementary schools, while simultaneously propagating such changes in subsequent school years - all the way through high school and to college/university.

Thus gradually will we not only stem the perpetuation of intellectual sloth, but actually reverse course on this matter - eventually getting out of the "vicious circle" and, at the same time, leaving our current Semi-Dark Ages behind as a distasteful historic memory.

It is a given that such a sweeping solution requires time and much effort. Indeed, the current "intellectual disaster" we are facing came about slowly and incrementally - and consequently, it cannot be eradicated overnight ... however much our need for instant gratification demands it.

Nevertheless, such a solution appears the best one which promises to effectively fight and eradicate this metastizing cancer that is intellectual sloth, and which is destroying not only our body democratic, but also our bodies politic, economic, and society.

Let us not forget that patience trumps expediency. Patience and determination are the hallmarks of competence as citizens.

Hence, it will be through patience and determination in convincing people and representatives (a clear majority at least) of the need to enact the necessary and definite changes in our education system in order to eradicate intellectual sloth.

This is our truest and most important challenge in this waning first decade of the 21st century.

If we fail to act, if we lack the courage, then we will fail not only ourselves and our societies, but the future as well.

As I wrote before:

(...) it is by countering intellectual sloth that we will make way for the inevitable emergence of a majority (in the least) of competent citizens in all spheres of activities within our societies - and the latters will only be the better for this.

And we as well, incidentally.

Or, to put it another way:

It is, in the end, up to us.

It has always been up to us.

(Cross-posted from APOV)