#32 - SUCCESS DESPITE EDUCATION

ISSUE #32

The mind is nothing until it has thought. - Aristotle

THE HYPED PAST

So what about the past? What about the 12th century before Joshua mKenga? Or yesterday? What do you do with the past; with history? Your parents think it is important. They educate you with ideas formed in the past. Your school thinks it is important because they educate you with yesterday's theories. Your boss thinks it is important because she manages the department like in 1980. Somehow the past is very popular as the foundation for the future.

People in the past knew less than people in the present. You don’t want to be time-spaced back to 1920 for a heart operation. You don’t want to be a factory worker in 1899. Or have some mental issues in 1436. You don’t want to be a farmer on the King’s land in 655. So why do we base our education on the past if the past is created by people who know (far) less than we do?

Of course, there is no escaping the past. You need to stand on the shoulders of the past to create the future. The past is a necessity; an undesirable, imperfect floor to jump off to our ceilings. I know that. The question I am raising is why too many people glorify the past as the prime example of how it should be. The past is nothing more like a crummy building with a leaking roof, broken windows, and rooms without electricity and running water. And that is your example? Please, give me a break.

The past is a colorful flower but poisonous if you do not know how to handle it. Yes, poisonous with weird, fraudulent concepts like white supremacy, inferior women, and feudal structures. Moralities shaped by Queen Victoria or some pre-middle-age monk blindly writing down papal dogmas. Wow, a great foundation to prepare us for the future in which we are all connected in a global competition with innovations increasingly developed not by humans but by AI-powered systems.

We have school boards that see themselves as the keepers of the social order of the past. Let me be clear. These people are denying millions of young people the ability to maximize their talents by holding on to past beliefs. It is a shame; no, it is a crimeless crime. You cannot punish them. You cannot convince them. They have the power and it yields mental devastation. And these negative-impact people are all over the world dressed up as decent people. Their ignorance is only surpassed by their blind beliefs in the thinking of people who thought the earth was flat.

TABULA RASA

People’s minds at birth are empty vessels that can be filled with crap, or those flexible thinking machines can be encouraged to approach the world in an open-minded, curious fashion. The inability to look at the world with an open mind hurts a lotta people in many bad ways.

Tabula rasa is a Latin phrase translated literally as a clean slate. The concept of tabula rasa aims to explain that when we are born, our mind is basically a blank slate. There is no built-in mental content that comes pre-installed. Our experiences make us who we are. People begin with no knowledge. Then, when the outside world happens to them. They develop their understanding of the world and develop a self.

We do not grow up being predominantly determined by our experiences. People who say they care about us are coding our thinking with many helpful things. Fire-is-hot-and-it-will-burn-you type of advice is great. But it goes deeper and further; the crap starts to penetrate the gullible minds of the little people.

And the little people - as they grow taller - cannot see the world anymore as-is because their eyes are colored with hidden ideological content presented as truths hammered out as the natural order of things. In most cases, they have been circumcised of the ability to reach their maximum talent and be as competitive as they potentially could have been. And that is a damned shame. Education that does not make them jump but holds them back.

Of course, there is no A/B Testing in our life. So how do you know? But those who embrace the past as the foundation for the future have no doubts. They do not question. The so-called morally decent people keep on shaping the way people think instead of shaping their ability to think. They lock up people in mental jails, instead of setting them free. Those who have the fortune to develop their own thinking instead of memorizing old ideas, will – grosso modo – be the winners in the global [thinking] competition. It is one of the hidden factors of inequality.

PARADIGM SHIFT

I think this story is the result of looking at the world with a curiously open mind because my mind’s thinking has not been poisoned too much by the past, thanks to my great parents. And also because of my laziness to memorize those old beliefs when I was a little person. But maybe it is all crap too. Maybe we need to erase the story to achieve a new tabula rasa.

But whatever it is; it is part of the PI Philosophy. As part of the training of the Maveriqs, we essentially seek a personal paradigm shift in their thinking as a jump board to become effective barrio changemakers.

THE END